For the Samaritan woman, believing Him to be a Jew, was inquiring of Him whether God ought to be worshipped in Jerusalem or on this mountain; and her words were, “All our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where we ought to worship.” To this opinion of the Samaritan woman, therefore, who imagined that God was less rightly or duly worshipped, according to the privileges of the different localities, either by the Jews in Jerusalem or by the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim, the Saviour answered that he who would follow the Lord must lay aside all preference for particular places, and thus expressed Himself: “The hour is coming when neither in Jerusalem nor on this mountain shall the true worshippers worship the Father. God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” And observe how logically He has joined together the spirit and the truth: He called God a Spirit, that He might distinguish Him from bodies; and He named Him the truth, to distinguish Him from a shadow or an image. For they who worshipped in Jerusalem worshipped God neither in truth nor in spirit, being in subjection to the shadow or image of heavenly things; and such also was the case with those who worshipped on Mount Gerizim. (Book 1, Section 4)

This is a thoroughly Platonic reading of the fourth chapter of John's gospel. As such it is intellectually interesting and spiritually provocative.

If like the Samaritan woman we sometimes confuse our sacred places with the more fundamental reality we seek by worshiping in those places, Origen offers a helpful distinction between place and purpose.

But I do not read in the story of the woman at Jacob's well or otherwise in the gospel any intention by Jesus to deprecate the potential spiritual validity of sacred places.

Neither Mt. Zion nor Mt. Gerizim are appropriately understood as the dark, damp, and sooty depth of Plato's cave. Each is better understood as way stations on the ascent to the sunlight outside the allegorical cave.

The material can complement our engagement of the ideal.