Iskander

Why do you expect Eusebius to mention the rock when he is praising the emperor?

Duvduv

He is mentioning "a rock" but does not quote the full verse (which itself doesn't explicitly connect Peter to the rock).......

Iskander

The emperor was the pontifex maximus in charge of all religious affairs .The interpretation of the rock makes the winner the pontifex maximus .

Eusebius could not challenge the political supremacy of the emperor and his right to rule the Christians as one of the many religions in the empire.

The supremacy of the bishop of Rome is a war to be fought in the distant future with other claimants.

Duvduv

Well, if it was such a sensitive political matter he didn't have to raise the issue at all lest someone take a quick look in GMatt and see what they really meant.......rather risky. As we say in Hebrew "Shev ve'al ta'aseh adif" ("Preferable not to do anything") in such circumstances.

Iskander

It was not a sensitive matter at the time.

For centuries after Constantine the emperors continued to be the chief of the church

The Byzantines continued to rule over the church as the natural continuation of a political and religious tradition. In the Latin west the office of emperor ceased to exist early and the bishop of Rome assumed the office of pontifex maximus.

Later a tug of war ensued between the Latin and Greek churches until they split in two

Duvduv

So they could have interpreted GMatt 16 to refer to the seat of the emperor himself in relation to Peter. What's the big deal?

Iskander

No.
There is no deal. There was no deal.
Today the interpretation of this verse varies from one church to another.
Political and religious statements acquire new interpretations in response to changed circumstances.

TedM

It's clear from your postings that you absolutely abhor the Catholic church. May I ask why?

Duvduv

I noticed that this line of inquiry wasn't pursued further, so I am raising it again.

If the purpose of connecting the name Kepha to Peter was necessary to show that the Aramaic word means "rock" as does Petros in Greek, then why did anyone bother to transliterate the name to a Greek Cephas, when all that was needed was to say "...Kepha (interpreted to mean rock as Petros/Peter)......" and do away with the need for the name Cephas altogether?

Furthermore, the only connection in Galatians between the two names may just be a scribal error in 1:18 and even 2:7 where the author does not even bother to connect the two directly as the same person. Thus, the name Cephas would have been the only one in Galatians and changed by mistake to Peter, since if they were the same person this would be made clear.

And in John 1 someone named "Simon Peter" is introduced merely in passing, and then someone named Simon son of John (which is not Bar-Yona) is named Cephas without either the name Peter included or an explanation of the transition from Kepha to Cephas and its link to Peter/Petros. He has been renamed, but then is referred to as Peter, not Cephas, which is the Greek rendering of Kepha.

At least in 1 Corinthians the person named Cephas needs no explanation or association with Petros or anyone else.

It seems as though an official version got confused after the insertion in GMatt and did a sloppy job of trying to make the connection elsewhere and must have had something to do with other literature (apocalypses, epistles and the gospel of Peter) using the name Peter. After all, there are no epistles or gospels under the name of Cephas, who Galatians calls a pillar, which stands against the relative importance of Peter in the gospels.
Apparently the redactor of GMatt did not know of other sources linking Cephas to Peter, otherwise he would presumably have taken the opportunity in Matthew 16 to connect the rock of the church to Cephas/Peter, which he doesn't.

Iskander

Why do you call this man “Peter”?


Matthew 16:18-20 is associated with mountains of words vomited in leaned conflict and also with mountains of bones broken on merciless battlefields.

Are you questioning as a believer?

Are you trying to understand why all those unfortunate people suffered so much for something that it will always remain exotic to so many?

What are you asking, very precisely?