Jimmy Akin

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Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter (Sistine Chapel – Pietro Perugino, 1480-81)

NOTE: This series is a work in progress. See Part 1 updates including bibliography in progress. As I add sources and update past posts I will continue to expand the bibliography.

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 16:19)

If verse 18 (“You are Petros, and on this rock I will build my Church”) is the central saying of Jesus’ extraordinary threefold logion to Peter in Matthew 16, verse 19 is its climax. Verse 18 is the fulcrum of the passage, but verse 19 provides the leverage. Verse 19 is the key to the Petrine fact; it puts the primacy of Peter in all the other passages we have considered into sharpest relief, giving us a definite context for understanding the nature of Peter’s relationship to Jesus, to the Twelve and to the Church.

Like the previous two verses (as we saw in Part 6), verse 19 consists of a major pronouncement addressed to Peter and about Peter, followed by a supporting couplet expounding upon or unpacking the major pronouncement:

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,

and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,

and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

If verse 18 invited comparison to the renaming passages in Genesis involving Abraham, Sarah and Jacob, verse 19 even more strikingly recalls an Old Testament text with the same three-part structure, as well as other clear points of contact:

And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David;

he shall open, and none shall shut;

and he shall shut, and none shall open. (Isa 22:22)

In addition to this passage, there are also four New Testament passages warranting mention. One is Matthean, the other three Johannine:

Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,

and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matt 18:18)

Receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven;

if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. (John 20:22b-23)

Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and hades. (Rev 1:17b-18)

The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David,

who opens and no one shall shut,

who shuts and no one opens. (Rev 3:7)

A number of images and themes crop up throughout these passages: keys, the Church, heaven and earth, hades, binding and loosing, opening and closing, forgiving and retaining.

Let’s begin with the idea of binding and loosing, found in the two Matthean passages, Matthew 16:19 and 18:18 (which are also the only two texts here or anywhere in the Gospels in which the word “church” appears).

As we saw with receiving and delivering (Part 2), the language of binding and loosing is borrowed from rabbinic vocabulary, where refers first of all to regulatory or disciplinary authority: authority to forbid or permit, to declare licit or illicit — to define and clarify Halakhah, the living legal tradition regulating all aspects of Jewish life. Binding and loosing can also refer to executive or juridical authority to exclude from the community or to acquit of wrongdoing.

An example of the first, halakhic sense of binding as regulatory or disciplinary authority can be seen another Matthean saying of Jesus that mentions “binding”:

The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice. They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. (Matthew 23:2-4)

The saying clearly refers to halakhic authority misused, i.e., used in an abusive and hypocritical way — though Jesus gives no indication that the misuse of regulatory authority disqualifies its use or warrants its disregard. On the contrary, he affirms the authority of the scribes and the Pharisees, urging his hearers to “practice and observe whatever they tell you,” even when this power of binding is hypocritically wielded by those who “sit in Moses’ seat.”

A related expression can be found in a passage previously considered, Acts 15, in which, deferring to James’ pastoral concern for Jewish brethren, the council issues a halakhic pronouncement for the Syrian Gentile Christians, stating that “it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity” (Acts 15:28-29). While the word “binding” is not present here (it is another Semitism particular to Matthew), Luke’s language of laying “burdens” on men (i.e., obliging certain Gentile brethren to observe certain conspicuous precepts of the Law of Moses above and beyond the requirements of the moral law) resonates with Jesus’ language about “binding heavy burdens,” and reinforces that Jesus is speaking of regulatory or disciplinary authority.

The second sense of binding and loosing, authority to exclude from the community or to acquit of wrongdoing, is directly in view in Matthew 18, where verse 18 immediately follows Jesus’ teaching that the obstinate wrongdoer who “refuses to listen even to the church” should be ostracized from the community (“let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector”). It’s not hard to see that these two senses are interrelated (e.g., authority to establish the rules of a community more or less entails authority to distinguish members in good standing from those who are not).

It is one thing to have authority, and another to use it rightly. We have seen that Jesus excoriated the scribes and Pharisees for misusing their own authority to bind (while still exhorting his hearers to submit to that misused authority); and to the Twelve, as we saw in Part 3, Jesus sought to impart the idea of a radically different model of authority based on service rather than privilege. Clearly the Twelve were slow to absorb this concept prior to Pentecost, and even after Pentecost it is not necessary to assume that every apostle was always a perfect model of servant leadership. Certainly Christian history is replete with examples of leadership abused in just the ways that Jesus condemns.

Nevertheless, both in Matthew 16:19 and 18:18 we find astonishing ratification of the exercise of the binding and loosing authority conferred by Jesus: “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Insofar as binding and loosing entails halakhic authority, this “heaven and earth” language indicates that the Christian Halakhah has divine force. (“Heaven” in Matthew is a circumlocution for “God”; e.g., where Mark and Luke use “kingdom of God,” Matthew uses “kingdom of heaven.” Thus, “bound in heaven” means “bound by or before God.”) Insofar as it entails authority to exclude or to acquit, Jesus’ language comes very close to the parallel Johannine pronouncement “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

In both Matthew 16 and 18, the future perfect tense could also be translated “shall have been bound/loosed” (a construction that R. T. France suggests is as awkward in Greek as it is in English), or even “shall having been bound” (thus A. T. Robertson). This suggests divine guidance for those exercising this authority — an implication that particularly resonates with Jesus’ guarantee in Matthew 16:18 that “the gates of hell shall not prevail” against the Church he builds upon this rock.

While this may entail infallibility in unchanging matters (a point I may return to in a future post), it should not be taken to indicate that Peter and the apostles are authorized only to declare what is or is not lawful according to the eternal moral law. Acts 15 provides a good counter-example: “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us,” the council wrote, though such matters as eating meat offered to idols and blood were not matters of the eternal moral law, but of the Law of Moses.

The implication is not that the council’s decision to require more than the moral law was merely ratified or seconded by the Holy Spirit, but that it was in accordance with the will of the Holy Spirit. Thus, what is “having been bound in heaven” need not be only what is eternally bound by the moral law; it can also be what is in keeping with prudential moral judgment for a particular cultural situation. In other words, “shall have been bound in heaven” need not mean “bound always, everywhere and for everyone”; binding and loosing can have a more limited scope, even in heaven.

So far we have been considering Jesus’ language about binding and loosing in Matthew 16 and Matthew 18 in an undifferentiated way. Now we must take stock of crucial differences between the two passages. Three in particular stand out.

First, though identically translated in contemporary English (which lacks inflection for number of the second-personal pronoun and second-person verbs), in the Greek text (and in any Aramaic original, and in most other languages), the second-personal pronoun “you” and the verbs “bind” and “loose” are singular in 16:19, addressed to Peter alone, and plural in 18:18, addressed to the company of the Twelve.

On the one hand, then, Jesus says to Peter, “whatever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” On the other hand, he says to the Twelve, “whatever you (all) bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you (all) loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Once again, as in declaring Peter the rock and in various other ways, Jesus singles Peter out. He doesn’t tell, e.g., John that what he binds or looses on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven — or James, or Andrew, etc. He doesn’t even say “Whatever any of you bind or loose on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven.” The plural verbs in chapter 18 are enacted by a plural subject. Taken at face value, Matthew 18 speaks of a corporate power of binding or loosing, exercised by a body — the body of the Twelve, of the “church” (as per the previous verse) — while Matthew 16 speaks of an individual power of binding or loosing, exercised by Peter.

