Gospel Notes by Michael Whelan SM
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:13-20 – NRSV).
Introductory notes
General
Matthew draws on Mark 8:27-30. Luke’s account – 9:18-21 – also draws on Mark.
Matthew makes some minor changes to Mark’s account – “Most of Matthew’s changes in his Markan source are minor editorial touches.” (Daniel J Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2007, 249.) For example, he adds the Prophet Jeremiah to the popular guesses about Jesus’ identity.
Both Luke and Matthew keep Mark’s affirmation by Peter – “You are the Christ” – on behalf of the other disciples.
Matthew does however expand on the role of Peter: “The major change is the expansion of Peter’s confession in 16:16b–19. This material has no parallel in Mark or in any other Gospel source. By inserting it into his Markan source Matthew has altered the flow of the story. Whereas in Mark Peter’s confession is rejected or at least corrected, in Matthew it serves as the basis for Jesus’ blessing of Peter. The focus on Peter as the one who gets involved when problems emerge is typically Matthean (see Matt 15:15; 17:24–27; 18:21–22). In this text Peter is praised as the recipient of a divine revelation (16:17), called the foundation of the Church (16:18), and given special authority (16:19).” (Daniel J Harington, op cit, 249-250.) This expanded role affirmed in Peter also makes the following verses – in which Jesus rebukes Peter – particularly significant. Thus “the rock” finds a counterpoint in “the stumbling block” and the words from “my Father in heaven” find a counterpoint in “not God’s way but man’s”.
Specific
Caesarea-Philippi: A region about 30 Kms north of the Lake, near the sources of the Jordan River.
the Son of Man: “‘The Son of Man’ has been used thus far in 8:20; 9:6; 10:23; 11:19; 12:8, 32, 40; 13:37, 41” (J Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: a commentary on the Greek text, W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2005). Commenting on the use of the term in 8:20 – “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” – Nolland writes: “The alternatives are that this is a statement about Jesus himself, made because of its implications for his followers, or that it is some form of collective statement about the situation of the group of people being formed by Jesus’ call. What contribution does the designation ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου have to make?
“This is Matthew’s first use of ‘Son of Man’ but he will go on to use the phrase twenty-seven more times, all of them either definitely or possibly on the lips of Jesus. I have argued elsewhere that in Aramaic and on the lips of Jesus the usage would have been an idiolect of his own, understandable on the basis of known Aramaic idiom and meaning something like ‘this Somebody’, ‘the Somebody of whom I speak’. The literal translation into Greek was in part a recognition of the idiosyncratic nature of Jesus’ use of this phrase (cf. his use of ‘Amen’ and ‘Abba’). Matthew probably adds this diction to texts which did not originally incorporate it, but his use conforms well to this proposed original sense.
“In the present verse ‘the Son of Man’ picks up on the scribe’s recognition of Jesus as an important Somebody with whom he would like to be related. Jesus accepts the ascription of significance but offers a paradoxical assertion: important as he might be, this significant Somebody has nowhere to lay his head. The contrast with the birds of the air is (as in 6:26) a contrast with creatures of minor significance. Presumably what the birds have is perches in the trees and nests during the breeding season. The foxes are also chosen for their low status in the larger scheme of things” (Nolland op cit, 365-366).
“Neither Mark nor Luke use this expression. They move straight to the “say who I am”. The term, ‘Son of Man’, has currency beyond any references to Jesus: “(Son of Man) is a Semitic expression that typically individualizes a noun for humanity in general by prefacing it with ‘son of’, thus designating a specific human being, a single member of the human species. Its meaning can be as indefinite as ‘someone’ or ‘a certain person’. Used in Dan 7:13–14 to describe a cloud-borne humanlike figure, the expression—or at least the figure so designated in Daniel—became traditional in some forms of Jewish and early Christian speculation which anticipated a transcendent eschatological agent of divine judgment and deliverance. In the NT that agent is almost universally identified with the risen Jesus.” (G W E Nickelsburg, “Son of Man” in D. N. Freedman (Ed.), The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (Vol. 6), New York, NY: Doubleday, 1992, 137.) Daniel Harrington notes: “Here Matthew uses ‘Son of Man’ as a way of talking about Jesus. It functions as a title connected with the many other instances of ‘Son of Man’ in the Gospel, not as a generic term or simply as a personal pronoun” (Daniel J Harrington, op cit, 247).
