The Pharisee and the Samaritan

in John: Polar or Parallel?

WINSOME MUNRO
St. Olaf College
Northfield, MN 55057

THE NOTION THAT NICODEMUS, Pharisee of Jerusalem and member of the

Sanhédrin, in John 3 is in some sense in tandem with the nameless Samaritan
woman in John 4 is certainly not new. It is usually observed only in passing,
however, and without identification of the specifics of their literary relation-
ship.1 While much scholarly attention has been directed to Nicodemus, the
woman of Samaria has attracted rather less. More recent study has begun to
rectify this imbalance, elevating the woman's significance and presenting her
in a more positive light. In some such instances she is interpreted in sharp
contrast to the Pharisee, to his distinct disadvantage.

Winsome Munro died in Johannesburg, South Africa, on June 2, 1994, shortly after she
finished this article. At the time of her sudden death she was visiting her native land, which she
had left in 1965 to escape harassment for her activity against racism and apartheid. See Michael
Cooper, "/w Memoriam, Winsome Munro, 1925-1994," Religious Studies News 9/3 (September
1994) 24. Requiescat in pace.
1
See, e.g., C. K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John (2d ed.; Philadelphia: West-
minster, 1978) 228, who draws attention to common themes in the two chapters, and Ben
Witherington, Women in the Ministry of Jesus: A Study of Jesus'Attitudes to Women and Their
Roles as Reflected in His Earthly Life (SNTSMS 51; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987) 57, who suggests a contrast between Nicodemus, "a teacher and representative of ortho-
dox Judaism who fails to understand Jesus," and the Samaritan woman, "who gains some
insight into Jesus' true character." Raymond E. Brown ( The Community of the Beloved Disciple
[New York: Paulist Press, 1979] 187) points to a continuum from unbelief at the end of John 2,
to inadequate belief in John 3, to the brink of belief in John 4.

710
 PHARISEE AND SAMARITAN IN JOHN 711

In particular, Pazdan has argued that the woman "functions as a con-

trast figure" to the hostile Jewish response to Jesus after the episode in the
temple (John 2:12-25).2 She sees the woman over against the fearful, unimagi-
native, and largely silent Nicodemus. In her view, the Pharisee may actually
be the Samaritan's "perfect foil." So too Koester notes the contrast between
Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, whom he sees as "exact opposites,"
though he also acknowledges similarities in the two dialogues in which they
are involved.3 Trumbower, making an even sharper differentiation, argues
that the Samaritan woman "is to be classed along with Nathanael, the blind
man of John 9, and the beloved Disciple as paradigms of correct belief" who
"will worship in spirit and truth"; he views her as "the counterpoint to Nico-
demus," who does not believe and who comes to Jesus by night, while the
woman "happens upon Jesus at noon," and he thinks that the portrayal
suggests that Nicodemus is "stuck in the realm of the flesh," "outside the
pale," and that he "is not and cannot be 'born from above.'"4 The more
nuanced view of Jouette Bassler is that although Nicodemus is a complex,
ambiguous character, in the end he is negatively conceived and presented.5
This supports the views of Pazdan, Koester, and Trumbower.
Differences between the two figures there certainly are, but it will be
argued here that the variations coexist with important similarities. It is not
appropriate to claim that the woman represents a dramatic contrast and
reversal with respect to the Pharisee. The polarities and parallels in their life
situations and their subsequent reactions combine, rather, to suggest a leveling
of the two. Thus, it will be argued, the reader is to hold them together, even
if in uneasy tension, as two persons fitting into the very varied continuum of
those who are to be accounted believers and, thus, part of the messianic
community of Jesus. This is Pazdan's ultimate conclusion also, but we reach
it by differing routes and nuances. This study is not meant to be exhaustive
in its exploration of both figures, or to go significantly beyond the interpre-
tations others have proposed. Its focus is rather on the contrasts and the

2
Mary Margaret Pazdan, "Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman: Contrasting Models
of Discipleship," BTB 17 (1987) 145-48. Mariam Francis ("The Samaritan Woman," Asian
Journal of Theology 2 [1988] 147-48) emphasizes the woman's low status and compares her
theological questioning with that of Nicodemus.
3
Craig Koester, "Hearing, Seeing, and Believing in the Gospel of John," Bib 70 (1989)
333-36.
4
Jeffrey A. Trumbower, Born from Above: The Anthropology of the Gospel of John
(HUT 29; Tubingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1992) 73, 79. This judgment is connected with his overall
thesis that in Johannine thinking being born from above and not being born from above are
permanent states derived from fixed origins.
5
Jouette M. Bassler, "Mixed Signals: Nicodemus in the Fourth Gospel," JBL 108 (1989)
635-46.
 712 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 57, 1995

convergences that demonstrably bind the two figures together. More than
this, it will be shown that their juxtaposition may be understood as a radical
subversion of the prevailing social hierarchy, based as it was on birth, ethni-
city, cast, and gender.

I. The Literary and Social Contexts

The kinship of the two encounters becomes evident when they are
viewed in more extended context. Within the Gospel as a whole they stand
out as a pair. To each of them, in apparent isolation, Jesus first reveals his
identity, before he does so in the very public and highly polemical dialogues
and declarations of his identity later in the Gospel. As Raymond Brown
shows in his overview of the structure of the gospel, these two accounts,
though distinct, belong together in what he characterizes as "part two" of the
four parts of the "Book of Signs" (1:19-12:50),6 a part which extends from
the first sign story of the changing of water to wine at the wedding in Cana
(2:1-10) to the second sign story of the healing of the official's son, also at
Cana (4:46-54). Brown sees in this segment "various responses to Jesus'
ministry in the different sections of Palestine." Pazdan proposes a more
deliberate juxtaposition, placing them together as the middle panel ("diptych")
of a "triptych" extending from 1:19 to 6:69.7
It can be added that the two revelatory dialogues, one with a man and
the other with a woman, are framed by the first two signs, one in response
to the plea of a woman (Jesus' mother), the other in response to a man (the
royal official). Such twofold balancing of female and male can be no accident,
nor can the fact that each of the men has high official standing and authority
while the women have none. There is a problematic element in Jesus' relations
with both women, in part because of their gender, though not for the same
reasons.8 As we shall see, issues of moral and ritual purity, social status, and
ethnicity are also present in the presentation of the Pharisee and the Samari-
tan in combination, but none of these can be equated with the divisions
between believer and unbeliever, light and darkness. Both figures, it will be
argued, emerge ultimately as figures in and of the light.

