Published
in the Southern Cross, Sept/Oct 1991
In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus said
to the twelve apostles: “whatever you
bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be
considered loosed in heaven”. (Matt 18:18)
This extraordinary power conferred
on the Twelve in Matthew chapter 18 is addressed to Peter alone in Matthew
16. In this essay I will try to show
that Peter had a special position in the early church, and that this is made
explicitly clear in the New Testament.
Peter was one of the Twelve, it is
true, but he was also in a sense above them in position. He is given the special commission to
‘strengthen his brethren’ (Lk 22:32) and to feed Christ’s sheep (Jn
21:15-17). Three times our Lord said to
him, ‘Feed my sheep”. To say something
three times in the Old Testament meant to confirm it with the greatest possible
force. (1) The power of ‘binding and loosing’, entrusted
to the apostles generally, is granted to Peter specifically in Matthew 16.
There can be no doubt about the
prominence and pre-eminence of Peter in the gospels. He is named 114 times. John, the next most frequently mentioned,
occurs 38 times. Peter is the
first-named in the lists of the apostles. (Mt 10:2; Mk 3:16; Lk 6:14) He speaks and acts for the Twelve as their
acknowledged representative at Caesarea Philippi (Mt 16:16), at the
Transfiguration (Mt 17:4), and on other occasions his reactions are mentioned
as though they were interesting in themselves.
There is nothing specifically
‘catholic’ in stressing the importance of Peter. The Protestant writer, Oscar Cullmann,
reaches the following conclusion in his
controversial work on Peter:
“Thus according to all three synoptic
gospels, Peter indubitably played the role of spokesman of the Twelve
disciples. Furthermore, according to the
Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus appointed him specifically to carry out
later the mission of strengthening his brothers. So the knowledge of a special distinction
given to Peter within the circle of disciples is common to the entire ancient
tradition behind the synoptic gospels”.
(2)
However, this undeniable, but rather
vague assertion of a special role played by Peter in the gospels is insufficient
without an examination of the famous passage in Matthew 16 which is probably
one of the most hotly disputed passages in the New Testament, and has given
rise to literary and doctrinal problems.
However, one undeniable fact is that
the famous passage is studded with phrases that are typically Semitic:
“Blessed are you, Simon
Bar-Jona! Flesh and blood has not
revealed this to you but my father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this
rock I will build my church, and the powers of Hades shall not prevail against
it. I will give you the keys of the
kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and
whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”. (Mt 16:17-19)
These words of Jesus have sometimes
been regarded as an interpolation, on the grounds that he could not possibly
have said them. But modern scholarship
has shown that they are to be found in all the manuscripts, even the most
ancient ones. And the language itself,
highly charged with metaphor, is so full of Semitic elements that there are few
texts in Matthew that are so surely part of the gospel as this one. Thus, for instance, the play on the words
‘Peter’ and ‘rock’ is only complete in the basic Aramaic text: Kepha-kepha (as it is accidentally, in the
French Pierre-pierre). The Greek
translation showed the pun as Petros-petra.
This was preferred to the other possible translation, Petros-petros,
because petra means the live, unquarried rock or bed-rock, which was what Jesus
meant, whereas petros would normally mean stone or boulder, something that could be thrown. For the proper name, however, Petros was
chosen, since it would have been awkward to call a man Petra, the word for rock
being feminine in Greek. (3)
The word ‘Rock’, petros, kepha, was
not a personal name at all until used by Jesus.
It expresses a vocation, just as Abram’s vocation was expressed by his
new name (Gen.17:5)
Older Protestant exegetes used to
maintain that the ‘rock’ on which the Church was built was not the person of
Peter, but rather his faith, a faith he shares with the whole Church and thus
all notion of succession would be eliminated.