This is an observation about the Greek grammar and what Jesus says in Matthew. I do not leap directly to any specific theological conclusion about differences in the authority given to Peter versus the Twelve. I am not necessarily saying that John or James or Andrew had not in any sense power to bind or loose individually. My only immediate conclusion is that Jesus once again singles Peter out and ascribes to him individually what is ascribed to the Twelve only corporately, as he does in calling Peter the rock on which the Church is built while the apostles collectively are elsewhere called the Church’s foundation.

A second difference: While in both passages binding and loosing is directly associated with the Church — the only places the word ever appears in the Gospels — the word church seems to be used differently in Matthew 16 and Matthew 18. In the former passage it clearly refers to the Church Universal: “Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it” (16:18). It the latter it seems to refer to the local church community: “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (18:17). (Certainly Matthew’s readers would not have understood from this that Christians were to go up to Jerusalem to take their grievances with one another before the leading apostles; they would have understood this to refer to local church leadership.)

Once again, I do not leap directly to any specific theological conclusion. I do not claim, for instance, that the authority of individual apostles other than Peter was geographically limited or confined to particular communities. It is theologically true that the apostolic mission of every apostle was to the whole Church. Nevertheless, Jesus speaks of Peter’s individual authority to bind and loose in the context of the Church Universal, and of the apostles’ collegiate authority to bind and loose in the context of local churches. The latter authority is given a relative context; the former an absolute context.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, while 18:18 mentions only the power of binding and loosing, 16:19 mentions something else: the keys of the kingdom. In fact, the keys of the kingdom are the major clause; binding and loosing is only the supporting couplet.

In the last couple of posts I argued that the supporting couplets in Matthew 16:17-19 illuminate and expound upon the major clauses. As we saw, some resist this in 16:18, arguing that “You are Petros” has nothing to do with “upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it.” Now, in verse 19, many of the same readers go to the opposite extreme, arguing that the keys of the kingdom and the power of binding and loosing are not only related, but simply and sheerly synonymous. “The keys of the kingdom,” they say, means nothing that is not wholly contained in the power of binding and loosing that is shared by all. The major clause is thus collapsed into the supporting couplet.

We have already seen that even with regard to binding and loosing Peter is uniquely privileged among the Twelve. Beyond that, though, the effort to collapse the keys of the kingdom into the power of binding and loosing must be rejected.

To begin with, one could not similarly collapse the meaning of the major clauses from the preceding verses into the supporting couplets. “Upon this rock I will build my Church” is obviously related to “I say to you, you are Petros,” but they are not two ways of saying the same thing, nor does “upon this rock I will build my Church” contain the whole meaning of “I say to you, you are Petros.” Likewise, Peter’s blessedness and the Father’s revelation to him of Jesus’ identity are related but not identical realities, and the latter is not the sole basis for the former (in fact, Jesus is about to bless Peter further). The reductionist effort to read the keys of the kingdom out of the passage is not supported by the context.

The key, though, is the Old Testament background in Isaiah 22: “And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open” (Isa 22:22). This passage, recognized by most commentators and commentaries today, Catholic and non-Catholic, as the precedent for Jesus’ words in Matthew 18:19, indicates that what is given to Peter is a privilege that is unique among the Twelve.

The verse is part of an oracle that concerns the office of chief steward or master of the household of David. The current office holder, Shebna, has incurred God’s displeasure, and is to be cast down from his station, and his authority given to a successor, Eliakim son of Hilkiah. Here is the oracle in full:

Thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, “Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him: What have you to do here and whom have you here, that you have hewn here a tomb for yourself, you who hew a tomb on the height, and carve a habitation for yourself in the rock? Behold, the LORD will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you, and whirl you round and round, and throw you like a ball into a wide land; there you shall die, and there shall be your splendid chariots, you shame of your master’s house. I will thrust you from your office, and you will be cast down from your station. In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house. And they will hang on him the whole weight of his father’s house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons. In that day, says the LORD of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a sure place will give way; and it will be cut down and fall, and the burden that was upon it will be cut off, for the LORD has spoken.” (Isa 22:15-25)

The “key of the house of David” in this passage represents the office of chief steward or master of the royal household. Like other kings in ancient and modern times, the Davidic monarchs were served by various stewards or ministers empowered to exercise authority in the king’s name. Among these was the one “over the household,” as Shebna is called in 22:15, and as Eliakim is called in Isaiah 36:3.

The same language for the same office is found in 1 Kings 4:6 as well as in (for the northern kingdom) 1 Kings 16:9 and 18:3; parallels are also found in Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian contexts. A pre-Davidic parallel is found in Genesis, where Joseph is put “over the household” of Pharaoh (Gen 41:40, 45:8), an office entailing supreme authority over the whole kingdom second only to Pharaoh. This is the authority of the Egyptian vizier — the model for the Hebrew office of chief steward according to some scholars. (Originally, apparently, the authority of the master of the house was just that — he was a palace administrator, concerned with the doings of the king’s household rather than the kingdom. Over time, however, the office acquired more importance, and by )

The key of the royal household in Isaiah 22 is a sign of the chief steward’s preeminent authority among the king’s ministers, an authority second only to the king himself. That they are worn on the shoulder seems to suggest ceremonial significance: The key is actually a token of office, not just a tool for locking or unlocking.

In Matthew 16:19, Jesus does not quote Isaiah 22:22 exactly, as if it were a prophecy of the Petrine office. Isaiah does not foretell Peter; neither Shebna nor Eliakim is a prophetic “type” of Peter in the sense that the Davidic king was a type of Christ.

Rather, Jesus alludes to an Old Testament passage that provides an interpretive precedent for what he is doing. Peter has just confessed Jesus as the Messiah, the son of David, the king of Israel. In reply, by giving Peter the keys of the kingdom, Jesus places Peter over the royal household.

This is a unique privilege; it is held by one. The other apostles also share in the power of binding and loosing; they also are stewards and ministers in the royal household. But the absence of the keys in Matthew 18:18 is not merely a formal detail. Only one is over the household. Only Peter has the keys. This is not merely halakhic authority to bind and loose, along with the other apostles. Peter is chief steward, with administrative authority second only to Jesus.

Why Peter? Whatever factors in Peter’s personality we might cite for or against him, Jesus makes it clear that it is “not by flesh and blood” that Peter comes to where he is now. It was by the Father’s choice that he came to confess Jesus, and by Jesus’ choice that he becomes the rock of the Church and the bearer of the keys. This is not to say that the other apostles lacked Peter’s faith, or that others before Peter had not confessed Jesus as Messiah (cf. John 1:49). But Jesus’ interpretation of Peter’s confession is definitive; it is Peter whom he pronounces blessed, Peter who becomes the rock, Peter who receives the keys.

Some polemicists attempt to evade the implications of Isaiah 22 for Matthew 16 by emphasizing that Isaiah 22 speaks of the disgrace and fall of an unworthy steward, and looks forward to the fall of his successor Eliakim as well. Isaiah 22 calls Eliakim “a peg in a sure place” from which hangs “the whole weight of his father’s house,” but concludes that the peg “will give way” and “the burden that was upon it will be cut off” (this appears to refer to Eliakim, though it’s not entirely clear). The implication, apparently, is that this would not bode well for Peter or for any office inaugurated on him.

