Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.
Ver. 22. Then Peter took him] Took him by the hand, and led him apart, as we do those we are most intimate with, in great courtesy and secrecy, to impart to them things of greatest importance. Peter was strongly possessed with a fond conceit of an earthly kingdom; and as Joseph dreamed of his preferment, but not at all of his imprisomnent, so neither could Peter think or hear of Christ's being killed, whom he had even now confessed to be the Christ, the Son of the living God. See here how easily we slide, by the deceitfulness of our hearts, from the mean to the extreme. Peter having made a notable profession of his faith, and being therefore much commended by Christ, presently takes occasion to fall from the true holiness of faith to the sauciness of presumption, in advising his Master to decline the cross.
And began to rebuke him, saying] No, he did not rebuke him, saith Maldonatus the Jesuit, but friendly counselled him only, as if επιτιμαν were not to chide and charge, as masters do their servants, even with threatenings and menaces. a But these patrons of Peter (as they pretend) will not abide that he should be blamed for anything. Baronius blusheth not to say (and so to put the lie upon the Holy Ghost himself) that Paul was wrong in reproving Peter,Galatians 2:14, and that it had been better manners for him to have held his tongue. Others of them have blasphemously censured St Paul in their sermons as a hot-headed person, of whose assertions no great reckoning was to be made by the sober minded; and that he was not secure of his preaching, but by conference with St Peter, neither dared he publish his Epistles till St Peter had allowed them.
a Non tantum significat reprehendere et increpare, sed etiam interminari et interdicere. Gerh