Jacob"s fountain (Vulg.) This fountain was a well dug by Jacob, as appears from ver12. This is the meaning of the Hebrew beer. So S. Augustine says, giving the meaning of fons in Latin, "Every well is a fountain, but not every fountain a well. Where water springs out of the earth, and affords drink, it is called a fountain. If it is on the surface it is called a fountain only: but if: it be deep, it is called a well, and loses the name of fountain." Varro derives the word fons from fundo, to pour. A fountain, he says, is where living water is poured out of the earth. Jacob"s fount therefore was a well which Jacob had dug in this place for the use of himself and his family. Or he may have bought it of the Shechemites, as Ruperti thinks.
Jesus therefore being wearied; for He went about among the towns and villages on foot, even till His death. His apostles followed His example. Blessed Xavier and his followers lately did the same in India. Piously does S. Augustine say (Tract15), "Not i...
Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well.
Having crossed the borders of Judaea, and being now among aliens, the Saviour rests upon Jacob's well: shewing us again as in a type and darkly, that even though the preaching of the Gospel should depart from Jerusalem, and the Divine Word at length hasten forth to the Gentiles, there shall not be lost therewith to Israel the love to their fathers, but Christ shall cleave to them again, and shall again be refreshed and rest, as in His Saints, preserving to them the pristine unfading grace. For He loveth to dwell in the memories of His saints, that He may make Himself an en-sample to us in this also, and may become the Beginning and Door of the honour given to the fathers. But being wearied with His journey, as it is written, He resteth, that in this too He may accuse the impiety of those that drove Him away. For whereas they ought to have gained His friendship by kindly honours, cheri...
it was about the sixth hour.
He shews that opportunely did Jesus rest upon the well. For the sun pouring down its strongest rays from the mid-vault on those upon the earth, and consuming bodies with its unmitigated strokes, it would not have been without hurt to have gone further, but was more convenient to rest a little, especially when He would easily have thrust away the charge of luxuriousness, if the fitness of the season had agreed thereto.
He does not say that it was the sixth hour precisely, but about the sixth hour, that we too may learn not to be indifferent even about the least things, but rather to try and practise truth in common things.
Her? Still further, if He had taken nothing of Mary, He would never have availed Himself of those kinds of food which are derived from the earth, by which that body which has been taken from the earth is nourished; nor would He have hungered, fasting those forty days, like Moses and Elias, unless His body was craving after its own proper nourishment; nor, again, would John His disciple have said, when writing of Him, "But Jesus, being wearied with the journey, was sitting
Hence we learn His activity in journeying, His carelessness about food, and how He treated it as a matter of minor importance. And so the disciples were taught to use the like disposition themselves; for they took with them no provisions for the road. And this another Evangelist declares, saying, that when He spoke to them concerning the leaven of the Pharisees Matthew 16:6, they thought that it was because they carried no bread; and when he introduces them plucking the ears of grain, and eating Matthew 12:1, and when he says that Jesus came to the fig-tree by reason of hunger Matthew 21:18, it is for nothing else but only to instruct us by all these to despise the belly, and not to deem that its service is anxiously to be attended to. Observe them, for instance, in this place neither bringing anything with them, nor because they brought not anything, caring for this at the very beginning and early part of the day, but buying food at the time when all other people were taking their me...
