MATTHEW 16:18 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The name-and-mission declaration: Peter (Petros, rock) is the rock (petra) on which the church will be built. The wordplay communicates the connection between Peter's confessing identity and his foundational role. The church (ekklesia, the first use of the word in the Gospels) is the assembly of those who share Peter's confession. The gates of hell (the gates of Hades, the powers of death and the underworld) will not prevail against the church built on the confession of Jesus as Christ and Son of God.
Church Fathers on Matthew 16:18
As soon as the Lord had taken His disciples out of the teaching of the Pharisees, He then suitably proceeds to lay deep the foundations of the Gospel doctrine; and to give this the greater solemnity, it is introduced by the name of the place, 'When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi.'
He adds 'of Philip,' to distinguish it from the other Caesarea, of Strato. And He asks this question in the former place, leading His disciples far out of the way of the Jews, that being set free from all fear, they might say freely what was in their mind.
This Philip was the brother of Herod, the tetrarch of Ituraea, and the region of Trachonitis, who gave to the city, which is now called Panaeas, the name of Caesarea in honour of Tiberias Caesar.
Read all 49 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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