As to "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church," Peter had by grace confessed what none ever had, that Christ was the Son of the living God. As entitled to be called Son of God according to promises to Messiah, He had been owned, but Son of the living God He had never been called. This the Father revealed to Peter. The Lord owns the grace conferred on him, and declares that his name should be called Peter (a stone), partaking by grace through his confession of that which he confessed, for it was upon that truth so confessed (that is, on Christ's being the Son of the living God) that He would build His church. Hence it is said that the gates of hades, of the power of death (Satan as having the power of death), should not prevail against the church. For Christ by resurrection was declared to be Son of God with power, above all the power of Satan; and, the church being built on this rock, of His being the Son of the living God, Satan's power, that of death, could not overthrow it. So Chrysostom repeatedly uses it. As James has said, to suppose any real foundation but Christ is denying the Lord. And it is in this character of a divine person having the power of life over death that He can build the church.
113 But your statements that the fathers are agreed on this explanation, though you are borne out by Bellarmine, is quite unfounded. Some of them say it is Peter, some say it is Christ, some say it is the confession of Christ. St. Augustine says, "I know that afterwards I have very often expounded that 'upon this rock' should be understood of him whom Peter confessed." And so he had. As, again, "'Upon this rock,'" he says, "which thou hast confessed 'I will build my church.'" So Chrysostom in Matthew 16: 18, "'on this rock,' that is, on the faith of the confession." I do not quote as his, "'Upon this rock'; He did not say 'upon Peter,' for He built His church not upon the man but upon his faith," for it is generally considered spurious; but it is, at least, some very ancient writer under his name.
The famous passage in Iren. 3, 3 does not apply to the supremacy of Peter, but deserves a short notice here, as it is used as a foundation for the authority of the church of Rome. Irenaeus is not speaking of the authority of any church, but of security as to doctrine, found in the teaching of all apostolic churches, and then says, as it would be tedious to go through all, he will refer to Rome, with which all must agree as having "potiorem principalitatem." Then he states it to be founded by Peter and Paul, Linus following, etc. No one reading the passage, of which we have only a poor Latin translation, and comparing the context, and in the least acquainted with Irenaeus, but must see that in Greek there must have been archen, and the real meaning of the writer to be, "a more excellent origin," namely, two apostles themselves. He is using the testimony "of the faith manifested in all the world," as a proof that these hidden mysteries of the Gnostics would nave been known somewhere, if the apostles had taught them, and the rather at Rome as the two great apostles were there. Of course this has nothing to do with the supremacy of Peter.
114 So Hilary, "Upon this rock of confession is the building of the church." Origen says, "Every disciple of Christ is the rock." Pope Gregory the Great says, "Persist in the true faith, and establish firmly your life in the rock of the church, that is, in the confession of the blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles." Now, it is quite true Chrysostom also says that Peter confessing his being a sinner was made the foundation of the church. But this shews only the vague sense they use it in, for when interpreting the passage he declares it to mean his confession. Be it that he contradicts himself, or with Augustine leaves, as he expressly does, to the reader, in his Retractations, to choose which sense he likes. It only shews what the authority of fathers is worth, and what the Council of Trent requires teachers to be bound by in finding the sense of scripture. The consent of the fathers is not to be had.
But it will be well to give a specimen of the interpretation of the fathers here, which will prove that it is anything but true that they uniformly speak of Peter as the rock, and, further, what the value of their authority in such matters is. You will find almost all you have quoted. My first quotations shall disprove your assertion; the second prove that each contradicts himself: only, you will mark, it is rhetoric when they make Peter the rock, sober interpretation when they say he is not.
Origen says, in his commentary on the passage, tom. 12, c. 11, "If you think that the whole church is built by God upon Peter only, what shall we say of John, the son of thunder? Shall we dare to say that the gates of hell were not properly to prevail against Peter, but that they will prevail against the rest of the apostles and the perfect? Is it not also of all, and of each of them that is spoken what is said before? 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and that on this rock I will build my church.' Are the keys of the kingdom of heaven given to Peter alone, and shall no other of the blessed receive them? And if that also is for others also in common: 'I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.' Now is not both all that is said before, and what follows as addressed to Peter?" and says much more to the same purpose, referring to its gift to all in John's Gospel, and then adds, "as the letter of the Gospel says it to that Peter, as His Spirit teaches, it is to every one who is as that Peter,"* and in the whole chapter applies it diligently to every true Christian.
{*In chapter 14 he says, "As all who claim the place of oversight (bishop's charge) use this saying as Peter, and having received the keys, etc. It is to be said they say it rightly if they have the works, on account of which it was said to that Peter, Thou art Peter (a stone), and if they are such as Christ can build His church upon . . . but if he is bound in the chain of his sins, in vain he binds and looses."}
If you want a totally different interpretation, where every faithful Christian is made a Peter, and the keys given to him, you may see Com. 12, 14.
Hilary de Trin. 6, 36, says, "Upon this rock of confession, therefore, is the building of the church (37). This faith is the foundation of the church; through this the gates of hell are weak against it. This faith has the keys of the heavenly kingdom," etc. So on Psa. 140, "We have known no rock but Christ, because it is said of him, 'that rock was Christ.'"
There is quoted from Origen, to support the Romanist view, the following passage, Hom. 5 (De la Rue, 2, 145).
