John Chrysostom — as excerpted in the Catena Aurea on John 4:7-12

“(Hom. xxxi. 3) This shews us too not only our Lord’s strength and endurance as a traveller, but also his carelessness about food; for His disciples did not carry about food with them, since it follows, His disciples were gone away into the city to buy food. Herein is shewn the humility of Christ; He is left alone. It was in His power, had He pleased, not to send away all, or, on their going away, to leave others in their place to wait on Him. But He did not choose to have it so: for in this way He accustomed His disciples to trample upon pride of every kind. However some one will say, Is humility in fishermen and tent-makers so great a matter? But these very men were all on a sudden raised to the most lofty situation upon earth, that of friends and followers of the Lord of the whole earth. And men of humble origin, when they arrive at dignity, are on this very account more liable than others to be lifted up with pride; the honour being so new to them. Our Lord therefore to keep His disciples humble, taught them in all things to subdue themselves. The woman on being told, Give Me to drink, very naturally asks, How is it that Thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, who am a woman of Samaria? She knew Him to be a Jew from His figure and speech. Here observe her simpleness. For even had our Lord been bound to abstain from dealing with her, that was His concern, not hers; the Evangelist saying not that the Samaritans would have no dealings with the Jews, but that the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. The woman however, though not in fault herself, wished to correct what she thought a fault in another. The Jews after their return from the captivity entertained a jealousy of the Samaritans, whom they regarded as aliens, and enemies; and the Samaritans did not use all the Scriptures, but only the writings of Moses, and made little of the Prophets. They claimed to be of Jewish origin, but the Jews considered them Gentiles, and hated them, as they did the rest of the Gentile world.”