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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
First then, as I before said, He causeth defilements of our bodies, and afterwards infirmities of different kinds, to be done away by water. Because God, desiring to bring us nearer to faith in baptism, no longer healeth defilements only, but diseases also. For those figures which came nearer in time to the reality, both as regarded Baptism, and the Passion, and the rest, were plainer than the more ancient; and as the guards near the person of the prince are more splendid than those before, so was it with the types. …
Cyril of Alexandria
Not for nothing does the blessed Evangelist straightway connect with what has been said the Saviour's return thence to Jerusalem: but his aim probably was to show how superior in obedience were the aliens to the Jews, how great a difference of habit and manners is seen between them. For thus and in no other way could we learn, that by the just judgment of God Who ruleth all and knoweth not to accept the person of man, Israel with reason falleth from the hope, and the fulness of the Gentiles is brought in in his place. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
The pool was called "Sheep" because sacrificial sheep were driven to it and their entrails were washed in it. By the Sheep Pool, understand, if you will, the grace of baptism, by which the Lord Jesus, the Lamb slain for us, was washed, having been baptized for us. This pool has five porches. For in baptism the four virtues and contemplation with dogmas are manifested. Rightly can it be called a sheep pool. …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
Judging on low and human notions of this miracle, it is not at all a striking display of power, and only a moderate one of goodness. Of so many, who lay sick, only one was healed; though, had He chosen, He could have restored them all by a single word. How must we account for this? By supposing that His power and goodness were asserted more for imparting a knowledge of eternal salvation to the soul, than working a temporal cure on the body. …
Bede
It is fitly described as a sheep pool. By sheep are meant people, according to the passage, We are Thy people, and the sheep of Thy pasture. (Ps. 95:7)
Thomas Aquinas
The specific place of the miracle was the pool called the Sheep Pool; so he says, Now at Jerusalem there is a Sheep Pool. This is described here in four ways: by its name, its structure, from its occupants, and from its power. First, it is described from its name when he says, there is a Sheep Pool (probatica piscina), for probaton is Greek for "sheep." It was called the Sheep Pool for it was there that the priests washed the sacrificial animals; especially the sheep, who were used more than the other animals. …
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