On this rock I will build my church

Jesus founded His church and anointed St. Peter as the head of the Church.
He did this so as to create a church here in Earth that is part of the mystical church that God has always dwelled in.

In appointing St.Peter as head, Jesus was conferring His personal authority upon one man, and one man only out of the 12 apostles.

Of course Jesus could have designed another system to create His church on Earth. He could have appointed several apostles as co leaders for example, but instead He chose the format as detailed in the Bible.

The authors of the gospels also picked up on this, in that when listing the names of the apostles, St.Peter is always listed first name, as a sign of his special favour with Jesus.

ChrisJ84 wrote: »

Really helpful post, Peregrinus. Lots of food for thought.

The bit I've quoted is where I would differ from a Roman Catholic most significantly. The passage clearly refers to Peter himself, but I think it does so in his role of confessing Jesus as the Messiah - and that the other disciples will share in that role as they make a similar confession. Ephesians 2:20 is an important cross reference in that regard.

The idea that Peter hold a special office, or has greater authority than the other apostles, or that he was infallible in his teaching, don't seem to me to be well supported by the biblical witness. The idea that there are successors to such an office seems even more of a stretch. What do you think?

I agree with Theo that the question of the successors of Peter is best noted, and then put to one side for the purposes of this thread. Not that it's an unimportant question, but it's such a highly-charged issued that if we discuss that in this thread it will crowd out discussion of anything else, which would be a pity, since there is much else to discuss.

Maybe open a separate thread for discussion of that particular issue? (Though I fear it might not go well.)

As for Peter's own leadership role or lack thereof, I think there is a good deal of scriptural evidence that, yes, he did have a particular leadership role (thogh he was not the only apostle to have a leadership role of some kind). Among other things:

- When apostles are listed, Peter is always listed first.

- Along with James and John, he seems to form an "inner group" who are particularly close to Jesus, or to whom particular things are revealed - the Transfiguration, the Agony in the Garden.

- He often seems to take a spokesman role on behalf of the apostles as a group.

- In the final chapter of John's gospel, one of the last recorded acts of Jesus is to commission Peter three times to "feed my lambs . . . tend my sheep . . . feed my sheep".

- Acts has a lot of pointers towards a leading role for Peter - sometimes, but not always, in company with John. (But when Peter and John are mentioned, Peter is always mentioned first, and it's usually only Peter who says anything.) As already discussed, Peter organises the election of Mathias, and he takes the leadership role in publicly preaching about Jesus, and working signs, at and after Pentecost. When a group of apostles is arrested, Peter acts as their spokesman. When Ananias makes a donation to the apostles, it's Peter who deals with him about it. Simon Magus is sent to Peter and John on his conversion, but it's Peter who deals with him. It's Peter who gets sent out to tour local churches in Judea, Samaria and Galilee, and who works miraculous signs there. Cornelius has a vision of an Angel, who tells him to seek out Peter, and it's Peter who has a vision telling him that the dietary laws are abrogated. Etc, etc.

We could possibly explain this by hypothesing that the author of Acts was something of a fan of Peter. But, even if so, Acts has been received by the church as inspired scripture, which suggests that the church collectively, and under the inspiration of the Spirit, accepts and endorse the view of Peter embodied in Acts, which is definitely of Peter as a leader amoung the Apostles and within the church at large.

As for whether Peter had the gift of infallibility , we stray again into highly-charged territory. But I will say this; the Catholic view of infallibility is not that God reveals things to Peter (or the Pope) who can then pass them on to the rest of us, and he can be treated as an infallible source because, well, God reveals stuff to him, doesn't He? It doesn't work like that at all.

Peter is portrayed as spokesman for the apostles. Most of the time, he's not telling Jesus what Peter thinks; he's telling Jesus what the apostles think. When he preaches in Acts, he doesn't preach what Peter believes, but what the church believes. And similarly for what Catholics believe about papal infallibility; the pope is infallible when he proclaims what the church believes, not what the pope believes.

Infalliblity is first and foremost a gift to the church, not to Peter. In the passage we are discussing, Jesus promises that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, not that they won't prevail against Peter personally. In so far as what Peter says or does in Acts is taken to be infallible or authoritative, that's not because Peter says or does it. Rather, Peter says or does it because it's his particular role (as "spokesman") to discern, reflect and express the beliefs and deeds of the entire Christian community. Peter, if you like, is a vehicle (wrong word, but you get my meaning) through which the church teaches and acts, and what the church teaches and does is authoritative because Christ has promised that the gates of hell will not prevail, that he will always be with them, etc.

