... _Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas._ Since thou hast proclaimed _My_ Father, He says, so will I name _thy_ father to thee: which was almost saying, ‘As thou art the son of Jona, so am I the Son of My Father’. For it was superfluous to say, ‘Thou art the son of Jona’; but as He had spoken of the Son of God, in order to show that as Peter is the son of Jona so He is the Son of God, of the same substance as the Begetter, He added further: _And I say to thee thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church_—that is, on the faith of this confession. Then He shows him many men who are ready to believe, and He strengthens Peter’s will and makes him pastor. _And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it._ ‘If they shall not prevail against _it_, how much less against Me. So be not troubled, for thou art soon to hear that I am to be betrayed and crucified.’ He goes on to speak of another honour: _And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven_. What does _And I will give thee_ signify? As the Father gave thee to know Me, so do _I_ also give it to thee. He did not say: ‘I will invoke the Father,’ although the power shown forth was so great and the gift was so unutterably magnificent, but _I will give thee_. Tell me what hast Thou given? The keys of the kingdom of heaven, that whatsoever thou dost bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou dost loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. How, then, was it not His to give to sit on His right and on His left Who said, _I will give_? Do you see how He leads Peter up to the most ineffable knowledge, how He reveals Himself, and shows Himself to be the Son of God, through that double promise? For that which belongs only to God, namely, the remission of sins, the setting up of an immutable Church in the midst of waves, and making a fisherman more enduring than the hardest rock, with the whole world against him, these are the things which He promises to give, as the Father said to Jeremias: _I have made thee a pillar of iron and a wall of brass_; but Jeremias was commissioned for one people, whilst Peter is charged with the whole universe. I would ask those who wish to depreciate the dignity of the Son, which were the greater gifts to Peter, those of the Father or those of the Son? The Father vouchsafed to Peter the manifestation of the Son, but the Son’s gift it was to make known that manifestation of the Father and of Himself throughout all the world, and He entrusted to a mortal man authority over the whole kingdom of heaven, giving those keys to him who propagated the Church in all parts of the earth and showed it forth more powerful than heaven. _For heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away._ How, then, was the Giver of such gifts, the Worker of such triumphs, in any way less than the Father? I speak of them, not separating the works of the Father from the Son, _for all things were made through Him, and