Primacy of Simon Peter

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Simon Peter, also known as Saint Peter or Cephas, was an apostle of Jesus of Nazareth. A number of traditions, most notably Roman Catholic, hold that he was the first Bishop of Rome and was a martyr during the persecution of the emperor Nero. Other Christian denominations, and a number of ecclesiastical historians, dispute this. The New Apostolic Church, who believes in the re-established Apostle ministry, sees Peter as the first Chief Apostle in the early church. For a biography of Peter and a discussion of the historicity of his Roman ministry, see Saint Peter. According to the gospel accounts he was prominent among the followers of Jesus. A number of Christian denominations hold that Peter was the most prominent of the apostles, favoured by Jesus with the first place of honour and authority. This doctrine is known as the Primacy of Peter or the Petrine Primacy (from the Latin Petrus=Peter).This 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.

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 verse 18 of chapter 16 of the Gospel of Matthew, the "on this rock" passage.

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[edit] Roman Catholic view

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Roman Catholics assert the following:

In the Old Law, the High Priest had the highest jurisdiction in religious matters; as can be seen from the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, verses 8-12. St. Paul tells us that Judaism was the type or figure of Christianity in 1 Corinthians 10:11: "Now all these things happened to [the Jews] in figure...". Logic dictates that a supreme head would be necessary in the Christian Church.

In the New Testament Jesus changes 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, Simon's name is changed to πέτρος (Petros), and in the second half of the verse the "rock" in the phrase "on this rock" is the word πέτρα (petra).

However, whilst the genders are different, this is purely a grammatical requirement of the Greek language, an artifact of the translation into Greek of the Aramaic that Jesus spoke, and an attempt to preserve a pun. It is not an attempt to make a distinction (that is mainly confined to Greek poetry) between "rock" and "small stone" or "pebble", as some Protestants interpret it to be. In the classics, including works by Plato and Sophocles, there are also many occasions of πέτρος used to designate "rock".

A male given name should be masculine (-ος), whilst πέτρα, the word for "rock", is feminine (-α). In Aramaic, the word for rock is (variously transliterated into the Latin alphabet as "Kefa", "Kepha", "Cephas", and also transliterated into the Greek alphabet as Κήφας;, in the Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 42). In Aramaic, the same word would have been used in both places, and Jesus is directly referring to Peter when stating "on this rock will I build my church". (This is supported by the fact that the Peshitta, written in Syriac, a language cognate with Aramaic, makes no distinction between the two words.) Jesus thus declares the primacy of Peter amongst the Apostles, and a proper English translation, if translated from the original context, would be "Thou art Rock, and upon this rock will I build my church".

The Gospel of Matthew was written in the Koine dialect of Greek, where there was no distinction between the words petros and petra; both simply meant "rock". Some Protestants point to a distinction present in a different form of Greek, but not in the one actually used by the author of the Gospel. Translating the Gospel of Matthew into French incurs no problem as ordinary translation into English does, as "Tu es Pierre, et sur cette pierre je bâtirai mon Eglise, et les portes de l'enfer ne prévaudront point contre elle." equally preserves the asserted original Aramaic sense. A better English translation, ignoring the tradition of naming the saint Peter in English, would be you are Craig, and on this crag I shall build my church..., relying on English use of the Gaelic name Craig (meaning rock) instead of using the name Peter.

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 of 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.

Regarding the Roman Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16:18-19, Jaroslav Pelikan writes[1], "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[2].

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

[edit] Eastern Orthodox view

Eastern Orthodox agree that the "rock" in this verse refers to Peter personally.[3] However, Eastern Orthodox believe that "rock" simultaneously refers to Peter's confession of faith in the preceding verse. Both Latin and Greek writers in the early church 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.[4]

Peter is not seen as above the other apostles, because he 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". Peter's primacy is believed to decline after the resurrection and ascension of Christ, since Peter's leadership over the Jerusalem church is replaced by that of its first bishop, James, the brother of the Lord. Though James appears more "papal" during this time, and the Jerusalem church was the center of Christianity in the primitive church, Jerusalem did not exert its place of honor as primacy over other smaller, local churches. Regarding Christ's promise to Peter specifically: "'I will build my church,' was a promise that was fulfilled at the first eucharistic gathering at Jerusalem, with Peter at its head."[5]

