Tractates on the Gospel of John 56.1–58.5

When the Lord was washing the disciples' feet, "he came to Simon Peter; and Peter says to him: Lord, do you wash my feet?" For who would not be afraid to have his feet washed by the Son of God? So although it was a great boldness for a servant to contradict his Lord, a man his God, yet Peter preferred to do this rather than allow his feet to be washed by his Lord and God. Nor ought we to think that Peter, among the others, was afraid and refused, when others before him had willingly or calmly allowed it to be done to them. For these words of the Gospel are more easily taken in that way, because when it had been said, "He began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded," it was then added, "So he came to Simon Peter," as if he had already washed some and after them had come to the first. For who does not know that the most blessed Peter is the first of the apostles? But it is not to be understood that he came to him after some others, but that he began with him. So when he began to wash the disciples' feet, he came to the one with whom he began, that is, to Peter; and then Peter was afraid, as any of them would have been, and said, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" What is "you"? What is "my"? They are to be pondered rather than spoken, lest perhaps the tongue fail to express what the soul conceives in some measure worthily from these words.

"But Jesus answered and said to him: What I am doing you do not know now, but you will know afterwards." Yet he, terrified by the depth of the Lord's act, does not allow to be done what he did not know the reason for; but he will not yet see, he cannot bear, Christ humbled even to his feet. "You shall never wash my feet," he says. What is "never" (literally, "for ever")? I will never bear this, never suffer it, never allow it; for what never happens does not happen for ever. Then the Saviour, frightening the reluctant sick man with the danger to his very salvation, says: "If I do not wash you, you will have no part with me." "If I do not wash you" was said in this way, when only the feet were in question, as people are accustomed to say, "You are treading on me," when only the sole of the foot is trodden on. But he, disturbed by love and fear, and more afraid of Christ's being denied him than of his being humbled even to his feet, says: "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." Since you threaten me so, my members must be washed by you: I not only do not withdraw the lowest, but I also set the first beneath you. So that you may not deny me a part to take with you, I deny you no part of my body to wash.

"Jesus says to him: He who has been washed has no need but to wash his feet, but is clean all over." Here perhaps someone may be moved and say: "On the contrary, if he is clean all over, what need has he even to wash his feet?" But the Lord knew what he was saying, even if our weakness does not penetrate his secrets. Nevertheless, as far as he deigns to instruct us and teach us from his law, according to my capacity and in my small measure, let me too, with his help, make some answer about the depth of this question. And first I will very easily show that the expression itself is not self-contradictory. For who could not very properly say, "He is clean all over, except his feet"? But he speaks more elegantly if he says, "He is clean all over, but for his feet," which means the same. This, then, is what the Lord says: "He has no need but to wash his feet, but is clean all over": all over, that is, except his feet, or but for his feet, which he needs to wash.

But what is this? What does it mean? Why is it necessary for us to seek it? The Lord says, the Truth speaks, that even he who has been washed needs to wash his feet. What, my brothers, what do you think? Only that in holy baptism a man is indeed washed all over, not except the feet, but altogether all over; yet when afterwards he lives among human affairs, he certainly treads the earth. So the human affections themselves, without which there is no living in this mortality, are like feet, by which we are affected by human things; and we are so affected that, "if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." So he washes our feet daily, who intercedes for us; and that we daily need to wash our feet, that is, to direct the ways of our spiritual steps, we confess in the Lord's Prayer itself, when we say, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." For if, as it is written, "we confess our sins," then surely he who washed his disciples' feet "is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness," that is, even to the feet with which we walk on the earth.

Accordingly, the Church, which Christ cleanses "with the washing of water in the word," is "without spot or wrinkle" not only in those who after "the washing of regeneration" are at once taken away from the contagion of this life, and do not tread the earth so as to need their feet washed; but also in those to whom the Lord has shown this mercy, that he made them depart from this world with their feet too washed. But in those who remain here, even if it is clean because they live justly, they still need to wash their feet, since they are certainly not without sin. For this reason it says in the Song of Songs: "I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?" For it says this when it is compelled to come to Christ, and to tread the earth when it comes. Another question arises again. Is not Christ above? Did he not ascend into heaven, and does he not sit at the right hand of the Father? Does not the Apostle cry out and say: "If then you have risen with Christ, mind the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things on the earth"? How, then, are we compelled to tread the earth in order to go to Christ, when rather we ought to have our heart lifted up to the Lord, so that we may be with him? You see, brothers, that the shortness of today's time cramps this question. And even if you perhaps see it less, I at least see how great a discussion it needs. So I ask that you allow it to be postponed rather than treated carelessly or cramped, your expectation not cheated but deferred. For the Lord will be present, who makes us debtors, so that he may also make us payers.

