I’ve decided to write a series of articles about issues surrounding the biblical foundation (or lack thereof) of the Catholic Papacy. This is a subject that’s been of great interest to me lately. I expect that this series will have quite a few parts to it; exactly how many, I am unsure.
Please note that I am not going to provide full background as to what the papacy is, so I suggest that if you have any questions regarding this, you either email them to me or read articles elsewhere (Wikipedia seems to have a fairly decent one as of this writing).
I’d also like to mention at this point that I frequently quote scripture from various translations. The reason for this is that I feel one particular translation does a better job at conveying the meaning of a passage than another. That said, however, I would point out that I use eSword (free electronic Bible software — linked in the right column under “Recommended Resources”), and rapidly switch between translations while reading. I also consult numerous Greek and Hebrew lexicons as to try and understand the meaning of passages better. I strongly suggest that you do the same, so that you too may have a fuller understanding of the meaning of these passages.
So, let’s start with a little background. I was raised as a Baptist, and as such, I was raised to believe that the Roman Papacy is invalid. I was told that the office was instituted by the Catholic Church, and that it was simply not found anywhere in scripture. Later, as I began to really think for myself, I started digging deeper into this question, and found out that there was a lot of controversy surrounding this issue.
A primary focus of this controversy is Matthew 16. I’ll quote the passage here, so that the casual reader can follow along. Again, however, I highly recommend downloading eSword, along with several Bible translation resource files, so that you can more comprehensibly follow along.
Matthew 16:13-19 AMP
13 Now when Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is?
14 And they answered, Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
15 He said to them, But who do you [yourselves] say that I am?
16 Simon Peter replied, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17 Then Jesus answered him, Blessed (happy, fortunate, and [4] to be envied) are you, Simon Bar-Jonah. For flesh and blood [men] have not revealed this to you, but My Father Who is in heaven.
18 And I tell you, you are [5] Peter [Greek, Petros--a large piece of rock], and on this rock [Greek, petra--a [6] huge rock like Gibraltar] I will build My church, and the gates of Hades (the powers of the [7] infernal region) shall [8] not overpower it [or be strong to its detriment or hold out against it].
19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind (declare to be improper and unlawful) on earth [9] must be what is already bound in heaven; and whatever you loose (declare lawful) on earth [10] must be what is already loosed in heaven.(2)
To quickly summarize this passage — Here we see Jesus and the twelve apostles entering town. Jesus asks the apostles, “Who do the people think that I am?”, to which they reply that the people think he’s one of the prophets, perhaps John the Baptist, or another. He then asks who the twelve (his closest followers) believe he is. Simon (commonly known as Peter) speaks up, saying that he believes Jesus to be the long-awaited Messiah (translated as the Greek title Christos, from which we get the title Christ).
Jesus points out that God, and not a man, revealed this to Simon. Then he says, in verse 18…
Matthew 16:18 AMP
18 And I tell you, you are [5] Peter [Greek, Petros--a large piece of rock], and on this rock [Greek, petra--a [6] huge rock like Gibraltar] I will build My church, and the gates of Hades (the powers of the [7] infernal region) shall [8] not overpower it [or be strong to its detriment or hold out against it].
Now, for those unfamiliar with The Amplified Bible, I’d like to mention that anything in square brackets is information added by the translators, because they hope to clarify the meaning of the passage. Additionally, information in parentheses is usually in the form of additional definition information for the preceding word or phrase.
Now, in traditional English Bibles, this phrase read like this…
Matthew 16:18 KJV
18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
It would seem from the King James Version, that Jesus is simply saying, “I will call you Peter,” and then making a completely separate statement, “on this rock I will build my church”. However, we must remember that the New Testament scriptures were in fact written in Greek, and translated into English much later. If we delve into the Greek, we see that the word used for Peter is “Petros”, and that the word used for rock is “petra”. These words are strikingly similar, and thus some believe there is a connection between them.
The first argument I came across on this particular subject was a Catholic one, which said that the words petros and petra were both the same word, simply with different genders. Thus, we should assume that they both mean exactly the same thing, and that Jesus was declaring that on Simon Peter (Petros) he would build his church. This provides a basis for the Pope being the leader of the entire church. This seems reasonable on the surface, but it doesn’t explain why the author of Matthew chose to use two distinctly different words.
That discrepancy is what has led many Protestant apologists to use the following counter-argument: In Greek, we find that the words petros and petra have two different meanings. Petra was a large immovable shelf, ledge, or foundational rock, whereas petros was a smaller, more movable rock. By this interpretation of the passage, we would see that Simon Peter is in fact a smaller, movable rock, and that Christ is comparing Simon Peter to Christ himself, who is represented as “petra” — an immovable foundation.
I would note, at this point, that this point of view is the one which is displayed by the notes in the Amplified Bible. The translators of this version were not Catholic, and apparantly felt it important to make this verse not appear as a support for the papacy. I would also note that this use of the word petros would be rather unique, as the only prior recorded uses of it were in Classical Greek, rather than Koine Greek (the Greek dialect the New Testament was written in).
In response to this, Catholic apologists generally respond with two points. The first is that Jesus would most likely have spoken Hebrew or Aramaic (a language which is very closely related to Hebrew). I don’t argue this point. And in fact, other scriptures refer to Simon Peter as Cephas or Kepha (whether or not we use the hellenized form of the name doesn’t really matter in this case). This is the Aramaic word for rock or stone. Catholics also often point out that if the writer was clearly trying to differentiate between Simon Peter and the rock on which the church is built, he could have used another word such as “lithos”, which often referred to a smaller stone. It is suggested, therefore, that the reason for the change from petros to petra is simply a result of the change from Hebrew/Aramaic to Greek. In Greek, words have genders, whereas in the other languages, they do not. Petra, the rock on which the church is built, is a feminine noun. On the other hand, Simon Peter was a male, so giving him a feminine name wouldn’t have been proper. Thus, Catholics propose, what Jesus originally said might have used the same words for both Peter and the rock. For example, it might have been more along the lines of, “You are Cephas, and on this cephas I will build my church.”
