A number of Christian denominations and scholars hold that Simon Peter was the most prominent of the apostles, favored by Jesus of Nazareth with the first place of honor and authority.^[1] This doctrine is known as the Primacy of Simon Peter or the Petrine Primacy (from the Latin Petrus = Peter). A number of traditions, most notably Roman Catholic but others as well, hold that Simon Peter, also known to them as Saint Peter or Cephas, was the first Bishop of Antioch, the first Bishop of Rome, and was a martyr during the persecution of the emperor Nero. The early Christian church at this time, however, did not have the same precisely delineated functions for bishops or other official roles that one can find today.^[2]

This Primacy of Peter is closely related to, and indeed essential to, the Papal Primacy, that is, the idea that the papacy, by divine institution, enjoys delegated authority from Jesus over the entire Church. However, this doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church makes a distinction between the personal prestige of Peter and the supremacy of the office of pope which Catholics believe Jesus instituted in the person of Peter. Other denominations hold that the primacy of Peter was only relevant during the lifetime of Peter. There are various views on the nature of the primacy and how it was exercised and passed on.

Whilst the reasons for disagreement on the nature of the primacy are complex, hinging upon matters of doctrine, history, and politics, the debate is often reduced to a discussion of the meaning and translation of the "on this rock" passage.^{[Matt. 16:18]}

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter [Greek, Petros], and upon this rock [Greek, petra] I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (King James Version)

[edit] Roman Catholic view

Roman Catholics assert the following:

St Paul sees Judaism as the type or figure of Christianity:^{[1 Cor. 10:11]} "Now all these things happened to [the Jews] in figure...." In the Old Law, Deut. 17:8-12 attributes to the High Priest the highest jurisdiction in religious matters. Therefore, it is argued, logic dictates that a supreme head would be necessary in the Christian Church, though the relevance of Biblical law in Christianity is still disputed, see also New Covenant and New Commandment.

In the New Testament, which some call the New Law,^[3] Matthew 16:16-18 tells that Jesus changed Simon's name to Peter. Elsewhere in Scripture such a name change always denotes a change in status (e.g., Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, and Saul to Paul).

In the Greek text, the new name given is "Πέτρος" (Petros), and in the second half of the same verse the word translated as "rock" is "πέτρα" (petra). In the language that Jesus spoke, the same word, "כפא" (cepha), was used for both Peter's name and for the rock on which Jesus said he would build his church. A literal translation, in the style of the King James Version, of the words presumably used by Jesus would be "Thou art Rock, and upon this rock will I build my church".^[4] To preserve the pun, the Greek text chose to translate Peter's name as "Πέτρος" rather than as "Κηφᾶς" (Cephas). Using this transliteration of "כפא", which is found several times in the New Testament, would lose the play of words. On the other hand, in Greek Peter could not be called "Πέτρα" (Petra), the word that is translated "rock", since that name would indicate that the bearer was a woman.

A precise English translation would be "Thou art Rock, and upon this very (or same) rock will I build my church", since Matthew uses the demonstrative pronoun taute, which means "this very" or this same, when he refers to the rock on which Jesus' church will be built. When the demonstrative pronoun "this" is used after a conjunction such as the word "and" here, it refers back to the immediately preceding noun. In this case, it equates the "rock" with the preceding one, namely Peter; and the use of "and" rather than "but" indicates the same.^[5][6][7]

The suggestion sometimes advanced that "πέτρος" indicated a pebble, but "πέτρα" a rock, is unfounded. The entries in Liddell and Scott for the two words indicate that, while "πέτρα" can mean a cliff, rather than a detachable rock, "πέτρος" is used, for instance, for a boulder forming a landmark,^[8] or for rocks rolled down a hill against enemy troops.^[9]

Jesus also said to Peter in verse 19, "I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Especially for the Hebrew people, keys were a symbol of authority. Indeed, Jesus declares in the Book of Revelation, that He has the "keys of death and hell," which means that He has power over death and hell; Isaiah 22:21-22 also supports this. Cardinal Gibbons, in his book The Faith of Our Fathers, points out that keys are still a symbol of authority in today's culture; he uses the example of someone giving the keys of his house to another person, and that the latter represented the owner of the house in his absence.