Not forgetful of my debt, I recognize that the time has now come to pay it. May he who granted that I should owe grant me the means to pay. For he granted love, of which it is said, "Owe no one anything, except to love one another"; may he also grant the sermon which I see I owe to those I love. I had deferred your expectation, namely, so that I might explain as best I could how one comes to Christ even by way of the earth, when we are commanded rather to seek the things that are above, not the things on the earth. For Christ is above, sitting at the right hand of the Father; but surely he is also here, which is why he says to Saul raging on earth, "Why are you persecuting me?" Now we came to take up this inquiry while we were treating of the Lord's washing his disciples' feet, when the disciples themselves had already been washed and had no need but to wash their feet. There it seemed we should understand that in baptism a man is indeed washed all over; but while he afterwards lives in this world, treading the earth as it were with the feet of human affections, through the very manner of life in this world he contracts that for which he says, "Forgive us our debts." And so he is cleansed from that too by him who washed his disciples' feet and does not cease to intercede for us. Then there came to mind the words of the Church from the Song of Songs, saying, "I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?" when she wished to go and open to him who had come to her and knocked and asked that she open to him, he who is "fair in form above the sons of men." From this arose the question which we were unwilling to cramp within the narrow limits of time, and so deferred: how the Church fears to defile, while going to Christ, the feet she had washed in Christ's baptism.

For she says thus: "I sleep, and my heart is awake; the voice of my kinsman knocks at the door." Then he himself also says: "Open to me, my sister, my neighbour, my dove, my perfect one; for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night." And she answers: "I have put off my tunic; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?" O admirable sacrament! O great mystery! Does she then fear to defile her feet by coming to him who washed his disciples' feet? She fears indeed, because she comes to him by way of the earth, since he is also on earth, because he does not forsake his own who are set here. Does he not himself say, "Behold, I am with you even to the end of the world"? Does he not himself say, "You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending to the Son of Man"? If they ascend to him because he is above, how do they descend to him if he is not also here? So the Church says: "I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?" She says this in those who, cleansed of all dregs, can say: "I desire to depart and be with Christ; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake." She says this in those who preach Christ and open the door to him, so that he may dwell through faith in the hearts of men. She says this in them when they deliberate whether to undertake such a ministry, for which they think themselves less fit to fulfil it without fault, lest perhaps, preaching to others, they themselves become reprobate. For the truth is heard more safely than it is preached; because when it is heard humility is guarded, but when it is preached some little boasting almost inevitably creeps in upon any man, and by this the feet are certainly defiled.

Therefore, as the apostle James says, "Let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak." Another man of God also says, "To my hearing you will give joy and gladness, and the bones that were humbled will rejoice." This is what I said: when the truth is heard, humility is guarded. Another also says, "But the friend of the bridegroom stands and hears him, and rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice." Let us enjoy hearing, while the truth speaks to us within without noise. Although even when it sounds outwardly through one who reads, announces, preaches, disputes, commands, consoles, exhorts, or even sings and chants psalms, those who do these things should fear to defile their feet, when, through the creeping love of human praise, they aim to please men. But he who hears them willingly and devoutly has no occasion to boast in other men's labours; and with bones not puffed up but humbled he rejoices greatly because of the voice of the Lord's truth. Accordingly, let the holy Church take delight in those who know how to hear willingly and humbly, and who lead a quiet life in sweet and wholesome studies, and let her say, "I sleep, and my heart is awake." What is "I sleep, and my heart is awake," if not "I rest in such a way that I may hear"? My leisure is not spent in nourishing idleness, but in acquiring wisdom. "I sleep, and my heart is awake": I am at leisure, and I see that you are the Lord; because "the wisdom of the scribe is in the time of leisure, and he who is lessened in business will acquire it." "I sleep, and my heart is awake": I rest from busy activities, and my mind strains toward divine affections.

