MetaCatholic

Today, in the old Roman calendar, was the feast of the Chair of St Peter. In some modern Anglican calendars (and I think some Lutheran ones also) the day is celebrated as the Confession of St Peter. Either way it looks back to the Matthean account of Peter’s confession of Jesus at Caesarea Philippi (Matt 16:16-19). It seems to make it an appropriate day to look at this tradition again.

There is a broad scholarly consensus that the story as we have it is a creative Matthean redaction. One of the few dissenters from this position was Ben Meyer in his book The Aims of Jesus. I doubt that it is possible to be precise about exactly what is Matthean redaction and what is not, but I offer the following two considerations.

There seems to be unanimous testimony that Jesus gave Simon the name Cephas / Peter: the Rock. Mark refers to it in passing (”So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter)” Mark 3:16) and Luke follows this almost word for word (Luke 6:14). John relates the naming in a dialogue: ” He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).” (John 1:42). Paul on occasion in 1 Corinthians and Galatians refers to him as Cephas (and twice in Galatians as Peter) showing that this is not a case of being known by a Greek name, but goes back to an Aramaic original. What no-one but Matthew does is give a reason behind this naming, and while the wording of Matthew may well be in dispute, the reason Matthew’s Jesus gives certainly fits the leadership role ascribed to Peter elsewhere. There is a congruence between Jesus naming Peter, and the overwhelming tradition that Jesus gave Peter a special role.

Matthew’s gospel is unusual in the way it puts the word “church” on the lips of Jesus, something that happens nowhere else in the Jesus tradition. One of the scarcely noticed oddities of the New Testament is the universality of this language in the post-resurrection era, and the way in which it can be used for the whole of the Jesus community and for a particular instance of the community. No other term comes close to competing. Obviously the word has a respectable and meaningful LXX pedigree, which clearly informs its use. Whether that pedigree is enough to explain its origin is, to me at least, unclear – even doubtful. Equally, it has a clear socio-political context among the Pauline communities of the Mediterranean world. The inclusion of women and slaves in an ecclesia is deeply subversive of the social order, and suggests that the use of the word would not have been the most instinctive. Indeed, some of the problems Paul addresses at Corinth can only have been encouraged by the implications of the language, yet Paul continues to use it freely. It is, it seems to me, at least historically plausible that Matthew is right to show the term originating on the lips of Jesus. That is perhaps the simplest explanation for the universality of the word “church” as the name for the Jesus community, as a given name from the beginning, rather than the fruit of a theological reflection on a renewed or new Israel.

Neither of these points are conclusive, and they certainly don’t address the whole question of Matthew’s narrative of Caesarea Philippi. Yet perhaps they are good reasons for considering a larger historical core to the Matthean account than is normally credited.