And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Ver. 16. Simon Peter answered, &c.] As the mouth of the company, and one that being, haply, older, and surely bolder than the rest, spake thus for them. But what a foul mouth of blasphemy opened those two popes (Peter's pretended successors), Leo I and Nicholas III, that boasted that Peter was taken into fellowship of the individual Trinity? a Neither can that be excused that Jerome commenteth on the former verses ("Whom do men say that I am?" "But whom say ye that I am?") that our Saviour there purposely opposeth his disciples to men, to intimate that they were something more than men. This is something like that note of a Latin expositor upon Exodus 30:31, where, because it is said, Exodus 30:32; "Upon man's flesh the holy ointment shall not be poured, thou shalt anoint Aaron and his sons therewith," thence infers that priests are angels, and have not human flesh. These were human glosses, and savoured as little of God's meaning as that unsavoury speech of Peter, Matthew 16:22; of this chapter, for the which he heareth, "Get thee behind me, Satan; thou savourest not," &c.
Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God] b A short confession, but such as in few containeth whatsoever we believe concerning the person and office of Christ, Brevis et longa planeque aurea est haec confessio. Well may we say of it, as St Bartholomew (quoted by Dionysius) did of the doctrine of Divinity, that it is Και πολλη και ελαχιστη, little and yet large.
a Petrum in consortium individuae Trinitatis assumptum iactarunt. Revius.
b ο Υιος του θεου του ζωντος. Singulae dictiones suos habent articulos εμφατικως adiectos. Aret.