But while the Church takes her leisure delightfully in those who rest in this way sweetly and humbly, see, he knocks who says: "What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops." So his voice knocks at the door and says: "Open to me, my sister, my neighbour, my dove, my perfect one; for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night." As if he said: You are at leisure, and the door is shut against me; you are devoted to the leisure of a few, and because iniquity abounds the love of many grows cold. For the night is iniquity; and its dew and drops are those who grow cold and fall, and make the head of Christ grow cold, that is, so that God is not loved. For "the head of Christ is God." But they are carried in the locks, that is, they are tolerated in the visible sacraments; they in no way reach the inner senses. So he knocks to shake off the quiet of the saints at leisure, and cries, "Open to me": my sister by my blood, my neighbour by my approach, my dove by my Spirit, my perfect one by my word which you have learned more fully from your leisure; open to me, preach me. For how shall I enter to those who have shut the door against me, without one who opens? "For how will they hear without a preacher?"

Hence it comes about that even those who love the leisure of good studies, and are unwilling to endure the troubles of laborious activities, because they feel themselves less fit to administer these things and to do them without blame, would prefer, if it were possible, that the holy apostles and the ancient preachers of the truth should be raised up against the abundance of iniquity, by which the fervour of love has grown cold. But in those who have already gone out of the body and been stripped of the garment of the flesh (for they are not separated from her), the Church answers, "I have put off my tunic; how shall I put it on?" That tunic will indeed be received again, and in those who have already put it off the Church will again be clothed with flesh: not, however, now, when the cold are to be made warm, but then, when the dead are to rise. Suffering difficulty, then, through the want of preachers, and recalling those members of hers, sound in their words, holy in their lives, but already stripped of their bodies, the Church groans and says, "I have put off my tunic; how shall I put it on?" Those members of mine who were able most excellently to open to Christ by preaching the gospel, how can they now return to the bodies of which they have been stripped?

Then, looking at those who can preach, and gain peoples and govern them, and so open to Christ in some measure, but who fear to sin amid these difficulties of activity, she says: "I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?" For "whoever does not stumble in word is a perfect man." And who is perfect? Who is there who does not stumble amid such an abundance of iniquity, such coldness of love? "I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?" Since I read and hear, "Do not become many teachers, my brothers, for you will receive a greater judgment; for in many things we all stumble." "I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?" But see, I rise and open. Christ, wash them: "Forgive us our debts," since our love is not extinguished: "because we too forgive our debtors." When we hear you, the humbled bones rejoice with you in the heavenly places. But when we preach you, we tread the earth in order to open to you: and so if we are blamed, we are disturbed; if we are praised, we are puffed up. Wash our feet, cleansed before, but defiled when we go over the earth to open to you. Let this be enough for you today, dearly beloved. If perhaps we have stumbled by saying something otherwise than we ought, or have been lifted up by your praises more immoderately than we ought, obtain cleansing for our feet by your prayers pleasing to God.

We have already expounded to your Love, as the Lord deigned to grant, those words of the Gospel where the Lord, washing his disciples' feet, says, "He who has once been washed has no need except to wash his feet, but is clean all over." Now let us see what follows. "And you," he says, "are clean, but not all." So that we might not have to ask what this means, the evangelist himself made it plain, adding: "For he knew who it was that would betray him; therefore he said, You are not all clean." What could be plainer? So let us pass on to what follows.

"So after he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, when he had reclined again, he said to them: Do you know what I have done to you?" Now is the time for that promise to be paid to blessed Peter; for it had been deferred when, to him who was afraid and said, "You shall never wash my feet," the answer was given, "What I am doing you do not know now, but you will know afterwards." See, here is that very "afterwards"; now it is time to say what was deferred a little before. So the Lord, mindful that he had promised some time before the knowledge of his act, so unexpected, so wonderful, so fearful, and one that would by no means have been allowed had he not strongly terrified him, that the master not only of them but of the angels, and the Lord not only of them but of all things, should wash the feet of his disciples and servants: since, then, he had promised the knowledge of so great an act, saying, "But you will know afterwards," he now begins to teach what it is that he did.

