Feet. poús, básis, katapatéō, pezēi: Using Truth and Method without H.G. Gadamer’s subjectivity of “truth,” we ask not only what this symbol meant to the Hebrews, but how God intended it used to say something about the PW, which is given to all ages and peoples. The feet are the means by which the prophetic word is carried in the world by its fulfillment, its contact with the ground of the world. This is quite different from conventional applications.
Swedenborg says the feet are external of the church, of worship, and of the Word (Apocalypse Explained, vol. 1, p.76; I don’t recommend it otherwise). Miles Martindale said that “feet, in the language of Scripture, mean ‘inclinations, affections, conduct, and such like qualities.’” In Patrick Fairbairn’s famous dictionary (1866) he says, “The feet being the part of the body being more immediately employed in such services as require outward action, especially in executing an entrusted commission, or prosecuting a course of action in obedience to another’s command, to have the feet rightly directed, or kept straight and steadfast in the appointed path, were natural and appropriate images for uprightness and fidelity of behavior.”[1] If feet denote the part of the Prophetic Word which establish its first connection to reality (the ground), and carry the Word to the spiritual bodies of other men, that which is seen in the apostolic office, then, in respect to morality, it is in response to the source of the affective reason for that morality.
Morality is fully itself when its motivated and addresses by the highest example of moral conduct and persons, which is seen in the PW/Jesus Christ symbol. This is then the extremity of the PW at which point its fulfillment in the world takes place when reality (method) and truth are demonstrated by a divine person. When we see images of worshiping at one’s feet or putting something under one’s feet, it is not about “submissiveness” or “taking the place of a learner,” but specifically acknowledging, submitting, and learning that we are to humble ourselves at the point of that word’s moral historical realization instead of speculation, law-keeping, emotion, or autonomous reasoning.
[1] (Fairbairn 1957)
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