6
Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John (2 vols.; AB 29-29A; Garden City,
NY: Doubleday, 1966) cxl.
7
Pazdan, "Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman," 146.
8
Brown (Gospel according to John, 109) thinks that Jesus* verbal rebuff to his mother's
request makes it clear that his signs reflect "his father's sovereignty, and not any human, or
family agency." There is obviously no such difficulty with the impelling request of the official in
4:49.
 PHARISEE AND SAMARITAN IN JOHN 713

The nameless woman is often perceived as a promiscuous adulteress,9 but

her sexual status is certainly not what is first drawn to our attention in Jesus'
encounter with her. She appears initially simply as a Samaritan woman who
has come to a well outside the city of Sychar to draw water at the sixth hour
of the day. Nothing would seem to connect Jesus with her except that they
both seek water, which becomes the point of contact between them. But there
is a marked absence of intention on Jesus' part to engage in the kind of
conversation that occurs. Jesus is on the speediest possible way back to Galilee
from Judaea (4:3).I0 He stays in Samaria for no more than two days, and then
only because the many Samaritans who come to believe in him want him to
remain with them permanently (4:39-40). The irony is that the same multi-
plication of believers occurred during Jesus' very intentional first visit and
mission to Jerusalem and Judaea for the Passover festival (2:13-23; 3:26; 4:1).
Nicodemus, however, had nothing to do with it. By contrast, the woman and
her dialogue with Jesus have everything to do with the subsequent Samaritan
response. It is she, not Jesus or the disciples, who announces to the Samari-
tans the possible presence of the Christ (4:29). Yet it should be noted that
Nicodemus and the Samaritan both play an initiating, questing role, the
Pharisee in seeking Jesus out, the woman in seeking to determine his true
identity. Both are seekers.

II. The Settings: Crossing Boundaries

The circumstances and settings are very different. The turbulence of a
city where the temple is thronged with money-changing profiteers whom
Jesus casts out gives place to the vicinity of the rival temple of the Samari-
tans.1 ' It is a tranquil rural scene outside a city or village: there is a well, or
deep spring, by an open field, where herdsmen bring their cattle to drink, and
where women come to draw water for their households (4:5,12). The fact that
the field and the well are both connected with Jacob gives the site a sacred
character. In the course of the dialogue, Jesus repudiates the special privilege
of both holy mountains (4:20). Nevertheless, from the Jewish perspective

9
See, e.g., Leon Morris, The Gospel according to John (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans, 1971) 264: Jesus "knows all about her misadventures" and that "she had availed herself
liberally of the provisions of divorce, but that after all that she was living with a man who was
not legally her husband." Similarly Frank Kermode ("John," The Literary Guide to the Bible [ed.
R. Alter and F. Kermode; Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1987] 451)
suggests that Samaria's "perverse religious history" is "represented by the woman's irregular sex
life."
10
Brown, Gospel according to John, 169; Barrett, Gospel according to St. John, 230.
1
' For evidence that the well is at the foot of Mount Gerizim, see Brown, Gospel according
to John, 169.
 714 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 57, 1995

with which Jesus is identified (4:9,22), he has left the area of supreme holi-
ness, the temple, Jerusalem, and the land of the Jews, to enter alien, profane
territory, inhabited by people who have fallen away from the covenant and
become unholy.12 Here Jesus encounters the epitome of Samaritan unholi-
ness from a Jewish perspective, a female Samaritan, deemed menstruously
unclean from birth.13 Moreover, she is unholy among her own people because
of her lack of regular marital status. That comes into view only later, how-
ever (4:17a, 18b); it is not essential to the depiction of Jesus crossing the
boundary between the holy and unholy in Jewish terms. It is Jesus' identity
as a Jew, to which the woman draws attention, which raises the issue. This
Jew is prepared to take a polluted Samaritan vessel to his lips to slake his
thirst (4:9), thereby flouting the rules of ritual purity.
What emphasizes the setting aside of this boundary is that Jesus has
come almost straight from his close encounter with the Pharisee Nicodemus,
who is part of the ruling elite that controls the temple and its worship, and
who is a leading exponent of the law (3:1,10). There too a crossing of social
boundaries has taken place, in that a teacher of high rank within Judaism has
associated with one who, from a pharisaic perspective, is an uncredentialed,
unlearned, would-be rabbi from Galilee (7:15,45-52). Until later in the Gospel,
not all in John's audience may have knowledge of this dynamic, but it should
then be realized in retrospect. Technically, there is no reason why such a
difference in status should pollute Nicodemus. It affirms, rather, Jesus' recti-
tude and holiness, for Nicodemus, albeit in secret, grants him his seal of
approval as a "rabbi come from God." This, as Nicodemus has it, "we know,
for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him" (3:2). Jesus,
then, is "clean," and he even has a source and an agent of cleansing, in his
clearing the holy space of the temple to make way proleptically for the raising
up of the new Temple-body (2:19-21).14 This same Jesus will later set aside
the rules of ritual purity, thereby declaring their abrogation.

