Uncleanness as obstacle; wash the soul’s feet with Jesus

According to the bodily narrative what is said about Jerusalem now is such. Uncleanness is an obstacle for Jerusalem; but of what it is an obstacle, the prophet has left for us to understand. Perhaps it shows that the uncleanness is a hinderer of her journey. And also, being such, it shows that Jerusalem did not remember her last things. And the one who has these before the eyes and sees what will meet him because of the sins will not sin. Because of this uncleanness, then, there is an obstacle for her; and because she does not remember her last things, she brought down her wonderful and great things—which she had when she was worthy to be overseen—and led them into lowliness, though formerly they were oversized and greater than every praise. But also after all these things there was none comforting her: “See, O Lord, my humiliation,” says the speaker, “since the enemy is magnified over what has happened to my homeland.”

And after a little: Yet one must inquire, according to the laws of the ascent-sense, whether it is possible for uncleanness to be in someone who is not its cause. And let us also see the first thoughts of the Lament. Such a soul, having fallen away, is altogether also in uncleanness, which uncleanness hinders walking the holy road. And just as holy Moses and his successor Joshua are commanded by God to loose the sandals when stepping upon a holy place—it not being fitting for the feet to wear dead hide in a holy place—so if someone is going to walk unimpeded, perhaps he ought not only to loose but also to wash off the uncleanness that has come about from the dust around the feet. And we suppose a symbol of this to be that the Savior, having put water into the basin, washed the feet of the disciples, saying to Peter who did not yet understand the mystery and for this reason was hindering: “If I do not wash you, you have no part with me,” and “What I am doing you do not know now, but you will know after these things.” Therefore it will be necessary for the uncleanness around the feet of the soul, so to speak, also to need Jesus, so that he may wash it off and we may be able to have a part with him. For if this remains, it is an obstacle to our walking the road according to the sound word—the Savior who said: “I am the way.”