So it's not "Peter authoriatively preaches to the community what they must believe" so much as "Peter discerns what the community believes and authoritatively preaches it". And I think we see him doing quite a lot of that in Acts. For example, when the disciples are inspired by the Spirit at Pentecost and immediately go out preaching to the people, they all preach. But we are only told what Peter actually says, indicating (I suggest) that what Peter preaches can be taken as normative for what the church preaches.

Hi Theo

Jesus could certainly have known that there would be a church. The question is, did he mention it at this point? If he did, it would have been pretty striking to the apostles, since they (presumably) did not know this, Jesus never having mentioned it before (that anybody bothers to record). Which raises the obvious question, if Jesus did say this at this point, why do Mark and Luke omit it from their accounts? Similarly, if Jesus had actually used the phrase “the Son of God” of himself at this point, that would have been very striking - he usually uses “the Son of Man” with respect to himself. So, again, you’d think it would be noticed, it would be remembered, it would be recorded. And yet it’s not there in Mark or Luke.

Matthew knows this; he quotes large chunks of Mark word-for-word, so he’s obviously familiar with Mark, and he regards Mark as reliable and authoritative. His purpose in writing his own gospel is not to subvert or refute Mark, and I very much doubt that it is to “correct” Mark’s account.

And this is pretty typical of Matthew’s gospel. He keeps giving us additional details, often very dramatic or striking, that other evangelists do not mention. For example he tells us that, at the moment of Jesus’s death on the cross:

“. . . the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many.”

Mark and Luke tell us about the veil of the Temple. But no other evangelist mentions earthquakes, tombs opening, the appearance of the risen dead in the city streets. if it happened as described, is that not a very odd omission? Also a strict reading tells us that the tombs open and many dead are raised, but apparently they remain quietly in their open tombs until after the resurrection of Jesus himself, three days later, at which point they come out, go into the city and appear to many. That’s odd, and no explanation is offered.

We can read Matthew’s additional details as strict journalistic accounts of things that Jesus said or of events that happened, but implies that Mark was ignorant of these things, which is hardly possible, or that he chose to suppress them, which is troubling. So I think it makes more sense to read them as Matthew’s way of telling us more about the truths that Jesus was proclaiming, or the nature of the events that happened. In this particular case, the tombs opening etc is mentioned not because it unfolded exactly as described (and an attempt to read it like that highlights some puzzling aspects, as noted) but because it tells us something important about what the sacrifice of Christ meant. The imagery of the earthquake and the resurrection of the dead, read in the light of the scriptures as a whole, points to the coming of the final age. And the deferral of part of these dramatic events until after the yet-to-happen resurrection of Jesus makes more sense if we understand it not as Matthew deliberately confusing the temporal sequence of actual events, but using timing symbolically, to indicate the primacy of the resurrection of Jesus.

I’m taking too long to say: a strictly literalistic reading of Matthew’s flourishes gives rise to a lot of difficulties. Whereas if we understand them as Matthew’s ways of capturing and communicating truths about what the historical events mean or why they matter, those difficulties disappear. Matthew isn’t contradicting or correcting earlier texts; he is explaining them. When Matthew writes about the tombs opening, he’s not saying “Mark forgot to tell you this”. It’s more like “You already know about the death of Jesus; you’ve read about it in Mark. But we have come to believe/know the death of Jesus to have had particular consequences, a particular meaning, and these details that I am adding call your attention to that”.

So, back to Chapter 16. When Matthew adds in the bit about the gates of hell not prevailing against the church, and about flesh and blood not having revealed Jesus’ nature to Peter, I think he’s not saying that Jesus said exactly these things on exactly this occasion but Mark, etc, forget them or suppressed them. I think he’s saying “Since these events happened [and perhaps even since Mark wrote his account of them] we have come to understand the significance of what was said and done here, and I am putting in this detail as a way of bringing out what we have come to understand.” In other words, he’s capturing not just historical facts on what Jesus said and did but the fruit of subsequent reflection on and discernment about those facts by the community of believers. The “flourishes” are a literary technique he uses to do this.

It’s not necessarily the case that these flourishes are pure invention by Matthew. Jesus might have said these things on another occasion, for example, and the memory of them been preserved and come to Matthew, and he puts them in here because he thinks they will help us to understand what Mark has already recorded about this occasion; he knows them to be connected so he connects them for us. Matthew isn’t writing a journalistic account of Jesus’s life or teachings - none of the evangelists are, because journalism wasn’t invented until many centuries later. And by the same reasoning the people for whom Matthew was writing weren’t expecting a journalistic account.