I agree that the Catholic interpretation I’ve just mentioned is plausible. However, it isn’t unambiguous, and therein lies the problem. There is another completely plausible explanation which accounts for the facts. (Establishing the doctrine of the primacy of Simon Peter on the basis of one ambiguous passage is risky at best.)
Jesus, scholars suggest, was probably tri-lingual, being fluent in Hebrew (for he was able to read from and discuss the Hebrew scriptures), Aramaic (many of the Jewish communities in the area Jesus grew up in spoke this language), and Greek (a common language in the Roman Empire) . We assume that, since he was speaking nearly entirely to Jews at the time, that he would not have spoken in Greek.
In Hebrew, we find the word “kêph”, which is a rock. From its only two usages in the Old Testament scriptures (Job 30:6, Jeremiah 4:29), this word would seem to indicate a fairly large stone, certainly larger than the Greek “lithos”, but substantially smaller than “petra”, which is a crag, cliff, or ledge.
This got me to thinking about what Hebrew words we might find to represent a crag, cliff, or ledge. Surely enough, a search through several lexicons found me the word “sela‛”, which is defined as a crag, cliff, or rock. It’s also referenced to be a “stronghold” of God. This word, fortunately, appears 61 times in the Old Testament scriptures, and thus we should be able to get some idea as to its meaning. In Numbers, we see this word as the rock out of which water came to quench the thirst of the Israelites. Later, in Psalms and other places, we see this same word, “sela‛” as a firm foundation, a strong tower, and various other situations which are referring to a foundation which is, or which is placed by, God himself.
It seems to me like “sela‛” and “petra” may be closely associated words, given their usage. In checking through the Brown-Driver-Briggs’ Hebrew Definitions (in eSword), I found a speculative note that Sela might have also been an early name for the pagan rock city known as Petra. Now, while this is far from conclusive, it does seem to indicate that both words are similar in nature.
There are also other words in Hebrew which can be used for smaller stones, akin to the size of the Greek lithos, however, I will not delve into these too much, as it’s not relevant.
So then, let’s take the “original” English phrase that we have…
You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.
Next, we swap in the Greek words (my apologies, but I am not scholarly enough to deal with the whole passage in Greek)…
You are Petros, and on this petra I will build my church.
Next, we assume that Jesus was speaking Hebrew or Aramaic (both of which are closely related, and to my knowledge, have very similar words, grammar, etc). We see that other locations in scripture in fact use an Aramaic name for Simon Peter (which is obviously derived from a Hebrew word), so we swap that in with reasonable confidence…
You are Cephas, and on this petra I will build my church.
Finally, we must figure out what word Christ would have used in the place of petra. In Matthew and Luke, we see that Jesus told the parable of the wise man who built his house on the rock. The word used there was petra. Obviously, we see from that parable that the wise man built his house upon a firm foundation. This is right in line with both the lexical definitions of petra that I have available to me, as well as with the use of the Hebrew word sela’. Thus, we can reasonable assume that that sela’, or an Aramaic derivitive (shu’a), and not keph (or an Aramaic derivitive or hellenized form like cephas) was used…
You are Cephas, and on this shu’a I will build my church.
To answer the question of why the writer of Matthew would not choose another Greek word to place here, which would more clearly differentiate Simon Peter from the rock on which the church is built, I took a look through Greek lexicons and dictionaries. I only found three words in Greek (used in scripture at least — I have been unable to check other sources as of yet) that could mean rock or stone (discounting derivitives and verb forms of these three)…
- petra – This is, as we covered, a large crag, cliff, or foundation. Using this word in place of petros wouldn’t make sense, due to the gender problems the Catholic church notes (using a feminine noun as a proper name for a male would be undesirable). Additionally, translation from Kefa/Kephas/Cephas doesn’t make sense either. The closest Aramaic/Hebrew equivalents are shu’a and/or sela’.
- petros – The Greek name used to refer to the person of Simon Peter (nowhere else does it have another meaning). Some also claim that in classical Greek literature, it actually had a meaning of a smaller stone which was bigger than lithos, but smaller than petra. This use would likely have been outdated at the time of the writing of Matthew.
- lithos – This is a word which Catholic apologists suggest the author would have used if he’d intended to differentiate. This however, doesn’t seem to fit, as lithos references a stone small enough to be given from person to person. Cephas obviously wouldn’t be translated into lithos, though other Hebrew and Aramaic words might be.
In the end, it looks to me like Matthew didn’t have any Greek words available to him that were completely accurate. Thus, he may have made the best use of the words he had available, unknowingly giving us the petros/petra controversy.
Well, I guess this concludes my first real article, not to mention the first part of this series on the biblical foundation (or lack thereof) of the Catholic Papacy. Hopefully I’ll post the next article in this series within a few days.
Please feel free to leave questions or comments. I’d also love to see additional topics you’d like to see me write about! All I ask is that, if you have something negative to say, you phrase it in a loving fashion. The same is true for any discussion or rebuttals. Remember that our goal is to strive for the truth of God, not to try to one-up each other. I try to post my views in this fashion, and I ask that you will do the same (whether that’s by text response, or by video).
The next article in this series is So what is “this rock”?
