Traditional Catholic Teaching

Appendix to Supplement B: Lesson 2

Appendix: Two Viewpoints on Matthew 16: 18

St Cyprian (AD 195 – 258 approx) Bishop of Carthage

The Lord said to Peter: "I now say to you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church... I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven."

To him again, after his resurrection, he says, Feed my sheep. Upon him being one he builds his Church; and though he gives to all the apostles an equal power, and says, As my Father sent me, even so send I you; receive ye the Holy Ghost: whosesoever sins ye retain, they shall be retained; — yet in order to manifest unity, he has by his own authority so placed the source of the same unity, as to begin from one. Certainly the other apostles also were what Peter was, endued with an equal fellowship both of honour and power; but a commencement is made from unity, that the Church may be set before us as one; which one Church, in the Song of Songs, doth the Holy Spirit design and name in the person of our Lord: My dove, my spotless one, is but one; she is the only one of her mother, elect of her that bare her.

He who holds not this unity of the Church, does he think that he holds the faith? He who strives against and resists the Church, is he assured that he is in the Church? For the blessed apostle Paul teaches this same thing, and manifests the sacrament of unity thus speaking; There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God.

(St Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church)

John Meier: St Joseph's R.C. Seminary New York

To his word of felicitation Jesus adds a word of promise, which takes the form of a conferral of a new title. Peter has addressed Jesus with certain titles; now Jesus reciprocates. But, while Peter was simply acknowledging what Jesus always was, Jesus confers a new title on Peter. Since the title will become a second name, this conferral of title recalls those instances in the OT when Yahweh conferred a new name on some important figure of salvation history, most notably Abraham.

Jesus acts with the same sovereign authority as Peter's Lord. It should be stressed that, up to this time in ancient Palestine, "Peter" (Petros in Greek, Kepha in Aramaic) had not been used as anyone's personal name. We should not think of "Peter" as a personal name with the secondary meaning "rock"; the word simply meant "rock" and nothing more. Jesus is not changing one first name to another; he is conferring on Simon a new title, "the Rock." The play on words is lost in English and slightly obscured in Greek. In Aramaic it would run: "You are the Rock (Kepha cf. I Cor 15: 5; Gal 2: 9,11; Jn 1: 42), and upon this rock (kepha) I will build my church." The original Aramaic form makes clear that "this rock" refers to the person of Simon, and not to his faith or to Jesus. The significance of the rock is that it is firm, supplying a solid foundation for building (cf. Mt's perfect explanation of the image in 7:24-25). Abraham was considered to be the rock from which the people Israel was hewn (Is 51: 1 - 2), and a rabbinic saying claims that Abraham was the rock on which God built the world. Similarly, Peter will be the human patriarch and foundation stone of the new people of God.

(From "Matthew" Veritas Publications 1980)

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