"You call me Master and Lord: and you say well, for so I am." "You say well," because you say the truth; for I am what you say. To man it is commanded, "Let not your own mouth praise you, but let your neighbour's mouth praise you." For it is dangerous for one to be pleased with himself who must beware of pride. But he who is above all things, however much he praises himself, does not exalt himself, being already exalted; nor can God rightly be called arrogant. For it profits us to know him, not him; nor does anyone know him unless he who knows himself makes himself known. If, then, by not praising himself he wished to avoid arrogance, as it were, he would deny us wisdom. And no one would blame him for saying he is a master, even one who believed him to be nothing but a man; for he professes what men themselves profess in any arts without arrogance, so much so that they are called professors. But that he calls himself also the lord of his disciples, when they were freeborn even according to the world, who would bear in a man? But it is God who speaks. Here there is no elation in so great a height, no lie in the truth: it is profitable for us to be subject to that height, profitable for us to serve the truth. That he calls himself Lord is no fault in him, but a benefit to us. The words of a certain secular author are praised, because he said, "While all arrogance is hateful, that of talent and eloquence is by far the most offensive"; and yet the same man, when speaking of his own eloquence, said, "I would call it perfect, if I judged it so; nor in the truth would I fear the charge of arrogance." If, then, that most eloquent man would not fear arrogance in the truth, how should the Truth itself fear arrogance? Let him who is Lord call himself Lord, let him who is the Truth speak the truth; lest I fail to learn what is profitable while he keeps silent about what he is. The most blessed Paul, certainly not the only-begotten Son of God, but the servant and apostle of the only-begotten Son of God; not the truth, but a partaker of the truth, says freely and firmly, "For if I wish to glory, I shall not be foolish; for I speak the truth." For he would glory both humbly and truly, not in himself but in the truth itself, which is higher than he; since he himself also commanded that he who glories should glory in the Lord. Would the lover of wisdom, then, not fear folly if he wished to glory, and would Wisdom itself fear folly in its own glory? He did not fear arrogance who said, "My soul shall be praised in the Lord"; and would the power of the Lord, in which the servant's soul is praised, fear arrogance in its own praise? "You call me Master and Lord: and you say well, for so I am." You say well because I am; for if I were not what you say, you would say ill, even if you praised me. How, then, would the Truth deny what the disciples of the Truth say? How would the source from which they learned deny what those who learned say? How does the fountain deny what the drinker proclaims? How does the light hide what the seer points out?

"If I, then," he says, "your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you also should do." This, blessed Peter, is what you did not know when you would not allow it to be done. This he promised you would know afterwards, when your Master and your Lord, washing your feet, frightened you into allowing it. We have learned humility, brothers, from the Most High; let us, being humble, do for one another what the Most High did humbly. Great is this commendation of humility; and brothers do this for one another even by the visible act itself, when they receive one another in hospitality; for among very many there is the custom of this humility, carried as far as the deed in which it is plainly expressed. Hence the Apostle, when he commended a widow of good desert, said, "if she has received guests, if she has washed the feet of the saints." And among the saints, wherever this custom does not exist, what they do not do with the hand they do in the heart, if they are among those to whom it is said in the hymn of the three blessed men, "Bless the Lord, you holy and humble of heart." But it is much better, and beyond dispute more true, that it be done with the hands too; and let not the Christian disdain to do what Christ did. For when the body is bowed at a brother's feet, the feeling of humility itself is either stirred up in the heart too, or, if it was already there, strengthened.

But apart from this moral understanding, we remember that we commended the depth of this act of the Lord in this way: that by washing the feet of disciples already washed and clean, the Lord signified that, because of the human affections with which we live on earth, however far we have advanced in grasping righteousness, we should know that we are not without sin; which he washes away from time to time by interceding for us, when we pray the Father who is in heaven to forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. How, then, can what he afterwards taught belong to this understanding, where he explained the reason of his act, saying, "If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you also should do"? Can we say that a brother too can cleanse a brother from the contagion of sin? On the contrary, let us recognize that we too have been admonished of this in the depth of this work of the Lord: that, confessing our sins to one another, we should pray for one another, just as Christ also intercedes for us. Let us hear the apostle James most plainly commanding this very thing, and saying, "Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another." For of this too the Lord gave us an example. For if he who neither has, nor had, nor will have any sin prays for our sins, how much more ought we to pray for one another's? And if he forgives us, to whom we have nothing to forgive, how much more ought we to forgive one another, who cannot live here without sin? For what does the Lord seem to signify in the depth of this sacrament, when he says, "For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you also should do," if not what the Apostle says most plainly, "Forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also"? So let us forgive one another our sins, and pray for one another's sins, and thus in a way wash one another's feet. It is ours, by his gift, to render the service of love and humility; it is his to hear us and cleanse us from all defilement of sins through Christ and in Christ; so that what we too forgive others, that is, loose on earth, may be loosed in heaven.