44 av in BD.
18. Κἀγὼ δέ σοι λέγω,
ὅτι σὺ et Πέτρος, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ οἰκοδομήσω µου τὴν ' ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ πύλαι adou οὗ ) κατισχύσουσιν αὐτῆς, 19. καὶ’ δώσω
ΣΜΝΒΕΏ omit και. (W.H.). δρ avin D.
the quality of Peter’s faith. The true conception of Christhood was inseparable from the true conception of God. Jesus had been steadily working for the trans- formation of both ideas, and He counted on the two finding entrance into the mind together. Noone could truly con- ceive the Christ who had not learned to think of God as the Father and as His Father. There were thus two revelations in one: of God as Father, and of Christ by the Father. Peter had become a Christian.
Ver. 18. κἀγὼ: emphatic, something very important about to be said to Peter and about him.—érpos, πέτρᾳ, a happy play of words. Both are appellatives to be translated ‘‘thou art a rock and on this rock,” the two being represented by
the same word in Aramaean (8903).
Elsewhere in the Gospels Πέτρος is a proper name, and πέτρα only is used in the sense of rock (vii. 24). What follows is in form a promise to Peter as reward of his faith. It is as personal as the most zealous advocates of Papal supremacy could desire. Yet it is as remote as the poles from what they mean. It is a case of extremes meeting. Christ did not fight to death against one form of spiritual despotism to put another, if possible worse, in its room. Personal in form, the sense of this famous logion can be expressed in abstract terms without reference to Peter’s personality. And that sense, if Christ really spoke the word, must be simple, elementary, suitable to the initial stage; withal religious and ethical rather than ecclesiastical The more ecclesiastical we make it, the more we play into the hands of those who main- tain that the passage is an interpolation. I find in it three ideas: (1) The ἐκκλησία. is to consist of men confessing Jesus to be the Christ. This is the import of ἐπὶ τ. τ. π. οἰκοδομήσω µου τ. ἐκ. Peter, believing that truth, is the foundation,
18—21.
τῆς γῆς, ἔσται λελυμένον ἐν τοῖς ovpavois.”