Another source indicating Peter's supremacy can be found in John 21:15-17 where Christ tells Peter three times to "feed His sheep" and "feed His lambs." The "sheep" are understood to be the stronger portion of Jesus' flock (the clergy), and the "lambs" are understood as the weaker portion (the laity). From this, Catholics believe that Peter was given charge over Christ's whole flock, that is, the Church.

Moreover, Peter is always named first in all listings of the Apostles; Judas is invariably mentioned last. In Matthew 10:2 Peter is described as the "first Apostle". It is important to note that Peter was neither the first Apostle in age nor election; therefore, Peter must be the first Apostle in the sense of authority, if you ignore the possibility of him being first in the sense of first in the list of Twelve Apostles.^{[Mk. 3:16] [Mt. 4:18-19]} According to Acts 1-2,10-11,15, St. Peter was the leader of the early Christian church in Jerusalem. Jesus also instructed St. Peter to strengthen his brethren, i.e., the apostles, according to Luke 22:31-32.

Both Latin and Greek writers in the early church (such as the St. John Chrysostom) referred to "rock" as applying to both Peter personally and his faith symbolically, as well as seeing Christ's promise to apply more generally to his twelve apostles and the Church at large.^[10]

This is reflected in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

424 Moved by the grace of the Holy Spirit and drawn by the Father, we believe in Jesus and confess: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' On the rock of this faith confessed by St. Peter, Christ built his Church.

552 Simon Peter holds the first place in the college of the Twelve; Jesus entrusted a unique mission to him. Through a revelation from the Father, Peter had confessed: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Our Lord then declared to him: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." Christ, the living Stone, thus assures his Church, built on Peter, of victory over the powers of death. Because of the faith he confessed Peter will remain the unshakable rock of the Church. His mission will be to keep this faith from every lapse and to strengthen his brothers in it.^[11]

Regarding the Roman Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16:18-19, Jaroslav Pelikan writes,^[12] "As Roman Catholic scholars now concede, the ancient Christian father Cyprian used it to prove the authority of the bishop—not merely of the Roman bishop, but of every bishop," referring to Maurice Bevenot's work on St. Cyprian.^[13]

Eastern Catholics agree with the above, but also consider Peter to be representative of all bishops. In this, they represent a middle-ground between the Roman Catholic position and that of the Eastern Orthodox in the next section.

Though among the Twelve Peter is predominant in the first chapters of Acts of the Apostles, James "the brother of the Lord" is shown to be a leader in his own right in later chapters, indeed he is commonly considered the first Bishop of Jerusalem. Some assume James outranks Peter because he speaks last in the Council of Jerusalem and suggests the final ruling (concerning Gentile converts and Jewish practices such as circumcision) agreed upon by all, and because Paul mentions him before Peter and John when he calls them pillars of the church in Jerusalem. James was indeed the first bishop or patriarch of Jerusalem according to tradition. However, Roman Catholics believe the bishop of Jerusalem was not by that fact the head of the Christian church, since the leadership rested in Peter as the "Rock" and "Chief Shepherd".^[14] It is believed Peter entrusted the Jerusalem community to James when he was forced to leave Jerusalem due to Herod Agrippa's persecution. ^{[Acts 12] [15]}

For Catholics, the fact that the new name for Simon is Peter is in fact itself very significant. In the Old Testament God is frequently referred to as a Rock or stone. Jesus refers to himself as the corner stone. The Book of Daniel contains a prophecy that a Rock or stone from the mountain of God (heaven) will come down to earth and destroy the pagan kings. The rock will then grow itself until it covers the entire earth. Protestants consider this prophecy to allude to the end times but Catholics consider the prophecy to refer specifically to Jesus as the Rock from Heaven. Further, Catholics see the fact that the Rock does not leave but stays to until it covers the entire earth to mean that the Church, built of the Rock of Peter, is the body of Christ, the Rock from Heaven, and that the Rock will eventually cover the entire Earth which is why the term Catholic (universal or worldwide) is the most common designation for the Catholic Church.