This is to overplay the significance of the specific events described in Isaiah 22 for Matthew 16. Jesus does not pronounce Peter to be a new Shebna or Eliakim, as John the Baptist was a new Elijah. Shebna is not the first chief steward of David’s house; he is merely one in a long line of office holders. He is not a prophetic type of Peter, only someone who held an analogous office under the old covenant. Jesus’ allusion to Isaiah 22 simply references the office held by Shebna and Eliakim as a way of explaining Peter’s role in the Church and the kingdom.

Eliakim may be “a peg in a sure place” supporting “the whole weight of his father’s house,” but Peter is the rock that supports the Church built by Christ. Isaiah prophesies that the peg and its burden are destined to fall, but Jesus himself declares that the Church built upon this rock will not. Shebna and Eliakim’s authority was unquestioned within the royal household, but Peter’s authority to bind and loose is ratified by heaven itself. The differences tell as much as the similarities.

Another attempt to minimize Peter’s privilege in Matthew 16 involves pointing to the verses in Revelation 1 and 3 that speak of Jesus having the keys. In particular, Revelation 3:7 (“The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens”) unquestionably references Isaiah 22:22, even more directly than Matthew 16:19 — though Matthew 16:19 is functionally closer to Isaiah 22:22 in that both Isaiah 22:22 and Matthew 16:19 involve the entrusting of keys to a minister. In Revelation 3:7 Jesus declares that he has the key, but the key is neither given nor received in that passage, as in Isaiah 22 and Matthew 16.

This is fitting, since obviously the point of Revelation 3 is not that Jesus is now chief steward! Rather, Jesus has the key of David by virtue of being the king, while in Matthew 16 Peter receives the keys, like Eliakim, by virtue of being the king’s servant. There is no contradiction between Jesus giving Peter the keys in Matthew 16 and having the key in Revelation 3; Jesus does not give up the keys he entrusts to Peter, any more than he gives up the sheep he entrusts to Peter. (We will return to these verses when considering the question of succession.)

To see Peter as Jesus’ chief steward offers a definitive context in which to understand Peter’s primacy throughout the New Testament, and vice versa; each contextualizes the other. In Luke 22, when the whole company of Christ’s stewards are to be sifted by Satan, it is the chief steward that Jesus prays for, that he might strengthen the rest. It is the chief steward to whom Jesus gives the solemn threefold commission as vice shepherd, to whom Jesus appears first after the Resurrection.

It is the one to whom Jesus gives the keys, the master of the house, who leads the apostles in choosing a replacement for Judas, who speaks for the Twelve at Pentecost, who speaks before the Sanhedrin, who pronounces judgment (exercising the power of the keys) on Ananias and Sapphira (a pronouncement that is ratified by heaven).

It is the chief steward who receives the vision opening the door to Gentile believers — and who silences debate at the Jerusalem council by reminding the assembled that it was he whom God chose from among them all for that vision, just as he was chosen from among the Twelve at Caesarea Philippi.

It is also the chief steward whom Jesus rebuffs at Caesarea Philippi, who initially refuses Jesus’ foot-washing, who receives the rebuke for the sleeping disciples at Gethsemane, who denies Jesus three times, whom Paul must oppose to his face. The New Testament’s near preoccupation with Peter’s failures tells much the story as its interest in his outspokenness and leadership. Peter’s weakness is so significant precisely because he is the chief of the apostles.

More to come!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

NOTE: This series is a work in progress. See Part 1 updates including bibliography in progress. As I add sources and update past posts I will continue to expand the bibliography.

Those who oppose identifying Peter as the rock on which the church is built in Matthew 16:18 typically interpose one or more of the following textual objections.

First, they rely on the opposition of the terms themselves: Petra is solid rock, petros, a detached stone; they cannot mean the same thing. If Jesus had meant to say he would build his church on Peter, they argue, he could have used the same word both times. In addition, some point to certain extra-Matthean passages (e.g., 1 Cor 3:11,1 Cor 10:4, 1 Peter 2:6ff) to argue that Jesus alone is the foundation stone; he would never speak of building his church on a fallible, sinful man like Peter.

None of these objections withstands scrutiny.

Begin with petra and petros. We have already seen in Part 5 that the distinction between petra and petros, never absolute, had become increasingly fuzzy and that the terms could be used interchangeably. This has now become commonplace in Protestant commentators (F. F. Bruce, D. A. Carson, Walter Elwell, etc.; documentation to come) after being highlighted by Oscar Cullman in the 10-volume Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Kittel 6:98-108).

In particular, documentation of the ambiguity and interchangeability of the two words has been compiled by Caragounis, who cites many instances in both secular and biblical Greek of petra as a movable stone, petros as solid rock, and both words being used indeterminately to mean such things as the substance of stone, etc. (Caragounis 10-15. Note that, despite this, Caragounis argues against the identification of Peter as the rock.)

But that’s only the first problem. Even if it were possible to make a clear opposition between the terms, that still wouldn’t prevent Jesus or anyone else from playing on two disparate words to refer to the same reality. A difference in image does not entail a difference in referent.

To give a trivial example, suppose I saw my six-year-old daughter Anna wrestling with all her might with one of her older brothers, and I said to my wife Suzanne, “Look at the kitten. There’s a wildcat in here.” Obviously kittens and wildcats are two different things, but Suzanne would hardly reason that if the kitten is Anna, the wildcat must be something else.

Kittens and wildcats are different things, but they are used here as parallel images. It is synthetic and amplifying parallelism because the second image builds and expands upon the first. There is a deliberate and ironic contrast between the first image and the second, but also obviously a connection between the two (I didn’t pick two feline images by accident). The first image might suggest something about Anna’s habitual temperament (e.g., playfulness) as well as her relative stature, maturity and appearance (e.g., cuteness); the second image offers a contrasting observation about her current disposition and behavior (unexpected ferocity), supplying a side of Anna missing in the first image.

In a not dissimilar vein, suppose we were to grant opponents of the Petrine reading their best-case scenario, and give maximal, even exaggerated force to the traditional difference between the two words, rendering Jesus’ words as: “I say to you, you are a pebble, and on this solid rock I will build my church.” Would it then follow that the “solid rock” must mean something other than the “pebble”?

Not at all. A difference in image does not entail a difference in referent. Even granting differing shades of meaning between petra and petros, the differences don’t provide the leverage needed to avoid the conclusion that Jesus is talking about Peter right through the passage. The effective interchangeability of the two words merely underscores the point.

In particular, that it is Jesus himself speaking, and that he has already spoken about Peter’s confession coming “not by flesh and blood” but by the Father’s gift, further eradicates any difficulty about seeing continuity of thought rather than disjunction. If for Jesus the very rocks will cry out (Luke 19:40), at his word a pebble can be a mighty rock and a sure foundation. We may think here of Jesus’ words to Peter in Luke 22 (Part 3), in which he prayed that Simon’s faith might not fail, that he might strengthen his brethren: praying that weak, stumbling Simon might be a firm rock.

There is a third issue, the Aramaic question. The probability that Jesus and his disciples spoke customarily Aramaic among themselves is heightened in this passage by indications of underlying Aramaic, not least the transliterated Aramaic of Simon’s existing surname, bar-Jona. (Bar-Jona, “son of John,” is Aramaic; the Hebrew form would be ben-Jona.) Semitisms like flesh and blood, the gates of hades, binding and loosing, and heaven and earth also suggest an original Hebraic context.

