ground that St. Peter himself had furnished the information. But its absence there and in the Gospel of St. Luke [2 There could have been no anti-Petrine tendency in this, since it is equally omitted in the Petrine Gospel of St. Mark.] proves (as Beza remarks), that it could never have been intended as the foundation of so important a doctrine as that of the permanent supremacy of St. Peter. But even if it were such, it would not follow that this supremacy devolved on the successors of St. Peter, nor yet that the Pope of Rome is the successor of St. Peter; nor is there even solid evidence that St. Peter ever was Bishop of Rome. The dogmatic inferences from a certain interpretation of the words of Christ to Peter being therefore utterly untenable, we can, with less fear of bias, examine their meaning. The whole form here is Hebraistic. The 'blessed art thou' is Jewish in spirit and form; the address, 'Simon bar Jona,' proves that the Lord spake in Aramaic. Indeed, a Jewish Messiah responding, in the hour of his Messianic acknowledgment, in Greek to His Jewish confessor, seems utterly incongruous. Lastly, the expression 'flesh and blood,' as
contrasted with God, occurs not only in that Apocryphon of strictly Jewish authorship, the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach, [aEcclus, xiv. 18; xvii. 31.] and in the letters of St. Paul, [b 1 Cor. xv. 60; Gal. i. 16; Eph. vi. 12.] but in almost innumerable passages in Jewish writings, as denoting man in opposition to God; while the revelation of such a truth by 'the Father Which is in Heaven,' represents not only both Old and New Testament Teaching, but is clothed in language familiar to Jewish ears ().
Not less Jewish in form are the succeeding words of Christ, 'Thou art Peter (Petros), and upon this rock (Petra) will I build my Church.' We notice in the original the change from the masculine gender, 'Peter' (Petros), to the feminine, 'Petra' ('Rock'), which seems the more significant, that Petros is used in Greek for 'stone,' and also sometimes for 'rock,' while Petra always means a 'rock.' The change of gender must therefore have a definite object which will presently be more fully explained. Meantime we recall that, when Peter first came to Christ, the Lord had said unto him: 'Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is, by interpretation, Peter [Petros, a Stone, or else a Rock]' [c St. John i. 42.], the Aramaic word Kepha (, or) meaning, like Peter, both 'stone' and 'rock.' But both the Greek Petros and Petra have (as already stated) passed into Rabbinic language. Thus, the name Peter, or rather Petros, is Jewish, and occurs, for example, as that of the father of a certain Rabbi (Jose bar Petros). [d Pesiqta, ed. Buber, p. 158 a, line 8 from bottom.] When the Lord, therefore, prophetically gave the name Cephas, it may have been that by that term He gave only a prophetic interpretation to what had been his previous name Peter ( ). This seems the more likely, since, as we have previously seen, it was the practice in Galilee to have two names, [1 See the remarks on Matthew-Levi in vol. i. ch. xvii. p. 514 of this Book.] especially when the strictly Jewish name, such as Simon, had no equivalent among the Gentiles. [2 Thus, for example, Andrew was both and (Anderai) 'manly,' 'brave.' A family Anderai is mentioned Jer. Kethub. 33a.] Again, the Greek word Petra, Rock, ('on this Petra [Rock] will I build my Church') was used in the same sense in Rabbinic language. It occurs twice in a passage, which so fully illustrates the Jewish use, not only of the word, but of the whole figure, that it deserves a place here. According to Jewish ideas, the world would not have been created, unless it had rested, as it were, on some solid foundation of piety and acceptance of God's Law, in other words, it required a moral, before it could receive a physical foundation. Rabbinism here contrasts the Gentile world with Israel. It is, so runs the comment, as if a king were going to build a city. One and another site is tried for a foundation, but in digging they always come upon water. At last they come upon a Rock (Petra,). So, when God was about to build his world, He could not rear it on the generation of Enos nor on that of the flood, who brought destruction on the world; but 'when He beheld that Abraham would arise in the future, He said: Behold I have found a Rock (Petra,) to build on it, and to found the world,' whence also Abraham is called a Rock (Tsur,) as it is said: [a Is. li 1.] 'Look unto the Rock whence ye are hewn.' [b Yalkut on Numb, xxiii. 9, vol. i. p.243, b, last 6 lines, and c, first 3 lines.] [1 The same occurs in Shem. R. 15, only that there it is not only Abraham but 'the fathers' who are 'the Rocks' (the word used there is not Petra but Tsur) on whom the world is founded.] The parallel between Abraham and Peter might be carried even further. If, from a misunderstanding of the Lord's promise to Peter, later Christian legend represented the Apostle as sitting at the gate of heaven, Jewish legend represents Abraham as sitting at the gate of Gehenna, so as to prevent all who had the seal of circumcision from falling into its abyss, [c Erub.19 a Ber. R. 48.] [2 There was a strange idea about Jewish children who had died uncircumcised and the sinners in Israel exchanging their position in regard to circumcision. Could this, only spiritually understood and applied, have been present to the mind of
St. Paul when he wrote Romans ii. 25, 26, last clauses?] To complete this sketch, in the curious Jewish legend about the Apostle Peter, which is outlined in an Appendix to this volume, [3 See Appendix XVIII] Peter is always designated as Simon Kepha (spelt), there being, however, some reminiscence of the meaning attached to his name in the statement made, that, after his death, they built a church and tower, and called it Peter () 'which is the name for stone, because he sat there upon a stone till his death ( ).[1 The same occurs in Shem. R. 15, only that there it is not only Abraham but 'the fathers' who are 'the Rocks' (the word used there is not Petra but Tsur) on whom the world is founded.] [4 The reader will have no difficulty in recognizing a reference to the See of Rome, perhaps 'the Chair of St. Peter,' mixed up with the meaning of the name of Peter.]
