He said to them, “You will indeed drink my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give, but it is for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 23. Of my chalice indeed you shall drink. Saint James was the first apostle that suffered martyrdom at Jerusalem. Acts 12:2. And Saint John at Rome was put into a cauldron of boiling oil, and banished into Patmos.—Is not mine to give you. [1] The Arians objected these words against Christ’s divinity. Saint Augustine answers that the words are true if taken of Christ, as he was man. The easier answer is, that it was not his to give to them, while they were in those dispositions of pride and ambition. So that the distinction made, is not betwixt the Father and his eternal Son, as if the Father could give what the Son could not, but betwixt persons worthy, and not worthy of such a favour. It is true the word you, is now wanting in the Greek MSS. and must have been wanting in some of them in the fourth, or at least the fifth century, since we find them not in S. Chrysostom. Saint Augustine also in one place omits it, but sometimes lays great stress upon it; Christ’s meaning being no more, than that heaven was not his to give them; that is, to the proud, and so forth Saint Ambrose reads it; and what is still of greater weight, S. Jerom hath it in the text of the New Testament, which he corrected from the best Greek MSS. Witham.—In your present state there is no exception of persons with God; for, whosoever is worthy of heaven, shall receive it as the reward of his merits. Therefore Christ answers them, it is not mine to bestow the kingdom of heaven upon you, because you are not yet deserving, on account of your pride in seeking to have yourselves preferred before my other apostles. But be ye humble, and heaven is prepared for you, as well as for all others, who are properly disposed. Nic. de Lyra.—Greatness in the next life will be proportioned to humility in this.