John 13:12

Now when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments, and sat down, He said, "Know ye what I have done unto you?" He no longer addresseth Himself to Peter only, but to them all. "Ye call Me Lord and Master, and ye say well, for so I am." "Ye call Me." He taketh to Him their judgment, and then that the words may not be thought to be words of their kindness, He addeth, "for so I am." By introducing a saying of theirs, He maketh it not offensive, and by confirming it Himself when introduced from them, unsuspected. "For so I am," He saith. Seest thou how when He converseth with the disciples, He speaketh revealing more what belongeth unto Himself?

(Tr. lviii. 2) Our Lord, mindful of His promise to Peter that he should know the meaning of His act, Thou shalt know hereafter, now begins to teach him: So after He had washed their feet, and had taken His garments, and was sat down again, He said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you?

"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, "Thou shalt never wash my feet," he received the answer, "What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." Here, then, is that very hereafter; it is now time to tell what was a little ago deferred. Accordingly, the Lord, mindful of His foregoing promise to make him understand an act of His so unexpected, so wonderful, so frightening, and, but for His own still more terrifying rejoinder, impossible to be permitted, that the Master not only of themselves, but of angels, and the Lord not only of them, but of all things, should wash the feet of His own disciples and servants: having then promised to let him know the meaning of so important an act, when He said, "Thou shalt know afterwards," begins now to show them what it was that He did. "Ye call me," He says, "Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am." "Ye say well," for ye only say the truth; I am indeed what ye say. There is a precept laid on man: "Let not thine own mouth praise thee, but the mouth of thy neighbor." For self-pleasing is a perilous thing for one who has to be on his guard against falling into pride. But He who is over all things, however much He commend Himself, cannot exalt Himself above His actual dignity: for God cannot be rightly termed arrogant. For it is to our advantage to know Him, not to His; nor can any one know Him, unless that self-knowing One make Himself known. If He, then, by abstaining from self-commendation, wish, as it were, to avoid arrogance, He will deny us the power of knowing Him. And no one surely would blame Him for calling Himself Master, even though believing Him to be nothing more than a man; seeing He only makes profession of what even men themselves in the various arts profess to such an extent, without any charge of arrogance, that they are termed professors. But to call Himself also the Lord of His disciples,—of men who, in an earthly sense, were themselves also free-born,—who would tolerate it in a man? But it is God that speaks. Here no elation is possible to loftiness so great, no lie to the truth: the profit is ours to be the subjects of such loftiness, the servants of the truth. That He calls Himself Lord is no imperfection on His side, but a benefit on ours. The words of a certain profane author are commended, when he says, "All arrogance is hateful, and specially disagreeable is that of talent and eloquence;" and yet, when the same person was speaking of his own eloquence, he said, "I would call it perfect, were I to pronounce judgment; nor, in truth, would I greatly fear the charge of arrogance." If, then, that most eloquent man had in truth no fear of being charged with arrogance, how can the truth itself have such a fear? Let Him call Himself Lord who is the Lord, let Him say what is true who is the Truth; so that I may not fail to learn that which is profitable, by His being silent about that which is. The most blessed Paul—certainly not himself the only-begotten Son of God, but the servant and apostle of that Son; not the Truth, but a partaker of the truth—declares with freedom and consistency, "And though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I say the truth." For it would not be in himself, but in the truth, which is superior to himself, that he was glorying both humbly and truly: for it is he also who has given the charge, that he that glorieth should glory in the Lord. Could thus the lover of wisdom have no fear of being chargeable with foolishness, though he desired to glory, and would wisdom itself, in its glorying, have any fear of such a charge? He had no fear of arrogance who said, "My soul shall make her boast in the Lord;" and could the power of the Lord have any such fear in commending itself, in w

Our Lord first did a thing, then taught it: as it is said, Jesus began both to do and to teach. (Acts 1:1)

Mystically, when at our redemption we were changed by the shedding of His blood, He took again His garments, rising from the grave the third day, and clothed in the same body now immortal, ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father, from whence He shall come to judge the world.