Whelton book review: Audi alteram partem - Part 3
Contra Whelton on Matthew 16, Peter, and the Rock
[If you haven’t already, we recommend reading the previous post or Introduction in this series. Also, we are publishing this critique from chapter 1 out of order. The comments on the rest of Whelton’s introduction will come later. Thank you for understanding.]
Christ, the "living Stone", thus assures his Church, built on Peter, of victory over the powers of death. Because of the faith he confessed Peter will remain the unshakable rock of the Church. His mission will be to keep this faith from every lapse and to strengthen his brothers in it.
— The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 552.
What should we expect?
In Chapter 1 (“Saint Peter and the Papacy”), Mr. Whelton says that if the Catholic view of the Papacy is correct, then we should expect the Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16:18-19 to have
resonated throughout the entire Church, the enormity of the commission [of Christ to Peter] sweeping away any ambiguity and reflecting complete unanimity among the Fathers of the Church as to its meaning.
Why anyone should have this expectation, Whelton does not say. If we applied it to other doctrines he does not intend to challenge, we would be left with few if any doctrines all.
Consider the doctrine of the Trinity: both opponents and adherents of the doctrine could marshal passages from Scripture to support their positions. With respect to the Scriptures supporting the dogma, the one thing we do not see in history is that they “resonated throughout the entire Church… sweeping away any ambiguity and reflecting complete unanimity among the Fathers of the Church as to [their] meaning.”
The dogma, like numerous others, was defined precisely because there was neither unanimity nor perfect clarity as to the meaning of the Scriptures used to support it. No one would have been able to come up with the definition by his own lights. The Church needed to resolve a dispute, and it did so authoritatively. This parallel holds true for dogmatic definitions at Vatican I.
Peter and the Rock
Whelton believes that the expectation above is not only justified but unmet. He proceeds to cast doubt on the claim that “rock” in Matthew 16 refers to Peter:
most of the early Church saw in this passage that Christ was building His Church, not on the person of Peter, but on Peter’s confession of faith and, therefore, was not declaring him to be the sole foundation of His Church.
There are two problems with his critique. First, he ignores the obvious explanation why some Church Fathers appear to deny the plain words of the text, which say that Peter is the rock. Second, he falsely assumes that, if Peter is the rock, then nothing else—not Christ, not faith—could also be the rock in some sense. He then reads this false assumption back into the Patristic authors he cites.1
As to the first problem, consider that Aramaic (or Syriac), which is the tongue Jesus spoke, admits no difference in gender between petra, meaning a rock, and Petrus, referring to Peter. So, the single Aramaic word kepha is petra in the Greek—a feminine form of the noun “rock”. Of course, no one would assign Peter a feminine noun, so the masculine (Petros) is used instead.
Trevor Jalland, renowned patristic scholar and an Anglican, put it thus:
The patristic authors who comment on Tu es Petrus show no sign of having attempted to interpret it in the light of a hypothetical Aramaic original. Had some of them been aware of the probability that the single word kepha' underlies both Πέτρος (Petros) and πέτρα (petra), they would not have attempted to press a difference of meaning between the two Greek terms. In actual fact it is this ignorance which serves to account for a somewhat remarkable diversity of interpretation traceable not only as between the writings of one author and another but sometimes even between those of the same author.2 [Emphasis mine]
We see, then, a clear reason for the disparate interpretations among the Patristic commentators. Even the late Protestant scholar G.B. Stevens acknowledged,
[it is] quite certain, and is now generally admitted, that the words ‘this rock’ refer, not to Christ, nor to Peter's confession of faith, but to Peter himself.
The text of the passage clearly says that Peter is the rock. Many of the Fathers do as well, and I am not aware of any who say that Peter is not the rock.
