Matthew’s Peter a False Disciple and Apostate? Questions and Answers

The very title of my book Peter—False Disciple and Apostate according to Saint Matthew, ¹ which The Expository Times has generously featured as a ‘Book of the Month’, provokes questions that deserve answers. So I’ll take up the most important of those questions (in italics) and offer answers to them (in roman type).

What elements in Matthew’s portrayal of the apostle Peter lead to the conclusion that as a false disciple Peter apostatized? An answer to this question begins with Jesus’ warning that he will deny before his Father in heaven anyone who denies him (Jesus) before others (Matt 10:33). In his account of Peter’s denials of Jesus (26:69–75), Matthew adds—differently from Mark, Luke, and John—that Peter denied Jesus the first time ‘before all’, i.e., before all those in Caiaphas’s courtyard. The conclusion follows that in Matthew’s view Jesus will deny Peter before God the Father in heaven.

Alone among the evangelists, moreover, Matthew quotes Jesus as saying that the superior righteousness required for entrance into the kingdom of heaven includes avoidance of oaths (5:20, 33–37). Again differently from Mark, Luke, and John, Matthew adds the phrase ‘with an oath’ to Peter’s second denial of Jesus. The conclusion follows that for lack of superior righteousness, Peter will not enter the kingdom of heaven. By way of contrast, Matthew’s distinctive report that Jesus simultaneously refused to answer the high priest under oath (26:63–64) underscores this conclusion.

Finally in regard to Peter’s denials of Jesus, no fewer than six times earlier in Matthew—only one of them paralleled (8:12), the rest having to do with false disciples (13:41–42, 49–50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30)—Jesus is quoted as saying the damned will weep and gnash their teeth outside God’s kingdom in the darkness or furnace of fire. After denying Jesus a third time Peter is then said by Matthew and Luke, but not by Mark (or in the Old Latin and 0171 of Luke), to have gone outside the fire-lit courtyard and gateway and wept bitterly (26:75; cf. Mark 14:72; Luke 22:62). Especially in Matthew, the conclusion follows that the bitter weeping of Peter ‘outside’ anticipates his weeping and gnashing of teeth along with other false disciples outside God’s kingdom.

But doesn’t Matthew’s following up with Judas Iscariot’s remorseful suicide (after noting Jesus’ delivery to Pilate) indicate a contrast that implies on Peter’s part a repentant rather than hopeless weeping? No, because then we would have to ignore the allusion in Peter’s bitter weeping to Matthew’s oft-repeated mention of false disciples’ hopeless weeping in ‘outer darkness’. This allusion steers away from a contrast and makes for a parallel between the remorse of Judas as a false disciple and that of Peter as the same.

Matthew 26:57 retains Peter’s following Jesus to Caiaphas’s palace (so too Mark 14:54; Luke 22:54; John 18:15) in contrast with the disciples’ (including Peter, initially) having fled (Matt 26:56; Mark 14:50). Doesn’t this retention support true discipleship on Peter’s part? Hardly, because the added phrase ‘from afar’ (shared with Mark and Luke) contradicts Peter’s distinctively Matthean promise to Jesus, ‘Even if I must die with you, by no means will I deny you’ (Matt 26:35). Peter is sitting ‘with the servants’ of the high priest ‘to see the end’ (Matt 26:58, the latter phrase peculiar to Matthew). So much for dying with Jesus!

Doesn’t the rehabilitation of Peter in the rest of the New Testament, his leadership in the early church, and his eventual martyrdom tell against viewing him as a false disciple and apostate? Yes, so far as the historical Peter is concerned. But we are not dealing here with the historical Peter, or even with the literary Peter as portrayed elsewhere inside and outside the New Testament. We are dealing only with the literary Peter as portrayed by Matthew, whatever the historical truth or portrayals in other literature.

But doesn’t Matthew’s reference in 28:16 to ‘the eleven disciples’ to whom Jesus issued the Great Commission include Peter and thereby indicate his rehabilitation as a true disciple even in the literary view of Matthew? No, for two reasons: (1) Judas Iscariot was included among those to whom in Matthew 10 Jesus issued his commission to evangelize Galilean Jews, yet Judas was false. (2) Uniquely among the evangelists, Matthew emphasizes the continuing, divinely tolerated presence in the church of false disciples, represented by tares and foul fish in 13:24–30, 36–43, 47–50, right up to the end of the age. Among them are included even those who have prophesied, cast out demons, and performed many miracles in Jesus’ name (7:21–23; see also other uniquely Matthean passages such as 22:11–14; 24:10–12; 25:1–12).