"See what is said by the Lord to that great foundation of the church, and most solid rock on which Christ founded the church, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?"
This is, however, only a translation of Ruffinus, in which he professes to have added what was necessary, because Origen touched on questions often, and did not answer them, which might annoy the Latin reader.
Hilary, in the treatise on Psalm 131, says, Peter, to whom above he had given the keys of the kingdom of heaven, on whom he was about to build the church against which the gates of hell should not prevail, and as to whom what he should bind and loose on earth should be bound and loosed in heaven; and what you have quoted already. But then he is really insisting on his confession.
116 As regards Athanasius, the passage quoted (of which Bellarmine speaks as so beautiful) is a notoriously spurious letter, and placed among the spurious ones by his Benedictine editors; the proofs you can see in Dupin on this Father, and it is a proof only of the practices resorted to by papal advocates to clothe their pretensions with the authority of great names, and which have acquired the name of pious frauds. We will therefore leave Athanasius, who affords you no help, though he resorted to Rome to help him against the Arians. It is strange moreover Roman Catholics should quote a letter to Felix, for Felix was a pope thrust in by the Arians, while Liberius was banished by the Arian Emperor; and Athanasius says it was a deed that bore the stamp of antichrist. Cardinal Baronius, the great Roman Catholic historian, will not admit him to be pope at all, as there cannot be two. Bellarmine says he was a fresh instance of how solid a foundation popes are for the church to be built upon. Roman Catholics cannot agree whether he was or was not a pope. When the Emperor let Pope Liberius back on his agreeing to communion with the Arians and signing an Arian or semi-Arian creed, Felix and he had to rub on together, two popes and two heads at a time, till Liberius died.
As to Gregory Nazianzen, it proves, orator as he was, what I maintain; though in rhetorical language, without exactness, he says Peter is called a rock, which is not exact as to fact, for in the text Simon is called Peter, or a stone. But his explanation of it every Christian would allow, and it is what the Fathers often say, that the foundation of the church was trusted to his faith. No doubt it was, under God's grace. But, in this figurative sense, Paul also declares that he had laid the foundation, and that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the corner stone. So in the heavenly Jerusalem, the twelve foundations have the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. In this general way no reader of scripture could for a moment make any difficulty. But it proves that the popes can have nothing whatever to say to it. For since that foundation was once laid, all others, who have that blessed privilege, are built upon it. To lay the foundation of the church now is simply to deny it and its foundation as originally laid. It is perfectly clear that no pope nor any Christian in after times could have this place. Next as to Epiphanius.
117 He does exalt Peter abundantly in the place quoted, and in the book on heresies also. In the former with much else, nearly as you say, "It became the first of the apostles, the solid rock on which the church should be built, and the gates of hell not prevail against it, by which gates the founders of heresies are meant."
Here, however, I will add a passage farther on, from the same section 9 of the Anchoret:
"He (John) learning from the Son, and receiving from the Son, the power of knowledge; but he (Peter) obtained it from the Father, founding the security of faith."
But the same Epiphanius says (Heresy of the Cathari (59) 7): "Upon this rock of a solid faith I will build my church."
Here the faith is the rock. And note that, even in the passage in the Anchoret, the difference is founded on the immediate revelation by the Father, so that it applies only to Peter personally. Indeed, even where Peter is stated by the Fathers to be the rock, it is always on the ground of his personal faith.
Epiphanius therefore does not much help you out. It is Peter's faith one time, Peter himself another; but then because of the immediate revelation made to him by the Father. You next press Chrysostom on us; we will examine him too. You quote him on Matt. 55.
"The Lord says, 'Thou art Peter, and upon thee will I build my church.'"
This is a very unfortunate quotation of Bellarmine's. Because in the Commentary on Matt. 55, Chrysostom says just the contrary: he is insisting on the special blessedness of Peter as having owned Christ to be the Son of the living God, and directly taught there the consubstantiality of the Son. And thereon says, "Therefore He adds this: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church," that is, upon the faith of the confession. The Sermon on Pentecost, which is as strong as possible in the same sense, I do not quote, as the best editors consider it spurious. There it is said, "He did not say on Peter, referring to Petra, a rock, for He did not found His church on a man, but on faith." At any rate, it is an ancient testimony.
118 However, Chrysostom's testimony is exactly the opposite to what it is alleged for
I next take Cyril.
"That in him as in a rock and most firm stone, he was going to build his church." What I do find in Cyril nearest to this is "[Christ] most suitably from the rock changed his name to Peter (petra, petron), for he was about to found his church on him." That is in Commentary on John 1 (Paris, 1638.)
But Cyril in his dialogue on the Trinity 4, vol. 2, p. 1, 507, says on the verse, "Calling a rock, I think, by a change of word, nothing else, I think, but the immovable and firm faith of the disciples upon which, without possibility of falling, God has established and fixed the church of Christ."
We have not thus made much progress with the Fathers yet. The Greek Fathers do some of them speak of Peter, but I have taken up those presented by you, and all but one say the contrary of your interpretation, though they, several of them, contradict themselves, which it is important enough for us to remark. We have not only Fathers against Fathers, but Fathers against themselves. This is a poor foundation for faith. The Council of Trent will not allow the consent of the Fathers to be rejected in interpretation; but we find no such consent, in most cases not even of one Father with himself.