(Whelton’s lone counterexample is an alleged quote from St. Cyprian: “Rock is the unity of faith, not the person of Peter.” He cites De Catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate, chap. 4-5, as the source for it. However, besides not sounding like anything Cyprian would have said, the quote is not in that source. Nor can I find any statement from Cyprian which implies it. It is shocking that Whelton or the publisher would admit as evidence a quote of dubious authenticity—if not entirely fake. My best guess is that the quote is a bad paraphrase of some things Cyprian did say, and Whelton used it unwittingly.)
As to the second problem, even if we grant Whelton’s claim that only 17 Fathers believed that Peter was the rock—the number is surely higher than that—even so, Whelton’s method of pitting them against each other on Matthew 16 is misleading at best. While it is true that some connect the rock to Peter’s confession of faith or to Christ, we cannot take that as a denial that Peter is in some sense the rock. Doing so, as Jalland indicates, would make them contradict each other and even themselves, since many of them sometimes connect the rock to Peter but other times to his confession or to Christ.
For example, as evidence for his view, Whelton cites Homily 54, wherein Saint Chrysostom says,
And I say unto thee, ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church,’ that is, on the faith of his confession.
Well, a few lines later he says that Peter himself is “more solid than any rock.” And, in a separate homily on repentance, Chrysostom identifies Peter as the rock:
and when I say Peter I mean the solid rock, the tranquil foundation.3
Also in Homily 54, Chrysostom says that the authority given to Peter from Christ in Matthew 16 is equal to the confession of faith that was given to Peter by the Father:
[Which] manner of gifts were greater, those which the Father gave to Peter, or those which the Son gave him? For the Father gave to Peter the revelation of the Son; but the Son gave him to sow that of the Father and that of Himself in every part of the world; and to a mortal man He entrusted the authority over all things in Heaven, giving him the keys… How then is He less, who has given such gifts, has effected such things?4 [Emphasis mine]
Whelton cites a passage from St. Ambrose wherein he applies the rock to Christ and the faith generally. Whelton does not see the problem this poses for is own position: if the rock can be both the faith and Christ, why could it not be Peter as well? But let that pass. Ambrose says elsewhere,
He made answer: “You are Peter, and upon this Rock will I build My Church, and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven”... Could He not, then, strengthen the faith of the man to whom, acting on His own authority, He gave the kingdom, whom He called the Rock, thereby declaring him to be the foundation (firmamentum) of the Church?5 [emphasis mine]
Christ is the Rock, For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ, and He did not refuse to bestow the favour of this title even upon His disciple, so that he, too, might be Peter (or Rock), in that he has from the Rock a solid constancy, a firm faith (ut et ipse sit Petrus, quod de petra habeat soliditatem constantiae).6
Ambrose thus affirms that Peter was the rock and foundation, as the text of Matthew clearly states, in part because he derives his solidity from Christ who is the rock. He also says that it was not on account of his flesh or personal characteristics that Peter was the rock, but rather on account of his faith and confession, which was revealed to him by God.
As the Anglican scholar Edward Giles documented, many Church Fathers (e.g. Augustine and Cyprian) sometimes identified Peter as the rock on whom the Church was built, the personification of unity, etc., while other times they emphasize something else as the rock.7 Would Whelton have us put Chrysostom, Augustine, Ambrose, or Cyprian against themselves? Or should we rather conclude that Peter is the rock referred to, while also acknowledging that his confession and Christ are also in some sense part of the same foundation?
There is, in fact, no competition between Peter, Christ, or Peter’s confession of faith for the title of “rock” in Matthew 16. All three are intimately related. Peter is the rock only because he is the vicar of Christ, who is the true Rock; and Peter is the rock because his confession, revealed to him by God the Father, declares Christ as Lord. Saint Leo the Great makes this very point in Sermon 4:
When he had said, "You are Christ, Son of the living God”, Jesus replied to him, "Blessed are you, Simon, son of John, since flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven”, that is to say, for this reason are you blessed, since my Father taught you... "And I," he said, "tell you,” that is to say, just as my Father has manifested my divinity to you, so I make known to you your own prominence. "That you are Peter”, that is to say, although I am the indestructible rock, I "the cornerstone who make both things one”, I "the foundation on which no one can lay another”, you also are rock because you are made firm in my strength. What belongs properly to my own power you share with me by participation. "And on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”8 [Emphasis mine]
Elsewhere, in Sermon 51, Leo says that Peter
was endued with the holy firmness of the inviolable Rock on which the Church should be built.
