Commentary on John
The Lord now begins to reveal more clearly to the disciples what He had previously said in a veiled manner. He says: "You say, that is, you think, that in four months the harvest will come, that is, the physical harvest; but I say to you that the spiritual harvest has already arrived." He said this about the Samaritans, who were already coming to Him.
"Lift up your eyes," both intellectual and sensory, and look at the multitude of Samaritans coming here, and at their souls, disposed and ready for faith, which, like whitened fields, are in need of harvest. For just as ears of grain, when they turn white, are ready for harvest, so too are they ready for salvation.
Some apply the words "look at the fields, how they are white and ready for harvest" to the elderly, on account of their gray hair and their being reaped by death.
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Commentary on John
Then when he says, Do you not have a saying: There are still four months, and it will be harvest time? he makes use of a simile. Note that when Christ asked the Samaritan woman for a drink, "Give me a drink," he made use of a simile concerning water. But here, the disciples are urging the Lord to eat, and now he makes use of a simile concerning spiritual food.
There are some persons whom God asks for a drink, as this Samaritan woman; and there are some who offer a drink to God. But no one offers food to God unless God first asks him for it: for we offer spiritual food to God when we ask him for our salvation, that is, when we ask, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Mt 6:10). We cannot obtain salvation of ourselves, unless we are pre-moved by "prevenient grace," according to the statement in Lamentations (5:21): "Make us come back to you, O Lord, and we will come back." The Lord himself, therefore, first asks for that which makes us ask through "prevenient grace."
In this simile, we have first, the harvest. Secondly, those who reap the harvest (v 36). He does two things concerning the first. First, he states the simile concerning the natural harvest; secondly, concerning the spiritual harvest (v 35b).
Do you not have a saying: There are still four months, and it will be harvest time? We can see from this that, as stated in Matthew (4:12), Christ left Judea and traveled through Samaria right after John was arrested, and that all this happened during the winter. So, because the harvests ripen there more according to the season, there were four months from that time till the harvest. Thus he says, Do you not have a saying, about the natural harvest, There are still four months that must pass, and it will be harvest time? i.e., the time for gathering up the harvest. So I say to you, speaking of the spiritual harvest, Lift up your eyes, look at the fields, because they are already white for the harvest.
Here we should point out that harvest time is the time when the fruit is gathered; and so whenever fruit is gathered can be regarded as a harvest time. Now fruit is gathered at two times: for both in temporal and in spiritual matters there is nothing to prevent what is fruit in relation to an earlier state from being seed in relation to something later. For example, good works are the fruit of spiritual instruction, as is faith and other such things; but these in turn are seeds of eternal life, because eternal life is acquired through them. So Sirach (24:23) says: "My blossoms," in relation to the fruit to follow, "bear the fruit of honor and riches," in relation to what preceded.
With this in mind, there is a certain gathering of a spiritual harvest; and this concerns an eternal fruit, i.e., the gathering of the faithful into eternal life, of which we read: "The harvest is the end of the world" (Mt 13:39). We are not here concerned with this harvest. Another spiritual harvest is gathered in the present; and this is understood in two ways. In the first, the gathering of the fruit is the converting of the faithful to be assembled in the Church; in the second, the gathering is the very knowing of the truth, by which a person gathers the fruit of truth into his soul. And we are concerned with these two gatherings of the harvest, depending on the different expositions.
Augustine and Chrysostom understand the gathering of the harvest in the first way, as follows. You say that it is not yet the time for the natural harvest; but this is not true of the spiritual harvest. Indeed, I say to you: Lift up your eyes, i.e., the eyes of your mind, by thinking, or even your physical eyes, look at the fields, because they are already white for the harvest: because the entire countryside was full of Samaritans coming to Christ.
The statement that the fields are already white is metaphorical: for when sown fields are white, it is a sign that they are ready for harvest. And so he only means to say by this that the people were ready for salvation and to hear the word. He says, look at the fields, because not only the Jews, but the Gentiles as well, were ready for the faith: "The harvest is great, but the workers are few" (Mt 9:37). And just as harvests are made white by the presence of the burning heat of the summer sun, so by the coming of the Sun of justice, i.e., Christ, and his preaching and power, men are made ready for salvation. Malachi (4:2) says: "The sun of justice will rise on you who fear my name." Thus it is that the time of Christ's coming is called the time of plenitude or fulness: "When the fulness of time had come, God sent his Son" (Gal 4:4).
Origen deals with the second gathering of the harvest, i.e., the gathering of truth in the soul. He says that one gathers as much of the fruit of truth in the harvest as the truths he knows. And he says that everything said here (v 35) was presented as a parable. In this interpretation, the Lord does two things. First, he mentions a false doctrine held by some. Secondly, he rejects it, I say to you.
Some thought that man could not acquire any truth about anything. This opinion gave rise to the heresy of the Academicians, who maintained that nothing can be known as certain in this life; about which we read: "I tested all things by wisdom. I said: 'I will acquire wisdom,' and it became further from me" (Ecc 7:24). Our Lord mentions this opinion when he says, Do you not have a saying: There are still four months and it will be harvest time? i.e., this whole present life, in which man serves under the four elements, must end, so that after it truth may be gathered in another life.
Our Lord rejects this opinion when he says: This is not true, I say to you: Lift up your eyes. Sacred Scripture usually uses this expression when something subtle and profound is being presented; as, "Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things" (Is 40:26). For when our eyes are not lifted away from earthly things or from the desires of the flesh, they are not fit to know spiritual fruit. For sometimes they are prevented from considering divine things because they have stooped to earthly things: "They have fixed their eyes on the earth" (Ps 16:11); sometimes they are blinded by concupiscence: "They have averted their eyes so as not to look at heaven or remember the judgments of God" (Dn 13:9).
So he says, Lift up your eyes, look at the fields, because they are already white for the harvest, i.e., they are such that the truth can be learned from them: for by the "fields" we specifically understand all those things from which truth can be acquired, especially the Scriptures: "Search the Scriptures... they bear witness to me" (below 5:39). Indeed, these fields existed in the Old Testament, but they were not white for the harvest because men were not able to pick spiritual fruit from them until Christ came, who made them white by opening their understanding: "He opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures" (Lk 24:45). Again, creatures are harvests from which the fruit of truth is gathered: "The invisible things of God are clearly known by the things that have been made" (Rom 1:20). Nonetheless, the Gentiles who pursued a knowledge of these things gathered the fruits of error rather than of truth from them, because as we read, "they served the creature rather than the Creator" (Rom 1:25). So the harvests were not yet white; but they were made white for the harvest when Christ came.
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