I would say, though--(I am grateful for the opportunity to finally cite the Fathers--evidence that has been heretofore indamissible :)...that the Church Fathers promoted both interpretations--that the Rock was both Peter's Confession as well as Peter himself. Which is why I was careful earlier in the thread not to trumpet the latter at the expense of the former.
And now that you're here I also want to ask you about tauth petra...admittedly my Greek is not very good, but does that "taute" at all have the force of "same", e.g. "this same rock"?
Blogger, again...I accept the "Peter's confession" interpretation totally. What I do not accept is promoting it at the expense of Peter himself. The keys were given to Peter, not to Peter's confession. So basically what I'm arguing for is the preservation of both interpretations, but neither one at the expense of the other.
But what are the keys?
Claud, a lot of this, most of it, is a matter of interpretation. The Church Fathers weighed in on it - sometimes in opposition to one another.
I do not accept that Peter had an "extraordinary role" above the other apostles to play. I do not see it in Scripture (contrary to your assertion). I see him having the same role as the other apostles. His word was no more or no less authoritative. The only area in Scripture we really see him as "lead" is at Pentecost. At the Council of Jerusalem, he was one of several voices speaking with the final decision being made by the apostles elders "and the whole church."
The Church Fathers are not Scripture. They provide some insight into what some were thinking then, but they should not be used for doctrinal purposes. Doctrine is derived from Scripture.
" And now that you're here I also want to ask you about tauth petra...admittedly my Greek is not very good, but does that "taute" at all have the force of "same", e.g. "this same rock"?"
I don't think so, no.
"that the Church Fathers promoted both interpretations--that the Rock was both Peter's Confession as well as Peter himself."
Indeed, here and there one does see a Father speaking of the "rock" as being +Peter, though the consensus would indicate otherwise. I think the reason it isn't really an issue among the Fathers is that until very, very late in the patristic period, that interpretation was not used to justify ultramontanism. That's why I say its always dangerous to proof text the Fathers to support ideas which came up after they wrote. That isn't to say that it can never be done. Its done all the time and quite properly so; we just have to be careful to first determine the consensus patrum and then do the proof texting.
In this case I personally think that +Peter received a special commission unlike that of the other apostles. It was a commission to primacy. The rub of course is what does that mean. So far as I can see, that special commission has to carry with it some "power" or "authority" which allows the special commission to be real, to have a real effect within The Church. Again personally, I think we need to look to The Church of the Seven Councils to see how it worked in a united Church. I'll suggest that one sees something "like" it in the role the EP plays in Orthodoxy today but that said, the Petrine Office is clearly more than that. But even there we will see a tension between the claims of the Bishop of Rome and the positions of his brother bishops. We see it as early as Pope St. Leo the Great. The Church however, functioned, and functioned well, with that tension. +Leo is a saint for us Orthodox, no matter what he claimed his role to be. For centuries in the exercise of the authority they had, Bishops of Rome were the bulwarks of Orthodoxy in the face of heretical teachings by eastern Patriarchs and bishops, something for which we Orthodox are eternally grateful. So it can work, it did work but then it didn't, because we in the East were disobedient, as the Latins would say or because Rome went too far as we would say. Whatever the cause, the results in the West were dramatic, nothing less than the rise of Protestantism.