CATHOLICS ONLY: Why did the Cornerstone tell Peter that he was the stone?

[concretecamper]

Thanks, I found that spot in the video and listened to it -what a great find narnia59

its a Greek language thing apparently and the two rocks, one small and one large are now only synonyms in the first century, and therefore Jesus is actually blessing Peter and not putting him down as only being a small rock or a pebble as compared to Him who is a huge rock or stone.

And Jesus is not blessing Peter for his faith and it's His faith that is the rock and faith will be what builds the church....but it's Peter himself because he gives him the keys?

Considering that Jesus changes Simon's name is an indication of a new role/mission.

Jesus gave Peter the Key to the Kingdom. This was significant in the Davidic Kingdom.

Jesus gave Peter singularly the power to bind and loosen. Later he gives the Apostles the same authority as a whole

Peter is the Rock on which Christ will build His Church. Just because other places in scripture says Jesus is The Rock, doesn't mean Peter can't be also. It doesn't need to be either/or, it can be both/and.

 

[jas3]

This is a well argued text from Matthew, with some Protestants making a big deal about how Peter cannot be the rock the Church is built on because Peter is masculine and the big rock at Capernaum is feminine in Greek.

Having learned Latin myself before being aware of the arguments against Peter being the rock in Matt. 16:18, I am fully convinced that the people who try to build an argument on the difference in gender of Petros and petra are either completely ignorant of gendered languages or learned Greek from a Protestant seminary where the professor made sure to teach his students that this is a key difference. You don't even need to get into ancient poetic uses of petros and petra having different meanings that were lost by the 1st century (which people making this argument will probably quibble over and derail the conversation), because Peter's name isn't based on the word petros, it's the stem for "rock," petr-, with a masculine ending. It has a masculine ending because Peter is a man, and in gendered languages men's names have masculine endings (I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule, but it's almost universal).

The grammatical gender argument against Peter being the rock in Matt. 16:18 is frankly one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard in apologetics. That's not to say that Peter's confession can't also be the rock, or that Jesus can't also be the rock, because both of those interpretations are found in the Church Fathers. But they weren't coming to those interpretations by splitting hairs over the grammatical difference between a feminine word and a masculine name.

 

[Lady Bug]

St. Frances de Sales wrote how Peter is the rock and the apostles are the foundation while Jesus is still the cornerstone. His writing is so challenging sometimes that I can't paraphrase it here.

It's in his book The Catholic Controversy, in the chapter about Peter.

 

[dzheremi]

Having learned Latin myself before being aware of the arguments against Peter being the rock in Matt. 16:18, I am fully convinced that the people who try to build an argument on the difference in gender of Petros and petra are either completely ignorant of gendered languages or learned Greek from a Protestant seminary where the professor made sure to teach his students that this is a key difference. You don't even need to get into ancient poetic uses of petros and petra having different meanings that were lost by the 1st century (which people making this argument will probably quibble over and derail the conversation), because Peter's name isn't based on the word petros, it's the stem for "rock," petr-, with a masculine ending. It has a masculine ending because Peter is a man, and in gendered languages men's names have masculine endings (I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule, but it's almost universal).

The grammatical gender argument against Peter being the rock in Matt. 16:18 is frankly one of the stupidest arguments I've ever heard in apologetics. That's not to say that Peter's confession can't also be the rock, or that Jesus can't also be the rock, because both of those interpretations are found in the Church Fathers. But they weren't coming to those interpretations by splitting hairs over the grammatical difference between a feminine word and a masculine name.

People making these kinds of arguments almost never have the necessary background in anything language or linguistics-related. If they did, they would see how foolish said arguments are and steer clear of them, though I suppose there are those for whom their fidelity to a predetermined narrative causes reality to take a back seat as necessary.