John: To wash their feet after eating. “He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel and girded himself. After that he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded” ([xiii, 4, 5]).
The proneness of Christ’s followers to neglect his ordinances and precepts which require some sacrifice or effort to obey, and the readiness with which they observe those which do not, find a fitting illustration in the reception accorded these teachings. While the early Christians, many of them, accepted the first as a religious obligation not to be violated, the second was ignored. Writing of Christian monks and nuns, Lecky says: “The cleanliness of the body was regarded as a pollution of the soul, and the saints who were most admired had become one hideous mass of clotted filth. St. Athanasius relates with enthusiasm how St. Antony, the patriarch of monachism, had never, to extreme old age, been guilty of washing his feet.... St. Abraham the hermit, however, who lived for fifty years after his conversion, rigidly refused from that date to wash either his face or feet.... St. Euphraxia joined a convent of one hundred and thirty nuns, who never washed their feet, and who shuddered at the mention of a bath” (European Morals, Vol. II, pp. 109, 110).
542
What religious formula is to be found in the New Testament?
“In the name of Jesus.”
“In the name of Jesus” the disciples cast out devils and performed other miracles; “In the name of Jesus” they baptized their converts; “In the name of Jesus” salvation was secured. This formula, with various modifications, is in general use in the church today. It betrays the heathen origin of Christianity. Referring to its use Prof. Meinhold of Bonn University says: “Name and person were at one time closely combined, and elementary religious ideas were connected with the words. He who knew the name of a divinity and could pronounce it was in this way able to secure a blessing. It was the use of the name of Jesus in the sacraments that made them effective, in the spirit of sorcery. This idea came from the lowest type of religious thought, reflected in religious mysteries in the days of Jesus, and was embodied in the earliest Christianity.”
543
What is taught respecting the use of oaths?