Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - John 13:5 - 13:5

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - John 13:5 - 13:5


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5. τ. νιπτῆρα. The bason, which stood there for such purposes, the large copper bason commonly found in oriental houses.

ἤρξατο νίπτειν. Ἤρξατο is not a mere amplification as in the other Gospels (Mat 11:7; Mat 26:22; Mat 26:37; Mat 26:74; Mar 4:1; Mar 6:2; Mar 6:7; Mar 6:34; Mar 6:55; Luk 7:15; Luk 7:24; Luk 7:38; Luk 7:49; &c. &c.), and in the Acts (Act 1:1; Act 2:4; Act 18:26, &c.). The word occurs nowhere else in S. John, and here is no mere periphrasis. He began to wash, but was interrupted by the incident with S. Peter. With whom He began is not mentioned: from very early times some have conjectured Judas. Contrast the mad insolence of Caligula—quosdam summis honoribus functos ad pedes stare succinctos linteo passus est. Suet. Calig. XXVI. One is unwilling to surrender the view that this symbolical act was intended among other purposes to be a tacit rebuke to the disciples for the ‘strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest’ (Luk 22:24); and certainly ‘I am among you as he that serveth’ (Joh 13:27) seems to point directly to this act. This view seems all the more probable when we remember that a similar dispute was rebuked in a similar way, viz. by symbolical action (Luk 9:46-48). The dispute may have arisen about their places at the table, or as to who should wash the others’ feet. That S. Luke places the strife after the supper is not fatal to this view; he gives no note of time, and the strife is singularly out of place there, immediately after their Master’s self-humiliation and in the midst of the last farewells. We may therefore believe, in spite of S. Luke’s arrangement, that the strife preceded the supper. In any case the independence of S. John’s narrative is conspicuous.