The Church Founded on Christ, the Rock
The third foundation, included in the proposition (Matt. 16 : 18) is touched upon in the words: “On this rock I will build my church.” And in view of the fact that in their utterances the popes most of all use this saying of Christ, wishing to draw from it that they themselves are the rock or the foundation upon which the church stands, namely upon Peter, to whom it was said, “Thou art Peter,” — in view of this fact, in order to understand the Lord’s word it must be noted that the foundation of the church by whom it is founded is touched upon in the words: “I will build,” and the foundation in which it is laid is referred to in the words, “on this Rock,” and the foundation wherewith the church is founded is referred to in the words, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Christ is therefore the foundation by whom primarily and in whom primarily the holy catholic church is founded, and faith is the foundation with which it is founded — that faith which works through love, which Peter set forth when he said: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” The foundation, therefore, of the church is Christ, and he said: “Apart from me ye can do nothing,” John 15 : 5; that is, apart from me as the prime and principal foundation. But Christ grounds and builds his church on himself, the Rock, when he so influences her that she hears and does his words, for then the gates of hell do not prevail against her. Hence Christ says: “Every one that cometh unto me and heareth my words and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who built a house deep and laid the foundation on a rock : and when the flood arose, the stream brake against that house, and could not shake it : f or it was founded on the rock,” Luke 6 : 47. And what this foundation is, the apostle Paul shows in I Cor. 3 : 11: “Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus”; and I Cor. 10 : 4: “But the rock was Christ.” Therefore, it is in this foundation and on this rock and from this rock up that the holy church is built, for he says: “Upon this Rock I will build my church.”
And on this foundation the apostles built the church of Christ. For not to themselves did they call the people, but to Christ, who is the first, the essential and most effectual foundation. For this reason the apostle said : “Other foundation can no man lay.” Therefore this apostle, seeing how the Corinthians might err concerning the foundation, condemned them, saying: “Each one of you saith I am indeed of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Is therefore Christ divided, or was Paul crucified for you, or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?” I Cor. 1 : 12, 13. It is as if he said, No ! Therefore, neither Peter nor Paul nor any other besides Christ is the chief foundation or head of the church, so that later the holy apostle said: “What then is Apollos and what is Paul? His ministers whom ye believed and each one as the Lord gave to him” to minister to the church, I Cor. 3:5. He said: “I planted,” that is by preaching; “Apollos watered,” that is by baptizing; “but God gave the increase,” that is through the founding by faith, hope, and love. Therefore, “neither he that planteth,” as Paul, “is anything, nor he that watereth,” like Apollos, “is anything,” that is anything upon which the church may be founded, but only God who giveth the increase; He is the church’s foundation. And the words follow: “Let every one take heed how he buildeth thereon, for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus.”
Now, this foundation is the rock of righteousness of which
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Christ spoke in the Gospel to St. Peter: “Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my church.” On these words St. Augustine says, in his Sermons on the Words of the Lord, 13 [Nic. Fathers, 6 : 340]: “Our Lord Jesus Christ thus spake to Peter, Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church — on this Rock, which thou hast confessed, on this Rock which thou hast recognized, when thou saidst, ‘Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God ’ — ’ I will build my church ’ : I will build thee upon myself, not myself upon thee. For wishing that men should be built upon men, they were saying, ‘I am of Paul, I of Apollos, and I of Cephas/ that is, Peter. And others who did not wish to be built upon Peter — Petrum — but upon the Rock — Petram — said, ‘I am of Christ.’ ” Again, in his last Homily on John [Nic. Fathers, 7 : 450], Augustine says: “Peter the apostle, because of the primacy of his apostleship, had a symbolic and representative personality, for what belonged to him as an individual was that by nature he was one man, by grace one Christian, and by a more abundant grace he was one and the same chief apostle. But when it was said to him: ‘I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven,’ he represented the universal church which in this world is shaken by divers temptations, even as by torrents of rain, by rivers, and tempests, and yet doth not fall, because it is founded upon the Rock, the word from which Peter got his name. For Rock — Petra — does not come from Peter — Petrus — but Peter from Rock, just as the word Christ is not derived from Christian, but Christian from Christ.