Two early Christian traditions about Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.

1. The Samaritan Woman at the Well:
Two Texts and Two Traditions in Art

2. The Samaritan woman at the well was
the first evangelist to the gentiles.
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him
because of the woman's testimony.
- John 4:39a (RSV)
Two very different early traditions
depicted her status in early art.

3. In the first tradition, she and Jesus stood as equals.
Sarcophagus, Gaul, 4th
century

4. Both stand.
Catacomb fresco, Rome, 4th
century
She and Jesus stood together.
Catacomb fresco, Rome, 4th
century

5. She and Jesus both stood.
Tile from northern Africa, 5th
century

6. She and Jesus both stood.
Bishop’s gold enkolpion from near Ancient Syria, 6th
c.

7. She and Jesus stood together.
Constantinople, 550s

8. Two Texts, Two Traditions
The text of John 4:27 in a 4th
-century manuscript written
in a dialect of Aramaic (old Syriac) says:
His disciples came and wondered that
he was standing and talking with a woman.
Later manuscripts (and our modern bibles) do not say
Jesus was standing with her. They only say:
His disciples came and wondered that
he was talking with a woman.

9. In the second tradition, she stood alone.
Jesus sat, as if her master.
Saint Apollinaire Nuovo, Ravenna, 6th
century

10. She stood. Jesus sat.
Coptic Egypt, 6th
century

11. His disciples came and wondered that
he was standing and talking with a woman.
What a difference two words made.

12. Art as Text
By Ally Kateusz
In honor of Mary Ann Beavis