Jesus said he would build his church, however, on the rock-foundation of Peter, whose nickname ‘Peter’ means ‘Rock’ (Matt 16:18, uniquely Matthean). So on what ground can it be said that Matthew portrays Peter as a false disciple and apostate? But Jesus does not say to Peter, ‘On you I will build my church’. Instead, he switches from the second person ‘you’ to the third person ‘this rock’, which echoes ‘the rock’ of ‘these words’ of Jesus on which the wise man in 7:24 built his house. This echo is confirmed by Matthew’s distinctive gathering of Jesus’ words into five discourses (in chs. 5–7, 10, 13, 18, 24–25 [or 23–25], all of them longer than their synoptic parallels) and appending to three of them references to ‘these words’ of Jesus (7:28; 19:1; 26:1; cf. the commission in 28:20 to teach new disciples obedience to all Jesus’ commands).

But doesn’t too much space come between Matt 7:24 and 16:18 for us to think that ‘this rock’ refers back to ‘the rock’ consisting of ‘these words’ of Jesus? No, because modern commentators regularly expect Matthew’s audience to have connected ‘Go behind me, Satan!’ here in 16:23 with ‘Go, Satan!’ even farther back in 4:10; and a host of ancient copyists made this very connection by inserting ‘behind me’ into 4:10 under the influence of 16:23. The uniquely Matthean parable concerning the wise and foolish virgins (25:1–13) would surely have reminded Matthew’s audience of the parable concerning the wise and foolish builders (7:24–27). And everybody recognizes the echo of Jesus as ‘God with us’ (1:23) in 28:20, where Jesus says to his disciples, ‘Behold, I am with you always’. Yet far more space separates these passages from each other than separates 16:18 from 7:24.

Jesus also pronounced a blessing on Peter because God the Father had revealed to Peter Jesus’ messiahship and divine sonship (16:17). Doesn’t that blessing imply true discipleship? Not necessarily, because along with Peter and the other disciples Judas Iscariot had a blessing pronounced over him because of his being privileged with revealed truth (13:16–17). Yet he turned out to be false. Revelatory blessing doesn’t ensure discipular perseverance.

But what about Jesus’ giving to Peter ‘the keys (kleidas) of the kingdom of heaven’ and the authority to ‘bind’ and ‘loose’ (Matt 16:19)? Well, along with the other disciples Judas Iscariot, too, was given the authority to bind and loose (18:18). Yet, as just noted, he turned out to be false. And the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees not only ‘lock’ (kleiete, cognate to kleidas, ‘keys’) other people out of the kingdom of heaven. Neither do they themselves enter it (23:13). So having keys to lock and unlock, bind and loose, doesn’t imply entrance. And in the immediate context Matthew intensifies Peter’s contradiction of Jesus’ first passion-and-resurrection prediction by adding the strongest possible negation, ‘By no means will this happen to you!’ (16:22). Matthew also adds Jesus’ statement, ‘You [Peter] are my snare’ (16:23). Every other Matthean occurrence of ‘snare’ refers to those who are condemned to a furnace-like hell of eternal fire as opposed to entering the kingdom (13:41–42 [unique to Matthew]; 18:7–9). These additions further undermine attempts to make 16:13–23 the centerpiece of an ultimately favorable portrayal of Peter in Matthew.

Might not Matthew’s unparalleled attachment of ‘first’ to Peter’s name in a list of the apostles (10:2–4) support an interpretation of 16:13–23 in terms of Peter’s primacy? Not likely, because in 19:29–30 the many ‘first ones’ who will be ‘last ones’ contrast with those who ‘will inherit eternal life’, as illustrated by the uniquely Matthean parable in 20:1–16, which starts with an explanatory ‘For’ and at the end of v. 16 attracts the correctly interpretative variant reading, ‘For many are called, but few are chosen’.

