Jesus answered and said unto him,
What I do you know not now; but you shall know hereafter.
All Commentaries on John 13:7 Go To John 13
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
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, ch6), "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." "Hereafter thou shalt know," that Isaiah , first, "when I shall tell you (ver14) 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, 0 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 ( Ephesians 1 , contra Novat.), S. Gregory (bk. ix. Ephesians 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 layer 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. ch1 , and in De iis qui initiantur, ch6) 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 tidings1" ( Isaiah 1ii7.) 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 Isaiah , 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, ch6) 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 he taken away." He alludes here to the word spoken by God to the serpent, "Thou shalt ensnare his heel"
( Genesis 3:15). The same Saint says again (De Sacram, book iii. ch1), "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," bk2ch1) "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, Epp118 , 119). Palladius, too, in his Lauriaca, ch73 , 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, ch48. The Church of Milan, however, continued the usage. Guisseppe Visconti treats at length of this subject in his De Ritibus Baptism (bk. iii. ch17 , et seq. ).