But this exegesis is discredited today and condemned by many Protestant
exegetes who criticize Luther’s famous interpretation on philological
grounds. (4) In the Old Testament ‘rock’ is frequently
used of the Lord himself (Deut 32:4) and it is also applied to Abraham (Is
51:1). In the New Testament ‘rock’ or
‘stone’ is regularly applied to Christ (cf Mk 12:10; Lk 20:18) and
elsewhere the stone figure is developed
on the basis of these texts (1 Pet 2:4-8)
(5)
The well-known Protestant exegete,
Gunther Bornkamm, writes:
“In the interpretation of the saying
about Peter and the Church, Roman Catholic and Reformed theologians are much
closer to each other than they were in former times. The “Rock” is not Christ, as was held long
ago by Augustine, followed by Luther, nor the faith of Peter or the preaching
office, as the Reformers held, but Peter himself as leader of the Church”. (6)
The highly characteristic Semitic
literary pattern which emerges from the texts is the following: As Jesus, the Chief Shepherd, makes Simon
chief shepherd in his place, so Jesus, the foundation-stone (1 Cor. 3:11) made
Simon the ‘Rock’ for the building of the Church. Further, throughout the Old Testament,
‘building‘ is a divine activity, especially where it is a matter of God
rebuilding his people. (cf Jer. 31:4; Is. 54:11-12) The
New Testament writers see the Church as a building, whether of a house,
temple or city (cf Eph. 2:20-22), and Jesus is the chief corner-stone of the
building, the apostles and prophets being its foundation. The two combined images of ‘rock’ and
‘building’ indicate the strength, firmness and the stability and unity of the
Church. The Semitic background rules out
any suggestion that this text is a late ‘Roman’ interpolation and also any view
which asserts that Jesus could not have spoken in this way. (7)
‘Flesh and blood’ in the Old
Testament signifies the weak element in man (Sir. 14:18; cf 1Cor. 15:50.) The ‘gates of Hades’ is another Semitic
expression, as is the entrusting to Peter of ‘the keys of the kingdom of
heaven’. The first phrase probably means
the powers of disorder and godlessness generally and suggests the Church shares
in Christ’s victory. The ‘keys of the
kingdom’ imply stewardship and authority in the household, the power to open
and close its doors. The prophecy in
Isaiah 22:19-23 “announces the appointment of a royal official, one who does
exactly what his master wants and he is to receive the symbol of his powers on
his shoulder, the key. Jesus refers
implicitly to this text when he gives to Peter the keys of the kingdom of
heaven”. (8)
The phrase re the ‘keys of the
kingdom’ complements the expression about ‘binding and loosing’ and is a
reminder that Peter, however impressive his pre-eminence and primacy among the
Twelve, should not be considered in isolation from them. So although what is said in Matthew 18 about the
authority of the Twelve in general, is addressed to Peter alone in Matthew 16,
yet this must be seen in context.
Although at the Last Supper Christ prays for Peter ‘that his faith may
not fail’ and entrusts him with the task of ‘strengthening the faith’ of his
brethren, this promise is set in the context of a more general promise that the
Twelve will ‘sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel’. (Lk 22:30-32)
The Semitic nature of the passage
Matthew 16:17-19 is so clear that interpolation by a Romanising redactor is
impossible. “There are not many passages
in the Gospels through which the Aramaic sub stratum of thought and form shines
so surely as through this clearly-defined passage” Adolf Harnack said.
(9) Otto Karrer maintained it is
quite impossible to eliminate this passage from Matthew without doing violence
to this Gospel. “The passage certainly
does not stand in isolation, but is an essential joint in the structure of
Matthew, is in fact the pivot, the bridge by which evangelist connects the
historical Jesus with the Church”. (10)
The rest of the New Testament
evidence, far from being incompatible with a special position given to Peter,
confirms the fact. (11) He dominates the first part of Acts: he takes the lead in proposing the election
of Matthias (1:15), he preaches on the day of Pentecost (2:14), he heals the
man at the Beautiful Gate (3:1-9), and so on.
More decisively still, he receives
the pagan Cornelius; (Ch.10) when he is arrested, the whole church prays for his
deliverance (12:1-17); and at the Council of Jerusalem it is he who provides
the testimony in support of Paul and Barnabas which settles the issue
(15:7f). Paul, in defence of his
apostolic status, describes how he ‘went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas (Peter)’
(Gal. 1:18). The verb used means to
collect information, to visit someone in order to consult him and implies a
dignity and importance in the person visited. (12) In 1 Cor. 9:5 Paul lists ‘the other apostles
and brothers of the Lord and Cephas’:
this would make little sense unless the mention of Peter’s view added
weight to the argument. In the summary
of the witnesses of the Resurrection, Paul mentions Cephas before the others (1
Cor. 15:5) as though his evidence had some special value.
The unity and fidelity of the early
Church clearly depended on Peter and the Twelve. Part of their commission was personal and in
the nature of things could not be handed
on. Those who came after them could not
literally fulfil the qualifications of an apostle laid down in Acts: having been with Jesus throughout his public
life and being an eyewitness of his resurrection (1:21-22). The Twelve were privileged. But it is important to stress that the
mandate they received was
communicable and had to be. This is
where Cullmann, Bornkamm and other Protestant exegetes fall down badly and are
so inadequate. If this mandate was
incommunicable, then the command to teach all nations would have been
impossible. Nor was the promise they
received limited to them. The continued
presence of Christ is promised ‘to the close of the age’ and the scope of this
promise is not affected by a short-term or a long-term view of when exactly the
end might come, even though there was hesitation on this point for some time.
