Saint John - Chapter 13
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| Jesus washes the disciples' feet. J-J Tissot |
He riseth from supper, and layeth aside his garments, and having taken a towel, girded himself.
He rises from supper and lays aside His garments, and taking a towel girded Himself. John enumerates all the actions, conditions, and circumstances of the washing of feet to show us how attentive, exact, and observant of decorum Christ was in this, as in all else that He did, that we may learn to do likewise even in the smallest matters, according to the words of Ecclus. 33:23, “In all thy works [be thou careful to] excel.”
Lays aside His garments—the outer tunic, keeping on the inner lest His body should be exposed; or rather the robe which those about to partake of supper usually put on over their ordinary dress. The Greek has ἱμάτια, the outermost garments or garment, such as the toga or pallium. By the figure of enallage the plural number is here put for the singular.
Girt Himself—that He might not soil His garments, that He might be the more unimpeded in the work of washing, that He might wipe their feet when He had washed them, and also that He might assume for this servile office the servile garb which befitted it, and in this way abase Himself completely.
“What wonder,” says S. Augustine, “if He who, when He was in the form of God, did make Himself void, arose from supper and laid aside His garments?” For humility is the distinctive virtue of Christ and Christians. S. Basil (Constit., chap. xvi.) says that humility guards the treasure-house of the virtues. Humility, says S. Macarius (Homil. xv.), is the badge of Christianity, which he who lacks is a vessel of the Evil One; humility is the ballast of the virtues. This is what S. Augustine says in his first Discourse on Psalm xxiii. “As David laid Goliath low, it is Christ who hath slain the devil. And what is the Christ who hath slain the devil? Humility hath slain pride. When therefore, my brethren, I mention Christ, humility is chiefly commended to us. For by humility He hath made a way for us, inasmuch as by pride we had receded from God. Except by humility we could not have returned to Him, and we had none to set before us as an example to imitate, for all mortals had become puffed up with human pride. And if there existed any man humble in spirit, as were the prophets and patriarchs, the human race disdained to imitate humble persons. Then let not man disdain to imitate a humble man; God hath become humble that so the pride of the human race might at least not disdain to follow the footsteps of God.”
[5] Deinde mittit aquam in pelvim, et coepit lavare pedes discipulorum, et extergere linteo, quo erat praecinctus.
After that, he putteth water into a basin, and began to wash the feet of the disciples, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.
Then He puts water into a basin and begins to wash the feet of His disciples, and wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. S. Cyprian, Theophylact, and Euthymius note that Christ did all these things by Himself, without the aid or help of any one, to teach us how attentively and carefully we ought to serve others. Euthymius adds that Christ Himself asked the master of the house for the basin, and drew and brought the water. “What wonder,” says S. Augustine (Tract 55), “if He who poured forth His blood on the earth to wash away the uncleanness of sin poured water into a basin to wash the feet of His disciples? What wonder if He who made firm with the flesh He had taken upon Him the footsteps of His Evangelists, wiped with the towel He was girded with the feet that He had washed?”
Symbolically, S. Ambrose (Book i., “On the Holy Spirit”) says, “This water was the heavenly dew. This it was that was prophesied, that with that heavenly dew the Lord Jesus should wash the feet of His disciples.” And later on, “Come, therefore, O Lord Jesus! put off the garments that Thou hast for my sake put upon Thee; be Thou naked, that Thou mayest clothe us with Thy mercy. Gird Thyself for our sakes with linen, that Thou mayest gird us with the immortality of Thy (muneris immortalitate) free gift. Pour water in the bason, and wash not our feet only but our head also; and not only those of the body, but I would also put off from the footsoles of the mind all the uncleanness of my frailty, that I too may say, ‘I have put off my garment in the night, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I soil them?’ ” (Cant. 5.)
[6] Venit ergo ad Simonem Petrum. Et dicit ei Petrus : Domine, tu mihi lavas pedes?
He cometh therefore to Simon Peter. And Peter saith to him: Lord, dost thou wash my feet?
