St. Ambrose's Foot-Washing Rebellion

 In English, Holy Thursday is traditionally known as Maundy Thursday, that is “Commandment Thursday” (maundy coming from the Latin mandatum, “commandment”). For this day is the day that Christ gave His Apostles a commandment, and not just the commandment of the Eucharist, but a commandment of love: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love each other, even as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34).¹

Though this commandment is given later in the Last Supper, as Jesus is beginning His long Johannine discourse, it is typically linked back to the foot-washing at the beginning of John 13, where Jesus similarly declares “If I, therefore, the Lord and master, have washed your feet, you too ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example so that, just as I have done to you, so you, too, should do” (Jn 13:14-15). So the “Maundy” of Maundy Thursday is taken to mean the commandment of foot-washing, of service, of love, rather than the commandment of the Eucharist.

A Holy Thursday foot-washing has long been a practice in the Roman Church—and occasionally in the Orthodox Churches—in emulation of Jesus’ example. But it need not be a once-a-year event: the early Christians went out and washed the feet of the poor throughout the year, as an act of service and humility, a practice that Pope Francis recalls when he takes the Holy Thursday foot-washing outside the church, into prisons and other places.

Foot-washing, then, can be a liturgical re-enactment of Christ’s acts at the Last Supper, and it can be a non-liturgical act of service. But it can also have another liturgical use, though rare, and it is best represented by St. Ambrose.

St. Ambrose was Bishop of Milan, mentor and baptizer of St. Augustine (and the one who taught him how to read silently),² and a prolific writer—and even more prolific if one counts all the later works stamped with his name, such as the Pauline commentator known as “Ambrosiaster.” Milan was a stubborn town, liturgically, so much so that, even after the Council of Trent, they kept their own liturgical rite, the Milanese Rite, better known as the Ambrosian Rite.

Under Ambrose’s name, we have two mystagogical works, sermons giving to the neophytes, the newly-baptized, explaining the meaning of the rites they had experienced at the Paschal Vigil.³ Whether these works were written for publication or were merely notes put together by listeners is unclear; certainly the shorter of the two works—On the Mysteries—seems more cliff-note-like, while the much longer work—On the Sacraments—seems more likely geared for publication. Both cover the same general topics, though with some different emphases and details, so it is assumed that, if they are based on courses of sermons St. Ambrose gave, that they are based on two different years’ sermons.

These two works, along with other mystagogical works, are key sources for learning about the liturgical rites of the Fathers’ time, including its regional differences. Among such differences is foot-washing during the rite of Baptism.

On the Mysteries only half-discusses this ritual. He mentions how the neophyte “ascended from the font, with the Evangelic reading having been brought to mind” (VI.31). This reading is that of the washing of the apostles’ feet, and, in it, Peter “did not notice the Mystery, and, therefore, he denied the ministry, since he believed that, if he patiently accepted the Lord’s yielding to him, it would weigh down the servant’s humility” (VI.31). Yet Jesus rebuked him, and declared that, in order to be all clean, Peter had to have his feet washed—but only his feet, not his hands and head. So, too—it is implied—the one who is baptized has had the head and hands of his soul washed: all that remains is the washing of his feet. So Ambrose pleads the neophyte to “recognize that the Mystery consists in that same ministry of humility... For when the Author of Salvation redeemed us through obedience, how much more ought we, His servants, to exhibit the yieldingness of humility and obedience!” (VI.33)

The neophyte, then, had his feet washed after his Baptism (after he “ascended from the font”), as an example of humility and obedience. But there is something else here: this foot-washing is described as a mystery. Byzantine ears perk up at this, for Mystery is what we call a Sacrament. We can see this in the parallel titles of Ambrose’s two works: On the Mysteries and On the Sacraments cover the same topic. Is Ambrose saying, then, that foot-washing is a Sacrament? (Some Orthodox have said so throughout the centuries.) The hints in this cliff-note text are small, but the issue is clear when we turn to On the Sacraments.

Here, Ambrose makes clear what happens: “You ascended from the font, what followed? You heard the reading. The high priest being girded...he washed your feet” (III.1.4). Again, this is called a Mystery, and a wondrous one: “See all justice, see humility, see grace, see sanctification: Unless I wash, He says, your feet, you will not have My part (Jn 13:8)” (III.1.4).

But here Ambrose goes further, discussing, not just the Mystery itself, but how others view it: “We are not ignorant that the Roman Church does not have this custom, she whose time and form we follow in everything: yet she does not have this custom, that she washes feet. See, then, perhaps she declined because of the multitude [of neophytes]. Yet there are those who say—and try to excuse [her]--that this is not to be done in a Mystery, not in regeneration, but that feet are to be washed like guests. One is of humility, the other of sanctification. Therefore, hear that it is a Mystery and sanctification: Unless I wash your feet, you will not have My part (Jn 13:8)” (III.1.5). He boldly affirms that what he is doing is not what Rome does: here he refuses to comply. This refusal not just the stubbornness of local tradition, but a principled refusal: to remove the foot-washing from the Baptismal rite is to deny the theology.

