He would fain, so he says, “point out the Christian sense of this text” as against that read into it by the hierarchical Church; nevertheless, at his first effort he cannot rise above a coarse witticism. “For very fear,” on approaching this text “Thou art Peter,” etc., something “might easily have happened had I not had my breeches on; and I might have done something that people do not like to smell, so anxious and affrighted was I.” Why did not the Pope appeal rather to the text: “In the beginning Cod created the heavens—that is the Pope—and the earth, that is the Christian Church,” etc. This is the first answer.
The second is a perversion of the Catholic view; he accuses the Pope of deducing from the text under discussion, that he has “all power in heaven as well as on earth” and authority “over all the Churches and the Emperor to boot.” This parody of the truth Luther proceeds triumphantly to demolish as “blasphemous idolatry.”—There follows thirdly an appeal to the “Emperor, Kings, Princes and nobles” to seize upon the Papal States which the Pope has stolen by dint of “lying and trickery” and to slay as blasphemers him and his Cardinals.
He goes on to explain the Bible passage in question by proving, fourthly, against the “wicked, shameless, stiff-necked” Papists from Eph. iv. 15, and from Augustine and Cyprian, “that the whole of Christendom throughout the world has no other head set over it save only Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The true sense of Eph. iv. 15 and the real teaching of both the Fathers in question are too well known for us to need to waste words on them here.—Fifthly, he brings forward John vi. 63: “My words are Spirit and life” and argues: “According to this the words Matt. xvi. 18 [concerning Peter and the rock] must also be Spirit and life.… The upbuilding must here mean a spiritual and living upbuilding; the rock must be a living and spiritual rock; the Church a living and spiritual assembly, nay, something that lives for all eternity.”—These facts, however, had always been admitted by Catholic commentators without causing them any apprehension as to the primacy or the visible Church.—Sixthly, he seeks to demonstrate that the Church can only be built on the rock indicated by Christ “by faith”; this, however, excludes the primacy of Peter, for “whoever believes is built upon this rock.”—Seventhly: “It is thus that St. Peter himself interprets it, 1 Peter ii. 3 ff.,”—though this is a fact only credible to one who is already of Luther’s opinion.—Eighthly, he will have it that, in the famous passage, Christ meant to say no more than: “Thou art Peter, that is a rock, for thou hast perceived and named the Right Man, viz. Christ, Who is the true Rock, as Scripture terms Him. On this rock, i.e. on Me, Christ, I will build the whole of My Christendom.”
This reading would certainly cut away the ground from under the argument of the Catholics.[1266] Nevertheless Protestant scholars have repeatedly shown themselves willing to apply Christ’s promise to the person of Peter, as ecclesiastical tradition has ever done, and to defend this as the true sense of the words. Thus the Berlin exegetist, Bernhard Weiss, writes: “By using ταύτῃ for the name (Peter), signifying a rock, any application of the words either to Jesus or to the faith or confession of Peter is shut out.… It can only be understood of his person,” etc.[1267] By Holtzmann, the Strasburg exegetist, the opposite interpretation was uncharitably described as a fruit of the “school of Protestant ex parte exegesis.”[1268]
We must, however, allow that, both here and in his treatment of the promise of the keys (Matt. xvi. 19), Luther shows himself an adept in the use of language. “To speak plain German we may say this,” so he begins one of his commentaries, and indeed he knows how to speak well and in a manner calculated to impress his hearers. Of the matter, however, we may judge from the following: “To thee I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” this means that, should anyone refuse to believe the apostles, on him they should pass sentence and condemn him; their “office” still remains in the Church, there always being “retaining of sins for the impenitent and unbelieving, and forgiveness for the penitent and the believing”; but, quite apart from this “office,” believers have absolute power “where two or three are gathered together in the name of Christ (Matt. xviii. 20).”[1269] Here again we have Christ’s promise misconstrued, which does not refer to spiritual authority but solely to the effect of the prayer in common of two or more of the faithful.[1270]
“Hence, let the Pope and his Peter be gone,” so he concludes … even though there were a hundred thousand St. Peters, even though all the world were nothing but Popes, and even though an angel from heaven stood beside him; for we have here [Matt. xviii. 18, where the power of binding and loosing is bestowed on all the apostles] the Lord Himself, above all angels and creatures, Who says they are all to have equal power, keys and office, even where only two simple Christians are gathered together in His name. This Lord we shall not allow the Pope and all the devils to make into a fool, liar or drunkard; but we will tread the Pope under foot and tell him that he is a desperate blasphemer and idolatrous devil, who, in St. Peter’s name, has snatched the keys for himself alone which Christ gave to them all in common. “It is the Lord Himself Who says this [John xx. 21 ff.]; therefore we care nothing for the ravings of the Pope-Ass in his filthy decretals.”[1271]