Syriac Cephas.' " I have somewhere said of St. Peter " — thus Augustine cor- rects himself in his Retractations at the close of his life' — " that the church is built upon him as the rock ; a thought which is sung by many in the verses of St. Ambrose : ' Hoc ipsa petra ecclesise Canente, culpam diluit.' ^ (The Rock of the church himself In the cock-crowing atones his guilt.) But I know that I have since frequently said, that the word of the Lord, ' Thou art Petrus, and on this peti^a I will build mj church,' must be understood of him, whom Peter confessed as Son of the living God ; and Peter, so named after this rock, represents the person of the church, which is founded on this rock and has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven. For it was not said to him : ' Thou art a rock ' (petra), but, "■Thou art Peter'' [Petrus) ; and the rock was Christ, through confession of whom Simon received the name of Peter. Yet the reader may decide which of the two interpretations is the more probable." In the same strain he says, in another place : " Peter, in vu'tue of the j)rimacy of his apostolate, stands, by a figurative generalization, for the church! . . . When it ' Hier. Com. in Ep. ad Galat. ii. 11, 12 (ed. Vallars. torn. vii. col. 409) : "Non quod aliud significat Petrus, aliud Cephas, sed quo quam uos Latine et Graece petram vocemus, hanc Ilebraei et Syri, propter linguae inter se viciniani, Ccphan, nuncupcnt." « Retract. 1. i. c. 21. * In the Ambrosian Morning Hymn : "Sterne rcrum eonditor." § 61. OPDSnONS OF THE FATHERS. 307 was said to him, 'I will give unto thee the keys of the king- dom of heaven,' <fec., he represented the whole church, which in this world is assailed by various temptations, as if by floods and storms, yet does not fall, because it is founded upon a rock, from which Peter received his name. For the rock is not so named from Peter, but Peter from the rock (^non enim a, Petro pcti^a, sed Petrus a jpetra)^ even as Christ is not sc> called after the Christian, but the Christian after Christ, For the reason why the Lord says, ' On this rock I will build my church,' is that Peter had said : ' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' On this rock, which thou hast confessed, says he, I will build my church. For Christ was the rock {jaetra enim erat Christus), upon which also Peter himself was built ; for other foundation can no man lay,- than that is laid, which is Jesus Chi-ist. Thus the church, which is built upon Christ, has received from him, in the person of Peter, the keys of heaven ; that is, the power of binding and loosing sins." '