that the man who sat there in their midst, who ate and drank, toiled and rested, slept and prayed, could be the Son of God, and therefore God Himself.

He then tells them how all His words in teaching and instructing were prepared for Him from Eternity. His Father and He are one. Every word and act of His life, although performed through His Humanity, chiefly had their origin in His Divinity, and therefore were to be predicated of the Divine Person which took human nature.

1Keep them not.-This alluded to those who believed in Him privately but were ashamed to confess, as well as to those who would believe in Him in future, but not follow His example.

Not to judge. He did not judge it whilst here amongst us, but He will judge it after the death of each member, and at the Final Accounting Day.

3One that judgeth him.-This refers to the eternal law of justice, which is one of those things necessary to be believed before a person can get Sacraments.

4The word ... the last day. This is a Hebraism for he shall stand or fall on the last day by his keeping or non-keeping of the Word that I have spoken.

Of myself. I have not spoken as man, or an ordinary Rabbi or teacher. I have spoken the truths which the Holy Trinity would have revealed.

"What I should say.-There were things I was obliged to conceal (like the time and hour of the Judgment), and things I had to reveal. All this was pre-arranged in the councils of the Most High.

"Life everlasting.-That alone is the object of my coming, my teaching, my dying.

8 So do I speak.—I have kept to the lines arranged most strictly and clearly. The work is done.

CHAPTER XIII.

Christ washes his disciples' feet: the treason of Judas: the new commandment of love.

1. Ante diem festum Paschæ, sciens JESUS quia venit hora ejus ut transeat ex hoc mundo ad Patrem, cùm dilexisset suos qui erant in mundo, in finem dilexit eos.

2. Et, cœnâ, factâ cùm diabolus jàm misisset in cor ut traderet eum Judas Simonis Iscariothæ,

3. Sciens quia omnia dedit ei Pater in manus, et quia à DEO exivit et ad DEUM vadit,

4. Surgit à cœnâ et ponit. vestimenta sua, et, cùm accepisset linteum, præcinxit se;

5. Deindè mittit aquam in pelvim, et cœpit lavare pedes discipulorum, et extergere linteo quo erat præcinctus.

1. 'Before the festival day of the pasch, Jesus knowing that his hour was come that he should pass out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

2. And when supper was done, the devil having 'now put into the heart of Judas the son of Simon, the Iscariot, to betray him:

3. Knowing that the Father had given him all things into his hands, and that he came from God, and goeth to God;

4. He riseth from supper, and layeth aside his garments; and having taken a towel, 'he girded himself.

5. After that he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the feet of the disciples, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. have been written upon the order We have read many of them and Father Corluy is the latest com

Very elaborate dissertations of things at the Last Supper. found few of them agreeing. mentator on S. John, and he devotes many pages to this subject. We follow him in all but two things, in which we think the weight of evidence is against him. 1st. He thinks Judas went before the Institution of the Eucharist, this is against the almost unanimous

opinion of the Fathers. 2nd. We think the long discourse began after the Eucharist and was not interrupted by it at verse 32.

Our order then is this: After sunset on the Thursday, 1st. They ate the Paschal Lamb. 2nd. They began their ordinary supper. 3rd. They contended who was greatest. 4th. Jesus got up and washed their feet. 5th. He institutes the Eucharist. 6th. He declares the traitor. 7th. Judas goes to do his work. 8th. The last discourse to His disciples. We have no room for the dissertations to prove our conclusions.

Before the festival day.-There is a controversy, which we do not expect to settle, about S. John's expression. The simplest solution is that he uses the Greek mode of computation, from midnight to midnight, and the Synoptists the Hebrew. Friday began with them at sunset; for the Greeks at midnight. Then the supper was before, not on, the day of the Pasch.

2His hour was come.-John gives a tone of deep solemnity.

3To the end.-There are many explanations of this. The Greek Fathers (who are now followed by most writers) say it was to the end, the very excess of love. This was the Eucharist.