12
See the use of Mary Douglas's analysis of purity rules in Bruce J. Malina, The New
Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981) chap. 6,
esp. pp. 138-43 on space ownership ("your space," "their space," and marginal areas), sacred
and profane space, and lines or boundaries of purity which serve to "situate persons, things, and
events" (p. 125). This is evident in particular in the regulations governing various areas of the
temple (p. 141).
13
For the history of the antipathy between Jews and Samaritans, and the menstruously
unclean status of Samaritan women from birth, see Brown, Gospel according to John, 170;
Barrett, Gospel according to St. John, 230-31; Morris, Gospel according to John, 256-57, 259
n. 25.
14
Elizabeth Struthers Malbon (Narrative Space and Mythic Meaning in Mark [New
Voices in Biblical Studies; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986] 122) points to a breaking down
of this distinction in the Marcan version.
 PHARISEE AND SAMARITAN IN JOHN 715

III. Night and Day, Secrecy and Revelation

Jesus' meetings with both figures have a scandalous character which the
text explicitly recognizes. First, shame attaches potentially to Nicodemus for
choosing to come to talk with Jesus, a mere Galilaean, as with an equal. That
Nicodemus risks losing face before his peers if he is discovered becomes
clearly evident in 7:50-52. There, when he suggests in Jesus' defense that the
law does not condemn anyone without a hearing, there are scoffing objections
from other Pharisees: "Are you also from Galilee? Search, and you will see
that no prophet is to arise from Galilee." Second, scandal attaches potentially
to Jesus for choosing to speak publicly with the woman; this is evident from
the astonishment of the disciples when they see him doing so (4:27).15
Yet ironically, the shift of scene is from a meeting "by night" (3:2) to a
meeting "at the sixth hour," the height of the day (4:6). The Johannine
prologue has alerted the reader to the symbolic significance of the separation
of light and darkness. Light represents life, revelation, knowledge, under-
standing, while darkness represents incomprehension, rejection of divine
truth, and, by implication, a severance from the source of all life, and thus,
a state of death (1:4-5,9). Are we to conclude, then, that Nicodemus is of the
darkness and remains in darkness, while the Samaritan woman belongs
essentially to the light? This is altogether too simplistic. Initial incomprehen-
sion occurs in both conversations, for both Nicodemus and the Samaritan
woman fail to perceive the inner meaning of Jesus' metaphors, and both
partially recognize and acknowledge Jesus. For Nicodemus, he is a teacher
come from God (3:2); for the woman he is a prophet of God who may well be
the Christ (4:19). The stereotypical Johannine use of light and darkness also
breaks down when one tries to apply it to Samaritans in general versus Jews,
for despite the very negative treatment of "the Jews" in this Gospel, Jesus
aligns himself with them in saying, "You [Samaritans] worship what you do not
know; we [Jews] worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews" (4:22).
That Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night probably has more than one
layer of meaning, concealment being the most obvious.16 The meeting needs

15
See Gail O'Day, "John,'* The Woman's Bible Commentary (ed. Carol A. Newsom and
Sharon H. Ringe; Louisville: Westminster/ John Knox, 1992) 295, on "scandal" with reference
to the meeting with the woman.
16
Brown (Gospel according to John, 130) states, "On a purely natural level, the nighttime
visit may have been a stealthy expedient 'for fear of the Jews'; or it may reflect the rabbinical
custom of staying up at night to study the Law." Regarding the latter possibility see too Pheme
Perkins, "The Gospel according to John," NJBC, 955, citing 1QS 6.7. By contrast, for Paul D.
Duke (Irony in the Fourth Gospel [Atlanta: John Knox, 1985] 108) the night represents pro-
foundly negative irony. Bassler ("Mixed Signals," 638) thinks that "the negative symbolism of
the darkness dominates the narrative here."
 716 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 57, 1995

to be concealed because of the confrontation in the temple. This episode has

ranged Jesus and those Jews who believe in him against "the Jews" in the sense
of the Jewish authorities (2:20). Treachery and danger are present even from
those who see the signs and believe (2:23), or appear to believe, as is evident
from the Johannine comment that "Jesus did not trust himself to them . . .
for he himself knew what was in people" (2:24-25). These words anticipate
the intensified conflict yet to come, which will make Jesus an outright fugitive.
He goes so far as to conceal his journey to Jerusalem for the Feast of
Tabernacles even from his brothers, who have objected that he should end his
secrecy (7:3-4). Jesus actually alternates revelatory appearances with hidden-
ness (8:59; 11:54-57; 12:36b). Thus, in hiding his visit to Jesus, Nicodemus is
in good company. Jesus also hides! Without question Nicodemus, as a Phari-
see and ruler of the Jews (3:1), is part of the establishment that is of the
darkness because of its incomprehension and rejection of Jesus. Yet Jesus'
receiving him clearly places him in a different category, that of one who can
be trusted.
The time of day coincides ominously with that of Judas' betrayal (13:30).
The character of Nicodemus certainly moves,17 as does that of Judas, but
while Nicodemus comes out of the dark to Jesus, the divine light (3:19-21),
Judas goes out from the light into the darkness to go to the temple authorities.
Both are defectors, Nicodemus from the side of the authorities to Jesus,
Judas from the side of Jesus to the same authorities (13:30; 18:2-3). The two
defections proceed in opposite directions by stages: from concealment (Judas'
thievery [12:6], Nicodemus' visit), to partial expression of dissent (Judas'
objection to the anointing [12:4], Nicodemus' objection to the condemnation
of Jesus without a hearing [7:45-52]), to public action which unequivocally
reveals the true stance of each (Judas' participation in Jesus' arrest [18:2-3],
Nicodemus' dramatic participation in Jesus' burial with his extravagant gift
of spices [19:38-42]). Both of these last involvements are in the public realm,
for the temple authorities must know about the betrayal, just as the Roman
authorities, with whom they collaborate (11:48; 18:28-33), know about the
burial (19:38). John, unlike the Synoptics (Mark 15:42; Matt 27:57; Luke 23:54),
does not mention the burial occurring by night and says nothing to suggest
that it was secret. It may be concluded, therefore, that Nicodemus, with
Joseph of Arimathea, will cast aside his cover and become an open disciple.18

17
Bassler, "Mixed Signals," 646, disagrees: "he shows no real movement in the narrative.
He is no more clearly a disciple at the end of the Gospel than at the beginning."
18
Duke (Irony, 110) and Wayne A. Meeks ("The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sec-
tarianism," JBL 91 [1972] 55) consider the gift futile and ludicrous. Bassler ("Mixed Signals,"
646) sees Nicodemus' discipleship persisting in its ambiguity at this point. "The narrative seems
 PHARISEE AND SAMARITAN IN JOHN 717

