The various denominations within Christianity disagree on the subject of the Primacy of Simon Peter (Saint Peter) and thus of the episcopacy of the Bishop of Rome. Whilst the reasons for disagreement are complex matters of doctrine, history, and politics, the debate is often reduced to a proxy debate upon the meaning and translation of verse 18 of chapter 16 of the Gospel of Matthew, the "on this rock" debate.

The Roman Catholic view

Roman Catholics assert the following:

In the Old Law, the High Priest had the highest jurisdiction in religious matters; as can be seen from the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, verses 8-12. St. Paul tells us that Judaism was the type or figure of Christianity in 1 Corinthians 10:11: "Now all these things happened to in figure..". Logic dictates that a supreme head would therefore be necessary in the Christian Church.

In the New Testament Jesus changes Simon's name to Peter. Elsewhere in Scripture such a name change always denotes a change in status (e.g. Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, and Saul to Paul). In the Greek text, Simon's name is changed to πητρος, and in the second half of the verse the "rock" in the phrase "on this rock" is the word πητρα.

However, whilst the genders are different, this is purely a grammatical requirement of the Greek language, an artifact of the translation into Greek of the Aramaic that Jesus spoke, and an attempt to preserve a pun. It is not an attempt to make a distinction (that is mainly confined to Greek poetry) between "rock" and "small stone" or "pebble". In the classics, including works by Plato and Sophocles, there are many occasions of

A male given name should be masculine (-ος), whilst πητρα, the word for "rock", is feminine (-α). In Aramaic, the word for rock is "" (variously transliterated into the Latin alphabet as "Kefa", "Kepha", "Cephas", and also transliterated into the Greek alphabet as Κηφας, in the Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 42). In Aramaic, the same word would have been used in both places, and Jesus is directly referring to Peter when stating "on this rock will I build My Church". (This is supported by the fact that the Peshitta, written in Syriac, a language cognate with Aramaic, makes no distinction between the two words.) Jesus thus declares the primacy of Peter amongst the Apostles, and (arguably) a proper English translation would be "Thou art Rock, and upon this rock will I build My Church".

It is worth noting that translating Matthew into French incurs no problem as translation into English does, as "Tu es Pierre, et sur cette pierre je bâtirai mon Eglise, et les portes de l'enfer ne prévaudront point contre elle." equally preserves the asserted original Aramaic sense.

Jesus also said to Peter in verse 19, "I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Especially for the Hebrew people, keys were a symbol of authority. Indeed, Jesus declares in the Book of Revealtion, that He has the "keys of death and hell," which means that He has power over death and hell; Isiah 22:21-22 also supports this. Cardinal Gibbons, in his book The Faith of Our Fathers, intelligently points out that keys are still a symbol of authority in today's culture; he uses the example of someone giving the keys of his house to another person, and that the latter represented the owner of the house in his absence.

Another source of Peter's supremacy can be found in John 21:15-17, where Christ tells Peter three times to "feed His sheep" and "feed His lambs." The "sheep" are understood to be the stronger portion of Jesus' flock (the clergy), and the "lambs" are understood as the weaker portion (the laity). From this, Catholics believe that

Moreover, Peter is always named first in all listings of the Apostles; Judas is invariably mentioned last. In Matthew 10:2, Peter is described as the "first Apostle". It is important to note that Peter was neither the first Apostle in age nor election; therefore, Peter must be the first Apostle in the sense of authority.

The Eastern Orthodox view

The Eastern Orthodox view on the Matthew verse agrees with the Roman Catholic view — as exemplified in pages 47-48 — and the disagreements about primacy stem from other sources.

The Protestant view

The modern widespread majority Protestant view on the Matthew verse agrees with the Roman Catholic view, and again the disagreements about primacy stem from doctrinal sources, and disagreements such as disagreements over the identification of Simon Peter with the Pope. However, a minority of Protestants assert the following, based specifically on the verse in Matthew:

Jesus gives Simon the new name πητρος. However he refers to the "rock" as πητρα. The inspired New Testament Scriptures were written in Greek, not Aramaic. What Jesus might have said in Aramaic is conjecture. In Greek, there is a distinction between the two words, πητρα being a "rock" but πητρος being a "small stone" or "pebble". (James G. McCarthy translates the two as "mass of rock" and "boulder or detached stone", respectively.) Jesus is not referring to Peter when talking about "this rock", but is in fact referring to Peter's confession of faith in the preceding verses. Jesus thus does not declare the primacy of Peter, but rather declares that his church will be built upon the foundation of the revelation of and confession of faith of Jesus as the Christ.

About the name

“And I tell you, you are Peter , and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades (the powers of the infernal region) shall not overpower it ”

Example in romanian language

In Greek:petros (m) - stone or rock (some people argue it is a large piece of rock)petra (f) — stone or rock (some people argue it is a huge rock like Gibraltar)

In Romanian:

• rock = roca
• Peter = Petru/Pietru (depending on the regions, it is the same word, it is only an accent)
• stone = piatra (f)

The masculine form (petru/pietru (m)) is used rearely (excepting by some peasants at country or in Moldavia). Hovever it is widely used in its derivative words:

• petre/pietre (f), more than one stone
• petris/pietris (m), many little stones, like a big sand
• petricica/pietricica (f), a little single stone
• petricele/pietricele (f), more than one little stones
• petroi/pietroi (neuter,m), a bigger single stone.
• petroaie/pietroaie (neuter,f), more than one bigger stones
• inpetri/inpietri (m), to turn into a stone

If we folow piatra, more than one stone should be piatre: this word does not exist, witch means at the beginning piatra had no plural form. More than one stone we say petre/pietre.

Usualy piatra (f) means either stone in general, or the material a stone is made of. The second meaning is a stone, because pietru/petru is not widely used any more to designate a stone.

You can see the first meaning/the seccond meaning like this: steal/object made of steal, or sand/a particle of sand.

For example,

• "Este numa piatra aici!" means "there are only stones here!" with the first meaning of piatra.
• "Casa de piatra" means "House made of the material stone" like any modern house, not "House made of stones" in any way.

You can see piatra is only one in this widely used expressions, while in english we translate my more than one usualy..

If in greek there was the same signification, than we should translate:"And I tell you that you are a stone, and on the material this stone is made of I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it"

References

• which provides citations for the use of πητρος to mean "rock" in classical works.
• Catholic

See also

• Primacy of the Roman Pontiff
• Petrine theory
• Apostolic Succession
• Historic episcopate