He comes therefore to Simon Peter: so as to begin here as elsewhere with Peter, the Head and Primate of the Apostles. For if He had gone first to the other Apostles, they would assuredly have protested as much as Peter against so great and unusual an act of condescension on the part of their Lord; but when they saw Peter acquiesce after having been rebuked by Christ, they too acquiesced, and allowed their feet to be washed by Him. So S. Augustine, Bede, Rupert, Maldonatus, and others.
Christ here indicates figuratively that visitation and reformation must be begun with the head and those who bear rule, for that so it will be easy to reform the faithful who are subject to them. However, Origen and Leontius think that Peter was the last in this washing of feet, and with Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Euthymius, hold that Christ first of all washed the feet of Judas that He might soften his heart and recall him from his wicked treason, and might give us an example of the love of our enemies, that we may repay their injuries with kindness, and do them the more good the more spiteful we feel them to be towards us.
And Peter says to Him, Lord, dost Thou wash my feet? That is, dost Thou prepare to do so? The action is represented as just beginning, or rather intended, for Christ had not yet begun to wash his feet. Peter said this in stupefied amazement at the humility of Christ, and out of the depth of his reverence for Him, says Cyril; and hence every one of the words is emphatic. Thou who art the King of kings and Lord of lords, my feet, who am a low fisherman, and but a worm of this earth, feet that are muddy and filthy, dost Thou wash them with Thine own blessed hands? “These things,” says S. Augustine, “must be thought upon rather than spoken of, lest the tongue fail to express what the mind has more or less worthily comprehended by these words.”
[7] Respondit Jesus, et dixit ei : Quod ego facio, tu nescis modo : scies autem postea.
Jesus answered, and said to him: What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.
Jesus answered and said to him, What I do thou knowest not now, but hereafter thou shalt know. Christ means that in this washing of feet, mysteries are hidden which as yet Peter knew not. “Peter,” says S. Ambrose (in his work, De iis qui initiantur, ch. 6), “saw not the hidden meaning, and therefore rejected the service, thinking that the humility of the servant would be compromised should he suffer his Lord to do him this office.” “Here after thou shalt know,” that is, first, “when I shall tell you (ver. 14) that I do this to give to thee, to the apostles, and to the rest of the faithful an example of the greatest humility and most sublime charity;” so S. Cyril interprets. Secondly, because by this ablution penance is signified, and this sacrament must precede that of the Eucharist, as thou, O Peter, shalt understand after the Holy Spirit has been sent, for “He shall teach you all things.” So S. Cyprian, (Tract, de Cœnâ Dom.), S. Pacianus (Ep. 1, contra Novat.), S. Gregory (bk. ix. Ep. 39), and SS. Augustine and Bernard imply the same. It was as a type of this that the Jewish priests used, when entering the temple to sacrifice, to wash their hands and feet in the brazen laver that was set for this purpose in front of the Holy of Holies; and this they did for the sake of bodily cleanliness, that by it they might be admonished of spiritual purity.
On this point S. Ambrose is singular in his view; for in his work “On the Sacraments” (bk. iii. ch. 1, and in De iis qui initiantur, ch. 6) he holds that this bodily washing of feet is necessary for all the faithful before baptism, that by it they may be prepared for the Holy Eucharist just as Christ prepared the apostles. Hence he maintains that the washing of feet is a kind of sacrament or sacred rite here sanctioned by Christ, by which we are to be strengthened against the devil’s endeavours to trip us up. And for this reason he reckons the washing of feet amongst the rites or ceremonies of baptism, so that it came into use as such at Milan. S. Bernard, too, in his sermon “On the Lord’s Supper,” calls the washing of feet a sacrament, and implies that it has power for the remission of venial sins; “for,” he says, “that we may not be in doubt about the remission of our daily sins, we have the sacrament of it—the washing of feet.” By “sacrament,” however, S. Bernard here understands symbol or figure, as he himself explains a little farther on.
Symbolically, Origen and S. Jerome (in his epistle to Damasus on the first vision of Isaiah) think that Christ washed His apostles’ feet to prepare them for the preaching of the gospel, according to the words, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, of them that bring good tidings!” (Isa. 52:7.) Secondly, S. Ambrose thinks that Christ in baptism washes away actual sin by washing the head, but that here, in washing their feet, He washed away the remains of original sin, the movements of concupiscence, for that by this washing He strengthened their feet—that is, their affections—to make generous resistance to their lower appetites.