The woman also moves, far more swiftly, from hearing Jesus' self-
revelation as the source of living water to declaring to her compatriots her
discovery of a prophet who may be the Messiah. Here too concealment is
involved, for the place hides Jesus. He has left Judaea because he knows that
the Pharisees know that he is making more disciples than John the Baptist
is (4:1-3), in other words, that he is becoming even more dangerous than John;
so it is prudent for him to evade his opponents.19 Here in Samaria Jesus has
anonymity and obscurity, in sharp contrast to his high-profile purging of the
temple in Jerusalem and the automatic recognition of his human identity in
both Judaea and Galilee.20 To the woman he is a total stranger.
Her efforts to unveil his mystery evoke counterprobing. Jesus asks her
to bring her husband, that he may explain to both his riddle of unfailing water
that can banish thirst eternally (4:13-14). Her reply, "I have no husband,"
poses a counterriddle. Does the woman use truth to conceal the truth? Does
she match one puzzle with another, testing Jesus' powers of prophetic insight,
rather than attempting to hide her shamed condition? This seems to be more
likely, for she behaves toward Jesus as one who has her honor to defend.21
Countermystery is clearly involved. It is stripped away, however, as Jesus
cracks the woman's riddle with the words "You are right. You have had five
husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband; in this you spoke
truly" (4:17-19). As often in the Johannine context, this displays Jesus' super-
natural power of knowing, shown in his "seeing" Nathaniel under the fig tree
before ever seeing him in a literal sense (1:48). In the story of the Samaritan,
this serves the same function as the "signs" which persuaded Nicodemus that
Jesus is a "teacher come from God" (3:2). On the strength of it, the woman
begins to crack Jesus' riddle, identifying him as a prophet (4:19).
Jesus knows that the woman has a history of serial marriage, but the
reader is not told how, or why, each one was terminated, or whether adultery

to resist classifying him as a disciple," she writes, "even though the logic of the narrative . . .
demands it."
19
Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel according to St. John (HTKNT; New York: Herder,
1968) 422.
20
See, e.g., John 4:45-47; 6:1-2,22-25,42; 7:25-27.
21
According to the paradigm of honor and shame which Malina (New Testament World,
42-47) proposes as a lens through which to interpret much in the New Testament, the Mediter-
ranean woman's honor is "shame" in the sense of concern for the honor of the family or other
group to which she belongs. Since, according to this paradigm, such "shame'* once lost cannot
be regained, the woman of Samaria, who is without a proper marriage tie, should be "shame-
less." This she clearly is not, however, for in upholding Samaritan holy places (4:12,20) she
protects her own honor as well as the honor of her people, and honor accrues to her in the
episode as a whole.
 718 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 57, 1995

on her part had anything to do with it.22 The issue is left open. The reader
or hearer can surmise any one of several possibilities, including repeated
widowhood, or divorce by a series of husbands because of some failure such
as prolonged barrenness or an overready wit and tongue, or a combination
of factors. Whatever possibility applies reflects negatively upon her, for in
4:16-18 she is characterized as lacking a true husband, which is cause for
shame in the sense of loss of female honor.23 The reader is not told why the
man to whom she is currently attached is not her husband, but the possibilities
are more limited. A question which seems not to have been asked previously
in this context is what kind of lifestyle rendered a woman in ancient times
neither a prostitute nor married, though shamed. It is evident that the answer
must be slavery or concubinage, both of which could include domestic as well
as sexual services, with none of the respect afforded a recognized wife.24
When one asks how the woman could have become party to such a
relationship, the possible answers are multiple. For instance, it could be a last
resort, accepted for the sake of survival, after a husband's abandonment to
avoid the return of her dowry, or after her own flight from intolerable abuse.
She could have been reduced to slavery for the same reasons. She may indeed
be an adulteress, in a technical sense at least, in that she is joined to a man
other than a husband from whom she is not officially divorced, or who had
not died. Jesus' words do not, however, have to be read as words condemning
her either for adultery or for lying; they can be read as an affirming revelation.
She speaks truly. She is not the wife of the man to whom she is attached, and

22
To marry several times was permissible among Jews, though to do so more than three
times was disapproved (Str-B, 11. 437; so too Morris, Gospel according to John, 264 n. 43).
Gerard S. Sloyan (John [Interpretation; Atlanta: John Knox, 1988] 54) is wide of the mark in
calling the woman a "polygamist."
23
See Malina, New Testament World, 42-47. On the "shamelessness" of women not under
proper male control, see Bruce J. Malina and Jerome H. Neyrey, "Honor and Shame in Luke-
Acts," The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation (ed. Jerome H. Neyrey; Pea-
body, MA: Hendrickson, 1991) 44; Victor H. Matthews and Don C. Benjamin, The Social
World of Ancient Israel, 1250-587 B.C. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994) 143.
24
That slave women were sexually available to the male members of a slave-owning
household virtually automatically is widely attested. See, e.g., Joachim Jeremías, Jerusalem in
the Time of Jesus: An Investigation into Economic and Social Conditions during the New
Testament Period (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969) 348; Moses I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and
Modern Ideology (New York: Viking, 1980) 95-96; Thomas Wiedmann, Greek and Roman
Slavery: A Sourcebook (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1981) 225; K. R. Bradley,
Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1989) 115-18. According to Philo Spec. 2.223, homeborn slaves were likely to
be the offspring of unions between female slaves and their masters. That the mishnaic rabbis
took the sexual use of female slaves virtually for granted is evident, inter alia from m. DAbot 2.7;
m. Ketub. 1.2,4; m. Yebam. 6.5.
 PHARISEE AND SAMARITAN IN JOHN 719

he is not her husband. She has no husband.25 She is free to abandon her
bondage. This she evidently does, for at the well she leaves her water jar, the
tangible token of her servitude, as the water jars at the wedding in Cana are
the tangible token of the law (2:6). She then pursues a very different path, in
the furthering of Jesus' mission (4:28-29).26
The revelation of the truth about the woman's situation coincides with
the revelation of Jesus' true identity. The woman sees him as a man qualifying
for the role of the prophet-messiah who "will tell us all things" (4:25). It is
plausible, as Pazdan points out, that in the Johannine context, Jesus' reply,
"I am," is more than literal assent, that it has christological significance as
the divine name revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exod 3:14).27 What is
more, in encountering the Divine at a well, this woman who is ethnically
marginal, is even a foreigner from a Jewish perspective, and is very probably
a slave or a concubine, recalls Hagar, the Egyptian slave-concubine, who
encountered "the angel of the Lord" at the well of "one who sees and lives"
(Gen 16:7-14). Other wells are also recalled, as we shall see, but the possible
allusion to Hagar's well accords with the time of day, noontime, when,
according to the story in Genesis (21:8-21), Hagar placed her child under a
bush, obviously for shelter from the sun (21:15). Similarly, the revelatory
dialogue with Jesus in John 4 occurs at the height of the light, a circumstance
opposite to that of the earlier dialogue with Nicodemus, which took place
during the darkness of night.

