But is it not conceivable that St. Matthew himself—let us say in the Jewish and anti- Pauline interest—invented the words about the rock and the keys in order to secure St. Peter’s teaching authority as against St. Paul, or the teaching authority of Jerusalem as against the pretensions of the Hellenistic communities? The passage would then be a product of Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, who wished to play off St. Peter against St. Paul; at the best a “pious fraud” of the author of our Gospel. It would take me too far were I to repeat the exhaustive proof adduced by Protestant as well as Catholic theologians to show that there is no evidence in the history of the primitive Church of any antagonism between St. Peter and St. Paul, or between Jerusalem and the Hellenistic communities. And the further demonstration that the Gospel of St. Matthew is inspired by no antagonism towards St. Paul is likewise quite unnecessary. It is decisive for our purpose to register the admitted fact that the fundamental word of our Lord’s promise, His denomination of Peter as the “rock,” was already current in primitive Christianity long before St. Matthew wrote his Gospel—ie., shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and that it was admitted and recognized not only among Jewish Christians, but also among the Gentiles, and not least of all in the churches founded by St. Paul. Not St. Matthew only, but St. Mark also (iii, 16) and St. John (i, 42) record that St. Peter was originally called Simon, and that our Lord Himself first gave him the name of Peter (Kepha=Petros=Rock). Mark (iii, 16) tells us further that Jesus substituted also for the names of James and John the designation Boanerges. Now it is surely very significant—Holl has recently pointed this out—that the name Boanerges did not become current among the primitive Christians, whereas Simon’s designation as Kepha, or the Rock, did. Simon’s surname became for all Christendom his proper name. St. Paul scarcely mentions him except as Kephas, the Greek form of the Aramaic Kepha. In his Epistle to the Galatians (i, 18; ii, 7, 8) he introduces the Greek translation, Petros. And that form Petros prevailed in the Hellenistic communities to the exclusion of any other. His own proper name, Simon, fell completely out of use. The fact is all the more striking because neither the Greek Petros, nor the Aramaic Kepha, had been employed as proper names before the time of Christ. Therefore the early Christian communities, several decades before St. Matthew wrote, and in any case already about the year A.D. 35, when St. Paul was converted, were interested in Simon’s being called, not Simon, but Rock. “All the faithful were meant to know that he was the rock” (Kattenbusch). And why? For no other reason that can be discerned save that the whole Christian body recognized that surname (Kepha=Petros=Rock) as the expression of St. Peter’s special function and importance for the Church, and was aware that this special position rested upon the original intention, and deliberate, unequivocal decision of our Lord Himself. In other words the central substance of this passage of St. Matthew, Simon’s designation as the foundation stone of the Church and the Church’s establishment on him, belongs in the closest possible way to the texture of the common Christian tradition, and, indeed, to that tradition even in pre- Pauline times. And so it cannot have been the invention of narrowly Jewish and anti- Pauline circles towards the end of the first century. And thus we understand how not only the alleged “anti-Pauline” St. Matthew, writing for Jewish Christians, speaks of Simon the Rock, but also the Hellenistic Luke, writing for Gentile Christians and closely associated with St. Paul, records a saying of our Lord which reads like a precise explanation of St. Matthew’s passage: “And the Lord said: Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren” (Lk. xxii, 31). So Christ prayed specially for Simon in particular that he should not fail in the faith and should “confirm” his brethren. The word “confirm” (sterizein=support) reminds us of the rock of St. Matthew. It is the special function of Simon to be the support and prop of the young Christian faith. Therefore St. Luke also implies Simon’s vocation to be the rock. Nor is the case different with St. John. In the supplement to the fourth Gospel, which derives from the circle of St. John’s disciples, the risen Christ asks: “Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me more than these?” (xxi, 15). Evidently our Lord expected a more faithful love from Simon than from the rest of His disciples. And on the basis of this more faithful love He deputed him, and him alone, to take His position as shepherd of His flock: “Feed My lambs, feed My sheep.” We may turn these passages as we like, but we cannot escape the impression that the whole body of the early Christians knew that Simon bore a special relation to the stability of the Church, and derived this unique position of his from an express declaration of our Lord’s. Consequently the words of our Lord reported by St. Matthew are not isolated and baseless, but they are in their substantial content rooted in and authenticated by the common tradition of primitive Christianity, a tradition which is earlier than St. Matthew’s Gospel and earlier than St. Paul. It is therefore evident, and we need not labor the point, that we are not dealing here with a pre-eminence of St. Peter which was confined to his peculiar gifts, as for instance to a special capacity for the interpretation of Scripture or to special eloquence in the exposition of the faith. In fact, St. Peter counts not merely as one stone in the newly-founded Church, nor merely as the first stone, but as the rock, the foundation stone which supports the whole Church. He is therefore intimately connected with the whole being of the Church, not only with its teaching activity and its faith, but also with the fullness of that life which springs from this faith, with its discipline, its worship and its ordinances. The whole Church rests on Peter, and not merely its scriptural knowledge and its doctrine. Our Lord expresses this fact with even greater emphasis by the biblical image which he employs in the same context, promising Peter the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Peter is to be the steward of the house—the same figure is used by our Lord elsewhere (Mt. xxiv, 45; Lk. xii, 42)—he alone has charge of the keys, and he has to supervise every department of the Church. The metaphor of binding and loosing points in the same direction. According to the rabbinical mode of speech from which it is taken, this signifies a power to forbid and to permit, to judge and to regulate, which is authoritative and valid in heaven, i.e., before God. Therefore these three images really describe that plenitude of power (plenitudo potestatis) of which the Vatican Council speaks, and which comprises full doctrinal and disciplinary authority, the complete governance of the Church in the most comprehensive sense. And, as we have seen, St. Peter’s influence was not in fact confined to the doctrinal sphere alone.