Thirdly, S. Augustine and S. Bernard (l.c.) say that by the feet with which we tread the earth are signified the loves, the stains, and the defects which, while we are amid the things of earth, adhere to our affections, as dust or mud to our feet.
S. Ambrose (De Initiandis, ch. 6) gives the mystical reason for the washing of feet as follows:—“Peter was clean, but He must wash his foot, for he had by inheritance the sin of the first man when the serpent tripped him up and led him astray; and therefore is his foot washed, that these hereditary sins may be taken away.” He alludes here to the word spoken by God to the serpent, “Thou shalt ensnare his heel” (Gen. 3:15). The same Saint says again (De Sacrum, book iii. ch. 1), “Because Adam was tripped up by the devil and the venom was poured out over thy feet, therefore dost thou wash thy feet that in that part where the serpent ensnared thee there may be added the more abundant aid of sanctification, so that he be not able to trip thee up hereafter,” κ. τ. λ.
Another more literal reason was that those who were to be baptized used to go barefooted as a sign of humility. This going barefooted is called by S. Augustine (“On the Creed,” bk. ii. ch. 1) “the humility of the feet.” And so they used to wash off the stains contracted by their bare feet. This custom spread from the Church of Milan to other churches (see S. Augustine, Epp. 118, 119). Palladius, too, in his Lauriaca, ch. 73, tells how Serapion the Sindonite converted two comic actors, washed their feet and then baptized them; but afterwards, as a great many persons came to think that this washing of feet was sufficient without baptism, it was forbidden by the Council of Eliberis, ch. 48. The Church of Milan, however, continued the usage. Guisseppe Visconti treats at length of this subject in his De Ritibus Baptism (bk. iii. ch. 17, et seq.).
[8] Peter saith to him: Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him: If I wash thee not, thou shalt have no part with me.
Dicit ei Petrus : Non lavabis mihi pedes in aeternum. Respondit ei Jesus : Si non lavero te, non habebis partem mecum.
“Peter says to Him, Thou shalt never wash my feet.” Origin accuses Peter of headstrong audacity and disobedience, but S. Augustine (Tract. 56) rightly excuses him, inasmuch as this speech of his showed profound faith, reverence, fear, humility, and love. “I” (the words are St. Cyprian’s in his treatise on the washing of the feet), “I am ready to die with Thee, if needs be, for this I ought to do, this fate I embrace. For Thee I will gladly present my neck to the executioner; but my God and my Lord prostrate at my feet, this I suffer not, this I dare not endure.”
Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me. First, S. Augustine takes this mystically. Unless I wash away thy venial sins by penance I will not give thee the Eucharist, which I am about to institute, neither shalt thou enter heaven, for nothing that is defiled can enter there. So, too, St. Cyprian in his treatise on the washing of feet. Secondly, according to SS. Chrysostom and Cyril: Unless thou receive the lesson of humility which I give thee in this washing of feet, thou shalt have no part with Me, for only the humble attain to the grace and glory of God.
Thirdly, according to the letter: If thou, O Peter, persistest in thy disobedience, thou shalt not communicate with Me in the Eucharistic table,—I will give thee no part of the bread that is about to be consecrated into My body,—I will not have thee for My familiar friend and the companion of My sacred table. Christ threatens Peter with the loss of His intimate friendship and of the Eucharist, not the loss of His grace and glory; for though Peter was loathe to obey, yet this arose from his profound humility and reverence, and was, therefore, worthy of pardon. Toletus says: He threatened not to give Peter the Eucharist by which Christ was to abide in him and he in Christ; for it was chiefly for this that He washed their feet, so that they might be clean and fitly prepared to receive Him when He should give Himself to them and be really united to them. Peter did not distinctly understand what Christ said at the time, but only understood that he was to be cut off from Christ and have nothing in common with Him unless he underwent this washing; afterwards, however, he comprehended the mystery. There is a similar expression in 3 Kings 12:16, where the people, exasperated by the cruelty of Roboam, say, “What part have we in David? or what inheritance in the son of Jesse?”