Rome's authority in the early Byzantine empire was recognized only partially because of Rome's Petrine character, and was not a decisive issue. Nor was Rome's authority understood as an absolute power. 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, the first Antiochian bishop having been appointed by Peter. "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." [6]

[edit] Protestant views

The modern widespread majority Protestant view on the Matthew verse agrees with the Roman Catholic view[citation needed], and again the disagreements about primacy stem from doctrinal sources, and disagreements such as disagreements over the identification of Simon Peter with the Pope. However, a minority of Protestants assert the following, based specifically on the verse in Matthew:

Jesus gives Simon the new name πητρος. However he refers to the "rock" as πητρα. The inspired New Testament Scriptures were written in Greek, not Aramaic. 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.

An alternate 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 1 Corinthians 10:4, which says "...that Rock is Christ", as well as Ephesians 2:20, where Jesus is called "the chief corner stone".

[edit] About the name

“And I tell you, you are Peter [Greek, Petros], and on this rock [Greek, petra] I will build My church, and the gates of Hades (the powers of the infernal region) shall not overpower it [or be strong to its detriment or hold out against it]”

[edit] Example in Romanian language

In Greek: petros (m) - stone or rock (some people argue it is a large piece of rock) petra (f) — stone or rock (some people argue it is a huge rock like Gibraltar)

In Romanian:

  • rock = roca
  • Peter = Petru/Pietru (depending on the regions, it is the same word, it is only an accent)
  • stone = piatra (f)

The masculine form (petru/pietru (m)) is used rearely (excepting by some peasants at country or in Moldavia). Hovever it is widely used in its derivative words:

  • petre/pietre (f), more than one stone
  • petris/pietris (m), many little stones, like a big sand
  • petricica/pietricica (f), a little single stone
  • petricele/pietricele (f), more than one little stones
  • petroi/pietroi (neuter,m), a bigger single stone.
  • petroaie/pietroaie (neuter,f), more than one bigger stones
  • inpetri/inpietri (m), to turn into a stone

If we follow piatra, more than one stone should be piatre: this word does not exist, which means at the beginning piatra had no plural form. More than one stone we say petre/pietre.

Usually piatra (f) means either stone in general, or the material a stone is made of. The second meaning is a stone, because pietru/petru is not widely used any more to designate a stone.

You can see the first meaning/the second meaning like this: steel/object made of steel, or sand/a particle of sand.

For example,

  • "Este numa piatra aici!" means "there are only stones here!" with the first meaning of piatra.
  • "Casa de piatra" means "House made of the material stone" like any modern house, not "House made of stones" in any way.

You can see piatra is only one in these widely used expressions, while in English we translate my more than one usually...

If in Greek there was the same signification, than we should translate: "And I tell you that you are a stone, and on the material this stone is made of I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it"

[edit] References

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Pelikan, Jaroslav (1959). The Riddle of Roman Catholicism. New York: Abingdon Press, 78. 
  2. ^ Bevenot, Maurice. St. Cyprian: The Lapsed, The Unity of the Catholic Church, 6-8. 
  3. ^ Veselin Kesich (1992). "Peter's Primacy in the New Testament and the Early Tradition" in The Primacy of Peter. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 47-48. 
  4. ^ Veselin Kesich (1992). "Peter's Primacy in the New Testament and the Early Tradition" in The Primacy of Peter. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 61-66. 
  5. ^ Veselin Kesich (1992). "Peter's Primacy in the New Testament and the Early Tradition" in The Primacy of Peter. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 53-57. 
  6. ^ Veselin Kesich (1992). "Peter's Primacy in the New Testament and the Early Tradition" in The Primacy of Peter. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 68. 

[edit] See also

[edit] Further reading

Books

  • Ray, Stephen K. Upon This Rock: St. Peter and the Primacy of Rome in Scripture and the Early Church. (ISBN 0-89870-723-4)
  • Meyendorff, John, ed. The Primacy of Peter: Essays in Ecclesiology and the Early Church. (ISBN 0-88141-125-6)
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