Patristic A.D. 407
“But why did Christ ask what the law allowed not? It is no answer to say that He knew she would not give it, for in that case, He clearly ought not to have asked for it. Rather His very reason for asking, was to shew His indifference to such observances, and to abolish them for the future.”
Catena Aurea: Gospel of John, as excerpted in the Catena Aurea on John 4:7-12
PD · J. H. Newman (Oxford, 1845) ↗