Patristic A.D. 407
“But the disciples now did not eat with washen hands, because they already despised all things superfluous, and attended only to such as were necessary; thus they accepted neither washing nor not washing as a rule, but did either as it happened. For how should they who even neglected the food that was necessary for them, have any care about this rite?”
Catena Aurea: Gospel of Matthew, as excerpted in the Catena Aurea on Matthew 15:1-6
PD · J. H. Newman (Oxford, 1841) ↗