The Aramaic is also suggested by Jesus’ emphatic reference to Peter’s new surname. Though Matthew gives this using the familiar Greek form Petros, it is likely (as previously noted, in view of the early use of Kephas in 1 Corinthians and Galatians 1-2 as well as John 1:42) that the original form of Peter’s surname was Aramaic Kepha, followed by Grecized Kephas, and finally the Greek translation Petros. Had Jesus given Simon the fully Greek form Petros from the start, it seems unlikely that the Grecized Aramaic form Kephas would ever have arisen. (This point seems to be overlooked by many commentators, particularly in debates over the original language behind Matthew 16.)

For all these reasons, it seems highly probable that Matthew 16:17-19 reflects a conversation that originally occurred in Aramaic, and that “You are Petros” translates “You are Kepha.” How did the saying continue? Was it “You are Kepha, and on this kepha I will build my church”? This is how the text is rendered in the Peshitta, the standard Aramaic translation of the New Testament, and many scholars regard it as the likely Aramaic original. I haven’t yet seen any convincing scholarly proposal of an alternate Aramaic original, though it does seem more likely than not that if Jesus had wanted another word he would have had options.

If Jesus repeated the same Aramaic word in both places, why wouldn’t the inspired Greek text of Matthew translate it the same way both times? To begin with, “You are Petros” is obviously the correct translation of the first clause, not only because of gender, but even more because Petros was Peter’s established name by the time Matthew wrote his Gospel. (Many commentators seem to forget this point, suggesting that Matthew had his choice of rock language, as if Mark’s Gospel and the previous dozen or so chapters of Matthew’s Gospel hadn’t been written; as if Peter hadn’t been Petros for decades.)

Could Matthew have gone on to render “upon this kepha” as “upon this petros,” given the relative interchangeability of petra and petros? Possibly, though the rarity of the common noun petros, which appears in the New Testament only as Peter’s name, and is all but absent in the Septuagint, may be a factor. If not necessarily denotatively different, petra offers resonances missing from petros; for example, echoing the parable of the wise and foolish builders in Matthew 7:24ff, in which the wise man builds upon petra (the natural word there) — a resonance Matthew may have wanted. It is also possible that varying the cognates seemed to the inspired Evangelist better Greek style than merely repeating the same word.

It might even be that for Matthew’s original readers, Petros was so well established as Peter’s name that repeating petros in the second line could have had a somewhat odd or counter-intuitive effect, not necessarily the same as, but not entirely unlike saying in English, “You are Peter, and on this Peter I will build my church.” Everyone knew, of course, that petros was also a word meaning rock or stone, but in everyday usage it would always be petra for rock and Petros for Peter’s name.

As the above consideration suggests, even if Jesus originally used the same Aramaic word twice referring to Peter both times, there is still a subtle conceptual distinction that would be implicit in Jesus’ original words, but highlighted by the inspired Matthean use of Petros and petra. This conceptual distinction would be glossed over in spoken Aramaic, and even in writing it would be invisible in a single-case script like Aramaic or first-century Greek, though in case-differentiated alphabets we may bring it out by capitalizing the first letter of Kepha and not of kepha, or for that matter of Petros and not of petra (the italics tell the same story).

It is the distinction between a proper noun and a common noun, Rock as appellation and rock as image. “You are Kepha” or “You are Petros” invokes Rock as proper noun, as appellation; “upon this kepha” or “upon this petra” invokes rock as common noun, as image. (As an aside, I’m not sure why some commentators seem to feel that the status of Rock as appellation is somehow entangled in questions about whether Kepha/Petros was already established as a given name, or whether Jesus was bestowing Peter’s surname or merely referencing it. As far as I can see, the apparent originality of Kepha as an appellation is no obstacle to Jesus using it as such, nor is it necessary to suppose that Jesus didn’t reinforce the surname on other occasions (cf. John 1:42, Luke 22:34). And, as we saw in Part 6, whether Jesus is bestowing Peter’s surname or merely referencing and explaining it doesn’t much affect the meaning of the passage, which at least has the force of an enactment similar to the renaming of Abraham and Sarah.)

Spoken out loud in Aramaic as Kepha and kepha, there may not have been any audible distinction between Rock as appellation and rock as image (nor would there be any difference in written Aramaic). The single word kepha, like French Pierre (Peter) and pierre (rock), would have been equally serviceable as an appellation and as a common noun. The inspired Greek text of Matthew, by using cognates rather than the same word, would make the conceptual distinction explicit, perhaps because of the familiarity of Petros as an appellation by that point. Petros tells us who the rock is, petra tells us what it means for him to be a rock in relation to Jesus building his church.

If Jesus said “You are Kepha, and on this kepha,” Matthew’s inspired Greek rendering as “You are Petros, and on this petra” slightly bends the original word-play (if indeed word-play is the right word) while maintaining the phonetic echo of the same root between the two lines. On the other hand, if Jesus used two unrelated Aramaic words, Matthew’s use of the cognate terms Petros and petra (rather than two unrelated Greek words) strengthens the connection, making the case for Peter as the rock stronger and more intuitive.

If the former, Jesus’ repetition of the same Aramaic word offers no slightest obstacle to identifying Peter as the rock; if the latter, Matthew’s translation offers inspired interpretive context, indicating that what Jesus said using two unrelated words can be understood in cognate, interchangeable terms.

The second objection, that other passages of scripture (1 Cor 3:11, 1 Cor 10:4, 1 Peter 2:6ff) teach that Jesus is the foundation stone, is even less persuasive.

First, some preliminary notes. It should be recognized that this objection is not merely an argument against Peter as the rock, but an argument for one specific alternative rock, Jesus himself — not Peter’s faith, Peter’s confession, the truth Peter has confessed, etc. Those who advocate for any of those other “rocks” gain no support by appealing to Jesus the foundation stone.

Second, the extra-Matthean texts often cited in this connection actually offer varying images. 1 Corinthians 3:11 calls Jesus the “foundation,” but 1 Peter 2:6ff calls him “a cornerstone chosen and precious” — not a foundation, nor bedrock or solid rock, but a detached stone (lithos) that has been cut and placed. For that matter, 1 Corinthians 3:11 also does not describe bedrock or solid rock, since Paul speaks of laying the foundation, i.e., a foundation of laid stones. Even so, 1 Corinthians 3 makes Jesus the whole foundation, while 1 Peter 2:6 merely makes him the cornerstone, part of a larger foundation. As for 1 Corinthians 10:4 — the only verse that actually uses petra — the “rock” that followed the Hebrews in the wilderness is not a foundational stone of any kind; nothing is built on it.

We have seen that different images can have the same referent. But the reverse is also true: A single image can be used of different referents — and foundational imagery is applied in different ways in the New Testament. Most notably, Ephesians 2:20 repeats the image of Christ as cornerstone, but adds “the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” A variation on this image appears in Revelation 21:14, where John speaks of “twelve foundations” bearing the names of the twelve apostles. Neither of these describes Jesus as the sole foundation, as per 1 Corinthians 3. (For more, see Jimmy’s brief essay “The Church’s Five Foundations.”)

