In response
to Von Harnack’s theory that “and upon this rock I will build my church” is a
later interpolation to Matt 16:18, Anglican Trevor Jalland wrote:
Harnack’s
theory regarding the ‘Tu es Petrus’.
The most serious attack which has hitherto been
made on the integrity of this massage, Matt. XVI, 18 f., was published by
Harnack in 1918. Starting with the contention that πυλαι αδου rightly means ‘death’, and not,
as is generally held, ‘the power of evil’, he went on to argue that the expression
‘death shall not prevail’ cannot strictly apply to an abstraction and must
properly apply only to a person. Hence it must originally have applied to
Peter, and from this he concludes that the words καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ οἰκοδομήσω
μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν are in fact an editorial interpolation.
In support of this conclusion, Harnack quotes
in the first place the evidence of the works of Ephraem Syrus, in which he
comments on the text of the Diatessaron of
Tatian. In the Latin version of his Hymni
et Sermones, on Isaiah LIV, 17, we find ‘Vectes inferni non praevalebunt
adversus te’. Similarly, in the Latin version of his Evangelii concordantis exposition, he quotes, “Beatus es Simon . .
. et portae inferi te non vincent’ and later ‘Tu es Petra’. This, in Harnack’s
view, shows that the text of the Diatessaron
knew nothing of the interpolated clause. As an example of other patristic authors
who reveal some knowledge of a purer textual tradition of this passage, he
cites Marcarius Magnes, Unigenitus,
3, 22, in which the author is probably reproducing an opinion of Porphyry. Yet
we gather from the same work that Porphyry himself was familiar with a text
which included επι ταυτη τη πετρα, we must suppose that he referred αυτης not to εκκλησιαν but to πετρα. It is highly probably that
Porphyry derived this interpretation from Origen, in whose works we meet it
again and again (De princip. 3, 2, 4.
‘Petrus adversus quem portae inferi non praevalebunt’. Cf. C. Cels. 2, 77; Hom. 1,
10 in Ps. xxviii; Hom. 7, 1 in Esai.; Comm. in Matt. XVI, 18).
Later authors who retain the memory of this
earlier view are Ambrose (Expos. In Lucam,
7, 5), and Epiphanius (Panar. 30, 24;
80, 11). It last makes its appearance in Jerome (Comm. in Matt. XVI, 18), only to be finally rejected. As to our
existing text, Harnack points out that our earliest witness in its favour is
Tertullian (De Praescr. haer. 22; De Monog. 8; De Pudicitia, 21). The evidence of Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 6, 15, 132; 7, 17, 166) is
inconclusive, since in quoting the passage as a whole he omits XVI, 18. Harnack
infers from Justin Martyr (Dial. C. Tryph.
100) that nothing was known of the supposed ‘interpolation’ in his time.
When he comes to examine this apparently
impressive case, we find that it depends on two main assumptions: first, that πυλαι αδου can only mean ‘death’, and
second, that if the whole text had occurred in Tatian’s Diatessaron, Ephraem must have quoted it. The fact that he quoted only
certain phrases appears to Harnack a sufficient proof that only those phrases
were present in the original.
As to the first of these assumptions we must
refer to our brief discussion of the point elsewhere. Sufficient has been said
to show that the argument in favour of so exclusive an interpretation is not
strong enough to bear the weight of Harnack’s case. As to the second we may
reasonably ask what evidence there is for the original text of the Diatessaron. The Codex Fuldensis must of course be discounted, since it is known
that the translator made use of the Vulgate in rendering scriptural quotations.
But we are fortunately in possession of two ancient versions, one in Arabic and
the other in Old Dutch. Whatever the relation of these two versions to the original,
it is at least remarkable in this connexion that both versions contain the whole
passage under discussion. Moreover, if we examine Ephraem’s commentary, we find
in the immediate context of the passage to which Harnack has called attention the
following:
‘Dominus
quum ecclesiam suam aedificaret, aedificavit turrim cuius fundamenta omnia,
quae errant superaedificanda, portare possent’
A natural inference from these words is that
the text of the Diatessaron which
Ephraem had in front of him also included the supposed ‘interpolation’.
Yet to make good his case Harnack has to
postulate such an interpolation. He has produced abundant evidence from the
works of Origen, showing that in the view of Alexandrine the Dominical promise
referred not to the Church but to Peter, a view which appears to have been
followed by Porphyry and others. What he has failed to establish is that the
words preceding it formed no part of the original text of St. Matthew’s gospel.
(Trevor Gervase Jalland, The Church and
the Papacy: An Historical Study [London: Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, 1944], 94-96)
With respect
to the meaning of “gates of hades/hell,” Jalland wrote:
The meaning of πυλαι αδου has been disputed. Against the more
general view that it is a symbolic expression for ‘evil’, it has been argued .
. . this conclusion cannot be regarded as decisively established, and some allowance
must be made for passages which ‘definitely connect Sheol-hades both with sin
and with destruction, so that it could be argued that Sheol-hades represents
the power of evil. De. Charles, on Enoch lxiii, 10, has shown how the meaning
of Sheol changed in the period between the Old and new Testament.’ In any case,
the fact that πυλαι αδουis used
without the article shows that it is a stereotyped expression. Bernard J.H., in
Expositor, June 1916, pp. 401-9,
interpreting the phrase with reference to Matt. VII, 24-27, makes the
interesting suggestion that πυλαι αδου is a mistranslation of an Aramaic
expression, cf. Daniel VIII, 2, ‘ubhal renfered
in LXX προς τη πυλη Αιλαμ. If what our Lord actually said was ‘the floods of Hades’ (cf.
Gen. VII, 11), it would be easier to account for the use of κατισχύσουσιν. (Ibid., 55-56 n. 5)