[edit] Eastern Orthodox view

Eastern Orthodox theologians agree that in Matthew 16:18, "rock" is a likely reference to Peter personally.^[16] Moreover, Eastern Orthodox theologians follow such Fathers as St. John Chrysostom by clarifying that "rock" simultaneously refers to Peter (instrumentally) as well as Peter's confession of faith which has ultimate significance in establishing the Church.^[17]

The declaration of Ravenna is a Roman Catholic–Eastern Orthodox document issued in 2007 re-asserting that the bishop of Rome is indeed the Protos, although future discussions are to be held on the concrete ecclesiological exercise of papal primacy.

Some Orthodox scholars do not see Peter has being in any way above the other apostles, arguing that Peter did not have power and authority over them during Christ's public ministry. There were no positions of power between the twelve, only "degrees of intimacy" or "degrees of honor." According to this view, Peter has a weak symbolic primacy or primacy of honor (in the sense of a purely honorary primacy). Other Orthodox scholars follow St. John Chrysostom and the Byzantine^[18] tradition in seeing Peter as the icon of the episcopate^[19] with his title of protos (first) implying a certain level of authority over the other apostles. In this traditional Orthodox and Patristic view, the Church is the local Eucharistic assembly ("the diocese" in today's terminology) and the one who holds the "Chair of Peter" (St. Cyprian's expression) is the bishop. As a result, the primary of Peter is relevant to the relationship between the bishop and the presbyters, not between the bishop of Rome and the other bishops who are all equally holding Peter's chair.

As John Meyendorff explained:

A very clear patristic tradition sees the succession of Peter in the episcopal ministry. The doctrine of St Cyprian of Carthage on the “See of Peter” being present in every local Church, and not only in Rome, is well-known. It is also found in the East, among people who certainly never read the De unitate ecclesia of Cyprian, but who share its main idea, thus witnessing to it as part of the catholic tradition of the Church. St Gregory of Nyssa, for example, affirms that Christ “through Peter gave to the bishops the keys of the heavenly honors,” and the author of the Areopagitica, when speaking of the “hierarchs” of the Church, refers immediately to the image of St Peter. A careful analysis of ecclesiastical literature both Eastern and Western, of the first millennium, including such documents as the lives of the saint, would certainly show that this tradition was a persistent one; and indeed it belongs to the essence of Christian ecclesiology to consider any local bishop to be the teacher of his flock and therefore to fulfill sacramentally, through apostolic succession, the office of the first true believer, Peter... There exists, however, another succession, equally recognized by Byzantine theologians, but only on the level of the analogy existing between the apostolic college and the episcopal college, this second succession being determined by the need for ecclesiastical order. Its limits are determined by the Councils, and - in the Byzantine practice – by the “very pious emperors.”

—The Primacy of Peter, p. 89

Orthodox historians also maintain that Rome's authority in the early Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) empire was recognized only partially because of Rome's Petrine character, and that this factor was not the decisive issue. Moreover, the Orthodox view is that Rome's privileges were not understood as an absolute power (i.e., the difference between primacy and supremacy). In the East, there were numerous "apostolic sees", Jerusalem being considered the "mother of all churches," and the bishop of Antioch could also claim the title of successor to Peter, being that Peter was the first bishop of Antioch. "Canon 28 of Chalcedon was for [the Byzantines] one of the essential texts for the organization of the Church: 'It is for right reasons that the accorded privileges to old Rome, for this city was the seat of the Emperor and the Senate.' ... The reason why the Roman Church had been accorded an incontestable precedence over all other apostolic churches was that its Petrine and Pauline 'apostolicity' was in fact added to the city's position as the capital city, and only the conjunction of both of these elements gave the Bishop of Rome the right to occupy the place of a primate in the Christian world with the consensus of all the churches."^[20]

[edit] Protestant views

One^[who?] Protestant view on the Matthew verse agrees with the Roman Catholic view and again the disagreements about primacy stem from doctrinal sources, and disagreements such as those over the identification of Simon Peter with the Pope. Other^[who?] Protestants assert the following, based specifically on the verse in Matthew:

