“On This Rock I Will Build My Church There is a huge controversy raging on as regards to The Rock Christ was referring to in the scripture. Most non Catholics believe Jesus was The Rock while Catholics believe that Jesus was referring to Peter. The verse in question is Matthew 16:18, and it reads; And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. In English, some of the impact of this phrase is lost – the name “Peter” means “rock” and in many languages the same word would be used for both. So, a better understanding of what Christ actually said would be; You are Rock, and on this rock I will build my Church Even if this verse is taken in isolation (something which is not recommended we should do when reading Scripture) it reads as a very solid support of Petrine Primacy. While it contains no complex doctrines, it does make it very clear that the Church of Christ is built on Saint Peter as a person. Christ calls him a rock, and then says He will build His Church (singular, thus showing there is only one Church) on him. There are, however, many people who wish to discredit this verse by trying to “prove” that it does not mean what the Catholic Church (correctly) says it means. There are a number of techniques which they may choose to use, and as an apologist you should be ready to respond to all of them. But it is very important for the apologist to not become sidetracked or obsessed with the notion of defending this single verse as if it were the only support for the office of the pope. A correct understanding of the other Scriptural and non-Scriptural supports for Petrine Primacy is essential in order to avoid getting bogged down in verse-slinging. Challenge 1 : “this rock” does not refer to Peter, but rather to his faith Many non-Catholics will choose to interpret the rock on which Christ builds His Church as the faith of Saint Peter. This supports the false notion of sola fides (“faith alone”) held to by a number of Protestants – they say that Saint Peters declaration of Jesus as the Messiah was the rock on which the Church was built and, therefore, all those who display faith in Jesus as the Messiah are in some way “foundational” to the Church. The Church in this scenario is built on faith, not on an individual. Fortunately, refuting this notion is very simple. It is not even necessarily a matter of theology, but rather of grammar. When the word “this” is used in any language it generally refers to the noun which immediately follows. So, if someone says, “I own a motorbike and a car, and this is blue” we believe that the car is blue. Saint Peters declaration of faith in Jesus as the Messiah occurs in the sentence before, while the identification of Simon as “Peter” (rock) occurs immediately prior and in the same sentence. Also, Christ has named the man who was Simon “Peter” - meaning rock – already. He does not say “on this I will build my Church” (which might be ambiguous) but rather “on this rock I will build my Church”. Additionally, we must always remember to read and interpret Scripture as a whole – not as single verses in isolation. The rest of Scripture points towards Petrine Primacy, as well as refuting the notion of sola fides, as do non-Scriptural sources. Challenge 2 : the rock is Christ, not Peter This is a challenge somewhat harder to refute, as it is at least partially true. Yes, the foundation of the Church is Christ (because the Church is Jesus Christs bride and His mystical body) and Christ is described as a rock a number of times in Scripture. This is an example of the “either / or” understanding of Christianity common to many Protestants. Because Christ is described as a rock, Peter cannot be. Because Christ is the foundation of the Church, Peter cannot be. They fail to understand that Christianity is not “either / or” but “both / and”. Refuting this claim should begin with the “either / or” apologetic tactics. Apologists should also make use of the extensive Scriptural and non-Scriptura support for Petrine Primacy other than Matthew 16:18. Remember, Scripture should not be read in isolation. Challenge 3 : the Petra / Petros debate This is one of the most interesting challenges, albeit no harder to refute (although it is a little more complex). We can learn something about the nature of another language – namely Greek – through refuting it, and also come to understand the world Jesus and the Apostles lived in better through the linguistic analysis. The objection to the Catholic interpretation runs as follows; in the Greek manuscripts of Matthew Jesus calls Peter Petros and “this rock” Petra. These two words look very similar (they are, in fact, connected to each other and both mean “rock”) but they are clearly not precisely the same word. A number of non-Catholics will say that this difference of words means that Peter cannot be the rock, as the word petros means “small rock” or “pebble” while petra means “large rock” or boulder. These Protestants will argue one of the two points above – that the larger foundation is either Christ or Peters faith, and that the man himself is the smaller rock; similar, but not the foundation. This argument hinges on three vital facts; That petros and petra really mean “small rock” and “large rock” respectively That Christ used different words to refer to “Peter” and “this rock” That Christ intended to differentiate between “Peter” and “this rock” in that way As we shall demonstrate, none of these “facts” are true! Remember, in order for this challenge to stand up, all of these facts must be true. If even one is not, then the whole argument collapses. Firstly, do petros and petra really mean “small rock” and “large rock”? Greek scholars are almost universally agreed in saying that the words petros and petra were synonyms (words which have the same meaning) in first century Greek. The meanings small rock and large rock are only found in a number of ancient Greek poems which were composed centuries before the time of Christ. Any difference in meaning had disappeared from the language by the time Matthew’s Gospel was written (around the middle of the first century AD). In addition, the difference can only be found in Attic Greek, but the New Testament was written in Koine Greek—an entirely different dialect. In Koine Greek, both petros and petra simply meant rock. If Jesus had wanted to call Simon a small stone in first century Koine Greek, He would have used the Greek word lithos. Secondly, did Jesus use two different words to refer to “Peter” and “this rock”? Again, no – He did not. While the New Testament is written in Greek it was not that language that Jesus and the Apostles would have commonly spoken day to day. (There are a number of authorities who maintain that the Gospel of Matthew was not written originally in Greek, but in Aramaic. This position is based on linguistic analysis of the Greek text of the Gospel, as well as records kept by Eusebius of Caesarea.) Greek was the common language of the first century Near- and Middle East for commerce, trade, education and international communications – but Jews in Palestine would not have spoken it when talking to each other. Jesus might have used the language to speak to non-Jews (such as Pilate) but He would not have commonly spoken to His disciples in that language. For that, He would have used Aramaic – a semitic language related to Hebrew and common in the Persian empire. A number of examples are Aramaic are cited in the New Testament as the words that Jesus actually spoke (the most famous example is “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” found in Matthew 27:46.) So, when Jesus called Simon “Peter” (meaning “rock”) He would not have said “Peter”. He would not even have said “Petros” (from where we get the English name “Peter”). He would have used the Aramaic – a word which we find eight times in Saint Pauls epistles (four times in Galatians and four times in I Corinthians). This word is Kepha, and means “rock”. It is this word that Jesus would have used when saying “You are Peter and on this rock” - He would have said “You are Kepha and on this kepha”. But why did Saint Matthew (or whoever translated Matthew into Greek) use different words to represent the same word in Aramaic? The answer lies in a grammatical point which is not present in English, but is present in other modern languages – such as French, Spanish and German. Nouns in ancient Greek are gendered – that is, some of them are masculine and some are feminine. The word petra is feminine (it is used today in some parts of the world as a female version of the name Peter) and so could not be used to apply to a man like Peter (it would be like calling a man named Stephen “Stephanie”!) The male version of petra is petros – and so that is why Matthew used those words. He was trying to represent what was a perfect pun (using exactly the same words) in Aramaic using a language which did not allow him to do this. In English, virtually all of the effect is lost – few people know that Peter means “rock” - but in Greek at least some of the meaning can be preserved. Finally, did Jesus intend to differentiate between Peter and the rock upon which He would build His Church? Some people might say that we cannot know what Jesus meant, but they would be wrong. Everything we know about Jesus comes to us through the Apostles and those the Apostles taught. So, we can learn what Jesus meant by this by looking at the Scriptural and non-Scriptural references to Peters position and status. It is clear, from the wealth of Biblical and extra-Biblical support for the doctrine of Petrine Primacy that Jesus meant exactly what the plain sense of a literal meaning of Scripture means; You are Rock, and on this rock I will build my Church. Please share this on your wall to educate most non Catholics that wants to learn. God bless you as you do this.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 12:18:36 +0000
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