Messiah: The Greek word is Christos. The title has already been used on three occasions in Matthew – see 1:1 & 16-18 and 11:2. But this is the first time that one of the disciples uses the term of Jesus. Recall a similar naming of Jesus by the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:22. One of the great ironies of the Gospels is that so many unlikely folk – and even demons – recognize Jesus as the Christ but those who should recognize him – namely the scholars and teachers – do not. The religious authorities either do not recognize the truth about Jesus or are unwilling to acknowledge it if they do.
Simon son of Jonah: Scholars cannot agree on the origin of the naming of Simon Bar-Jonah as “Peter”. The naming is also found in John 1:42, Luke 6:14 and Mark 3:16. “Peter” is the English translation of the Greek Petros which is a pun on the word for “rock”, petra. It seems that this was not used as a name for a person before this. Harrington writes: “The very Semitic character of the language in Matt 16:16b–19 (“Simon Bar-Jona,” “flesh and blood,” the Peter-rock pun, etc.) suggests that the piece originally circulated in Aramaic or at least in a highly Semitized Greek. We are most likely dealing with a pre-Matthean tradition that Matthew inserted into the text.
“From where did the tradition come? Some argue that it came directly from the earthly Jesus. This view is based on the Semitic speech and the fact of Peter’s special role among the twelve. Others argue that the tradition arose in the Church at Antioch where Peter was looked upon as the founding apostle of the Church there. Thus the story would reflect an attempt at establishing Peter’s authority by tracing it back to Jesus’ time. Still others suggest that it arose in the story of a resurrection appearance to Peter. According to 1 Cor 15:5 the risen Jesus appeared to Cephas/Peter. Since Matthew has no such account (cf. Luke 24:34; John 21:15–17), perhaps he retrojected the appearance story into the career of the earthly Jesus.
“None of these three explanations about the origin of the material in Matt 16:16b–19 can be proved with certainty. Neither can anyone of them be dismissed. What is striking is the continuing interest in Peter. If Peter died around a.d. 60 and Matthew wrote around a.d. 85, why did Matthew and his community retain their special interest in Peter some twenty-five years after his death?
“Most of the motifs in Matt 16:16b–19 have already been treated or are explained sufficiently in the notes. But three motifs deserve comment because they may escape notice: Caesarea Philippi as a place of divine revelation, the rock-foundation of the Church, and the keys of the kingdom” Harrington, op cit, 250).
church: The English word “church” here translates the Greek ekklēsia. It was a commonly used word at the time to designate a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place, an assembly. We find such a usage in the account of St Paul’s dispute with the silversmith Demetrius in Ephesus – see Acts 19:23-41. In verses 32 and 39 there is a reference to the ekklēsia – that is the public gathering or assembly that was called to deal with the dispute. So, when Paul addresses the community in Corinth, urging them to maintain some decorum in their worship, he speaks of the times “when you come together as ekklēsia” (1 Corinthians 11:18). Paul seems to be adapting the word ekklēsia here, drawing on the common usage with which the Corinthians would have been very familiar, and pointing to the emergence of a new usage to match the new reason for gathering.
In the Old Testament, however, the Septuagint uses the word ekklēsia in a distinctively religious way to translate the Hebrew qāhāl Yahweh: “(In the Septuagint) the word describes an assembly convened for a religious act, often of worship (vg Dt 23; 1Kings 8; Psalm 22:26). It corresponds to the Hebrew qāhāl which is used especially by the Deuteronomic school to describe the assembly at Horeb (vg Dt 4:10), on the steppes of Moab (Deuteronomy 31:30), or in the promised land (vg Joshua 8:35 and Judges 20:2). It is also used by the Chronicler (vg 1 Chronicles 21:8 and Nehemiah 8:2) to describe the liturgical assembly of Israel during the time of the Kings or after the Exile. But if ekklēsia always translates qāhāl, this latter word is at times rendered by other words, particularly by synagoôgē (vg Numbers 16:3, 20:4 and Deuteronomy 5:22), which more often translates the sacerdotal word ēdāh. Church and synagogue are two almost synonymous terms (cf James 2:2); they will not be opposed in meaning until the Christians will appropriate the first for themselves and reserve the second for the obstinate Jews. The choice of ekklēsia by the Septuagint was doubtless influenced by the assonance qāhāl ekklēsia, but also by the etymological influences. Ekklēsia comes from ekkaleô (“I call from”, “I convoke”; of itself, it indicates that Israel, the people of God, was the assembly convoked by divine initiative. And it recalled a sacerdotal express in which the idea of call was expressed: klētē hagia, the literal translation of miqra qodes, “religious assembly” (Exodus 12:16, Leviticus 23:3 and Numbers 29:1).” (“Church” in Xavier Léon-Dufour SJ, editor, Dictionary of Biblical Theology, Geoffrey Chapman, 1972, 58-59.)
