ABSTRACT
Milan, d. 397) says: “ In the shadow there was water from the rock, as it were the blood of Christ.” 6 T he water communion is prefigured in John 7:37-39: “ If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly flow rivers of living water. (But this he spake of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)” And also in John 4:14: “ But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” T he words “as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” do not occur anywhere in the Old Testament. They must therefore come from a writing which the author of the Johannine gospel obviously regarded as holy, but which is not known to us. It is just possible that they are based on Isaiah 58:11: “And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.” Another possibil ity is Ezekiel 47: 1: “Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward . . . and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar.” In the Church Order of Hippolytus (d. c. 235) the water chalice is associated with the baptismal font, where the inner man is renewed as well as the body.7 This interpretation comes very close to the baptismal krater of Poimandres 8 and to the Hermetic basin filled with nous which God gave to those seeking e w o ia .9 Here the water signifies the pneuma, i.e., the spirit of prophecy, and also the doctrine which a man receives
and passes on to others.10 T h e same image of the spiritual water occurs in the “ Odes of Solomon” : 11
For there went forth a stream, and became a river great and broad; . . . and all the thirsty upon earth were given to drink of it; and thirst was relieved and quenched; for from the Most High the draught was given. Blessed then are the ministers of that draught who are entrusted with that water of His; they have assuaged the dry lips, and the will that had fainted they have raised up; and souls that were near departing they have caught back from death; and limbs that had fallen they straightened and set up; they gave strength for their feebleness and light to their eyes. For everyone knew them in the Lord, and they lived by the water of life for ever.12