S. Basil, in his “Discourse on Sin,” says, “For this reason threats of this kind were held out by Christ against Peter, that unless he had rectified his will by promptitude and quickening of obedience, not those wonderful blessings which had come to him from God, not his gifts, not the promises made to him, not even that declaration of such and so great a yearning towards the Only-Begotten Son of God the Father, would have served him to expiate his actual disobedience.” Hence S. Basil draws from this two remarkable rules of conduct:—“He that opposes himself to the commands of God, even though he do so with a pious and friendly intention, such an one is nevertheless for this cause estranged from the Lord.” And the second is:—“Whatever is said by the Lord, that ought we to receive with all the fulness of our heart.” (Reg. xii. ch. 2.)
[9] Dicit ei Simon Petrus : Domine, non tantum pedes meos, sed et manus, et caput.
Simon Peter saith to him: Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.
Simon Peter says to Him, Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head. Struck by the threat of Christ as by a thunderbolt, Peter obeys, and offers more than Christ had asked. Hence S. Basil in his Shorter Rules, 60th Answer, gives a useful rule:—“Whatever we have before resolved upon beside that which is commanded by the Lord must be rescinded. This is plainly shown in the case of the Apostle Peter, who had first resolved ‘Thou shalt never wash my feet,’ but when he heard the Lord say positively, ‘Unless I wash thee, thou shalt have no part with Me,’ straightway changed his mind and said, ‘Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands.’ ”
Again, in the 233rd Answer, St. Basil teaches us from this text that obedience is to be preferred to all the other virtues. “Peter,” he says, “although the Lord had borne him witness of such and so great meritorious acts, and had called him and pronounced him blessed in so singular a manner, yet, having in one point only seemed to turn aside from obedience, and that too not from negligence or pride, but from reverence and respect to his Lord,—for this and this only is it said to him, ‘Unless I wash thy feet, thou shalt have no part with Me.’ ”
[10] Dicit ei Jesus : Qui lotus est, non indiget nisi ut pedes lavet, sed est mundus totus. Et vos mundi estis, sed non omnes.
Jesus saith to him: He that is washed, needeth not but to wash his feet, but is clean wholly. And you are clean, but not all.
Jesus says to him, He that has been washed needeth not but to wash his feet, but is clean throughout. Observe that Christ here alludes to those who wash themselves in the baths and go out washed all over, but, walking barefoot on the ground soil their feet, and therefore afterwards wash them only. Again, observe that Christ, as His wont is, here rises from the corporal to the spiritual washing, thus—He that has been spiritually washed by baptism, as I, O apostles, have washed you, or he who has been washed by contrition and penance, such an one is washed all over in soul, but needs only to wash his feet, that is, purge frequently by contrition, bodily austerities, and the like virtues, the inclinations of the soul which is stained by contact with the things of earth, and contact from their slight impurities, and this is especially needful before receiving the Holy Eucharist.
SS. Augustine, Bede, Rupert, and S. Bernard in his Sermon on the Lord’s Supper, interpret more or less to this effect.
So Christ by this washing of feet purged away the sins of Peter and the apostles, especially their venial sins; for by means of this act of self-abasement He pricked their consciences and reminded them of that inward purification that must be made in the soul by contrition by means of which venial sins are expiated.
Lastly, S. Augustine in his 108th Letter to Seleucianus, gathers with some probability from the words “he that has been washed,” that Peter and the apostles had been baptized before the Eucharist; both because no one is qualified to receive the Eucharist without having been baptized, and also because Christ baptized them before His death, for after His death He baptized no one, and it is clear that they must all have been baptized either by Christ Himself or by others in His behalf. The expression appears to be rightly applicable to the washing which takes place in baptism.
And ye are clean, but not all. Christ secretly strives to provoke Judas to think better of his plot of wicked treason; still He would not mention him by name, lest He should bring him into bad odour, and the apostles should rise up against him as a traitor, and ill-use him.
[11] Sciebat enim quisnam esset qui traderet eum; propterea dixit : Non estis mundi omnes.