According to Matt 14:28–33 (unparalleled), Peter addresses Jesus twice with ‘Lord’, has enough faith to walk on water toward him, sinks because of doubt but experiences rescue, and joins the other disciples in worshipfully confessing Jesus as ‘truly God’s Son’. A redemptively positive portrayal of Peter? Not really. For the worshipful confessors include Judas Iscariot, who (it bears repeating) turned out false. Why not Peter too? Moreover, ‘the ones in the boat’ who worshiped Jesus as truly God’s Son refers naturally to the disciples who had not been out on the water with Jesus and Peter. Otherwise, we would expect Matthew to have written, as usual, ‘the disciples’ so as to include Peter. He appears not to have joined in the confession, then, so that his confession in 16:16 as a result of divine revelation counts as his first, not awkwardly as a repetition. Moreover again, emphasis falls on Peter’s doubt and smallness of faith, not on its sufficiency and his rescue. In fact, his asking to walk on water arose in the first place out of questioning Jesus’ self-identification. And nothing is to be made of Peter’s addressing Jesus with ‘Lord’, because throughout Matthew not only do true disciples address Jesus with ‘Lord’. So too do false disciples and non-disciples, repeatedly.

Well, then, does Matthew portray Peter in a distinctively bad light elsewhere, too? Yes. Here are several examples: In 17:4 Matthew turns Peter’s foolish suggestion on the Mount of Transfiguration, ‘Let us make three tents [for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah]’ (so Mark 9:5; Luke 9:33), into the ridiculously egotistical declaration (N. B. the switch from a suggestion to a declaration), ‘I will make here three tents’, only to be cut off ‘while he was speaking’ by God the Father’s abrupt counter declaration of Jesus’ divine sonship. In 17:24–27 (unparalleled) Jesus brusquely corrects Peter by teaching him the true reason for their both paying the temple tax. Peter isn’t even given a chance to report his conversation with the tax collectors. In 18:21–22 the Matthean Peter’s standard of forgiveness (seven times overall) falls below the standard of Luke’s Jesus (seven times in a single day, or per day [Luke 17:4]) and very far below the standard of Matthew’s Jesus (‘up to seventy times seven’). And in 19:27–30 (paralleled in Mark 10:28–31; Luke 18:28–30; 22:28–30) Matthew adds to Peter’s statement, ‘Behold, we have left all and followed you’ (so too Mark), the question, ‘What then will we have?’ Since Matthew erases the present compensation that Mark’s Jesus proceeds to promise and retains only the future compensation that Mark’s Jesus also promises, the Matthean Peter is angling for present compensation too.

It is widely recognized that on the whole, Matthew treats Jesus’ disciples more positively than Mark does. For example, in Mark 8:21 Jesus says to them, ‘Don’t you yet understand?’ The parallel in Matt 16:11–12 adds an explanation by Jesus and the comment, ‘Then they understood’. Similarly, where Mark 10:35–37 has James and John requesting seats on the right and left of Jesus in his glory, Matt 20:20–21 has their mother making the request. Against this background of Matthew’s lessening Mark’s negativity toward the disciples, Matthew’s regular increasing of negativity toward Peter stands out in bold relief.

Why then doesn’t Matthew pursue negativity toward Peter to the extent of explicitly declaring him a condemned false disciple and apostate, as in the case of Judas Iscariot? Jesus, who stated Judas’s condemnation explicitly (Matt 26:24), has judgmental authority to do so (see 7:21–23; 25:31–46, for example). But he prohibited his disciples from judging (7:1) even though false disciples become apparent as such prior to the consummation (as in the case of the tares at 13:26). So as not to disobey the prohibition, then, Matthew makes Peter’s falsity apparent but stops short of an explicit condemnation.

Finally, why does Matthew portray Peter as an apparently false disciple and apostate? He does so to make Peter’s case, alongside that of Judas Iscariot, into a dramatic warning against apostasy growing out of falsity. For as indicated above, the theme of false discipleship looms large in Matthew’s Gospel. That theme grows in turn out of an equally large theme of apostasy-producing persecution (see again 24:9–12, for instance). My book goes into much more detail on these Matthean themes as well as on the Petrine passages discussed above, pastoral concerns, questions of canonical consistency, and prior interpreters’ failure to recognize in Matthew the portrayal of Peter as a false disciple and apostate.

With sincere thanks to Editor Paul Foster for his invitation to contribute the foregoing to The Expository Times.