IV. Freedom from Bondage: The New Family

The motif of bondage that one needs to abandon in order to enter into
a new allegiance is also present in both episodes. Nicodemus is offered free-
dom, not, to be sure, from any marital or extramarital tie but from his
identification with the ruling elite which controls the temple and its worship,
as well as the land. It is this very aristocracy that Jesus had confronted in his
cleansing of the temple, to which Nicodemus could not belong except by
birth. What does it mean for such a person that the temple building and its

25
According to Teresa Okure (The Johannine Approach to Mission: A Contextual Study
of John 4:1-42 [WUNT 2/31; Tubingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1988] 108), the statement may be the
truth, or it may be a lie told because the woman has "marital designs" on Jesus, as John Bligh
("Jesus in Samaria,*' HeyJ 3 [1962] 335-36) argues. Such an assumption would seem redundant,
for the statement could be claiming eligibility, whether true or false, for marriage.
26
According to Morris (Gospel according to John, 275), the woman's relinquishing the
water jar means that "she completely abandoned the business in hand" and would return to
Jesus. Brown (Gospel according to John, 173) sees it as "John's way of emphasizing that [it]
would be useless for the type of living water that Jesus had interested her in."
27
Pazdan, "Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman," 147.
 720 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 57, 1995

worship are to be replaced by the temple which is the risen body of the Christ
(2:19-21), and by worship independent of special location, in spirit and truth
(4:21-24)? Inclusion of someone like Nicodemus would entail that person's
change in the grounding of identity that can be nothing less than rebirth.
It is not enough that a respected elderly ruler and pharisaic teacher of
Israel become a neophyte once more, coming to learn from a new and younger
would-be teacher from the outer ranges of Judaism in Galilee. Nicodemus
must go back even earlier, bypassing his mother's womb, and by implication
also his parents' sexual union. Honorable ancestral ties and lineage will
obviously be rendered redundant through birth all over again, of the Spirit,
into the realm of God (3:3-4). The image harks back to the teaching in the
Johannine prologue that those who become children of God are "born not
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of human will, but of God"(l:12-13),
and it looks forward to the image of Jesus as the bridegroom who will bring
a new family into being (3:29). The new status will obviously undercut any
standing Nicodemus enjoys which depends on inherited social caste and
possessions, on ethnicity or gender.
The image of rebirth by water and the spirit (3:5) connects the first
revelatory dialogue with John's baptism with water (1:24-34; 3:22-23), in
preparation for the one who will baptize with the Spirit (1:33). The mention
of water also recalls the water changed into wine, probably representing the
life of the Spirit in the new age, in the first sign story.28 This imagery continues
into the second revelatory dialogue, where once more water brings to mind
the ideas of the Spirit and eternal life (4:7-15). The implicit idea of rebirth
by the Spirit is present also in the continuation of the marriage motif.
It has been proposed that the woman's five husbands symbolize the
former inhabitants of five cities, with their seven baals (ambiguously, gods or
husbands), with whom the northern Israelites intermingled after the Assyrian
conquest (2 Kgs 17:24-34; Josephus Ant. 9.14.3 §288).29 This allegorical
identification is dubious, as Rudolf Bultmann points out, for the divinities are
seven, while the woman's husbands are five, and the names of some of the
divinities are female.301 suggest that the "husbands" may very well represent
the succession of empires, with their gods, that have dominated the region. On
that assumption the woman's current usurping sixth "husband" symbolizes

28
Barrett (Gospel according to St. John, 192) points out that the word properly used in
4:7,15 for drawing water from a well (antlein) is used also in 2:8 of drawing wine from the jars
at the wedding feast.
29
See, e.g., Barnabas Lindars, The Gospel of John (NCB; London: Oliphants, 1972)
185-87. Brown (Gospel according to John, 171) thinks it is uncertain but possible.
30
R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971)
188 n. 3.
 PHARISEE AND SAMARITAN IN JOHN 721

Roman-Herodian rule and the imperial worship. The existence of a large and
beautiful temple which Herod the Great erected for the worship of Augustus
and his successors in nearby Sebaste, a city he built on the site of ancient
Samaria, supports this possibility.31 So too does Samaria's reputation of
collaboration with foreign powers, which included religious accommodation
and syncretism.32 According to Josephus Ant. 15.8.5 §218, Herod refrained
from locating an Augusteum in Judaea, for it would not have been tolerated.
Whether or not the text carries such allegorical meaning, it is feasible to
see Jesus functioning here as the bridegroom to whom John the Baptist is
friend (3:29). The setting recalls the traditions of sundry venerated Israelite
ancestors who meet their future brides at wells or springs.33 That the woman,
though attached to a man, "has no husband" means, for whatever reason, that
she is available for Jesus to "woo." The reference to the well at Sychar as
Jacob's well obviously connects the episode with Jacob's encounter with
Rachel at the well in Haran at noon (Gen 29:1-12); Rachel ran to tell her father
of Jacob's arrival, as the Samaritan woman goes to the city to tell her people
of the arrival of one who may very well be the Christ (John 4:28). In addition,
Jesus' request for a drink of water recalls the opening gambit in the surrogate
wooing by Abraham's servant on behalf of Isaac (Gen 24:10-21). Thus, the
Samaritan woman may be likened to Rebekah, who, as Isaac's future bride,
was to become a "mother of thousands of tens of thousands" (Gen 24:60).
The Samaritan also recalls Hagar, whose descendants, according to the
angel of Yahweh, would be multiplied so greatly that they could not be
numbered for multitude (Gen 16:10). The Samaritan is in effect to become
a mother of an Israel that extends beyond the boundaries of both the Jews