In the case of Matthew 16:18, moreover, Jesus explicitly gives himself a role other than foundation or cornerstone: He is the one building on the rock. While a single referent can have multiple images, the image of building on the rock is essentially one image, not two. To construe Jesus as saying “Upon me I will build” seems odd to say the least — particularly coming from those who claim that a “stone” and a “rock” can never be the same thing, but now have no trouble imagining a builder who is also a foundation building on himself! (Incidentally, note the contrast with 1 Corinthians 3, where Paul speaks of others building on the foundation of Jesus. Sometimes others build on Jesus; sometimes Jesus builds on others.)

It should be noted that Jesus does not actually speak here of a “foundation,” but only of building his church upon “this rock.” The intended image here may be foundational bedrock (as per the parable of the wise and foolish builders), but it could also be that “this rock” is not the entire foundation, but part of a larger foundation — one of a number of foundation-stones, perhaps, as in Ephesians 2:20 and Revelation 21:14. One could argue, then, that just as Jesus here confers on Peter the power of binding and loosing, but later confers the same power on the company of the Twelve (Matt 18:18), so Jesus here speaks of building the church on Peter, but not in a sense that would exclude all of the apostles together forming the church’s foundation. In that case, the images in Matthew 16:18 and Ephesians 2:20 would be convergent, not disparate.

On the other hand, the echo of building upon petra from Matthew 7:24 supports the reading of “upon this rock” as “with this rock as the foundation.” Perhaps this reading is to be preferred.

In Part 6, we saw that the phrase “this rock” implies an antecedent, the closer, the more plausible. “You are Petros,” joined by “and” (copulative kai) to the following clause, is clearly some sort of deliberate antecedent to “upon this rock,” even on the theory that Jesus was only punning on Peter’s name and changing the subject. We are clearly meant to connect Petros and “this rock,” at least on the level of word-play.

Beyond that, the structure of Matthew 16:17-19, with its threefold declarations to and about Peter, followed by explanatory couplets, strongly implies that the entire complex saying is directed to Peter and expounds his role in God’s plan. Peter is directly addressed and spoken about immediately before “upon this rock” (“You are Peter”) and immediately after (“I give you the keys of the kingdom”). Identifying Peter as the rock provides the natural connection between the two adjacent clauses.

Finally, it is not hard to see what it would mean for Jesus to speak of building the church on Peter. All the apostles are foundation-stones, and Peter’s preeminence among the Twelve — a preeminence affirmed by Jesus himself, as seen in Luke 22, John 21 and now our present text — has been sufficiently documented. Few would dispute that Peter played a foundational role in the apostolic church. Whether “this rock” is foundational bedrock or a foundation-stone among others, there is no difficulty understanding that the church that is built on all of the apostles is in a special way built upon Peter.

The only remaining question is whether there is a sufficiently strong reason — it would have to be a slam-dunk reason — to avoid the obvious identification of Petros with “this rock,” and begin casting about for other more remote “rocks.” Neither the differences in the two terms Petros and petra, nor Jesus’ status as rock and foundation in other scriptural texts, offers such a reason. The only plausible conclusion is that Peter is in fact the rock on which Christ builds his church.

This need not be understood to elevate Peter above the Twelve, nor does it imply any unique virtue or merit on Peter’s part. It merely emphasizes Peter’s unique place among the Twelve, partly because of his personality, perhaps, but also partly because of Jesus’ choice. Peter is in a unique and preeminent way what all of the apostles are collectively. They are all foundation stones; Peter is surnamed Petros and declared to be the rock on which the church is built. In the same way, all the apostles are witnesses of the resurrection, but Christ appeared first to Peter; in the same way Christ gave to Peter the solemn threefold commission to tend his sheep, though all the apostles are shepherds.

Still less does Peter’s privilege infringe on Jesus’ divine prerogatives. The church, like the sheep, belong to Jesus, not Peter (“my church”; “my sheep”). Christ is the active agent building the church; Peter, like any of the apostles, is merely his instrument — though an instrument he singles out again and again.

Jesus does not give Peter license to conduct himself however he wills; the shepherd caring for the sheep of another cannot abuse or slaughter the sheep at will, nor can the foundation overturn the structure built upon it. In another moment, Jesus will rebuff Peter in the sternest way imaginable, and even after Pentecost it may be necessary for others to oppose Peter to his face.

None of this alters Jesus’ plain intent for the crucial, singular, foundational role that Peter will play. Whatever Peter’s failings, Jesus makes no provision for any church that is not built upon this rock.

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“You are Petros, and on this rock I will build my church.” (Matt 16:18)

NOTE: This series is a work in progress. See Part 1 updates including bibliography in progress. As I add sources and update past posts I will continue to expand the bibliography.

Peter’s confession of Christ

We have arrived at ground zero in the Petrine controversy, one of the most bitterly disputed texts in all of sacred scripture. Here the Petrine fact looms most intractably and prominently, resisting all attempts to smooth it over or roll it aside. It is a sad irony that the rock to which Jesus attached such importance has become a stone of stumbling for so many, just as the primacy of Rome, for some an icon, almost a sacrament, of unity, has become a source of division.

At the same time, there have been encouraging developments. There is now near unanimity in Bible scholarship generally, Protestant as well as Catholic, that the rock on which Jesus builds his church is “not [Christ] himself, nor his teaching, nor God the Father, nor Peter’s confession, but Peter himself” (Chamblin 742). That is strongly put, since Peter the rock cannot be separated from the faith of his confession, but the rock has direct reference to Peter himself, not just the faith of his confession, as Evangelical and Protestant scholars now widely and correctly affirm.

Among the chorus of voices in this regard, as I will document eventually, are F. F. Bruce, D. A. Carson, Walter Elwell, R. T. France, Herman Ridderbos and Craig Blomberg. Thus Chrys C. Caragounis writes: “After centuries of disagreement it would appear that Protestant and Catholic are at last united in referring the rock upon which the Church according to Mt 16:18 is to be built, to the Apostle Peter” (Caragounis 1).

Ironically, Caragounis, an Eastern Orthodox scholar, makes a contrarian case for identifying the rock as Peter’s confession. In Orthodox scholarship, too, there has been movement toward recognizing Peter himself as the rock. Orthodox theologian Theodore Stylianopoulos, after surveying recent developments in Orthodox scholarship, writes:

That Orthodox scholars have gradually moved in the direction of affirming the personal application of Matt 16:17-19 to the Apostle Peter must be applauded. From the standpoint of critical scholarship it can no longer be disputed that Jesus’ words to Peter as reported in Matt 16:17-19 confer a special distinction on Peter as “rock” — the foundation on which Christ promised to build his Church. … These points are now conceded by conservative Protestant scholars as well. (Kasper 48-49)

The pericope begins in Matthew 16:13, in which Jesus asks the Twelve what people are saying about him, and receives a number of different answers: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

Then comes the crucial question: “But who do you say I am?” As often elsewhere, Peter speaks up for the Twelve: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

The next three verses are a remarkable composition, well capable of bearing all the critical scrutiny they have received. Here is Jesus’ reply in full:

1. Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona!

1a. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you,

1b. but my Father who is in heaven.

2. And I tell you, you are Petros,

2a. and on this rock I will build my church,

2b. and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it.

3. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,

3a. and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,

3b. and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

The above blocking highlights a point made by Jimmy Akin (I haven’t seen it developed in this form by anyone else) regarding the three-part structure of each of the three verses. Each verse starts with a major or leading clause, followed by a supporting couplet, the two clauses of which jointly illuminate and expound upon the major clause.