Binding and loosing : here is the commentary of Cornelius Lapide

Whatsoever ye shall bind: Origen, Theophylact and Anastasius of Nice (q. 74) think that these words likewise pertain to the precept about correction, and therefore apply to all Christians.
They explain as follows:—To whatsoever penitents you, 0 ye faithful, remit any offence which they have committed against you, God will remit it to them in heaven: but to those to whom ye do not remit, neither will God remit it to them.
But this is an explanation which cannot be upheld. This is plain from the following consideration, that Christ speaks of the Church in opposition to private sinners, and those who correct them.
Therefore by the Church He means her Prelates, and not the faithful generally.

Again, because He assigns judgment and a tribunal to the Church, (and this belongs only to Prelates) to which obedience ought to be rendered, on pain of being considered a heathen, and afterwards refers to that judgment of the Church this general power of binding and loosing, both internal, in foro conscientiæ, and external, in foro externo, by excommunication, the opinion of Origen cannot be correct. For the sinner is brought to the Pastor of the Church, that he may be moved to repentance and confession, and so be absolved from his sin, and be justified and reformed, but if not that he may be excommunicated. So SS. Chrysostom, Hilary, Augustine, and others, passim. Wherefore theologians rightly gather and prove from this passage, the power of excommunication, as well as the sacrament of penance after the method of judgment and absolution. The Emperor Theodosius understood this, when being expelled from the Church by S. Ambrose because of his slaughter of the Thessalonians, he made his moan, “Even to slaves and beggars there is access to the temple of God, but I am shut out. For I know the Lord hath said, ‘Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.’” Wherefore as a suppliant, he asked for absolution from S. Ambrose. This he obtained, and fulfilled the penance which he enjoined upon him. The Council of Basle take note from S. Thomas that there are three kinds of binding and loosing recognised by Catholics. The first is of authority, which belongs to God alone. The second of excellency, which is peculiar to Christ. The third, which has been granted by Christ to priests alone. Moreover this power of binding and loosing is a very ample one, and embraces various particulars, as I have shown in chapter xvi. 19.

Observe here the beautiful order of Christ’s discourse. In the beginning of the chapter, when the Apostles were disputing about precedence, He puts the humility of the little ones, as it were a bridle upon them: and warns them lest by their ambition they offend the simple folk, and those who are as yet feeble in the faith of Christ. Then in verse 15, He gives a remedy against scandal, brotherly correction; and He says all these things to the Apostles, as representing all the faithful. Then because He gives as the final stage of correction, that the Church must be told, that is to say, the Prelate of the Church, He intimates what His authority is, by saying, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, &c. For this power of binding and loosing appertains to Prelates, not to the rest of the faithful.

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/scripture/newtestament/18matth.htm

I accept that's a possiblity, Theo. Eyewitness accounts do always differ in the details. But a couple of factors suggest there's a bit more than that happening here.

First, it's usually the minor details that vary between eyewitness accounts; the striking things are the bits most likely to be remembered by several or all of the witnesses. Whereas a lot of the striking details that Matthew gives are found in Matthew alone.

Secondly, it's always the case that Matthew adds detail - he never omits a detail that other evangelists add. While you might explain this by saying that Matthew has the better memory of events, against this we have to balance the fact that Matthew does not claim to be a witness of the events at all, and does not appear to be, since he quotes Mark so extensively.

Thirdly, this explanation breaks down completely for things like Matthew's account of the death of Christ. It defies credibility to suggest that other witnesses simply did not notice or hear about, or did not recollect, earthquakes, the opening of tombs and the appearance of many dead. There's clearly more going on here than the ordinary variation between eyewitness accounts and, if that is true of Mt 27, then we must be at least open to the possibility that something similar could be at work in Mt 16.

But perhaps we can cut through all this by remembering that "whose account is the most accurate, jouralistically speaking?" is perhaps not the most important question here. Does Mark or Matthew do a better job of capturing the exact words of Jesus? Does it matter? Both accounts are canonical; both are received by the church as inspired scripture; both are a revelation. To hypothesise that Jesus may not actually have said "church" or "flesh and blood" on this occasion is not to detract from the words, or the significance they have in Matthew's account, or the truth that they embody. If it is in fact the case that they are a literary device rather than a journalistic record, that does not make them any less important, or any less of an inspired revelation. The Spirit is just as capable of inspiring one genre of writing as another. So I suggest that the important question is not "Did Jesus actually say them?" but "What do they mean?"

You make the point yourself that the "Son of God" language here links back to messianic imagery in Ps 2 (and elsewhere). That would explain why Peter might use the words. But it would also explain why, if Peter didn't in fact use the words, Matthew (or the tradition which Matthew records) assigns them to him. In the interesting question for is is not so much "which of these is correct?" but "what are these words telling us?"