Now put into the heart.—Judas had made his bargain six days before this, but he had not the courage to carry it out until this new coming of the evil one. With this he braved his two sacrileges.

All things. He first humbles Himself, and then institutes the Great Sacrament which perpetuates His presence and proves His Divinity. "His garments.-These were ceremonious garments put on for grand occasions, and were very large and roomy.

"He girded himself. This was to dispense with an attendant.

8Wash the feet. This was done just as they were contending who was greatest among them. He gave them a great lesson which He enforced afterwards.

6. Venit ergò ad Simonem Petrum. Et dicit ei Petrus: "Domine, tu mihi lavas pedes?"

7. Respondit Jesus et dixit ei : Quod ego facio tu nescis modò, scies autem posteà."

"Non

8. Dicit ei Petrus: lavabis mihi pedes in æternum!" Respondit ei JESUS: Si non lavero te, non habebis partem mecum."

9. Dicit ei Simon Petrus : "Domine, non tantùm pedes meos, sed et manus et caput."

10. Dicit ei JESUS: "Qui lotus est non indiget nisi ut pedes lavet, sed est mundus totus. Et vos mundi estis, sed non omnes."

11. Sciebat enim quisnam esset qui traderet eum: proptereà dixit: "Non estis mundi omnes."

6. He cometh, therefore, to Simon Peter. And Peter saith to him: Lord, 'dost thou wash my feet?

7. Jesus answered and said to him: What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.

8. Peter saith to him: Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him: If I wash thee not, thou shalt have "no part with me.

9. Simon Peter saith to him: Lord, not only my feet, but also 'my hands and my head.

10. Jesus saith to him: He that is washed needeth not but to wash his feet, but is clean wholly. And you are clean, but not all.

11. For he knew who he was that would "betray him; therefore he said: You are not all clean.

The washing of the feet of the Apostles by Our Lord had a great significance in the early ages of the Church-nor is it forgotten even in our times.

The ceremony seemed to arise from their contention about superiority. It was certain that Peter was promised a headship of some kind or other, and James and John were privileged friends of Our Lord. They were all on an equality up to this except that Peter was recognised as being something beyond the

rest.

Now, Our Divine Lord, to show them that a superior, in reality, is the servant of those he governs and has to submit himself to their wishes oftener than they submit to him, performed this servile act for the behoof of their feet as well as their understandings. He would explain its significance to them after

the ceremony was over, and then they should begin to learn how to deport themselves in future when He should be gone, and each of them a superior in that portion of the Church in which His work was being done.

This is the first significance.

Again, the body was washed by respectable Jews before dining, and the soles of their feet alone-or if the weather was wet or the roads dirty-the rest of the foot as far as the ancles had to be washed in order that they might be all clean when they reclined at the solemn meal.

A very solemn meal was now about to be partaken of. A meal which Our Lord had foretold in Capharnaum and the announcement of which (see S. John chapter vi.) lost Him so many followers. The time was come for that; and as it had to be partaken of with cleanness of soul as well as cleanness of body, Our Lord washed their feet. This is insinuated very clearly in

verse II.

Those who think (S. Augustine or his continuator, for that portion of his works is not considered genuine) that Our Lord baptised the Apostles at the last supper have very slender grounds for their opinion. They must have been baptised on the day in which they were formed into a body, or perhaps before, else He would not have given them the spiritual powers which we know they exercised.

The rite of feet ablution is generally supposed to have taken away their venial sins; just as we teach that the taking of holywater at the church takes them away in our day.

Many old rituals had the washing of the feet before Baptism: and S. Ambrose observed this rite in Milan. He even found fault with neighbouring Churches for omitting it. The same rite prevailed in other places and a Spanish council suppressed it within its range in the fifth century.

Nowadays, the Pope, in his palace or the chapel attached to it, religious superiors in their churches, and sometimes bishops in their cathedrals carry out the sacred rite on Holy Thursday only.

It has come to be a mere rite and not even one of the Sacramentalia in the modern liturgy of the Church.

Peter was the first washed, according to some, and the last