Patristic Wisdom: Looking to the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ. (Matthew 16:13–20)

Peter did not say “you are a Christ” or “a son of God” but “the Christ, the Son of God.” For there are many christs by grace, who have attained the rank of adoption, but only One who is by nature the Son of God. Thus, using the definite article, he said, the Christ, the Son of God. And in calling him Son of the living God, Peter indicates that Christ Himself is life and that death has no authority over Him. And even if the flesh, for a short while, was weak and died, nevertheless it rose again, since the Word, who indwelled it, could not be held under the bonds of death.

Cyril of Alexandria, Fragment 190

This is not the property of Peter alone, but it came about on behalf of every human being. Having said that His confession is a rock, He stated that upon this rock I will build my church. This means he will build his church upon this same confession and faith. For this reason, addressing the one who first confessed Him with this title, on account of his confession He applied to him this authority, too, as something that would become his, speaking of the common and special good of the church as pertaining to him alone. It was from this confession, which was going to become the common property of all believers, that He bestowed upon him this name, the rock. In the same way also Jesus attributes to him the special character of the church, as though it existed beforehand in him on account of his confession. By this He shows, in consequence, that this is the common good of the church, since also the common element of the confession was to come to be first in Peter. This then is what He says, that in the church would be the key of the kingdom of heaven. If anyone holds the key to this, to the church, in the same way he will also hold it for all heavenly things. He who is counted as belonging to the church and is recognized as its member is a partaker and an inheritor of heaven. He who is a stranger to it, whatever his status may be, will have no communion in heavenly things. To this very day the priests of the church have expelled those who are unworthy by this saying and admitted those who have become worthy by repentance.

Theodore of Mopsuestia, Fragment 92