Jesus gives Simon the new name petros. However he refers to the "rock" as petra. The inspired New Testament Scriptures were written in Greek, not Aramaic, according to the theory of Greek primacy. What Jesus might have said in Aramaic is conjecture. In Greek, there is a distinction between the two words, πητρα being a "rock" but πητρος being a "small stone" or "pebble". (James G. McCarthy translates the two as "mass of rock" and "boulder or detached stone", respectively.) Jesus is not referring to Peter when talking about "this rock", but is in fact referring to Peter's confession of faith in the preceding verses. Jesus thus does not declare the primacy of Peter, but rather declares that his church will be built upon the foundation of the revelation of and confession of faith of Jesus as the Christ.

Many Protestant scholars, however, reject this position, such as Craig L. Blomberg who states, "The expression ‘this rock’ almost certainly refers to Peter, following immediately after his name, just as the words following ‘the Christ’ in verse 16 applied to Jesus. The play on words in the Greek between Peter’s name (Petros) and the word ‘rock’ (petra) makes sense only if Peter is the Rock and if Jesus is about to explain the significance of this identification." [New American Commentary: Matthew 16:18]^[21]

Donald A. Carson III (Baptist and Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Seminary) states, "Although it is true that petros and petra can mean "stone" and "rock" respectively in earlier Greek, the distinction is largely confined to poetry. Moreover, the underlying Aramaic is in this case unquestionable; and most probably kepha was used in both clauses ("you are kepha" and "on this kepha"), since the word was used both for a name and for a "rock". The Peshitta (written in Syriac, a language cognate with Aramaic) makes no distinction between the words in the two clauses. The Greek makes the distinction between petros and petra simply because it is trying to preserve the pun, and in Greek the feminine petra could not very well serve as a masculine name."^[22]

An alternate^{[citation needed]} Protestant argument is that when Jesus said "upon this rock" in the aforementioned Matthew verse, he referred to himself, in reference to Deuteronomy 32:3-4, which states that "God...is the Rock, his work is perfect". This idea also appears in Cor 10:4; 1co. , which says "...that Rock is Christ." In Ephesians 2:20, Jesus is called "the chief cornerstone".

The New Apostolic Church believes in the re-established Apostle ministry. It sees Peter as the first Chief Apostle in the Early Church.

[edit] Lutheran view

The verse in Matthew shows that the Church is built upon faith in Christ. From the Book of Concord: Chrysostom says thus: “Upon this rock,” not upon Peter. For He built His Church not upon man, but upon the faith of Peter. But what was his faith? “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Hilary says: To Peter the Father revealed that he should say, “Thou art the Son of the living God.” Therefore, the building of the Church is upon this rock of confession; this faith is the foundation of the Church. "^[23]

[edit] References

• William E. Addis & Thomas Arnold (revised by T.B. Scannell) (1925). Catholic Dictionary (9th edition). Virtue & Company Ltd., London.  .  which provides citations for the use of πέτρος to mean "rock" in classical works.
• "Who is the Rock of Matthew 16:18?". http://catholicity.elcore.net./SimonIsTheRock.html. Retrieved June 21 2005. 
• "Commentary on Matthew 16:17–19". The Catholic Evangel. http://www.geocities.com/getthefulltruth/Matt16vv17-19.html. Retrieved June 21 2005. 
• "Section IV: Authority". Refutation of James G. McCarthy's The Gospel According to Rome. http://www.bringyou.to./apologetics/a64.htm. Retrieved June 21 2005. 

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] See also

• Apostolic Succession
• Early Christianity
• Historical episcopate
• Papal infallibility
• Papal supremacy
• Petrine theory

[edit] Further reading

Books

• Cleenewerck, Laurent. His Broken Body: Understanding and Healing the Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches (Section II/3 and Section IV) (ISBN 0-61518-361-1)
• Meyendorff, John, ed. The Primacy of Peter: Essays in Ecclesiology and the Early Church. (ISBN 0-88141-125-6)
• Ray, Stephen K. Upon This Rock: St. Peter and the Primacy of Rome in Scripture and the Early Church. (ISBN 0-89870-723-4)