The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Peter — Section 223

HOMILIES BY V.ARIOUS AUTHORS. Ver. 5 (middle clause).-The slave'.s dress. "Be clothed," or, according to tl1e Revised Version, "gird yourselves." It is a remarkable word, occurring only here in the New Testament. It means to put on a certain article of dress which according to one view was a kind of "overall" worn by slaves above their other clothing, and according to another was a white scarf which was part of the slave's dress. In either case it was a mark of servitude; therefore the exhortation is not merely to wear the garment of lowly-mindedness, veiling all other graces, but specifically to put on the badge of menial service. There may be a still more touching allusion in the peculiar word. Did not Peter's memory go back to that scene in the npper room, which he had understood so little then, but had, as his Lord promised, come to "know" in some measnre in the "hereafter" of his many years of service? He recalls how the Master had girded him.self with the towel, and stooped to the slave's task of washing the disciples' feet. Surely in this text, especially if we adopt the reading and translation of the Revised Version (" gird yourselves with humility to serve one another"), we trace a reference to that wonderful act of stooping love, and hear an echo of the solemn lesson which Christ himself taught in connection with it: "Ye also ought to wash one another's feet." l THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE'S GARMENT. Whatever was the exact form of the article of dress refe1Ted to, it was worn by slaves, and was a badge of their condition. We, too, are slaves, bought and absolutely possessed by our Owner and Master, Jesus Christ. The fitting garb for us is that lowliness of mind which he himself manifested, and which Christianity has throned as in some sense the queen of all the virtues. It is purely a Christian virtne; the very name for it in the New Testament is a Christian coinage ; for new things need new words, and this was a new thing. The modest grace of humility looks, by the side of the splendid virtues of Greece and Rome, like some homely brown bird among the gorgeously coloured birds of the East, or a dove among eagles. The gospel has brought to us such a clear revelation of what we ought to be, and has so quickened the sensitiveness of men's consciences as to their failures and sins, that a lowly estimate of one's self is for a Christian the only possible one, and is felt to be for all men the only true one. The more clear our vision of what we may become, and the more ardent our enthusiasm after yet unattained stages of progress in character, the more lowly will necessarily be our est-imate of ourselves. Whoever has seen him- self as he really is will have no heart to blow his own trumpet, or to hear other men singing his praises. We do not need to affect to he ignorant of, or to depreciate, what we are or can do. It is no breach of humil1ty to be conscious of power, but it is to be so conscious of it that we forget our weakness, and forget that the power is a. gift,, or are ever expecting recognition from our brethren, and thinking more o" ourselves and <lll. v. 1-14.] 'UIE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL O:F PETER. 219