My Response to Perplexity's Questions

Originally Posted by Perplexity

Questions:

1. Supposing that Luke didn’t record your understanding of Matt. 16:18-19 because he would record the papacy throughout Acts, and that the early Church did believe in some kind of Papal primacy, why must we understand Matthew 16:18-19 as you do in order to account for the early Church’s belief in some kind of Papal primacy rather than just other texts like Acts, John 21 or Luke 22?

I believe that because I am not the only person who understands this text in the way that I do. If I may;

 

Tatian the Syrian

"Simon Cephas answered and said, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah: flesh and blood has not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say unto thee also, that you are Cephas, and on this rock will I build my Church; and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it" (The Diatesseron 23 [A.D. 170]).



Tertullian

"Was anything withheld from the knowledge of Peter, who is called ‘the rock on which the Church would be built’ [Matt. 16:18] with the power of ‘loosing and binding in heaven and on earth’ [Matt. 16:19]?" (Demurrer Against the Heretics 22 [A.D. 200]).

"[T]he Lord said to Peter, ‘On this rock I will build my Church, I have given you the keys of the kingdom of heaven [and] whatever you shall have bound or loosed on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. . . . What kind of man are you, subverting and changing what was the manifest intent of the Lord when he conferred this personally upon Peter? Upon you, he says, I will build my Church; and I will give to you the keys" (Modesty 21:9–10 [A.D. 220]).


The Letter of Clement to James

"Be it known to you, my lord, that Simon [Peter], who, for the sake of the true faith, and the most sure foundation of his doctrine, was set apart to be the foundation of the Church, and for this end was by Jesus himself, with his truthful mouth, named Peter" (Letter of Clement to James 2 [A.D. 221]).


The Clementine Homilies

"[Simon Peter said to Simon Magus in Rome:] ‘For you now stand in direct opposition to me, who am a firm rock, the foundation of the Church’ [Matt. 16:18]" (Clementine Homilies 17:19 [A.D. 221]).



Origen

"Look at [Peter], the great foundation of the Church, that most solid of rocks, upon whom Christ built the Church [Matt. 16:18]. And what does our Lord say to him? ‘Oh you of little faith,’ he says, ‘why do you doubt?’ [Matt. 14:31]" (Homilies on Exodus 5:4 [A.D. 248]).


Cyprian of Carthage

"The Lord says to Peter: ‘I say to you,’ he says, ‘that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. And to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven . . . ’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. On him [Peter] he builds the Church, and to him he gives the command to feed the sheep [John 21:17], and although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single chair [cathedra], and he established by his own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that also which Peter was [i.e., apostles], but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church and one chair. . . . If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he [should] desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?" (The Unity of the Catholic Church 4; 1st edition [A.D. 251]).

 

I argue that these quotes from these historic Christians and historic Christian documents support that Matthew 16:18 was understood in the way that I understand it now. These Christians present Peter as one who, because he is the Rock, as Scripture says, is deserving of much Respect, whose authority is unparalleled. They help express how the Papacy was understood at this time, only a few hundred years after the birth of the Church.

 

Originally Posted by Perplexity

2. Supposing there is a significant difference between Jesus’ institution of the papacy in Matt. 16:18-19 and the papacy’s existence and activity functioning within the NT Church, why would Luke desire to record the former only through descriptions of the latter?

 

This is a particularly interesting question. I would answer that Luke is primarily focused on writing, rather than a mere historical text, an educational text which not just documents, but focuses on the many miracles and events which occured in the Early Church. Luke is not focused on presenting an apologetic to defend the early Papacy, but is simply focusing on the historical and supernatural nature of the Church, the Body of Christ. However, this is presupposing the significant difference between Jesus' institution of the Papacy and the writings of Luke.

Originally Posted by Perplexity

3. Do you know of any Christian in the first 700 years of Christianity that drew an analogy between Is. 22 and Matt. 16:18-19 as you have?

 

No. Because of my laziness at coming to answer your questions, I did not have the time to do the research to see if there are any Christians who recognized this analogy. However, I believe that with some time, I could and would be able to present such evidence. This is what I shall be doing, and I will post the results on my blog, if this is suitable to you.

Originally Posted by Perplexity

4. Granting that we shouldn't assume that "if a title or a concept is not equally found in the Synoptic Gospels (such as comparing Matthew and Luke) in the same wording, then that particular instance of the terminology must not have been important to the early Christian communities", is it reasonable to believe that Luke would've been interested in recording such an important ecclesiological event such as the institution of the very foundation of the Church if he was aware of it?

 

Yes, I do believe it is reasonable. However, I would argue that, for orthodox Christianity, which accepts the inspiration of Scripture as a fact, we would have to still go back to Matthew 16 and ask ourselves, why did Matthew write these words? We have to look towards this text, we need to ask ourselves why Matthew would be spending precious ink and 'paper' (I know it's not conventional paper, but I'm just saying that to make a point) to write something which would not be an important feature of the Church, or of an action of Jesus, which if not really important at all, could have been used to depict a more important teaching of Christ Jesus. Why go to all the trouble? If we accept the historical, orthodox view of Scripture as Christians since time millenia have, we must go to the text of Matthew itself, which would be the Word of God. And we would have to understand how this verse, and the verses preceeding and following it, would have been understood by early Christians. As shown, I believe that early Christians explicitly teach upon the important of this text, because, as Christians do today, they accept Matthew as the Word of God and thus must be understood and followed, so as not to fall into error.