LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM 317
(24) John 4:23
God is spirit,
and those worshiping must worship him
in spirit and truth.
Unpolluted and pure and invisible is his divine nature. And to be worthy of
him who is worshiped one must worship in a spiritual, not a fleshly, way. For
those who are of the same nature as the father are spirit and worship in truth
and not in error, just as Paul teaches when he calls this worship a "spiritual
"24
service.
(25) John 4:25
I know a messiah is coming,
who is called the anointed.The church expected Christ and believed that he alone would know all things.
(26) John 4:26
I am he,
talking to you.
Since the Samaritan woman was convinced that Christ would proclaim every-
thing to her when he came, he said, "Know that I who speak to you am the one
you expected." And when he acknowledged himself as the expected one who
had come, "his students came to him," since because of them he had come to
Samaria.
(27) John 4:28
Then the woman left her water pot.
The water pot that can receive life is the condition and thought of the power
contained in the savior. She left it with him, which is to say, she had such a ves-
sel with the savior, a vessel in which she had come to get living water, and she
returned to the world, proclaiming the coming of the Christ to the calling. For
through the spirit and by the spirit the soul is taken to the savior. "They went
out of the town and came toward him." This means they went out of the town,
that is, their former worldly way of life, and through faith came to the savior.- Romans 12:1.