Part II — The King’s House
“Thou Art Peter.” (Homilies on St. Matthew, Liv., Vol. Ii., P. 108.)
... Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas. Since thou hast proclaimed My Father, He says, so will I name thy father to thee: which was almost saying, ‘As thou art the son of Jona, so am I the Son of My Father’. For it was superfluous to say, ‘Thou art the son of Jona’; but as He had spoken of the Son of God, in order to show that as Peter is the son of Jona so He is the Son of God, of the same substance as the Begetter, He added further: And I say to thee thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church—that is, on the faith of this confession. Then He shows him many men who are ready to believe, and He strengthens Peter’s will and makes him pastor. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. ‘If they shall not prevail against it, how much less against Me. So be not troubled, for thou art soon to hear that I am to be betrayed and crucified.’ He goes on to speak of another honour: And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. What does And I will give thee signify? As the Father gave thee to know Me, so do I also give it to thee. He did not say: ‘I will invoke the Father,’ although the power shown forth was so great and the gift was so unutterably magnificent, but I will give thee. Tell me what hast Thou given? The keys of the kingdom of heaven, that whatsoever thou dost bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou dost loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. How, then, was it not His to give to sit on His right and on His left Who said, I will give? Do you see how He leads Peter up to the most ineffable knowledge, how He reveals Himself, and shows Himself to be the Son of God, through that double promise? For that which belongs only to God, namely, the remission of sins, the setting up of an immutable Church in the midst of waves, and making a fisherman more enduring than the hardest rock, with the whole world against him, these are the things which He promises to give, as the Father said to Jeremias: I have made thee a pillar of iron and a wall of brass; but Jeremias was commissioned for one people, whilst Peter is charged with the whole universe. I would ask those who wish to depreciate the dignity of the Son, which were the greater gifts to Peter, those of the Father or those of the Son? The Father vouchsafed to Peter the manifestation of the Son, but the Son’s gift it was to make known that manifestation of the Father and of Himself throughout all the world, and He entrusted to a mortal man authority over the whole kingdom of heaven, giving those keys to him who propagated the Church in all parts of the earth and showed it forth more powerful than heaven. For heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away. How, then, was the Giver of such gifts, the Worker of such triumphs, in any way less than the Father? I speak of them, not separating the works of the Father from the Son, for all things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made, but in order to silence the shameless tongue of those who would so venture. Consider the authority which He manifests here throughout all He says. I say to thee, thou art Peter: I will build My Church: I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And at the time when He said these things, He charged them to tell no man that He was the Christ. Why did He thus charge them? That when those who took scandal were removed, the work of the Cross over, and all His other sufferings completed, when there was no man left to disturb or trouble the faith of the multitude in Him, His worship, undefiled and immutable, might be grafted on the minds of those who listened. For it was clear that His power had not yet shone forth. On this account He willed to be preached by them at a time when the unerring truth of deeds and the strength of things accomplished should support the testimony of the Apostles. For there was a difference between seeing Him, now working wonders in Palestine, now despised, now driven about (more especially at the time when the Cross was about to follow the wonders accomplished), and seeing Him adored and trusted by the whole world, His former suffering no more. This is why He enjoined them to tell no man. For that which has once been rooted and is then torn up, would with difficulty, if planted again, be received by the many, but that which has once been secured, and which remains immutable, and is not threatened from any quarter, is in easy progress and gives good promise of growth. If, indeed, those who enjoyed many signs, and who took part in these ineffable mysteries, were scandalised by merely being told of the Cross, and not those only, but Peter too, the head of all,14 consider what the multitude were likely to suffer when they learnt that He was the Son of God, and saw Him spit upon and crucified, and yet did not know the sacred nature of these high mysteries, and had not received the Holy Ghost. If He said even to the disciples, I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now, how much more would the rest of the people have fallen if He had revealed to them the secret of these hidden things before the due time. On this account, then, He orders them to be silent. And that you may see how much there was to be learnt after these things to complete the teaching, when those who offered scandal were removed, consider the behaviour of Peter, the chief of all. For this very Peter, after wonders so great, showed himself weak enough to deny Our Lord and to fear a poor maid-servant. Then, when the crucifixion was accomplished, and he had received clear proof of the resurrection, and there remained nothing to scandalise or terrify him, he embraced the unspeakable teaching of the Spirit in order to leap with greater eagerness than a lion upon the Jewish people, although he was threatened by a thousand dangers and deaths. It was reasonable, therefore, that He bade them not to tell the multitude before the Cross, since He did not venture to impart everything before the Cross even to those who were to teach. I have many things to say, but you cannot bear them now. And they were ignorant concerning many things spoken by Him which He did not clearly explain before the Cross. But when He rose from the dead, then they came to a knowledge of some of the things which He had said.