(13)
The pastoral office of Peter was
transmitted to his successors. Peter
died in Rome under Nero in 64 or 67 A.D.
It is clear from the letters of both Ignatius of Antioch and Clement of
Rome writing about 100 A.D. that the Church of Rome already held a special
position among the churches. (14) This
continued to be so.
This is not an exhaustive
examination of all the New Testament texts which point to Peter’s primacy, but
just the main ones and they show that undoubtedly Peter held a primacy which is
irrefutable. I have not tried to answer
all the mass of problems thrown up by Cullmann and other Protestant
exegetes. To give the Protestant view is
impossible since there are as many interpretations as there are
Protestants! Even prominent ones like
Baumann do not subscribe to Culllman’s well-known thesis on Peter. (15) Their obvious disarray and lack of unanimity
positively points to a need surely for an ultimate authority and for Petrine
supremacy!
Cardinal Newman showed in his
exhaustive study of the history of the early Church how the doctrine of Petrine
supremacy could be seen developing step by step from the first words spoken by
Christ to St Peter through the Fathers of the second and third centuries to the
great Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, such as Athanasius, Jerome and
Augustine. It was true that the doctrine
had not always been clear from the beginning, but neither had the doctrine of
the Trinity, the Incarnation, of original sin and grace and so on. The early Popes, far from resting their
authority on any worldly power, regarded themselves as mystically identified
with St Peter so that one could exclaim: “We bear the burden of all who are
laden; yea rather the blessed Peter beareth them in us’. (16) At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Pope Leo
was acclaimed in the historic words: ‘Peter has spoken through Leo’.
Cardinal Newman also noticed in his
study of the early Church that Popes has always seemed to act in disputed
matters of faith as if they had the right to the last word. ‘It seemed as if they too shared in Christ’s
guarantee to his church that the Holy Spirit would protect it from error and
guide it into truth. So Newman accepted
the infallibility of the pope – that the Bishop of Rome, as head of the church
on earth, under very special circumstances, was protected from officially
teaching religious error’. (17)
The only hope for the world is
Christ and the Church he founded on Peter to last to the end of time. The famous atheistic philosopher, Bertrand
Russell, said towards the end of his life: “The root of the matter, if we want
a stable world, is a very simple and old-fashioned thing, a thing so simple
that I am almost ashamed to mention it for fear of the derisive smile with
which cynics will greet my words. The thing
I mean is love, Christian love or compassion”. (18) The Bishop of Rome has for ages presided over
the communion of love which has produced
so many outstanding figures noted for their holiness and charity. Mother Teresa is a current example. The Church has always emphasised the
importance of being good rather than doing good, and of the need to exercise
gifts in love, or face the danger of being merely a noisy gong or a clanging
cymbal. (Cor. 13:1)
So many mainline Protestant churches
in the West are going into a nosedive according to an article in Time magazine. This article
states that “... few experts foresee mainline Protestantism regaining its
former clout and prosperity. Are the
ballyhooed Evangelicals thus destined to constitute America’s new religious
centre? One shrewd analyst in that
conservative camp, Fuller’s Mouw (viz. Richard Mouw of California’s evangelical
Fuller Theological Seminary) has a surprising reply: “If there is an Establishment voice today, it
is that of Roman Catholicism. The
Catholics are the calm, dignified, authoritative voices, insofar as there are
any at all’. Lutheran, Richard John
Neuhaus, even wrote a book claiming this to be THE CATHOLIC MOMENT for
America”’ (19)
Of course, the Protestant
Pentecostal churches are burgeoning – and also fragmenting – at amazing
speed. The good of evangelisation is
neutralised by the disgraceful proliferation of endless sects. Satan’s policy of divide and rule? If unity is strength, then fragmentation is
miserable weakness in the battle for the souls of men. The good is often the enemy of the best - the good of the enthusiastic use
of spiritual gifts is often the enemy of the best, that is - preserving the
unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (cf Eph. 4:3). Since charity is more important than anything
and unity is an aspect of charity as it can’t be preserved without love, then
it is the value to be sought above all else.
The great prophetic figure of St Catherine of Siena and other Catholic
saints and martyrs, have made heroic sacrifices to preserve this unity in the
bond of peace and love.
As the article above stated, this is
the Catholic moment and Thomas Howard maintains that evangelical is not enough.
