It is enough for thee to have found the Rock, and to have built on the one Foundation.” (Comp. As it is, the collocation suggests an implied contrast: “Thou art the Rock-Apostle and yet not the Rock on which the Church is to be built. add, the simpler form, “Thou art Peter, and on thee will I build My Church,” would have been clearer and more natural. The Rock on which the Church was to be built was Himself, in the mystery of that union of the Divine and the Human which had been the subject of St. (3.) As with the words, which in their form present a parallel to these, “Destroy this temple” ( John 2:19), so here, we may believe the meaning to have been indicated by significant look or gesture. (2.) The poetry of the Old Testament associated the idea of the Rock with the greatness and steadfastness of God, not with that of a man. (1.) Christ and not Peter is the Rock in 1Corinthians 10:4, the Foundation in 1Corinthians 3:11.
(3) On the assumption of a distinction there follows the question, What is the rock? Peter’s faith (subjective)? or the truth (objective) which he confessed? or Christ Himself? Taking all the facts of the case, the balance seems to incline in favour of the last view. The Aramaic Cepha, it may be noted, has the former rather than the latter meaning. On the one side there is the probability that in the Aramaic, in which our Lord spoke, there would be no difference between the words in the two clauses on the other, the possibility that He may have used the Greek words, or that the Evangelist may have intended to mark the distinction which he felt by the use of the two words, which undoubtedly differ in their meaning, πέτρος being a “stone” or fragment of rock, while πέτρα is the rock itself. (2) Whether he is to be identified with the rock of the next clause is, however, a question on which men may legitimately differ.
Now, at last, by this confession of his faith, Peter had risen to the height of his new calling, and was worthy of his new name. And (1) it would seem clear that the connection between Peter and the rock (the words in the Greek differ in gender, πέτρος and πέτρα, but were identical in the Aramaic, which our Lord probably used) was meant to be brought into special prominence. It is clear, however, that we can only reach the true meaning by putting those controversies aside, at all events till we have endeavoured to realise what thoughts the words at the time actually conveyed to those who heard them, and that when we have grasped that meaning it will be our best preparation for determining what bearing they have upon the later controversies of ancient or modern times. It is not easy, in dealing with a text which for many centuries has been the subject-matter of endless controversies, to clear our minds of those “afterthoughts of theology” which have gathered round it, and, in part at least, overlaid its meaning. Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(18) Thou art Peter, and upon this rock.
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