In On the Mysteries, the foot-washing is mainly discussed as an example of humility and “yieldingness” (the root Latin term used in that passage is obsequium); here, it is specifically not mere humility. Washing the feet “like guests” is an act of humility (one that, I think, Ambrose would approve of in other contexts); here, though, it is an act of sanctification.

But, why? Is not Baptism sanctification enough? “In Baptism, all fault is washed away” (III.1.7); “for our own [hereditary sins] are unloosed in Baptism” (Mysteries VI.32). How can foot-washing be required on top of this? The key, for Ambrose, is Peter’s back-and-forth with Christ, where Jesus clarifies that Peter only needs his feet washed, not his hands and head. Why? Because “since Adam was supplanted by the devil (cf. Gen 3:6), and he poured forth venom on his feet, therefore, you wash feet, so that, to that part for which the serpent waited in ambush, the help⁴ of greater sanctification might come, because which, afterwards, he cannot supplant you” (Sacraments III.I.7).

We could view this in two ways: first, the feet may be getting an extra aid (“greater sanctification”), since they represent where the devil constantly waits to strike us; second, this washing may be a completion of the Baptismal washing. Perhaps, in Ambrose’s practice, a Baptism was not a full-body immersion: maybe it was only a dunking of the head, arms, and torso. In that case, the feet remained “unbaptized,” and so the sacramental foot-washing was necessary.

Whichever the case was, Ambrose certainly saw his foot-washing as sacramental and necessary, with Jn 13:8 as the proof text. So necessary was it to him that he even dared to defy Rome. “In everything, I desire to follow the Roman Church, yet we, men, also have sense; therefore, what is rightly preserved elsewhere, we also rightly keep” (III.1.5). As if that wasn’t enough, he claims the Petrine link: “We follow the apostle Peter himself, we cling to his devotion. How does the Roman Church respond to this? Certainly, the author of this assertion of ours is Peter the apostle, who was a priest of the Roman Church” (III.1.6).

How long did this stubbornness hold out after Ambrose’s death? Quite a while, it seems: some Ambrosian Rite sacramentaries of the 11^th and 12^th centuries include the post-Baptismal foot-washing.⁵ A 1640 Missale Ambrosianum, though, simply mentions that the baptizands are to be baptized “in the accustomed way,” with no further details given.⁶ The Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry on the Ambrosian Rite, which includes a brief summary of the order of Baptism, has no mention of foot-washing.⁷ I’ve not yet gotten my hands on a modern Ambrosian missal, but it seems likely the foot-washing was eventually removed, and St. Ambrose’s rebellion against Rome quashed. (Perhaps St. Charles Borromeo’s reform of the rite had something to do with it? Obviously, this is just speculation.)

All in all, the episode of St. Ambrose and the foot-washing rebellion is a quirk of liturgical history, though one that does prod us to think further on Jesus’ words: Unless I wash your feet, you will not have My part (Jn 13:8). Did He say this merely to the Apostles, or did He say it to us as well? If to us, how does He wash our feet today, and what part of His would we lack without it?

Murky thoughts for a Maundy day.

 

1A bit of a Ruthenian in-joke here: the switch-over from the 1970s liturgical translation (the “Blue Book”) to the 2000s translation (the “Green Book”) included some fairly minor changes in very well-known texts. So now, at Pascha, Christ “tramples” death instead of “conquering” it, and He now saves those in the “tombs,” rather than the “graves.” A similar issue happened with this Gospel verse, which became the text of a popular paraliturgical hymn. The translation I gave above is the currently-used one; the Blue Book version reads “This new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just as I have so loved you.” My first parish—due to an indult—still used the Blue Book texts after the Green Book was released, so those were my first Byzantine translations. Though I’ve adapted to the new version of the Paschal troparion, I still get tripped up by “This/A new commandment” every time we sing it.

2See St. Augustine, Confessions VI.3: “But when he read, his eyes were led through the pages and his heart probed the meaning, but his voice and tongue lay still. Often, when we were present...we thus saw him reading, quietly and never elsewise, and sitting in long-lasting silence.”

3For a bit more on the concept of mystagogy, see my article “The Awe-Inspiring Mysteries: The Importance of Mystagogy,” Homiletic & Pastoral Review, 8/09/2015, https://www.hprweb.com/2015/08/the-awe-inspiring-mysteries/. My undergraduate seminar analyzed the mystagogical works of St. Ambrose, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, and Theodore of Mopsuestia.

4 More literally, the term subsidium often refers to a reserve of troops, which fits well with the description of Satan “lying in ambush.”

5I’m taking this information second-hand, from Gene Finnegan, “Ambrosian liturgical texts,” 4/05/2023, https://memoriesofan80yearoldguy.home.blog/2023/04/05/ambrosian-liturgical-texts/ (accessed March 29, 2024).

6Missale Ambrosianum (Milan: Jo. Ambrosium Sirturum, 1640), 167. Confusingly, the volume is divided into two, separately-paginated sections. This reference is to the second section.

7See H. Jenner, “Ambrosian Liturgy and Rite,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907), reprinted at https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01394a.htm (accessed March 30, 2024).

 

 Note: The cited passages from St. Ambrose can be found in PL 16:398B-399A (On the Mysteries) and PL 16:432B-433C (On the Sacraments).

 

Text ©2024 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the author.