Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his sons, and his cattle?
All Commentaries on John 4:12 Go To John 4
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
The woman arrests herself, and that as quickly as possible, being conscious that she had taken up ideas of Him neither holily nor surely true. For it was not possible that she should not be altogether profited to understanding, who is wholly enjoying the Divine words. Since then it was possible that He Who speaks should not be a magician, but rather a Prophet, and one of those surpassing in holiness, and had therefore promised to give her the living water, without the usual means of buckets, or having found water far better to use from another source, she straightway changes her discourse for the soberer, and as it were compares saint with saint, saying, Art Thou greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well? Receive the intelligence of her thought, from her no longer wondering at His promising water with out a rope, but speaking only of its quality to the taste.
The Samaritans then were aliens (for they were colonists of the Babylonians), but they call Jacob their father for two reasons. For as inhabiting a country bordering on, and the neighbour of the Jews' land, they were taking a little impression themselves of their worship, and were accustomed to boast of the Jews' ancestors. Besides, it was really true that the greater number of the inhabitants of Samaria were sprung from the root of Jacob. For Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, having gathered together ten tribes of Israel, and the half-tribe of Ephraim, departed from Jerusalem in the time of the kingdom of Rehoboam the son of Solomon, and took Samaria, and built houses therein and cities.