What is more, in each of the three leading clauses, Jesus both addresses Peter and makes a pronouncement regarding Peter: “1. Blessed are you, Simon bar-Jona! … 2. And I tell you, you are Petros … 3. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” As we will see, each of these pronouncements is in some way unparalleled; each is extraordinary in itself, and all three together are an astonishing manifesto on Peter’s behalf.

It is not surprising, then, that each of the three major Petrine pronouncements is followed by a couplet illuminating or commenting upon what Jesus has just said to Peter and about Peter. This is so clear that no one denies this in the first or third verses; everyone recognizes that “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you / but my Father who is in heaven” is a commentary on “Blessed are you, Simon bar-Jona”, and that “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven / and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” is a commentary on “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”

Yet sandwiched between those two verses is a verse that follows precisely the same pattern, yet here the pattern has historically been contested by some. It has been argued that “On this rock I will build my church / and the powers of death shall not prevail against it” is not a commentary on “I tell you, you are Petros”; that after saying “You are Petros,” Jesus in effect changes the subject from the previous thought, merely punning on Petros in order to talk about some quite distinct petra — only to return to Peter in the following verse.

Start at the beginning. Jesus opens with an unparalleled benediction: “Blessed are you, Simon bar-Jona!” Nowhere else in the Gospels does Jesus pronounce such a blessing on any individual; Peter aside, people are pronounced blessed by Jesus only in groups or classes, in the abstract, or both. To find this singular beatitude at the outset of this crucial Petrine text is itself a notable token of the Petrine fact.

Jesus then goes on to expound upon the benediction of this first remarkable clause in a supporting couplet clarifying Peter’s beatitude: “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you / but my Father who is in heaven.” Peter’s beatitude is not something he achieved himself; it is the gift of the Father.

It must be remembered, too, that the blessing is counter-balanced six verses by the equally singular rebuke, “Get behind me, Satan!” (or “Get behind me, you satan!”). Most of Jesus’ maledictions, like his blessings, are aimed at groups (“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” Matt 23:13ff), and even Herod was only called a fox (Luke 13:32). Peter alone is called by that harsh word, adversary, that denotes the enemy of mankind.

Once again, then, the point is not that Peter was personally uniquely holy or favored only in positive ways; he wasn’t. Rather, the point is simply Peter’s unique prominence, partly rooted perhaps in his own qualities for good and for ill, but also bound up in Jesus’ own choice, resulting in unique privileges but also unique chastenings. “Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required” (Luke 12:48): Peter is singularly blessed and singularly chastised; in either case his position is unique.

Then comes the second leading clause: “And I say to you, you are Petros.” The first word, kagõ (a contraction of “And I”), is emphatic (the Greek doesn’t require the explicit first-personal pronoun); Jesus underscores that it is he, the Messiah confessed by Peter, who speaks. Jesus may also be counterpointing his own words to the Father’s gift to Peter; the Father has revealed Jesus’ identity to Peter, and now it is the Son’s turn to reveal something to Peter.

“You are Petros.” Peter has told Jesus who he is (“You are the Messiah”); now Jesus tells Peter who he is. Is this merely declarative, or performative? Is Jesus making an observation, or giving Peter his new name here and now?

John 1:42 relates Jesus telling Peter at their first meeting, “You will be called Kephas,” a saying that could be read as either as an enactment or as a proleptic or prophetic utterance (the future tense could mean either “from this point forward” or “at some point in the future”). In Mark 3 the list of the Twelve begins “Simon whom he surnamed Peter,” but ends with “Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him” (Mark 3:15-19). Obviously Judas has not already betrayed Jesus in chapter 3; by the same token, we cannot conclude that Jesus has already surnamed Simon Peter at that point in the narrative.

The Evangelists all use the name Peter early on. In fact, John 1 refers to “Simon Peter” in verse 40, before Jesus and Peter have even met, and Matthew likewise identifies the apostle as “Simon who is called Peter” (Matt 4:18) the moment Jesus sees him, before they have spoken. It is reasonable to conclude that the Gospels use the name Peter from the start because that is the name readers know him by; it doesn’t tell us when he first began to go by that name.

Other than John 1:42, then, there is no clear evidence of Jesus or anyone else calling Peter Kephas or Petros prior to Matthew 16:18. On the contrary, what evidence we have suggests that Jesus continued to use the name Simon (e.g., Matt 17:25, Mark 14:37, Luke 22:31, John 21:15, the late exception being Luke 22:34). The question, then, is whether Jesus’ words to Peter at their meeting — “You will be called Kephas” — are grounds for concluding that henceforth the apostle began to be known by that surname.

It seems an open question. It’s possible that Jesus and others began to call Simon Kephas right away, or that the surname caught on at some other point prior to Matthew 16. The Gospels offer scant evidence either way.

On the one hand, there is no indication in John 1 that anyone but Andrew heard the saying; if Jesus himself continued to use Simon’s given name, it seems plausible that Peter’s brother (and business partners James and John), who had always called him Simon, would similarly continue to call him the name they had always used. On the other hand, it’s also plausible that Andrew might at least have told James and John about the strange saying, so that eventually all the Twelve would know the story, and Simon might start to be known as Kephas or Petros without another word from Jesus after John 1:42.

What seems certain is that Matthew 16 describes an event that would certainly have caused the surname to stick if it hadn’t already. Not only is it an emphatic, present-tense pronouncement before all the Twelve, the occasion of Peter’s confession is the sort of circumstance that elicits surnames from rabbis and other authorities. (For example, Barnabas, Son of Encouragement, was the surname given to Joseph of Cyprus by the apostles in Acts 4:36, possibly in connection with the act described in the next verse, i.e., laying at the apostles’ feet the money from the sale of his field. Certainly he was not surnamed Barnabas out of the blue.)

It is also worth noting that the structure of verse 18 is notably similar to the texts in Genesis in which Abram, Sarai and Jacob receive their new names, followed by an exposition of the significance of the new name:

No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham;

for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.

I will make you exceedingly fruitful;

and I will make nations of you,

and kings shall come forth from you.” (Genesis 17:5-6)

As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.

I will bless her,

and moreover I will give you a son by her;

I will bless her,

and she shall be a mother of nations;

kings of peoples shall come from her. (Gen 17:15-16)

Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel,

for you have striven with God and with men,

and have prevailed. (Gen 32:28)

The parallels are most striking in the case of Abraham and Sarah, where the commentary takes the form of an account of the inaugural role they will have in the new stage of God’s plan of salvation. Jacob’s name change also seems generally indicative of his election for the new stage in God’s plan (though this point isn’t explicitly drawn out in the commentary on the name).

If Jesus is not effectively renaming Peter in Matthew 16, he seems to be doing something remarkably similar. At the very least, even if Peter already went by his surname, the renewed pronouncement of the surname, in the solemn and emphatic context of the passage, seems to invest it with further significance — significance that almost goes beyond a mere surname, that is more like a new identity and a new mission. (It may even be worth noting here that Jacob’s new name Israel is also given twice, in Gen 32:28 and again in Gen 35:10 — and that even after both renamings Israel also continues to be called Jacob both by the sacred writer and even by God, e.g., Gen 46:2-5, etc.)

