But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.
Ver. 8. Be not ye called Rabbi] Do not ambitiously affect such a title, as if you were the only ones, and others not worthy to be named in the same day with you. Swelling in the body is an ill symptom, but worse in the soul.
For one is your Master] καθηγητης. Your guide to godliness and happiness, your doctor and dictator, your oracle, your ipse dixit, whose bare word you are to take, without further proof or pawn.
And all ye are brethren] Not as the pope calls his cardinals brethren, when in creating them he useth this form, Estote fratres nostri, et principes mundi. Odi fastum illius ecclesiae, Shall be our fathers and leaders in the world. Hate those festivals of that church, saith Basil, which caused the lamentable separation of the Eastern or Greek Church from communion with the Latin, the other four patriarchs dividing themselves from the Bishop of Rome, for his encroaching upon them.