Episode 60: Year B – 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time
In this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word, the major apologetical topic that we focus on is Peter and the papacy. There are two details in the Gospel, taken from John 1:35-42, that enter this sort of discussion. The first is the fact that Andrew followed Jesus before Peter and the second is Jesus’ promise that Simon’s new name would be “Cephas.”
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Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
In this episode, the major apologetical topic that we’re going to focus on is Peter and the papacy. There are two details in the Gospel, taken from John 1:35-42, that enter this sort of discussion. The first is the fact that Andrew followed Jesus before Peter and the second is Jesus’ promise that Simon’s new name would be “Cephas.”
Here’s the Gospel in full:
John was standing with two of his disciples,
and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God.”
The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus.
Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them,
“What are you looking for?”
They said to him, “Rabbi” — which translated means Teacher —,
“where are you staying?”
He said to them, “Come, and you will see.”
So they went and saw where Jesus was staying,
and they stayed with him that day.
It was about four in the afternoon.
Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter,
was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus.
He first found his own brother Simon and told him,
“We have found the Messiah” — which is translated Christ —.
Then he brought him to Jesus.
Jesus looked at him and said,
“You are Simon the son of John;
you will be called Cephas” — which is translated Peter.
Let’s start with the fact that Andrew followed Jesus before Peter, having to go get Peter and bring him to Jesus. Why is this significant?
This detail is significant because it sheds light on another detail that’s relevant for Peter’s role as leader of Christ’s Church. In Matthew 10:2-4, Matthew lists the twelve apostles. But he starts the list by saying, “The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter,” and then goes on to list the others: “Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother . . . [etc.].”
Now, the detail here to zero in on is Matthew’s use of the term “first.” The question arises, “What does Matthew intend to convey with this term?”
Does he intend to suggest an order in a list? That doesn’t seem right because he doesn’t speak of a “second,” “third,” etc.
Maybe he’s using it to suggest the chronological order in which the apostles were called. Matthew does say in 1:1, just a few verses before he uses the term “protos,” “And [Jesus] called to him twelve disciples.”
But that can’t be right because, as the detail from our Gospel reading for this upcoming Sunday proves, Peter wasn’t called first. That privilege belongs to Andrew.
So, the question now is, “What could Matthew possibly mean by the term protos?” Well, there’s another meaning of the term besides “a chronological order.” As Barclay M. Newman points out in his A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament, protos can also suggest a primacy of place, like “first and foremost” (pg. 156).
Since Matthew can’t be intending the other possible meanings of the term, he must be intending this meaning. Therefore, Matthew believes Peter has a primacy of place among the twelve, the “first and foremost,” or “most prominent” apostle. This suggests Peter was the leader of the apostolic college. And that’s simply what we mean when we say Peter was the first pope.
The second detail worth highlighting here for discussions about Peter and the Papacy is Jesus’ promise that Simon would be called “Cephas.” As John records in verse 42, “Jesus looked at [Simon] and said, “You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas’— which is translated Peter.”
According to the famous Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, popularly referred to as BDAG (an abbreviation based on the first letters of the names of the editors and translators), “Cephas,” or kephas in Greek, is an Aramaic word for “rock.” New Testament scholar D.A. Carson concurs, writing in his The Gospel According to John, “doubtless in Aramaic the expression was kepha, a word meaning ‘rock.’” (pg. 156).
Now, notice John says kephas “is translated Peter.” The Greek word for “Peter” is petros. BDAG affirms this when it states that petros is the Greek form of Simon’s new surname and was “from the beginning probably thought of as the Greek equivalent of the Aramaic kephas.”
Why is this significant? That’s the Greek word used in Matthew 16:18 when Jesus says to Simon, “You are Peter (Gk., Petros), and on this rock (Gk., petra), I will build my church.”
The hotly debated question is whether Jesus intends Peter to be the metaphorical rock, petra, upon which he promises to build his Church.
Here’s where the equivalence that petros has with kephas comes into play. Given that Simon’s new name in Greek, Petros, is the equivalent of the Aramaic kephas, which means rock, it becomes clear that Peter is meant to be the rock of the Church.
If Peter were not the metaphorical rock, then the pun on his new name, “rock,” and the metaphorical rock would be merely accidental and thus beyond the intention of Jesus. But if such a pun were not intended by Jesus, then why would Jesus change Simon’s name to petros, or “rock,” in the first place?