31
The city, named in honor of Augustus (Sebastos), was begun in 27 B.C. and completed
in A.D. 25. It had 6,000 inhabitants, mostly army veterans, but also people of the region. It no
longer stood when John's Gospel was written, for Jewish insurgents destroyed it in A.D. 66 (See
James D. Purvis, "Samaria the City,'MAD 5. 920). The memory of its existence, however, would
still have been very much alive.
32
According to Josephus (Ant. 9.14.3 §§288-91; 11.8.6 §§340-45), the Samaritans some-
times denied being Jews and sometimes professed it, whichever was to their advantage. Also,
pretending to be Sidonians, they consented to worship Antiochus Epiphanes as a god, renaming
their temple at Mount Gerizim the "Temple of Jupiter Hellenius" (Ant. 12.5.5 §§257-64).
33
See Duke, Irony, 101, 183 n. 14 with reference to Robert C. Culley, Studies in the
Structure of Hebrew Narrative (Semeia Supplements; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976) 41-430, and
Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981) 51-62. For discussion
of the affinities between Jesus' meeting with the Samaritan woman and the ancient scenes of
betrothal, Duke refers to Jerome H. Neyrey, "Jacob Traditions and the Interpretation of John 4:10-
26," CBQ 41 (1979) 419-37, and to Norman R. Bonneau, "The Woman at the Well: John 4 and
Genesis 24," The Bible Today 67 (1973) 1252-59. Duke claims, however, to go further than any
other in drawing such connections and in establishing that the betrothal scene at the well is "a
received literary tradition."
 722 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 57, 1995

and the Samaritans. This suggests that she is remembered as a type of woman
leader, teacher, and evangelist in the earliest stage of the Johannine com-
munity whose labors produced many children born of the Spirit.34 By con-
trast, Nicodemus himself needs to undergo such birth, to become once more
as a little child.

V. The Collapse of Hierarchy: Social Leveling

While rebirth by the Spirit places Nicodemus on the same level as the
humblest in the realm of God, the woman is elevated to the role of a pro-
claimer and teacher. This does not mean that she is placed above Nicodemus
but that the different kinds of hierarchy, of ethnicity, gender, and social caste
that subordinate and exclude her have collapsed.
A leveling of the two figures is evident also in the parallel ways in which
the two dialogues proceed. At the outset of each dialogue Jesus poses a cryptic
image or riddle, but neither Nicodemus nor the woman can fathom it (3:3;
4:10). Each then asks for an explanation, in spite of their mutual erudition
(3:4; 4:11-12), but while the Pharisee's learning can be taken for granted,
making it possible for Jesus, perhaps with a touch of teasing humor, to chide
him for his inability to understand, the reader has to hear the woman in order
to realize that she is no ignoramus. The unacknowledged fact is that she is
more overtly knowledgeable and erudite than any other person we encounter
in the Fourth Gospel, for she discusses issues of Torah with a simplicity that
is not without some subtlety.
She knows about the way regulations of ritual purity are applied to
exclude Samaritans from Judaism (4:9) and about the early ancestral tradi-
tions of Israel with special reference to "our father Jacob" (4:12). She is aware
of the deuteronomic requirement of worship at the one valid temple (e.g.,
Deut 12:5,11) and of the disagreement between Jews and Samaritans about
the chosen location, Mount Zion or Mount Gerizim in Samaria. What is more,
she is able to allude to powerful precedents in favor of the latter: that ac-
cording to the narratives in Genesis thefirstplace of worship for the ancestors
of Israel in Canaan was not Jerusalem but Shechem, by then obliterated,
which was very near the site of the conversation outside Sychar. Here it was
that Abraham first built an altar and worshiped in the land that was to
become Israel's (Gen 12:5-7), and here Jacob settled after his return to Canaan
after buying a piece of land and building an altar upon it (Gen 33:18-20).

34
For arguments in favor of the historicity of a Samaritan mission during Jesus' lifetime,
of some historical basis for the encounter with the woman, see Okure, Johannine Approach,
188-91.
 PHARISEE AND SAMARITAN IN JOHN 723

The argument for the superior claim of the Samaritan site would seem to
stand, for Jesus as a Jew never provides any answer in favor of Jerusalem.
Instead, he claims that both holy places are being superseded through worship
"in spirit and truth" (4:24). Here the Samaritan woman herself in effect claims
that she is a daughter of Abraham,35 and that Samaritans are heirs of the
promises as much as Jews. The woman also knows about the Samaritan
expectation, based on Deut 18:15-18, of the prophet to come like Moses
(John 4:19,25). In sum, she serves as an able exponent of Samaritan theology
in opposition to the Judaism based in Jerusalem. Were the case put into the
mouth of an unidentified man, he would in all probability be taken to be a
Samaritan rabbi or priest on a par with Nicodemus.
It is common to ascribe the Samaritan's sagelike talk to her desire to
deflect attention away from her adulterous guilt.36 It seems to escape such
psychologizing commentators entirely that the woman discusses these matters
because she is genuinely concerned about them, and that she judges that Jesus
is a man she can talk to, even argue with, about Torah. He does not, in fact,
hark back to her marital history but responds to her line of thought with equal
seriousness, finding revelatory opportunities in what she says.
The conversation is highly significant for its depiction of a woman who
is knowledgeable and articulate, and who speaks as one who has imbibed
some equivalent of rabbinical education, parallel to that of Nicodemus as a
Pharisee and teacher. How she did so we do not know, but clearly the reader
is not expected to find it incredible that such women exist, and that they are
among those attracted into Jesus' movement. That it was not unknown for
women to be students and teachers of the law is evident from rabbinical
traditions about Rabbi Judah's slave maid, wise in Torah, and above all about
the outstanding rabbinical expert Beruria, daughter of one rabbi and wife of
another.37 Though the evidence is very much later than the NT period, the
widespread and persistent character of such accounts bespeaks the preserva-
tion of a very strong tradition from the Jewish past. Rabbinical stricture