I don't think there's a huge difference between us.

1. I agree that it's good that the gospels are different. If they were word-for-word the same we would, in fact, have only one gospel. We have multiple gospels for good reasons.

2. I agree that different recollections from different eye-witnesses can account for differences between the gospels.

3. I don't think that's the only thing that can acccount for the differences, and I see no reason to think that it's the only thing that does account for the differences. Other factors could be at play, giving rise to differences between the gospels - e.g. judgments by the evangelist about which matters to include and which matters to exclude; judgments by the envangelist about how best to express whatever it is they want to say; evangelists drawing on different oral traditions which preserve different aspects of the life and/or teaching of Jesus; etc.

4. Like you, I am not convinced that speaking about a church means that Matthew retrofitted it, as you put it. But I also think it's entirely possible that he did. I don't privilege the "different recollections of eye-witnesses" account for differences like this over other accounts. If other ways of accounting for differnces between the gospels would need to be evidenced, why would this account not also need to be evidenced?

5. If he did retrofit the words, I don't see that as a problem, and I certainly don't see it as detracting in any way from the significance or meaning of the words, from their status as canonical scripture, or from what they reveal to us.

6. It follows that whether he retrofitted them or not is, at best, a secondary issue. The key issue is not "who came up with the words used here to express a revealed truth?" but "what is the revealed truth expressed here by these words?"

Well, strictly speaking, none of the words attributed to Jesus in the gospels are his, if only because, so far as we know, he preached in Aramaic, while the gospels are written in Greek.

OK, that's a smarty-pants point. But it points to a truth, which is that the gospels don't give a court-transcript-like account of what Jesus said. As you point out, eyewitness recollections differ. One of the things they will differ about is the exact words someone used - particularly when they are reduced to writing years after the event.

So, I might recall that, on a particular occasion, you said "this is the biggest surprise I have ever had!". You might remember that, on the occasion, you said "this is the greatest surprise I have ever had!" And someone else might say that, actually, when the event happened you were actually too astonished to speak. It was later the same day, when recounting the event, you said "I never had such a surprise!". By the following day, you were telling people that you did exclaim about your surprise when the event occurred, but he was present at the event and is sure that you did not. His friend who was also present at the event recalls that you did exclaim, but that your exclamation was more of an incoherent shriek.

Which of these three accounts is correct? In a court-transcript-like sense, quite possibly none of them - you might have said something that nobody recalls exactly correctly, not even you. In the sense of accurately conveying the surprising nature of the event, its impact on you and your reaction to it, quite possibly all of them.

When considering factors like this in the context of the gospels, we have to consider a number of things. One I have already mentioned; the events were decades old by the time the gospel texts were written. Another is that, in the nature of Jesus's travelling and preaching, he often spoke about the same things more than once, sometimes to the same people, sometimes to different people. It would be quite easy for people to blend memories of different occasions where Jesus addresse the same topic, and to recall details from one occasion in connection with another, or indeed consciously to produce a synthesis of what Jesus said, and for narrative purposes present it in connection with one event on which Jesus addressed the topic.

I don't see any reason to assume that the evangelists were focussed on producing a transcript of what Jesus said (and, if they were, at least three of them failed miserably). They are concerned to record the truths that Jesus revealed, but that is not at all the same thing.

I think we are getting bogged down, theo.

We can agree on this at least; the words in Mt 16 are canonical scripture, expressing a truth revealed in the person, deeds and teaching of Jesus Christ. This is true regardless of how they came to be included in Mt 16.

Starting from that point, can we explore what is the truth that they reveal? I would be interested to know, for instance, if you had any reaction to my (admitted half-baked) thoughts about what the "binding and loosing" language might signify.

hinault wrote: »

With all due respect, the words attributed to Jesus in the gospels are the words that He uttered in that time and in that place.

It may not be the posters here intention but it seems to me that there might be an attempt here to undermine the words uttered and recorded.

The eyewitness accounts given in the gospels are entirely true, and are therefore accurate

I read a recent study about 1st century gospel manuscripts. The survey said that of the manuscripts found throughout the world, there was 98.5 percent accuracy across all manuscripts ever found, to date

It is remarkable, given the diverse regions where these manuscripts have been located, the different languages in which the texts were communicated by orator to transcriber, and given the scarcity of writing materials at the time.

Try it yourselves. Read an account of something. Then try to verbalise what you read to someone's else for them to listen to and to transcribe. Then ask that person to verbalise what they've written to another person and for the other person to listen to and transcribe.,..and so on.