(20) The former Archbishop of
Canterbury, Michael Ramsay, said that “without communion with the Bishop of
Rome, there is no prospect of a united Christendom”.
The latter remark is certainly
substantiated by the research done by the Jewish philosopher, Will Herberg, who
observed that no reform movement in the Church through 2000 years had lasting
success if it was opposed to, or unsupported by, the Holy See. “In other words”, Thomas Dubay maintains,
“dissent may arrive flashily on the scene, but it eventually withers away or is
splintered into pieces against the petrine rock”. (21) This would probably also account for the
decline of mainline Protestantism mentioned above, which separated itself from
this Holy See at the time of the Reformation.
The Catholic Church founded by Jesus
on Peter the Rock has seen incredible storms in her history and survived, which
surely indicates the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as lesser institutions would
have collapsed ages ago. No wonder the
great Protestant historian, J.A. Froude, was forced to admit: “Yet the Roman
Church, after all, is something. It will
survive all other forms of Christianity and without Christianity what is to
become of us?” (22) Another great
Protestant historian who had no great love for the Catholic Church, but who
could make an objective assessment – Lord Macaulay – said there was never an
institution on earth like the Roman Catholic Church, which has seen the demise
of so many historical institutions and may still exist in undiminished vigour
when London is a heap of ruins! (23)
Ralph Martin once pointed out that
uniquely Western cultural values should not be presented as essential elements
of Christian faith. Unfortunately this
has happened as regards the Vicar of Christ and the Roman world in which he
lives. Roman culture has been pushed
when it has nothing to do with the Biblical doctrine of Papal primacy. For
example, the use of Latin or hymns like “God
Bless our Pope, the Great, the Good” which alludes to the Roman ‘golden
roofs’, and ‘marble halls’ etc. These
cultural trappings, emotional or effusive language forms should not detract us
from the Biblical doctrine of Petrine supremacy and the fact that the Pope is
the Vicar of Christ. We can neglect the
former, but not the latter!
It was for the primacy of the Bishop
of Rome that St Thomas More suffered and died for. In our fidelity to truth and the Biblical
doctrine of Petrine supremacy we too need to be prepared to be criticised and
attacked, but that is in the nature of being a Christian. Cardinal Ratzinger said: “It is the hallmark of truth to be worth
suffering for. In the deepest sense of
the word, the Evangelist must also be a martyr.
If he is unwilling to be so, he should not lay his hand to the plough”.
(24)
1 Higher Catechetical Institute,
Nijmegen, A New Catechism, Search Press, 1970, p.367.
2 Oscar Cullman, Peter, SCM Press, 2nd
ed. 1962, p.28.
3 New Catechism, p.142.
4 Beda Rigaux, Peter in Contemporary
Exegesis, in Concilium, Sept. 1967, p.79.
5 cf C.H. Dodd, According to the
Scriptures, Collins, 1965, p.41f.
6 New Catechism, pp.142-143.
7 Peter Hebblethwaite, Theology of the
Church, Mercier, Cork, 1969, p.49.
8 Gerard MacGinty, OSB, Editor,
Glenstal Bible Missal, Brepols-Collins, 1983, p.484.
9 Otto Karrer, Peter and the Church: an
examination of Cullmann’s thesis, Herder, 1963.
10 Karrer, Op, cit. p.11.
11 Jerome Biblical Commentary, Chapman,
1968, Vol II, p.92.
12 Ibid. P.239.
13 Hebblethwaite, op. Cit. p.51.
14 New Catechism, P.367.
15 Rigaux, loc. Cit. p.80.
16 B. Griffiths, Golden String, Collins,
1954, p.124.
17 Michael Austin, S.J. Newman, Southern
Cross, 12/08/90, p.8.
18 Quoted in Pax Romana Journal, 1963:2, p.28.
19 R.N. Ostling, Those Mainline Blues:
America’s Old Guard Protestant Churches confront an
Unprecedented decline, Time, May 22, 1989, p.96.
20 Thomas Howard, Evangelical is not
enough: Worship of God in liturgy and sacrament.
Ignatius Press, New York.
21 Thomas Dubay, Catholic Dissent in
America, Crisis, Summer, 1989.
22 cf J.A. Froude, quoted in Margaret Geffin,
Objections to Roman Catholicism, M. de la Bedoyere,
Editor, Pelican Books, 1966,
p.20.
23 Lord Macaulay, reviewing von Ranke’s
Political History of the Popes, 1840.
24 Cardinal Ratzinger, 30 Days, April 1989, p.25.