All of this suggests that the pronouncement of Peter’s new name reflects a new role in Jesus’ messianic plan, one that seems to call for further explication. As previously noted, efforts have been made, especially in the past, to deny that “upon this rock” constitutes such commentary, to argue that it must refer to some distinct petra. Not until verse 19, on this reading, does Jesus say more about Peter’s new role. The effect seems not unlike revising Genesis 17:5-6 to read, “No longer shall your name be Abram [exalted father], but your name shall be Abraham [father of a multitude], and I the Lord shall be exalted among the nations, and a father to my people. And I will make you exceedingly fruitful…”

If “this rock” is not Peter, what is it? There’s the rub. Literarily, the demonstrative pronoun “this” implies an antecedent. Some older Protestant writers tried to float the notion that Jesus might have gestured toward himself as he said “this rock” — an exegetical conceit that would reduce Matthew’s purpose to merely relating dialogue without conveying meaning (not to mention being difficult to reconcile with sola scriptura, for what that’s worth). In the absence of other indication, the Gospel text clearly indicates a continuation of thought, not a change of subject.

The conjunction “and” (kai) links the second clause (“upon this rock”) to the main clause (“I say to you, you are Petros”). Peter is the topic of the preceding and following verses. The connection between Petros and petra is unmistakable; even on the theory that Jesus was merely punning on Petros but talking about something else, the pun itself presupposes that Petros is the first thing we think of when we hear petra.

Petros, then, is the obvious antecedent, petra the obvious continuation of thought between “You are Petros” and “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Only if there were some insurmountable obstacle to identifying Petros as petra would it be feasible to set aside that connection and cast about for more remote, less obvious possible referents: Peter’s confession, Peter’s faith, the truth about Christ, Christ himself.

The next post will examine proposed obstacles to identifying Peter as the rock, as well as difficulties with alternate proposals. More to come.

NOTE: This series is a work in progress. See Part 1 updates including bibliography in progress. As I add sources and update past posts I will continue to expand the bibliography.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew (Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308)

NOTE: This series is a work in progress. See Part 1 updates including bibliography in progress. As I add sources and update past posts I will continue to expand the bibliography.

“So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Kephas (which means Petros)” (John 1:42).

All four Gospels tell us that Simon bar-Jona was renamed Petros (i.e., Peter) or Kephas by Jesus himself (Matthew 16:18, Mark 3:16, Luke 6:14, John 1:42). As John 1:42 indicates, Petros and Kephas are synonymous; both mean more or less “rock” or “a stone” (questions of nuance will be explored below).

Petros (Πέτρος) is cognate to petra (πέτρα), the usual Greek word for rock. Kephas (Κηφας) is a Grecized transliteration of kepha, an Aramaic word with the same basic meaning. (Kephas is often rendered in English as Cephas, following the Latin transliteration. This spelling works better in Latin than in English, though, since in Latin Cephas is pronounced “Keyfas,” while in English it is usually pronounced “Seefas.” For English speakers, Kephas is a better transliteration.)

Both Kephas and Petros are used by Paul in Galatians, apparently interchangeably (Kephas in Gal 1:18 and 2:9-14, Petros in Gal 2:7-8). Earlier, in 1 Corinthians, Paul uses Kephas consistently (1:12, 3:22, 9:5, 15:5), including the very early credal formula of 15:5.

The indications in Paul suggest that the Grecized form Kephas was used very early among Greek-speaking Christians, possibly before Petros. This reinforces the likelihood that Aramaic Kepha, to which Kephas in John 1:42 points, is the original form of Peter’s new name as given by Jesus, who would most likely have customarily spoken Aramaic among his Galilean disciples.

Thus, Simon Peter was probably first called Kepha (in Aramaic speech), then Kephas (in Greek speech), and finally Petros (again in Greek). Adding the final “s” or sigma for the Grecized form Kephas conforms the word in Greek to masculine nouns of the second declension, making it masculine rather than feminine, as befitting a man’s name. (For Greek speakers, the name Kepha without the final sigma would be taken for a woman’s name.)

In the same way, Greek petra is feminine (first declension), Petros masculine (second declension), so Petros rather than Petra is the natural equivalent of the masculine-form Grecized Kephas, and, again, appropriate for a man’s name.

Even after Peter receives his new name, the old name, Simon, doesn’t entirely disappear. In the Gospels Jesus himself continues to use Simon most of the time (Matt 17:25, Mark 14:37, Luke 22:31, John 21:15), though not always (Luke 22:34), and others use Simon at least occasionally (Luke 24:34). But the Evangelists almost never refer to Peter simply as Simon, except very early on. He is either “Simon called Petros” or “Simon Petros” (particularly in John), or else simply Petros, probably indicating the prevalence of Petros as the familiar version of the name at the time when the Gospels were written.

In Acts, Luke only uses Petros, except when relating how the men from Cornelius, sent by the angel, come seeking “Simon called Petros.” The angel in Peter’s vision addresses him as Petros (Acts 10:1-18). The only other echo of Simon in Acts comes from James, at the Jerusalem Council, who uses the form Simeon, a more Semitic form of the name. This form is also attested in the opening of 2 Peter, where it is conjoined with Peter: “Simeon Petros, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ”; 1 Peter begins simply, “Petros, an apostle of Jesus Christ.”

Paul never uses Simon, only Kephas or Petros. From this, and from the prevalence of Petros in the Gospels and Acts, it seems clear that Peter’s new name was well established and widely used in the first-century church.

The surnaming of Peter by Jesus is unique in a number of respects. Mark’s Gospel mentions that the other two disciples of Jesus’ inner circle, James and John, received the collective nickname Boanerges, “Sons of Thunder.” But that lone mention is the only time this sobriquet is ever heard from; we never read, for example, that “Jesus took with him Peter and the Sons of Thunder” or any such thing. They are sometimes referred to collectively as the sons of Zebedee, but never the Sons of Thunder. Nor is there any mention of “James Son of Thunder” or “John Son of Thunder.” James is never called anything but James, nor John anything but John.

Likewise, the popular notion that Jesus changed Saul’s name to Paul is a misconception. Like many of his peers, Paul, a Jew and a Roman citizen in a Hellenized world, had simply acquired more than one name. The shift in Acts from Saul to Paul is merely the narrator’s way of transitioning literarily from the story of Saul’s Pharisaical Jewish origins to his better-known identity as the great apostle to the Gentiles. Symbolic, certainly, but there is no indication of a name change. The story of Paul’s conversion is related three times in Acts (once by Luke, twice by Paul), with no indication that Jesus ever called Saul anything but “Saul, Saul” (cf. Acts 9, 22 and 26). Then, at a certain point, Luke simply tells us that Saul was “also called Paul” (Acts 13:9), and goes from there. There is no parallel to the significance of Peter’s new name, especially as we find it expounded in Matthew 16, where it is part of a solemn commission speech.

In fact, the closest parallels in scripture to Peter’s new name are found in the Old Testament, particularly in the stories of Abraham, Sarah, and Israel, who all receive new names from God in passages with notable parallels to Matthew 16, as we will see.

Among other things, Jesus’ choice of Peter’s new name is in a way as paradoxical as the choice of Abraham (“father of a multitude”) for a childless old man. This is very different, probably, from the nickname “Sons of Thunder,” which likely reflects an assessment of the personalities or dispositions of the sons of Zebedee (possibly as seen in Luke 9:54). In the same way, the surname Barnabas (Son of Encouragement), given to Joseph of Cyprus by the apostles (Acts 4:36), was probably indicative of his personality. It is easy to feel that Kepha/Kephas/Petros is hardly illustrative of Peter’s personality in the same way.