Surely, Jesus is not giving this new name of “rock” to Peter because of his steadfast character. The Gospels are clear that Peter is anything but steadfast in character. He’s all over the map.
If Peter were not the metaphorical rock, then his name change would be futile or pointless. But surely, we don’t want to say his name change was futile. Therefore, we should conclude that Peter is the foundational rock of the Church.
Even the late Lutheran New Testament scholar Oscar Cullman agrees with our conclusion. In his editorial contribution to the term “rock” in Gerhard Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, he writes following:
The obvious pun which has made its way into the Greek text . . . suggests a material identity between petra and Petros . . . as it is impossible to differentiate strictly between the two words. . . . Petros himself is this petra, not just his faith or his confession. . . . The idea of the Reformers that he is referring to the faith of Peter is quite inconceivable. . . . For there is no reference here to the faith of Peter. Rather, the parallelism of “thou art Rock” and “on this rock I will build” shows that the second rock can only be the same as the first. It is thus evident that Jesus is referring to Peter, to whom he has given the name Rock. . . . To this extent Roman Catholic exegesis is right and all Protestant attempts to evade this interpretation are to be rejected (pgs., 98, 107, 108).
New Testament professor at Asbury Theological Seminary Craig Keener argues similarly, stating in his The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio Rhetorical Commentary, “Jesus plays on Simon’s nickname, Peter, which is roughly the English Rocky: Peter is rocky and on this rock Jesus would build his Church” (pg. 426).
Furthermore, imagine the exegetical nightmare that would come with saying Peter is not the metaphorical rock. We’d have to say something like, “Simon, who is now named “rock,” who is the most immediate and natural referent for the demonstrative “this” in the phrase “upon this rock,” and the one to whom Jesus gives several blessings in the immediate context, has nothing to do with the metaphorical rock upon which Christ promises to build his Church.” That just doesn’t make sense.
Now, someone will inevitably counter and say, “If Jesus intended Peter to be the metaphorical rock, then shouldn’t Matthew have used petros in the second instance when referring to the metaphorical rock instead of a different word, petra?”
I deal with this objection in my book Meeting the Protestant Response: How to Answer Common Comebacks to Catholic Arguments. Here are a few possible reasons why Matthew doesn’t simply use the existing word petros in the second instance as well as the first.
One is that, to Matthew’s audience, petra would have been the more familiar term for “rock.” New Testament scholar R.T. France comments on this lack of familiarity with petros among Matthew’s readers:
The masculine noun petros occurs infrequently in classical poetic Greek to mean a stone (i.e., a broken piece of rock), though the distinction from petra is not consistently observed. But petros as a common noun is unlikely to have been familiar to Matthew’s readers, as it is not found in the LXX [the Septuagint] (except twice in 2 Maccabees) or in the NT and related literature.
Here’s another possible explanation. By using petra, Matthew might have intended to make a connection with other teachings from Jesus. In chapter seven of his Gospel, Matthew records Jesus’ parable of the wise man who “built his house upon the rock [Greek, petra]” (v.24), and when the winds blew and the floods came, the house did not fall, “because it had been founded on the rock [Greek, petra]” (v.25). Perhaps Matthew intended to echo the parable: Jesus is the wise man building his house, the Church, on the rock (petra), which is Peter. As France notes, “[Peter] is to be a ‘Rock.’ And one important function of a rock, as [Matt.] 7:24-27 has reminded us, is to provide a firm foundation for a building. So, on this rock Jesus will build his church, and it will be forever secure.”
Still another possible reason for the use of different words is to preserve the distinction between a proper noun (Petros as a proper name) and a common noun (in this case, petra as a metaphor). If Matthew had used Petros in the second instance, it would have read, “You are Peter, and upon this Peter I will build church.” It would have been a bit awkward to use a proper name this way. Using a common noun in the second instance is more natural.
Given that we can provide plausible reasons as to why there might be a difference in words without denying that the rock refers to Peter, the argument that Peter is not the rock, simply based on the use of petros and petra are different words, fails.
Well, my friends, that does it for this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word. The Gospel for this upcoming 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B gives us an opportunity to reflect on the biblical revelation of the Papacy, seeing Peter as the first pope via his role as the foundational rock of Christ’s Church on earth—the visible principle and source of unity for members of Christ’s mystical body.
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I hope you have a blessed 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time. Peace!