35
See Luke 13:16 for the same idea expressed more explicitly. I owe this parallel to
Francis, "Samaritan Woman," 147-48.
36
See, e.g., the observation of Massey H. Shepherd ("The Gospel according to John," The
Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary on the Bible [ed. C. M. Laymon; Nashville: Abingdon,
1971] 715) that "after Jesus unexpectedly reveals his insight into her personal life," she "imme-
diately becomes defensive and shifts the conversation to argument about differences of Jews and
Samaritans." Similarly, Bruce Vawter ("The Gospel according to John," JBC, 432) has it that
"her implied question . . . may well have been an attempt to divert the conversation into less
embarrassing channels." Barrett (Gospel according to St. John, 236) rejects such exegesis for
"psychologizing the story in a way John did not intend."
37
See Leonard Swidler, Biblical Affirmations of Women (Philadelphia: Westminster,
1979) 99-110, citing, for Beruria, b. Pesah. 62b; t. Kelim B. K. 4,17; b. cErub. 53b; b. Ber. 10a;
and for the slave woman, b. cErub. 53b; b. Meg. 18a; b. Moced Qat. 17a; b. Ketub. 104a.
 724 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 57, 1995

against teaching Torah to women is further confirmation that the rabbinical

training of women was not unheard of.38 By extrapolation, the same can be
assumed in the case of Samaritan women.
It may seem far-fetched for a village woman obliged to fetch and carry
water from a well to display knowledge and skill not generally expected of
most women, not even those of high social standing. It should not be for-
gotten, however, that in a society which was essentially patriarchal despite
some modification at the higher levels,39 an education usually reserved for
men was no guarantee against a woman's radical descent into penury and
disgrace. She could face this fate if she was unfortunate enough to lose her
marriage tie even once, let alone five times! The Testament of Job (first century
B.c.-first century A.D.) has Job's wife Sitis resorting, after his downfall, to
slavery, which almost automatically involved sexual services.40 Job is shocked
to see her "carrying water into the house of a certain nobleman so she might
get bread" (T. Job 21). His consternation may very well include the painful
realization that his wife is now under the control of an owner to whom she
would be sexually available. Though such a story is fictional, it may be taken
to reflect the vulnerability of women in general in the society of the time,
regardless of their social station.
Similarly, it is possible that the Johannine reader or hearer is to under-
stand that the Samaritan woman has known better days and has been obliged
to resort to a shaming condition, a possibility already suggested above.
Whatever the reader is to construe concerning her background, she is shown
to be equipped for teaching her people, as Nicodemus is among the Jews. As
a skilled teacher, she poses a question about Jesus' identity, inviting her
hearers to come and see for themselves (4:29), as the disciple Philip was
invited (1:46). This does not denigrate her witness; on the contrary, it is a high
compliment to her, in that her people so respond to her that they can
eventually go beyond her, saying, "It is no longer because of your words that
we believe, for we have seen for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed
the Savior of the world" (4:27-30,39-42). This, in the Fourth Gospel, is one
of the marks of true knowing, opposed to the counterfeit kind identified in
each episode as worship of what one does not know (3:11; 4:22). It is the
former kind of knowing and knowers that the woman has begotten.

38
Ibid., 154, citing b. Sota 3.4.
39
See Kathleen E. Corley, Private Women, Public Meals: Social Conflict in the Synoptic
Tradition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993) 24-79, on the increased access of women to the
public sphere, reflected by their participation in public meals, in settings under Greco-Roman
influence.
40
For evidence, see n. 25.
 PHARISEE AND SAMARITAN IN JOHN 725

VI. Affirmation
At first sight, Jesus affirms the Samaritan woman but not the Jewish
man. Clearly, it is to her and her impact that Jesus refers when he says, "I
have food to eat of which you do not know. . . . My food is to do the will of
the one who sent me" (4:32,34). The words that follow, on the sowing and
reaping of a harvest (4:34-38), accentuate the theme of fulfillment through
the woman. It is entirely possible that her tentative christology represents the
christology of an earlier generation of teachers from which later, full-fledged
Johannine christology eventually developed. From the final Johannine per-
spective, it could be Jesus' view of the "others (who) have labored" and into
whose labors a later generation has entered (4:38).41 If so, the story com-
memorates and honors such past teachers, not coincidentally through por-
trayal of a woman's encounter with Jesus.
By contrast, there is no satisfying closure to the episode with Nicodemus
in the third chapter. After the initial conversation concerning rebirth and the
Spirit, Nicodemus is included among those who do not believe (3:11). Jesus
then goes on to reveal himself as the Human One or "Child of Humanity"
(ho huios tou anthröpou) from heaven and the Child of God who is sent not
to condemn but to save (3:13-18); but in contrast to the woman's response to
Jesus' self-revelation, Nicodemus is silent.42 Considering that he is a Pharisee,
however, his silence is eloquent. He stands out from other Pharisees in the
Gospel who are by no means silent in the face of Jesus' claims but counter
them with accusations and seek to kill him (as in 8:12-59). Nicodemus, by
contrast, is to use his position to urge that Jesus not be condemned without
being heard (7:51). In this total context, Nicodemus' silence during the
revelatory discourse in 3:1-21 denotes, at the very least, attentive and sympa-
thetic listening.
Does it also imply the consent of faith? Such a judgment would impose
too much on the text, in spite of the concluding statement of Jesus that one
who does what is true comes to the light (3:21). Yet Nicodemus has both
literally and figuratively come out of the dark into light (3:1). Thus, Jesus'
words suggest affirmation rather than rejection, but their open, visible fulfill-
ment lies in the future, at Jesus' burial (as already shown), and, by implication
beyond the text, after the resurrection. At the point of Jesus' burial in the
earth, Nicodemus, with Joseph of Arimathea, becomes a servant of Jesus who

