Tractates on the Gospel of John 55–111

Tractate 57

TRACTATE 57 How the Church Fears to Soil Her Feet While She Is Going to Christ1 ot forgetful of my debt, I acknowledge that the time for payment is now. Let him who has given me the occasion of my indebtedness give me the means to pay it! For he gave the love about which it has been said, “Owe no debt to anyone except to love one another.”2 Let him also give the discourse that I see that I owe to my beloved people. I had, as you know, put off your expectation for this purpose, that I might explain, as best I could, how one may also come to Christ by way of the earth when we are rather bidden to seek the things that are above, not those that are upon the earth.3 For Christ is above, sitting at the right hand of the Father; but assuredly he is also here. And for that reason he says to Saul who is raging upon the earth: “Why do you persecute me?”4 (2) But the reason that we undertook this search was that passage [of the Gospel] which was being discussed, in which the Lord washed their feet for the disciples when the disciples themselves had already bathed and had no need except to wash their feet.5 And there it seemed that one ought to understand that a man is indeed wholly washed by baptism; but while he lives afterwards in this world, treading on the earth with human affections as if with feet, by the very conduct of his life, 1. This tractate does not treat the text of Jn next in sequence but has to do with the question raised in the previous tractate, which Augustine did not answer because of a lack of time (see Tractate 56.5). He explains the circumstances in section 1. The discussion of the Gospel continues in Tractate 58. 2. Rom 13.8. 3. Cf. Col 3.1–2. 4. Acts 9.4. 5. See Jn 13.10 and Tractate 56.3, note 2. 13 ST. AUGUSTINE 14 of course, he incurs that for which he says, “Forgive us our debts.”6 And so from that too he is cleansed by him who washed their feet for his disciples and who does not cease to intercede for us.7 In connection with this there came to mind from the Song of Songs the words of the Church, saying, “I have washed my feet; how shall I soil them?”8 when she wanted to go and to open to him who had come to her and had knocked, and had demanded that it be opened to him, the one beautiful in form beyond the sons of men.9 Hence the question arose which we were unwilling to curtail by the shortness of time, and so we put it off: how the Church, while on her way to Christ, fears to soil her feet, which she had washed with the baptism of Christ. 2. For so she says, “I am sleeping, and my heart keeps vigil; the voice of my beloved knocks at the door.”10 Then he says, “Open to me, my sister, my intimate one, my dove, my perfect one! For my head is full of dew, and my hair of the drops of the night.” And she answers, “I have taken off my robe; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I soil them?”11 (2) Oh, wondrous symbol!12 Oh, mighty mystery! Does she fear, then, to soil her feet by coming to him who washed the feet of his disciples? Certainly, she fears because she comes by way of the earth to him who is also on the earth, because he does not forsake his own who have been established here. Does he not himself say, “Behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the world”?13 Does he not say himself, “You shall see the heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and de6 . Mt 6.12; cf. Lk 11.4. 7. Rom. 8.34. 8. Cant (Song) 5.3. 9. Cf. Ps 44 (45).3. 10. Cant (Song) 5.2. The Latin word for “lover” is fratruelis, which literally means “a father’s brother’s son,” i.e., a cousin, and which translates the LXX Greek ∆ adelfidov". The Itala has fratruelis; the Vulgate reads dilectus , the beloved. See TLL 6.1.1260–61...