Not less Jewish in form are the succeeding words of Christ, Thou art Peter (Petros), and upon this rock (Petra) will I build my Church.' We notice in the original the change from the masculine gender, Peter' (Petros), to the feminine, Petra' (Rock'), which seems the more significant, that Petros is used in Greek for stone,' and also sometimes for rock,' while Petra always means a rock.' The change of gender must therefore have a definite object which will presently be more fully explained. Meantime we recall that, when Peter first came to Christ, the Lord had said unto him: Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is, by interpretation, Peter [Petros, a Stone, or else a Rock]' [3651] - the Aramaic word Kepha ({hebrew}, or {hebrew}) meaning, like Peter, both stone' and rock.' But both the Greek Petros and Petra have (as already stated) passed into Rabbinic language. Thus, the name Peter, or rather Petros, is Jewish, and occurs, for example, as that of the father of a certain Rabbi (Jose bar Petros). [3652] When the Lord, therefore, prophetically gave the name Cephas, it may have been that by that term He gave only a prophetic interpretation to what had been his previous name Peter ({hebrew}). This seems the more likely, since, as we have previously seen, it was the practice in Galilee to have two names, [3653] especially when the strictly Jewish name, such as Simon, had no equivalent among the Gentiles. [3654] Again, the Greek word Petra - Rock - (on this Petra [Rock] will I build my Church') was used in the same sense in Rabbinic language. It occurs twice in a passage, which so fully illustrates the Jewish use, not only of the word, but of the whole figure, that it deserves a place here. According to Jewish ideas, the world would not have been created, unless it had rested, as it were, on some solid foundation of piety and acceptance of God's Law - in other words, it required a moral, before it could receive a physical foundation. Rabbinism here contrasts the Gentile world with Israel. It is, so runs the comment, as if a king were going to build a city. One and another site is tried for a foundation, but in digging they always come upon water. At last they come upon a Rock (Petra, {hebrew}). So, when God was about to build his world, He could not rear it on the generation of Enos nor on that of the flood, who brought destruction on the world; but when He beheld that Abraham would arise in the future, He said: Behold I have found a Rock (Petra, {hebrew}) to build on it, and to found the world,' whence also Abraham is called a Rock (Tsur, {hebrew}) as it is said: [3655] Look unto the Rock whence ye are hewn.' [3656] [3657] The parallel between Abraham and Peter might be carried even further. If, from a misunderstanding of the Lord's promise to Peter, later Christian legend represented the Apostle as sitting at the gate of heaven, Jewish legend represents Abraham as sitting at the gate of Gehenna, so as to prevent all who had the seal of circumcision from falling into its abyss. [3658] [3659] To complete this sketch, in the curious Jewish legend about the Apostle Peter, which is outlined in an Appendix to this volume, [3660] Peter is always designated as Simon Kepha (spelt {hebrew}), there being, however, some reminiscence of the meaning attached to his name in the statement made, that, after his death, they built a church and tower, and called it Peter ({hebrew}) which is the name for stone, because he sat there upon a stone till his death' ({hebrew}). [3661]
But to return. Believing, that Jesus spoke to Peter in the Aramic, we can now understand how the words Petros and Petra would be purposely used by Christ to mark the difference, which their choice would suggest. Perhaps it might be expressed in this somewhat clumsy paraphrase: Thou art Peter (Petros) - a Stone or Rock - and upon this Petra - the Rock, the Petrine - will I found My Church.' If, therefore, we would not certainly apply them to the words of Peter's confession, we would certainly apply them to that which was the Petrine in Peter: the heaven-given faith which manifested itself in his confession. [3662] And we can further understand how, just as Christ's contemporaries may have regarded the world as reared on the rock of faithful Abraham, so Christ promised, that He would build His Church on the Petrine in Peter - on his faith and confession. Nor would the term Church' sound strange in Jewish ears. The same Greek word (kklesa), as the equivalent of the Hebrew Qahal, convocation,' the called,' [3663] occurs in the LXX. rendering of the Old Testament, and in the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach' [3664] and was apparently in familiar use at the time. [3665] In Hebrew use it referred to Israel, not in their national but in their religious unity. As here employed, it would convey the prophecy, that His disciples would in the future be joined together in a religious unity; that this religious unity or Church' would be a building of which Christ was the Builder; that it would be founded on the Petrine' of heaven-taught faith and confession; and that this religious unity, this Church, was not only intended for a time, like a school of thought, but would last beyond death and the disembodied state: that, alike as regarded Christ and His Church - the gates of Hades' [3666] shall not prevail against it.