Christ is the true Rock from whom Peter (also the rock) draws his solidity.
Hence, it is unsurprising that so many Fathers would emphasize only one of Peter, Christ, or the confession. In addition to the linguistic aspect which Jalland explains, the Patristic authors are theologizing about the crucial passage which contains many truths and layers of meaning. Whelton’s appeal to the diversity of interpretation does not cast doubt upon the Catholic interpretation, nor does it have any bearing on the Catholic view of the Papacy.
Notable Orthodox theologians such as John Meyendorff, Veselin Kesich, and Theodore Stylianopoulos believe that Peter is the rock referred to in Matthew 16. Moreover, Cappadocian Fathers Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus call Peter the rock and foundation of the Church.
Gregory of Nazianzus:
you see that of the disciples of Christ, who were all great and worthy of election, one is called Rock and is entrusted with the Foundations of the Church.9
Neither does a man know, though he be the parent of an evil like unto Judas, whether his offspring shall be called the god-like Paul, or be like unto Peter, Peter who became the unbroken Rock, and who had the keys delivered unto him.10
Gregory of Nyssa:
Peter, head of the apostles, is commemorated, and the other members of the Church are glorified with him.The Church of God is strengthened, for he is, according to the gift given him by the Lord, the unbroken and most firm rock upon which the Lord built the Church.
These are just a few of many examples.
Conclusion
Whelton occupies himself with tallying the number of Fathers who assert that the rock in Matthew 16 is Peter. However, we are now positioned to see the utter futility of his endeavor, as the passage presents no rivalry between Peter, Christ, or Peter's confession of faith.
Whelton concludes his discussion with a tone of pronounced condescension, accusing Catholic apologists of “ignoring the mind of the early Church in favour of their own subjective judgment.” On the contrary, as evidenced by the examples above, it is Whelton who overlooks the mind of the early Church. He selectively ignores evidence incompatible with his own views, appealing only to statements that appear on the surface to support it.
On the back of the book we read this endorsement:
Whelton’s monumental work is the best and fullest work dealing with this topic from an Orthodox perspective in the English language.
Thus far, as an English language Catholic, I am tempted to hope this is true.
Our examples demonstrate that the following assumption is false: If an author does not explicitly identify Peter as the rock, or even identifies something other than Peter as the rock, then we can interpret the author as asserting that Peter is not the rock.
The Church and the Papacy: An Historical Study, published from his eight Bampton lectures delivered before the University of Oxford, in the year 1942.
Fathers of the Church Patristic Series, Vol. 96: St.John Chrysostom: Sermons On Repentance and Almsgiving, translated by Gus George Christo (The Catholic University of America Press: 1998), p. 39.
“Homily 54 on Matthew” (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200154.htm).
Book IV, De fide.
From his commentaries on Luke’s gospel: Book VI, note 97, Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam.
Documents Illustrating Papal Authority: AD 96-454, edited and introduced by Edward Giles, London: S.P.C.K., 1952.
Fathers of the Church Patristic Series, Vol. 93: St. Leo The Great: Sermons, translated by Jane Patricia Freeland & Agnes Josephine Conway (The Catholic University of America Press: 1996), p. 27.
Oration 32, translated from the Greek by Colin Lindsay from J.P. Migne’s Cursus Patrologiae Completus, Greek Fathers (Patrologia Graecae): Paris, 1844-66.
Second Sermon on St. Stephen. Translated by Colin Lindsay from Patrologia Graecae, Vol. 46: 701-736.