But to return. Believing, that Jesus spoke to Peter in the Aramic, we can now understand how the words Petros and Petra would be purposely used by Christ to mark the difference, which their choice would suggest. Perhaps it might be expressed in this somewhat clumsy paraphrase: 'Thou art Peter (Petros, a Stone or Rock, and upon this Petra, the Rock, the Petrine, will I found My Church.' If, therefore, we would not certainly apply them to to the words of Peter's confession, we would certainly apply them to that which was the Petrine in Peter: the heaven- given faith which manifested itself in his confession. [5 The other views of the words are (a) that Christ pointed to Himself as the Rock, (b) or to Peter as a person, (c) or to Peter's confession.] And we can further understand how, just as Christ's contemporaries may have regarded the world as reared on the rock of faithful Abraham, so Christ promised, that He would build His Church on the Petrine in Peter, on his faith and confession. Nor would the term 'Church' sound strange in Jewish ears. The same Greek word (), as the equivalent of the Hebrew Qahal, 'convocation,' 'the called,' [1 The other word is Edah. Comp. Bible Hist. vol. ii. p. 177, note.] occurs in the LXX. rendering of the Old Testament, and in 'the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach' [a Ecclus. xxiv. 2.] and was apparently in familiar use at the time, [b Comp. Acts vii. 38, and even St. Matt, xviii. 17.] In Hebrew use it referred to Israel, not in their national but in their religious unity. As here employed, it would convey the prophecy, that His disciples would in the future be joined together in a religious unity; that this religious unity or 'Church' would be a building of which Christ was the Builder; that it would be founded on 'the Petrine' of heaven-taught faith and confession; and that this religious unity, this Church, was not only intended for a time, like a school of thought, but would last beyond death and the disembodied state: that, alike as regarded Christ and His Church, 'the gates of Hades [2 It is important to notice that the word is Hades, and not Gehenna. Dean Plumptre calls attention to the wonderful character of such a prophecy at a time when all around seemed to foreshadow only failure.] shall not prevail against it. [e Acts xv. 7.]
Viewing 'the Church' as a building founded upon 'the Petrine, [3 Those who apply the words 'upon this Rock, &c.,' to Peter or to Christ must feel, that they introduce an abrupt and inelegant transition from one figure to another.] it was not to vary, but to carry on the same metaphor, when Christ promised to give to him who had spoken as representative of the Apostles, 'the stewards of the mysteries of God', 'the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.' For, as the religious unity of His disciples, or the Church, represented 'the royal rule of heaven,' so, figuratively, entrance into the gates of this building, submission to the rule of God, to that Kingdom of which Christ was the King. And we remember how, in a special sense, this promise was fulfilled to Peter. Even as he had been the first to utter the confession of the Church, so was he also privileged to be the first to open its hitherto closed gates to the Gentiles, when God made choice of him, that,
through his mouth, the Gentiles should first hear the words of the Gospel, [c Acts xv. 7.] and at his bidding first be baptized, [d Acts x. 48.]
If hitherto it has appeared that what Christ said to Peter, though infinitely transcending Jewish ideas, was yet, in its expression and even cast of thought, such as to be quite intelligible to Jewish minds, nay, so familiar to them, that, as by well-marked steps, they might ascend to the higher Sanctuary, the difficult words with which our Lord closed must be read in the same light. For, assuredly, in interpreting such a saying of Christ to Peter, our first inquiry must be, what it would convey to the person to whom the promise was addressed. And here we recall, that no other terms were in more constant use in Rabbinic Canon-Law than those of'binding' and 'loosing.' The words are the literal translation of the Hebrew equivalents Asar ( ), which means 'to bind,' in the sense of prohibiting, and Hittir ( , from ) which means 'to loose,' in the sense of permitting. For the latter the term Shera or Sheri ( , or ) is also used. But this expression is, both in Targumic and Talmudic diction, not merely the equivalent of permitting, but passes into that of remitting or pardoning. On the other hand, 'binding and loosing' referred simply to things or
