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Joh 13:14. Καὶ ὑμεῖς, ye also) The washing of their feet, which the Lord performed for His disciples, had as its object both the benefit of conferring on them complete purity, and the inculcation of the lesson of humble love, which they needed to be taught: Joh 13:34, with which comp. Joh 13:1, “A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” “Having loved His own-He loved them to the end.” Thence it follows, that the disciples’ mutual washing of one another’s feet has this as its object, that one should assist the other in every possible way towards attaining purity of soul; and that one should wash the feet of the other, either literally, 1Ti 5:10, “well reported for good works;-if she have washed the saints’ feet,” and that in good earnest, if, namely, it should happen to be needed: for it is an affirmative [positive] precept, obligatory always [where needed], but not under all circumstances [i.e. not, where it is not needed], such as is also the character of that precept, 1Jn 3:16, “We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren;” or the precept is to be obeyed ‘synecdochically’ [i.e. the one particular of washing feet being put for the whole circle of offices of self-denying love], by means of all kinds of offices which one can render to another, even servile and mean offices, if only the occasion require them. Therefore the Lord, by the very act of washing their feet, purified the disciples; wherefore also He lovingly compelled Peter to submit to it: but it was not on this account [with a view to purification thereby] that He enjoined on the disciples mutual washing of one another’s feet; nor is there such great necessity of imitating up to the very letter the Lord’s act of feet washing, as some have decided there is: inasmuch as, for instance, John on no occasion washed the feet of Thomas: and yet there is a greater similarity between the cases of feet-washing by the Lord, and that by brethren mutually, than most persons recognise. In our day, popes and princes imitate the feet-washing to the letter; but a greater subject for admiration would be, for instance, a pope, in unaffected humility, washing the feet of one king [his own equal in rank, and so the exact analogue to the disciples’ mutual washing as brethren] than the feet of twelve paupers. Now that I have made these observations, let me recommend to the reader’s study the dissert. of Ittigius, “de Pedilavio.”-ὀφείλετε, ye ought) because of My example: with which comp. γάρ, for, Joh 13:15.