The New Testament

Gospel of Matthew

Chapter 16, Verse 18

Source	Verse	Year
Codex Vaticanus	κἀγὼ δέ σοι λέγω ὅτι σὺ εἶ Πέτρος, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ οἰκοδομήσω μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ πύλαι ᾅδου οὐ κατισχύσουσιν αὐτῆς.	325 AD
Vulgate	Et ego dico tibi, quia tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam, et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam.	405 AD
Wycliffe	And I seye to thee, that thou art Peter, and on this stoon I schaliel bilde my chirche, and the gatis of helle schulen not han miȝt aȝens it.	1382 AD
Tyndale	And I saye also vnto the, yt thou arte Peter: and apon this rocke I wyll bylde my congregacion. And the gates of hell shall not prevayle ageynst it.	1526 AD
King James	“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.”	1611 AD

Like the majority of the synoptics, much of the information contained in its original form has been lost as the verse was shifted through different host languages. By the time English was the primary language of consumption, the original meaning was all but lost except to those who made it a point to study the original texts.

Typological analysis over the centuries has focused on the wordplay of the Πέτρος-πέτρᾳ pairing in the Codex Vaticanus, which was preserved in the Vulgate, but subsequently broken in the English translations. Indeed, reading this verse allegorically in Greek or Latin, it is impossible to ignore this obvious paronomasia; One would be forgiven for reading no further than the identification of Peter as the bedrock of the church he would later go on to found.

Yet the symbolism within this verse is not contained merely to the semantic realm. A true understanding only comes from contextualizing this semantic wordplay within the world it was spoken.

In the Gospel of Matthew prior to Verse 16, Jesus has taken the disciples to Caesarea Phillipi, one of the many outposts of the burgeoning Roman Empire. He speaks these words in front of the Cave of Pan.