"Upon this rock..."

[Rusty T]

No problema. I'm a neophyte, so I was making sure I wasn't 'stupider' than I thought.

rusty

[Rdr. Arsenios]

I'm still trying to find a version of the LXX that uses πετρα in Deut. 32. Any help, Muz? What are you looking at?

Just curious,

rusty

http://www.studylight.org/isb/bible....Perform+Search
A.

[Rdr. Arsenios]

One very good way to approach this issue is to understand clearly that the only human upon whom the Church was to be built was Jesus Christ. The Church is not built on any other man that Christ Himself. Christ Himself did not in turn build His Church upon any man...

Now the fact that this Gospel was written in Greek, and that the two words differ in Greek, itself indicates both an identity and a contrast... The identity of root [petr-], and the contrast of endings[-os, -a]... And it is a fairly small matter to see that what has happened is that it was Simon who first said "Thou art the Christ...", and that is a confession of the identity of the man Jesus... And Christ's immediate reply to him was: "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." And by this, Christ identifies what it is that allowed Simon to know Who He is... And key here is that it was God's REVELATION to him... And it is this revelation that will build the Church, and it has already built the first ROCK... And that is Peter, for Christ's very next words are: And I say (5719) also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church..."

Now the Church has classically run all this together in a lot of ways having to do with honorifics of the Church of Rome that came to be called the chair of Peter, but the text clearly shows that the two rocks differ, in that the confession is a Greek feminine noun, as is the Greek term for revelation, whereas the masculine noun is used for Simon...

But the Church has never understood that Christ meant by this to build His Church upon the man Simon Peter, and the Church of Rome...

Arsenios

[Jezz]

As far as I know, the bulk of ECF believed that the "rock" referred to was either Peter's confession or Christ.

Christ and the Church, Archbishop Gregory Afonsky, p42

It is interesting to note that out of eighty-five Church Fathers, forty-four understand the "rock" to be the Apostle Peter's confession. Seventeen understand Peter himself to be the rock, and sixteen understand the rock to be Christ, whereas eight hold that the rock refers to the Apostles. See L. Epifanovich, Zapiski po oblechitelnomu bogosloviu (Novocherkask, 1904), 40.

© source where applicable

I know there are some ECF who called Peter the rock - though I've yet to read them - but I also know that the earliest interpretations of this passage (including Cyprian of Carthage in AD 250) thought that EVERY Bishop (or at least every Patriarch) was an inheritor of Peter's "keys" - not just the bishop in Rome.

Yes. St Cyprian is often trotted out as proof of an early belief in papal supremacy, because of his usage of the phrase "Chair of Peter" (the first Father to have done so, that we know of). However, as you rightly point out, he interpreted the "Chair of Peter" to be held by every bishop, not just the bishop of Rome. It's worth pointing out that St Cyprian tried to depose Pope Stephen over the issue of (re)baptism of Donatists and other heretics - which would be an odd thing for someone to do if they believed in papal supremacy...