For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.
Read Chapter 13
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
1. We have already, beloved, as the Lord was pleased to enable us, expounded to you those words of the Gospel, where the Lord, in washing His disciples' feet, says, He that is once washed needs not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit. Let us now look at what follows. And ye, He says, are clean, but not all. And to remove the need of inquiry on our part, the evangelist has himself explained its meaning, by adding: For He knew who it was that should betray Him; therefore said He, You are not all clean. Can anything be clearer? Let us therefore pass to what follows.
2. So, after He had washed their feet, and had taken His garments, and was set down again, He said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Now it is that the blessed Peter gets that promise fulfilled: for he had been put off when, in the midst of his trembling and asserting, You shall never wash my feet, he received the answer, What I do, you know not now, but you shall know hereafter (vers. 7-8). Here, then,...
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 i1), 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.
