whom could James and John have thundered by their own power? Because they
CHAPTER 1: The Calling and Preparation of the Twelve
whom could James and John have thundered by their own power? Because they were always on the water, and all their rhetoric was to talk to fish, which are mute creatures. So then they did not have what is here attributed to them. And the same must be said of Peter. For we see what his fall was afterwards, and it would not have been for a single blow that he had been thus stumbled, if he had not been held from above by the virtue of the Holy Spirit. There was therefore nothing in Peter except all debility, it was only water, and he would have fainted at the first blow: but our Lord Jesus Christ attributes to him a title according to the virtue that he wanted to give him. And we must judge the like of the sons of Zebedee. They were called children of thunder: not that their word had such effect as thunder (as we have heard before in the Psalm), that God by this voice causes the deer to abort in the forests, that he uproots the trees, that he makes the mountains tremble. So it was very far from John and James, where there was only simplicity, who were poor, uneducated men, and who were even ashamed to show themselves in large company, that they could by themselves have become sons of thunder. But when our Lord Jesus Christ provided them with such grace, and he also bestowed the name upon them. And thus we see in short, that it was not to make idols of these three disciples of whom we speak here, and that it was not so that people would think that what was attributed to them came from themselves: but rather our Lord Jesus Christ wanted that his goodness was recognized in them, and that the riches entrusted to him by God his Father, were all the more magnified. And for the rest, there is also no doubt, since he intended to employ Peter, that he gave him this honorable title, so that he would have more authority.
The same is true of John and James. So today when we read the small body of teaching Peter left us, let us know that this must so much ground us in the truth of God, that we should never be shaken, so that our faith may stand firm, and that it is constant, even if it is agitated: and however much that the devil never ceases to wage many battles against us, nevertheless that we always remain upon this enduring truth, especially as he who was one of its ministers, namely Peter, bears the name which must teach us that we must not be variable. And then when we read both the gospel of John and his canonical epistles, let us be moved to receive in fear and reverence what is contained there: and in truth we see how his teaching truly thunders. For it is impossible for mortal man to attain by himself to the majesty of his doctrine: and if we were not so dazed as we are, it is certain that we would be delighted with every word that is contained therein. In