41
For other varying interpretations, see n. 45.
42
Pazdan ("Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman," 147) emphasizes Nicodemus'lack of
verbal response in all his appearances.
 726 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 57, 1995

risks loss, even of life itself, in order to be with him in his death. As for the
proverbial grain of wheat buried in the earth, such death is the necessary
prelude to bearing much fruit (12:24-46).
Yet we hear no ringing expression of faith from Nicodemus. The same,
however, applies to the Samaritan woman, to the paralyzed man who is healed
(5:2-15), to the mother of Jesus, to Mary Magdalene, and to Mary of Bethany,
who falls at Jesus' feet and later anoints his feet (11:32; 12:1-7). Nicodemus'
unstintingly generous gift of myrrh and aloes for the burial is at times
interpreted negatively as unnecessary and futile.43 Certainly it may be viewed
as redundant in view of the forthcoming resurrection and ascension, of which
Nicodemus was told, though somewhat obliquely (3:13-14). What favors a
positive reading is that it connects Nicodemus with Mary of Bethany, who
(also needlessly?) expends very costly perfume in the anointing. Countering
Judas' criticism, Jesus says she need not give up the remainder but can keep
it for his burial (12:7). Both express their faith and love with their actions
rather than their words.
Contrary to Bassler's own opinion, a number of scholars have recognized
that the ambiguity surrounding Nicodemus is eventually resolved in his
favor.44 Ultimately, he is not among those Jewish authorities who "believed
in him but for fear of the Pharisees . . . did not confess it, lest they should
be put out of the synagogue" (12:42-43). Similarly, the Samaritan is never
heard actually stating that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. Her actions place her
in the category of believers, however, in that she is involved in the sowing and
reaping of the eschatological harvest, along with the recognized apostles
(4:35-38).45 Nicodemus too, with Joseph of Arimathea, has a part in the

43
Bassler ("Mixed Signals," 642) points out that "commentators are nearly unanimous in
expressing astonishment over the quantity of spices and hopelessly divided over interpreting its
significance."
44
Ibid. There, Bassler notes that while Brown, Gospel according to John, 960; Schnacken-
burg, Gospel according to St. John, 3. 297; Ernst Haenchen, John: A Commentary on the Gospel
of John (2 vols.; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 1. 207; and others see love and honor
in Nicodemus' concern for the burial of Jesus, more pragmatic motives are attributed to him by
Marinus de Jonge, "Nicodemus and Jesus: Some Observations on Misunderstanding and Under-
standing in the Fourth Gospel," Jesus, Stranger from Heaven and Son of God: Jesus Christ and
the Christians in Johannine Perspective (SBLSBS 11; Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1977) 31-32, and
especially by Meeks, "The Man from Heaven," 68. Sean Freyne ("Vilifying Others and Defining
the Self: Matthew's and John's Anti-Jewish Polemic in Focus," "To See Ourselves as Others See
Us": Christians, Jews, "Others"in Late Antiquity [ed. J. Neusner and E. S. Frerichs; Chico, CA:
Scholars, 1985] 140) sees Nicodemus as a "borderline" figure still open to transition.
45
Brown (Gospel according to John, 182-84) thinks that Jesus sowed the seed of faith in
the woman, and that the harvest sayings in 4:35-38 have a postresurrection perspective beyond
the textual setting. Elsewhere (Community, 188-89), he indicates that this gives "a quasi-apostolic
role to a woman," as to Mary Magdalene in chap. 20. For Okure (Johannine Approach, 145-64),
 PHARISEE AND SAMARITAN IN JOHN 727

planting for the harvest to come, in that he lays Jesus in a new tomb in a
"garden," from which he will rise (19:41-42). It is surely significant that this
recalls the agricultural imagery used earlier in John 4. In asking Pilate for
Jesus' body and taking it from him, both Nicodemus and Joseph, in a very
literal sense, are among those in Israel who "received"(elabori) Jesus. In terms
of John 1:12-13 they thereby qualify as persons who become children of God,
being born of God, as B. Hemelsoet has pointed out.46 Yet neither the woman
nor Nicodemus arrives at full and final faith and insight within the Gospel
itself. Needless to say, that is reserved for the beloved disciple; he, even ahead
of Peter and Mary Magdalene, is thefirstto believe in the risen Christ, in other
words, to see and believe without literally seeing (20:1-8,18,29). If ambiguity
remains for this reason in the depiction of Nicodemus, he is in good company
with the Samaritan woman.

VII. Conclusion
Despite the tension of contrasting polarities in the juxtaposition of the
woman of Samaria, who was possibly a slave, and Nicodemus, the Jewish Phari-
see and member of the Jewish council, the Gospel seems to hold these two
figures together as parallel, rather than polar, opposites. The high rank of Nico-
demus may be an exaggerated equivalent of the rank of some Johannine Jewish
Christians. The pair we have considered can nevertheless be taken to typify the
wide spectrum of persons found in the Christian community known to the writer
or redactor of the Fourth Gospel.47 They evidently include pharisaic Christian
Jews of relatively high rank who had much to lose within Judaism. They also
evidently include marginalized people, very often women, very often from out-
side Judaism, very often from the lower levels of society, whose connections with
the prevailing social structures are tenuous or condemning. The two figures,
Nicodemus and the woman of Samaria, seem to reflect often difficult dismantle-
ment of hierarchies and divisions based on social caste, ethnicity, and gender in
Johannine circles. This part of John's Gospel seems, in fact, to express much the

the role of the disciples, like all believers, is essentially that of harvesting and gathering fruit after
the resurrection, whereas only the Father and Jesus are the sowers. J. Murphy-O'Connor ("John
the Baptist and Jesus: History and Hypotheses," NTS 36 [1990] 365) thinks that the seed planter
is the "Baptist movement" which prepared the ground in Samaria for the "Jesus movement."
46
B. Hemelsoet, "L'ensevelissement selon saint Jean," Studies in John Presented to Pro-
fessor J. N. Sevenster on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (NovTSup 24; Leiden: Brill,
1970) 47-65.
47
As Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Recon-
struction of Christian Origins [New York: Crossroad, 1983] 320) observes, "The discipleship and
leadership of the Johannine community is inclusive of women and men. Alongside the Pharisee
Nicodemus s/he (the gospel writer) places the Samaritan woman."
 728 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 57, 1995

same thought as the Pauline appeal to faith, baptism, and the Spirit as elements
uniting Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, into one in Christ
(1 Cor 12:12-13; Gal 3:25-28).
 ^ s
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