Chapter 22. Christ Is the Savior of All.
Chapter 22
1. In the last times, when the fullness of time came for freedom, the Word himself washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion by washing the feet of his disciples. For this is the end of the human race, which is heir to God: that, just as in the beginning through the first men, all of us were reduced to servitude by the debt of death, so in the end, through the last men, all who were disciples from the beginning, having been cleansed and washed from the things of death, might come to the life of God. For, he who washed the feet of the disciples sanctified the entire body and brought them to cleanliness. Wherefore he served food to them while they were reclining in the earth, to whom he came to minister life. As Jeremiah says: “The Lord, the Holy One of Israel, has remembered his dead, who slept in the land of burial, and he descended to them that he might preach to them his saving good news, for saving them.” For this reason, too, were the eyes of the disciples heavy when Christ began his passion; and when the Lord found them sleeping, the first time he left them alone, indicating God’s patience in regard to men who were slumbering; but when he came the second time, he woke them, and got them up, indicating that his passion is the awakening of the sleeping disciples, on account of whom he also had descended into the lower parts of the earth, to see with his own eyes those of his creation who had not fully achieved. Of these he said to the disciples, Many prophets and righteous men longed to see and hear what you see and hear.
2. Surely, Christ came not only on account of those who in the times of Tiberius Caesar believed in him. Nor only on account of those who are living at present did the Father exercise his providence, but on account of absolutely all people from the beginning who, according to their power, each in their own generation, both feared and loved God and practiced righteousness and piety toward their neighbors and longed to see Christ and to hear his voice. For this reason, in his second coming all such will be roused from sleep and raised up before the rest who will be judged, and he will establish them in his kingdom. Really, it is one God who directed the Patriarchs in their affairs and who justified the circumcised on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised because of their faith. For, just as we were prefigured in the first [men] and announced beforehand, so they in turn find their finished form in us, that is, in the Church, and they receive the reward for their labors.