1-38 CHAPTER 13 VER. 1. _Before the Feast of the Passover._ About the thirteenth day of the first month; the Passover, say the Greeks, having to be celebrated by the Law of the Jews on the fourteenth day. For they make out from these very words of John that Christ, on account of the approach of His... [ Continue Reading ]
_Then He puts water into a bason 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 carefull... [ Continue Reading ]
_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... [ Continue Reading ]
_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 there... [ Continue Reading ]
_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.... [ Continue Reading ]
_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 th... [ Continue Reading ]
_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... [ Continue Reading ]
_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. VER. 17. _If Ye know these things, blessed... [ Continue Reading ]
. _speak not of you all_, because I know that Judas will not do these things which I have said. _I know whom I have chosen._ S. Augustine (Tract. 59) explains this with reference to the eternal predestination and election to glory by God: I speak not of all, but of those only whom I have chosen to g... [ Continue Reading ]
_I say to you at once, before it come to pass, that when it come to pass ye may believe that I am._ _Now_, in the Greek, _απ άζτι_, which may be translated _from now_ or _from this time_, as in the Syriac Version, or, as here, _straightway_, _forthwith_, indicating the treachery of Judas to be near... [ Continue Reading ]
_Verily, verily I say to you, that He that receives him whom I have sent, receives Me; and he that receives Me receives Him that sent Me_. It is not clear how these words are connected with those which precede. First Chrysostom (_Hom_. 21), and Theophylact after him, refer them to the passion and cr... [ Continue Reading ]
_When He had said these things, Jesus was troubled in spirit, and testified_ (openly and plainly), _saying, Verily, I say unto you, that one of you will betray Me_. In the Syriac, "These things said Jeschua, and groaned in spirit, and testified and said, Amin, amin, I say to you," _κ.τ.λ._ In the Ar... [ Continue Reading ]
_Therefore the disciples began to look at one another, doubting of whom He was speaking_, and asking, too, one by one, "Lord, is it I?" For, as Chrysostom says, "Because He did not speak of His betrayer by name, He brought fear upon all, and, though conscious to themselves of nothing evil, they yet... [ Continue Reading ]
_Simon Peter, therefore, gave him a sign, and said to him, Who is it of whom He speaks_? Hence it is plain that Peter not only gave a sign to John by winking and nodding, as S. Augustine would have it, but also spoke to him quietly, as John here relates. Such is the opinion of Origen, Chrysostom, an... [ Continue Reading ]