Matthew 20:23

Of my chalice indeed you shall drink. St. James was the first apostle that suffered martyrdom at Jerusalem. (Acts xii. 2.) And St. 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. St. 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 manuscripts and must have been wanting in some of them in the fourth, or at least the fifth century, since we find them not in St. John Chrysostom. St. 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, &c. St. Ambrose reads it; and what is still of greater weight, St. Jerome hath it in the text of the New Testament, which he corrected from the best Greek manuscripts. (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. (Nicholas de Lyra.) --- Greatness in the next life will be proportioned to humility in this.

[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Non est meum dare vobis. Now we read only in the Greek, ouk estin emon dounai. It is so also in St. John Chrysostom, in St. Cyril, (in Thesauro, Assertione xxvi, tom. v. p. 243) where he answers this objection of the Arians. Nor is Greek: umin, in the Greek text of St. Epiphanius (hær. lxix, p. 742) though it be put there in the Latin translation. St. Augustine has not vobis: (lib. i. de Trin. chap. xii, p. 765 G. tom. viii.) but in Psalm ciii, (tom. iv, p. 1157) he says, Quid est not est meum dare vobis? non est meum dare superbis. St. Ambrose (lib. v. de Fide, tom. iv. chap. iii, p. 147) Non dixit non est meum dare, sed non est meum dare vobis, hoc est, non sibi potestatem deesse asserens, sed me[]tum creaturis. Besides the Fathers, who did not read vobis in the text, shew by their expositions, that they took the sense to be the same, and no ways favourable to the Arians. See St. Augustine lib. i. de Trin. p. 766. A. non est meum dare, ac si diceretur, not est humanæ potestatis hoc dare, ut per illud intelligatur hoc dare, per quod Deus est æqualis Patri, &c. See St. John Chrysostom hom. lxvi. St. Cyril in Thesauro assert. xxvi. p. 243. St. Epiphanius hær. lxix, p. 742, &c.