Corollaries of the definition of privilege; the sons of Zebedee and the cup

From these things it is clear, first, to those who do not equivocate, that the properties which belong naturally to the Trinity are not its privileges, since every privilege is in the one privileged principally from without, for his profit; and so only a rational creature is capable of privilege.¹ It is clear, secondly, that when the one granting or the one privileged is deceived in believing that the privilege tends to the benefit of the one being privileged, while yet what is granted to the one being privileged turns to his harm, as contrary to his profit, it is not a privilege but rather a corruption.² This is clear from the fact that a privilege (in so far as it is such) is a useful good; so it is no privilege for unbelieversinfidelis: unbeliever; with a dative, faithless (to) that, set free from justice, they are discharged from the yoke of the Lorddominus; dominari: lord; to exercise lordship / to lord it and, unbridled for sinning, made subject to the yoke of the devil, unless perhaps the word is used equivocally, calling a privilege anything that deprives of law.³ Thirdly, it follows that there is no privilege except what the Prince of Peace has granted, the headcaput: head of the universal churchecclesia: church, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is clear from the fact that there cannot be a good of the church unless it has first come by derivation from the head. For if a primate on his own grants something and God does not grant it, then either one must grant that God does not go before him in acting, and consequently is not the essential cause of every creature, or else that it is not good or reasonable that the one privileged should have it; because if it were the wisdom of God, he would eternally ordain that he should have it, and with the clemency of the Holy Spirit would graciously give it;⁴ since, John 15:5, 4, the head says: "Without me you can do nothing"; for as "the branch cannot bear fruit, unless it abide in the vine", so 169a privilege granted to the members of the household is not valid so long as it has not been granted by the essential father of the household, almighty and all-knowing, and confirmed by his licence obtained.⁵ From these things it is gathered that the highest privilege granted to a Christian for the wayvia / patria: the way / the homeland would be that, living without propertyexproprietarii / exproprietarie: the propertyless / without property, he should, being more like Christ, be further forward in the Christian army.⁶ It is clear, first, thus: by the next corollary there is no privilege except one granted by Christ; now he cannot grant a greater privilege than by making the subject more like himself; therefore etc. Hence, Matthew 18:1, when the disciples asked Christ, "Who, thinkest thou, is the greater in the kingdomregnum: kingdom of heaven?", he, calling a little child without malice, set him in the midst of them, and said in deed and in word that he who has humbled himself more in this way, he is the greater in the church militantecclesia militans / triumphans / dormiens: the church militant / triumphant / sleeping.⁷ Again, for any knight it would be more fitting, for the state of knighthoodmilicia; milites: knighthood; knights, that, armed more becomingly and aided more specially, he should be placed in the line of battle where the fight is fiercer; for in this consists military vigour.⁸ Now, as is said, Job 7:1: "The whole life of man upon earth is a warfare"; and according to the Apostle, Ephesians 6:12: "Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness." Therefore it is clear that the further forward anyone has been placed thus in the said army, the greater the privilege granted him, by as much as he will be the more fully crowned.⁹ And this teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence is clear from the mother

of the sons of Zebedee, who at the instigation of her sons asked a privilege of Christ, that these might sit in his kingdom, the one on the right hand and the other on the left (as is clear, Matthew 20:21). But the boys, asking it implicitly, heard the divine answer: "You know not what you ask. Can you drink the chalice that I shall drink?" 170This being granted, he granted them a privilege in consequence: "My chalice," he says, "you shall drink; but to sit on my right or left hand is not mine to give to you, but to them for whom it is prepared by my Father."¹⁰

On this Chrysostom, in Homily 35 of the Opus imperfectum, notes, first, that the devil, who seduced the first man through a woman, contrived that the said apostles should be seduced through a woman. He notes, secondly, how Christ, directing his speech to those disciples, teaches that they culpably sought the primacy out of blind and proud presumption; for otherwise the all-knowing one would not have directed a rebuking speech to those disciples, passing over the woman who was acting on their behalf: "You know not," he says, "what you ask." Therefore Chrysostom says: "O salutary error, which loosed the error of the whole world! For if the apostles had not erred thus, whence could we have known that not everything that seems good is good to desire? For we know that a good work is one thing and the primacy of honour another. And to desire a good work is good, but [to desire] the primacy of honour is vanity,"¹¹

Thirdly, it is to be noted that whether the apostles, seduced by error, sought primacy in a temporal kingdom or in the kingdom of heaven, as the text seems to establish, their petition was foolish, since they ought to have asked humbly for the labour of the contest, and upon this the primacy of honour of blessedness would have followed without boasting; for honour follows the one who flees it and flees the one who desiresaffectare: to desire it.¹² Hence Chrysostom says: "The desire of primacy is born of boasting of heart; he who is humble," he says, "judges himself less worthy than others, 171according to the apostolic precept: Each esteeming the other superior." And this is the reason (as was touched on above) why the members of the church, and the degrees in which God loves them, are hidden from us.¹³ Fourthly, it is to be noted that Christ, seeing an alien spirit in the hearts of his temple, did not, in the manner of those who conquer their bodily castles, break down the walls of the castle, but drove out the enemy, enticing them to the humility by which they themselves might overcome the tyrant who had foully overcome them. "Can you," he says, "drink the chalice that I shall drink?"¹⁴ From this soothing question we are taught, first, that the victory must be voluntary if it is to be meritorious; therefore Christ asks them modestly whether they can suffer voluntarily after his likeness. Secondly, the other apostles are taught not to be indignant against the two brothers, since their Lord, against whom chiefly the wrong had been usurped, so courteously offered them the same means by which he himself merited dignity. Thirdly, all Christians are taught that to suffer for justice is necessary for anyone who wishes to be rewarded with blessedness, since the Lord went by the highest degree of that means; therefore Christ calls this, singularly, his chalice.¹⁵ Fifthly, we are taught how Christ cannot fail his own in granting privileges, and consequently the reward following from their use, since immediately after the humble brotherly consent by which they said "We can", he at once granted: "My chalice indeed you shall drink"; where it is not lawful for a believer to doubt that he granted to the two brothers, whom he had first favoured, a singular privilege. For if earthly fathers "know how to give good gifts to their children", how much more the first Father, after so glorious a victory as he has won through others over the prince of this world?¹⁶ The private law, therefore, which the Prince of Peace, and consequently [Prince] of the whole church, granted to these brothers for their greatest benefit, 172that they might seize the kingdom of heaven by their arms, was a singular privilege. And from this the doctors draw out that there is a twofold kind of martyrdom, namely by affection and by bodily suffering; since the blessed Evangelist did not suffer thus bodily unto death, as James did, but each, according to the truthful word of the aforesaid Christ, drank the chalice of the passion.¹⁷

Sixthly, all the faithful, and especially prelatesprelatus: prelate, are taught not to make a show, nor to mind high things, about excellence of degree or primacy, since Christ adds: "But to sit on the right or on the left hand is not mine to give to you, but to them for whom it is prepared by my Father." For although Christ is almighty and of the same authority and operation with the Father, the Father from himself and he through himself, yet Christ, speaking after his manner as a man, puts the Father first, saying that no member of the church will have a mansion in heaven except one who by the authority of the Father is eternally written in the book of life; and although this was done by eternal election through the Son, yet because the disciples considered Christ according to his humanity, it was therefore fitting, speaking univocally with them, that Christ should truly and humbly show his lesser standing according to his humanity, since one must not lie for the sake of devotion.¹⁸