The Greek word ekklēsia is used on one other occasion in Matthew – see 18:17.
the gates of Hades: “Hades was a Greek god whose name means ‘the unseen one’. The Greek word was used to translate Hebrew terms for the underworld or Sheol. In Acts 2:27, 31 it refers to the abode of the dead; for the gates of Sheol see Isa 38:10. The idea in Matt 16:18 is that death and other powers opposed to God will not triumph over the Church (= assembly) of Jesus’ disciples” (Daniel J Harrington, op cit, 248).
In Acts 2:27 and 31, Peter is quoting Psalm 16:8-11(LXX). Joseph Fitzmyer writes: “What appears in v 27 is crucial. Psalm 16 is a lament, actually a psalm of personal trust in God; it expresses the psalmist’s faith in God’s power to deliver from evil and personal troubles, as he calls upon God to recall his constant seeking of refuge in divine help and makes renewed recognition of that help. As Peter makes use of it in his speech, it is applied to the risen Christ’s exaltation” (Joseph A Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles: a new translation with introduction and commentary, New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008, 256). Fitzmyer continues, commenting specifically on v 27: “The important words are ‘the netherworld’ (hadēs), ‘your holy one’ (ton hosion sou), and ‘decay’ (diaphthora), which Peter applies from the Davidic psalm to the risen Christ, who is the preeminent ‘holy One’, whose status is not in the netherworld, and who has not experienced decay” (Ibid).
the keys of the kingdom of heaven: “For the kingdom as a place to be entered, see Matt 7:21. According to Matt 23:13 the scribes and Pharisees shut the kingdom of heaven. For the installation of the gate-keeper Eliakim over the royal household see Isa 22:15–25. Peter’s role in the kingdom is like that of the steward Eliakim in the king’s palace” (Harrington, op cit, 248).
bind … loose: “The expression can be interpreted in several ways: laying down rules and making exemptions, imposing and lifting excommunications, forgiving and not forgiving sins, or performing exorcisms. See 18:18 where the power to bind and loose is given to the community. The idea is that God will ratify and stand behind what Peter (and the others) enact” (Ibid).
A threefold communion
In today’s Gospel – Matthew 16:13-20 – we have a decisive moment in an ongoing story. The relationship between God and Israel, set in motion centuries ago, is being transformed. Recall God’s words to Abraham, the founding patriarch of Israel: “This is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham” (Genesis 17:4-5). The prophet Isaiah reminds the people: “Listen to me … Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, but I blessed him and made him many” (51:1-2).
Where does Jesus fit in this ongoing story? Matthew places Jesus at the centre of the story by citing Isaiah: “‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us’” (1:23). We are reminded of the great promise to Moses: “‘I will be with you’” (see Exodus 3:1-14). This same promise is repeated again in the very last words of Matthew’s Gospel – see 28:20. Thus, in today’s text, Jesus asks his disciples, “‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets’ … ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’”
The apparent clarity of Peters response, like the clarity that will be displayed in the Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration (17:1-13), is only partial. It is and will remain even after the Resurrection, as much an “unknowing” as a “knowing.” St Paul puts it beautifully in his hymn to love: “For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end” (1 Corinthians 13:9-10).
We, the Church, find our place – our identity, our role – through Jesus. This decisive moment in his story, outlined in today’s text, points to a deep and rich truth, crucial to our understanding of ourselves as the Church. We are part of an ongoing story in history. We are always coming into being within a threefold communion – with Jesus Christ, with each other and with the world of people, events and things.
The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council therefore note: “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of human beings” (Gaudium et Spes, 1).