For he knew who he was that would betray him; therefore he said: You are not all clean.
For He knew who it was that should betray Him; wherefore He said, Ye are not all clean. From this S. Augustine gathers that Judas was then present, and had been washed by Christ, and that he received the Blessed Sacrament—(Bk ii. contra Petil. ch. 22.) S. Cyprian, however, in his treatise on the Washing of Feet, says that Judas was not present at the washing, nor, consequently, at the Eucharist.
[12] Postquam ergo lavit pedes eorum, et accepit vestimenta sua : cum recubuisset iterum, dixit eis : Scitis quid fecerim vobis?
Then after he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, being set down again, he said to them: Know you what I have done to you?
[13] Vos vocatis me Magister et Domine, et bene dicitis : sum etenim.
You call me Master, and Lord; and you say well, for so I am.
Ye call Me ‘Master’ and ‘Lord,’ and ye speak rightly, for so I am. Christ was Master and Lord of all men and of the whole world, not only as God but as man, and not only taught externally by speaking, as masters commonly do, but illuminated minds interiorly, and impelled the will whithersoever He would. See Matt. 22:10.
[14] Si ergo ego lavi pedes vestros, Dominus et Magister, et vos debetis alter alterutrum lavare pedes.
If then I being your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; you also ought to wash one another's feet.
[15] Exemplum enim dedi vobis, ut quemadmodum ego feci vobis, ita et vos faciatis.
For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also.
I have given you an example, that as I have done so ye may do also—not unto Me, seeing that I am even now going to death, but to others, your neighbours, when necessity or kindness shall require. For, as St. Gregory says in his preface to his books of Dialogues, “Examples stir us up to the love of our heavenly country more than preaching.” It was thus that Jesus began first to do and then to teach (Acts 1:1), and taught more by deed than by word. Hence S. Basil teaches that he who bears rule must first do those things which he teaches his subjects to do, and that he ought to excel his subjects in humility as he does in dignity. Christ foresaw that the apostles would soon be wrangling in their pride as to who should be the greater, so He put before them this example of humility to break down and suppress their ambition; and in the event He did if not crush at least break it.
[16] Amen, amen dico vobis : non est servus major domino suo : neque apostolus major est eo qui misit illum.
Amen, amen I say to you: The servant is not greater than his lord; neither is the apostle greater than he that sent him.
Verily, verily I say to you, The slave is not greater than his Lord, nor the messenger than He that sent him. Foreseeing the contention about the chief place which would soon follow, Christ insists on the humility which He is inculcating on His apostles.
[17] Si haec scitis, beati eritis si feceritis ea.
If you know these things, you shall be blessed if you do them.
If ye know these things, blessed shall ye be if ye do them. If you know these things—and who is ignorant that a master is greater than his slave?—you shall be blessed if, as you know them, you also act up to your knowledge in practice. Blessed in hope, though not yet in actuality;—blessed ye shall be after death if until then ye continue to do these things, and persevere in following Me, as I know that ye all will persevere excepting only Judas.
From The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ by J-J Tissot (1897)
Their Paschal duties performed in accordance with the requirements of the Jewish law, and before the inauguration of the new rite which Jesus was about to institute, the Lord and His disciples left the room in which they had kept the Passover, to repair to another divided into two parts by a curtain, on one side of which seats were provided for the new ceremony. The Apostles were seated in the same order as before, for already the Christian hierarchy may be said to have been founded. On the left, at the edge of the table, is Judas, succeeded by Saint Thomas, Saint Bartholomew, Saint James the less, who is bringing the water, saint James the Greater, and then Saint John, who is looking down at the the scene in which the feet are to be washed. The Saviour has taken up His position in the centre of the group, having on His left, that is to say on the right of the picture, Saint Peter, Saint Andrew, Saint Thaddæus, Saint Simon, Saint Matthew and Saint Philip. Jesus has begun with Philip, who is putting on his sandals again; the scene with Saint Peter, described in the sacred text, will take place in the centre, and the ceremony will conclude with the washing of the feet of Judas.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam
Ad Jesum per Mariam
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