The answer of Jesus to this report of their means of resistance was not in a tone to excite them to the very zealous use of them. He simply said, “It is enough,” a phrase which was meant to quiet them, by expressing his little regard for such a defense as they were able to offer to him, with this contemptible armament. Some have conjectured that this washing of feet (page 97) was a usual rite at the Paschal feast. So Scaliger, Beza, Baronius, Casaubon and other learned men have thought. (See Poole’s Synopsis, on John xiii. 5.) But Buxtorf has clearly shown the falsity of their reasons, and Lightfoot has also proved that it was a perfectly unusual thing, and that there is no passage in all the Rabbinical writings which refers to it as a custom. It is manifest indeed, to a common reader, that the whole peculiar force of this ablution, in this instance, consisted in its being an entirely unusual act; and all its beautiful aptness as an illustration of the meaning of Jesus,――that they should cease their ambitious strife for precedence,――is lost in making it anything else than a perfectly new and original ceremony, whose impressiveness mainly consisted in its singularity. Lightfoot also illustrates the design of Jesus still farther, by several interesting passages from the Talmudists, showing in what way the ablution would be regarded by his disciples, who like other Jews would look upon it as a most degraded action, never to be performed except by inferiors to superiors. These Talmudic authorities declare, that “Among the duties to be performed by the wife to her husband, this was one,――that she should wash his face, his hands and his feet.” (_Maimonides on the duties of women._) The same office was due from a son to his father,――from a slave to his master, as his references show; but he says he can find no precept that a disciple should perform such a duty to his teacher, unless it be included in this, “The teacher should be more honored by his scholar than a father.” He also shows that the feet were never washed separately, with any idea of legal purification,――though the Pharisees washed their hands separately with this view, and the priests washed their hands and feet both, as a form of purification, but never the feet alone. And he very justly remarks upon all this testimony, that “the farther this action of Christ recedes from common custom, the higher its fitness for their instruction, ――being performed not merely for an example but for a precept.” (Lightfoot’s Horae Hebraica in Gospel of John xiii. 5.)