On the contrary, Peter is well known as a man of shifting extremes — impetuous, unsteady, at turns fervent and foolish, faithful and fearful, promising the greatest fidelity, then failing most spectacularly — anything but rock-like, however nuanced or glossed the notion of rockness might be. This is not to say that Peter’s personality was not a factor at all, only that in itself it does not seem to be a sufficient explanation. As we will see, “Rock” seems to be primarily indicative of Jesus’ intention for the role he would give to Peter, rather than any attributes Peter possessed in himself.

Further heightening the drama of Peter’s name change is the apparent novelty in contemporary usage of Aramaic Kepha and Greek Petros as a given name. In subsequent Christian usage Peter became a popular name thanks to its apostolic namesake, but when Simon bar-Jona was first called that, it was apparently unheard of. (This point isn’t definitive; there is one apparent instance of Aramaic Kepha as a name in a legal document from the 5th century BC, and others might be discovered.)

(This is as good a point as any for a disclaimer to the effect that I am neither a student of language nor learned in ancient texts. In this post I’m reliant on a number of works that need to be sourced. I’ll try to come back in the near future and re-edit to credit sources. In the meantime, comments, queries and corrections are all welcome. As always, when a non-expert is synthesizing technical material, mistakes are possible. Further updates may be forthcoming on the basis of such feedback.)

Aramaic kepha is cognate to Hebrew keph, a rare word found only in Jeremiah 4:29 and Job 30:6, where it has the sense of mountain crags or rocky terrain. In both texts keph is translated petra (cognate to petros) in the Greek Old Testament translation, the Septuagint.

Aramaic kepha is more widely used than its Hebrew cognate. In fact, it can be used to translate any of the common Hebrew words for rock: sela‘ and tsûr (both usually rendered in the Greek Septuagint as petra) as well as ’eben, a stone (usually rendered lithos in Greek).

A word of explanation may be helpful here. As the above suggests, there is a broad distinction in both Hebrew and Greek between words that often mean something like solid rock, bedrock, rocky terrain, cliff wall, etc., and words that usually indicate a stone or detached rock on some movable scale: a boulder, a precious gem, a thrown rock, a shaped stone, etc. Hebrew sela‘ and tsûr (often used in parallel), and Greek petra, are typically “rock solid” language, while Hebrew ’eben and Greek lithos usually indicate rocks of the smaller and more mobile type.

The above I take to be fairly noncontroversial; but two other words, one Greek and one Aramaic, are sometimes controverted particularly in discussions about Peter. Greek petros and Aramaic kepha are asserted, usually by non-Catholics, to mean more or less the same as lithos or ’eben, i.e., a movable stone, in contradistinction to petra or tsûr, solid rock. (One sometimes encounters the claim that Aramaic shua‘, cognate to Hebrew tsûr, is the rock-solid equivalent of petra.)

Kepha first. It is true that kepha can mean a stone, boulder or small rock, and is accordingly used in Aramaic texts to translate Hebrew ’eben in the same passages where the Greek has lithos. Aramaic also has another word, ’evna, cognate to Hebrew ’eben, that may often have a similar meaning. But ’evna is apparently uncommon, leaving kepha, maybe, to pick up some of the slack.

However, kepha is also used in Aramaic texts to translate Hebrew sela‘ and tsûr where the latter indicate solid rock. The usual Greek translation in these cases is petra, indicating that kepha and petra can function more or less synonymously.

For example, the water-giving rock (sela‘) struck by Moses in the wilderness (Num 20:8-11), the rock (sela‘) on which the psalmist stands securely (Psalm 40:2), and the prophet’s “shadow of a great rock (sela‘) in a weary land” (Isaiah 32:2) are all rendered kepha in Aramaic targums (Targum Onkelos, Targum Jerusalem). Other targums attest kepha for tsûr in such texts as Deuteronomy 32:4 and Isaiah 17:10, where rock is used metaphorically for God himself (i.e., solid rock).

Significantly, discoveries in Qumran targums have found pre-Christian evidence for kepha referring to rocky mountain summits or crags (sela‘) in Job 39:1,28 and 1 Enoch 89:29. I am not aware of any corresponding evidence of Aramaic shua‘ (cognate of Hebrew tsûr) attested prior to medieval Aramaic texts; for all I know, that the word may not have been available in Jesus’ day.

For each of the above passages, wherever the Aramaic uses kepha for sela‘ or tsûr, the Greek Septuagint translation is petra (except where rock metaphors are lost in translation, e.g., Isa 32:2). Petra is the usual word for rock in the Septuagint, and also appears a number of times in the New Testament. The masculine form, petros, is virtually unknown in either, except as Peter’s name in the New Testament.

In the Attic Greek of classical poetry, petros is sometimes used in the sense of a stone or movable rock, perhaps more or less synonymously with lithos, in contradistinction to petra. In the common Koine Greek of biblical literature, this distinction is virtually unknown. As a rule, when the Greek biblical texts want to reference a movable stone, they use lithos, not petros. This rule is not, however, quite without exception: A single Greek Old Testament book, 2 Maccabees, offers two instances of petros referring to thrown stones (2 Macc 1:16 and 4:41).

On the other hand, petra need not always mean massive rock over against lithos (or petros) in biblical Greek. In Isaiah 8:14 in the Septuagint, and again in Romans 9:33 and 1 Peter 2:8, both apparently drawing on the Septuagint, we read of “a stone (lithos) that will make men stumble and a rock (petra) that will make them fall.” Lithos and petra are thus used in parallel, not opposition, referring to a stone capable of being tripped over.

Kepha is even more flexible. It can be used equivalently to lithos (a stone) or to petra in the sense of rock mass. Like the English word rock, kepha seems to run the gamut of meaning, and no specific sense can be insisted on in advance.

As with Aramaic kepha and Greek petra/petros, the Hebrew words sela‘ and tsûr are not used in the Old Testament as Hebrew personal names (though there seems to have been a Canaanite or two named Sur; see Num 25:15 and 1 Chron 8:30). Both tsûr and sela‘ are, however, metaphorically applied to God himself so frequently, particularly in Psalms and Isaiah, that “Rock” almost becomes a sort of divine title: “the Rock,” “our Rock,” “my Rock,” “the Rock of Israel,” “the Rock of your refuge,” etc. (e.g., Deut 32:4,15-18,31; 2 Sam 22:2,32,47; Psa 18:2,31,46; Isa 17:10).

Such rock language seems to have been exclusive to God; we never read that David or Moses was a rock, etc. It may be the link between rock language and God was generally considered too close to comfortably apply such language to men, whether as a name or as a metaphor.

But this rule, too, is not without exception. There is a rabbinic tradition that may well have gone back to Jesus’ day, describing one man as a rock: Abraham. Based on Isaiah 51:1-2 (“look to the rock (tsûr) from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were digged; Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you”), a number of Talmudic and midrashic texts, the earliest of which go back to the mid-second century, interpreted Abraham as the “rock” from which God’s people were hewn.

What is the significance of Jesus renaming Simon Kepha or Kephas? In what sense is Peter a rock? It is time at last to turn to Matthew 16.

More to come.

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