I'd reckon by the fourth transcription what is recorded would differ significantly from the original passage.

In the communication and transcription of the canonical gospels, the level of conformity of manuscripts found is miraculous. Literally.

If it's miraculous, why isn't there 100% conformity?

I don't think your thought experiment works. Copies of the gospel texts weren't made by people listening to verbalisations of the existing texts; they were made by people copying existing texts that they had in front of them.

Peregrinus wrote: »

If it's miraculous, why isn't there 100% conformity?

I don't think your thought experiment works. Copies of the gospel texts weren't made by people listening to verbalisations of the existing texts; they were made by people copying existing texts that they had in front of them.

98.5 percent transcription conformity rate is unheard of given the time period, given the number of manuscripts and given the transmission (verbalization) of the content.


It is incorrect to state that manuscripts in the first century were recorded by copying what had already been written. In the majority of cases what was transcribed/written came from verbal/oral communication.

Remember, writing materials were in very very short supply. Also the number of people educated well enough to write was also in very short supply.

The manuscripts found from that period which conform covers a huge geographical area, which would have been even harder to traverse in the first century.

98.5 percent is a stupendous degree of accuracy for all those factors.

If the point had been to record Jesus' exact words, clearly the gospels would have been written in Aramaic or, at least, the words attributed to Jesus would have been written in Aramaic, so that Jesus exact words would have been recorded. But only one statement of Jesus is recorded in Aramaic (and in that one he is quoting scripture).

Also, if it was important to record Jesus exact words, the believing community would presumably not have received as canonical Mark and much of Luke which - if we believe Matthew - frequenty give us what can at best be only extracts from Jesus's exact words.

No, I think the obvious reality here is that the purpose of the evangelists, and the expectation of the believing community, was not a record of the words used by Jesus, but of the truths revealed by Jesus.

This isn't really affected by hinault's suggestion that the faithful preservation and propagation of the texts, once written, should be seen as miraculous. Even accepting hinault's view, there's no reason to think that God would intervene to miraculously preserve and propagate a faithful record of the words used by Jesus, but not a faithful record of the truths revealed by Jesus. So this tells us nothing about the genres of writing employed in the gospel texts.

theological wrote: »

We've already discussed translation Peregrinus. I've explained my objection is to the idea that Jesus' words in scripture were deliberately altered. We've got no evidence for this opinion. If it were my opinion it would drastically lower my view of scripture because it would be rendered unreliable.

I'm not sure why omitting some of what Jesus says (which Mark must do, if Matthew is taken to be accurate) is fine, while summarising, paraphrasing, synthesising, elucidating, etc what Jesus says is such a problem. I certainly don't see why scripture would be rendered "unreliable", since any synthesis, elucidation, paraphrase or whatever is taken to have inspired by the Spirit. Not to get into a heresy trial or anything, but in a less tolerant age you might be accused of impugning the inerrancy of scripture if your assent to it is conditional on the Spirit only having inspired the literary techniques and styles and genres of writing that you are prepared to accept.

But, I repeat, I really think we should move on from this.

We already have unavoidable doubts about exactly what Jesus said because there is no one-to-one correspondence between words in Aramaic and words in Greek. So if we look at the Greek text and ask ourselves "what did Jesus actually say in Aramaic?", we often cannot know the answer with certainty.

Which is why I pointed out earlier that, if the concern had been to capture and record the words that Jesus said, the gospels would not have been written in Greek and/or the church would not have received as canonical texts written in Greek. But we have no reason at all to think that the church was in the least bothered by this.

Alteration of quotations to include extra words may raise doubts as to what exactly Jesus said, but (a) for the reason just pointed out, and for the reason taht there are differences between the gospels, we already have unavoidable doubts about exactly what Jesus said, and (b) this is only problematic if we consider it necessary to know exactly what Jesus said. But why should this be necessary, if the gospel texts themselves are inspired by the Spirit? Even if what is given to us in the scriptures is not "exactly what Jesus said" it is nevertheless an inerrant revelation. So if, say, Mathew's inclusion of the "Son of God" language in the text we are discussing here (a) represents something Jesus said about himself on another occasion but is transferred here by Matthew to make sure we understand the significance of "Messiah" or (b) is an elaboration by Matthew to make sure of that, or (c) something else, it's still an inerrant revelation. Why should that be problematic?

theological wrote: »

. . . In the absence of evidence I'll stick with the view that Jesus' words are actually His.

Fair enough, so. But can we get back to discussing what the words signify?

Did you have any thoughts about what I said on binding and loosing?