Chapter Nineteen1
Objection based on Christ's saying to Peter: "Get thee behind me, Satan" (Matt. xvi. 23).
It is only natural that there is much that is unseemly in all this long-winded talk thus poured out. The words, one might say, provoke a battle of inconsistency against each other. How1 would some man in the street be inclined to explain that Gospel saying, which Jesus addresses to Peter when He says, "Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offence unto me, for thou mindest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men" (Matt. xvi. 23), and then in another place, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven"? For if He so condemned Peter as to call him Satan, and thought of him as cast behind Him, and an offence, and one who had received no thought of what was divine in his mind; and if He so rejected him as having committed mortal sin, that He was not prepared to have him in His sight any more, but thrust him behind Him into the throng of the outcast and vanished; how is it right to find this sentence of exclusion against the leader and "chief of the disciples? At any rate, if any one who is in his sober senses ruminates over this, and then hears Christ say (as though He had forgotten the words He had uttered2 against Peter), " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church," and " To thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven,"--- will he not laugh aloud till he nearly bursts his mouth? Will he not open it wide as he might from his seat3 in the theatre? Will he not speak with a sneer and hiss loudly? Will he not cry aloud to those who are near him? Either when He called Peter Satan He was drunk and overcome with wine, and He spoke as though in a fit; or else, when He gave this same disciple the keys of the kingdom of heaven, He was painting dreams, in the imagination of His sleep. For pray how was Peter able to support the foundation of the Church, seeing that thousands of times he was readily shaken from his judgment? What sort of firm reasoning can be detected in him, or where did he show any unshaken mental power, seeing that, though he heard what Jesus had said to him, he was terribly frightened because of a sorry maidservant, and three times foreswore himself, although no great necessity was laid upon him? We conclude then that, if He was right in taking him up and calling him Satan, as having failed of the very essence of godliness, He was inconsistent, as though not knowing what He had done, in giving him the authority of leadership.
Chapter Twenty4
Objection based on Christ's words to S. Peter about forgiving "seventy times seven " (Matt, xviii. 22).
It is also plain that Peter is condemned of many falls, from the statement in that passage where Jesus said to him, "I say not unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven shalt thou forgive the sin of him that does wrong." But though he received this commandment and injunction, he cut off the ear of the high-priest's servant who had done no wrong, and did him harm although he had not sinned at all. For how did he sin, if he went at the command of his master to the attack which was then made on Christ?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Answer to the objection based on Christ's saying to S. Peter: "Get thee behind me, Satan " (Matt. xvi. 23).
Now we must examine the objections about Peter. For truly they need testing and much explanation. Verily the foundation of the Apostles has been shaken by so great a clamour; the very apex of the gospel story has been obscured by such a cloud of unseemliness.4 If Peter has been called by Christ an offence, and Satan, and a cause of stumbling; if Peter is convicted of having sinned in ways that cannot be forgiven, the whole band of the Apostles is attacked, and the roots of the faith are all but plucked up. It is right therefore to see the time and the place of this saying, in order that we may judge the matter and take hold of what it means.
[The blessing on Peter was an answer to his words at Caesarea Philippi: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Christ sees that he has not received this truth from "flesh and blood," nor even from angels, but as a direct revelation from the Father Himself.]
"Wherefore," he says, "receive a surname worthy of this grace, and be thou Peter (Rock-man),5 showing to all the world a rock which is invincible and unshakeable, since the knowledge and the reasoning which thou possessest cannot be moved, in that thou hast borne witness this day to the fact that the blessed Essence cannot be shaken."
It was likely that the evil beast of deceit (the devil), hearing these words, and the witness which Peter gave to the Saviour, cunningly worked with all manner of zeal so as to strip Peter of his merit, and to overthrow the witness of Christ by the trickery of guile, and to alter the dispensation of the Passion. For he knew, he clearly knew that the Passion of Christ was a release from the tyranny of his wickedness, and so he was desirous of being a hindrance to the cross. So he prompts Peter to say: "Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee" (Matt. xvi. 22).
Christ recognises the real speaker, and addresses the devil and not Peter when He says: "Get thee behind me, Satan." Then He turns to Peter and rebukes him for obeying the prompting of Belial, with the words, "Thou art an offence unto me," etc. Peter's sudden fall from the highest to the lowest deserved such a rebuke, and at the same time it taught the disciples not to apply their petty talk to the eternal dispensation. What might have been the persuasion of the others, if they saw Christ on earth as Peter did, and then heard Peter persuading Him to postpone His glorious redemptive Passion and stay among the things of earth? His great faith had to have a great rebuke, and his great fall led to his great grief.
For note the height of his faith in the words, "Thou art the Christ," etc., wherein he was led up to the very court of heaven. He now knew the King upon His throne, and had it in his power to open his knowledge to those who came to him, but to keep it closed from those who were not fit for the beatific vision.8 Hence he was said to have the keys of heaven, the power to open and shut it, and to lead men into it or out of it.
Note also the definiteness of Peter's words. He uses the article all through; it is not simply, "Thou art an anointed one, a son of a living God." For there are many anointed, many sons (the angels are called "sons of God"), many who are living, and "gods many and lords many." But the use of the article reveals the impregnable truth, and the unique nature of each. Speaking by the Holy Spirit, Peter thus reveals the impregnable rock, and gets his name of Peter (Rock-man) in consequence.9 But the devil tries to throw him from this rock on which he was so firmly set, by making him say what was unworthy of the promise, and express an unseemly sympathy. So Christ pierced him with a sharp rebuke.
Such was the rebuke implied in His healing the high-priest's servant,10 whose ear Peter had cut off. Christ did not judge him by his stammering tongue, but by the inward desire of his soul.]
Footnotes:
1A series of four attacks on S. Peter begins here.
2Reading Τί γάρ in place of the MS. εἰ γάρ. It may be noted that the next sentence begins with εἰ γάρ, and there may have been some confusion.
3As a matter of fact, the blessing upon Peter comes a few verses before the rebuke.
4Θυμέλη is properly the platform where the leader of the chorus stood, but here it is evidently a spectator's seat.
5Contrary to his custom elsewhere, Macarius does not deal separately with this objection, but answers it along with the preceding one, by a very brief paragraph at the end of chapter xxvii. The fact that his opponent again alludes to the saying about "seventy times seven" in the next objection (chapter xxi.), may have made Macarius postpone mention of it until he dealt with that objection. But if so, he forgot it when the time came. It is one of the few instances in his book of his passing over one of his opponent's points.
6Macarius echoes the word which his opponent had used at the beginning of his objection.
7In thus laying stress on the difference between πέτρος and πέτρα, Macarius supports the view that Peter is not here identified with the rock of the Church. It appears yet more plainly at the end of this chapter that the "rock" was the truth of Christ's divinity, on which the Church is founded.
8Such is the sane and reasonable explanation which Macarius gives of this highly controversial question.
9See note on the earlier part of the chapter. The interpretation of the whole paragraph by Macarius is a valuable contribution to the literature of the subject.
10Thus briefly does he answer another objection of his opponent, as contained in chapter xx.