NOTE: — 61 —

...[un]shaken rock" (Jesus Son [of God]). To this, according to the Holy Fathers, we reply: that here the word *head* is set in the place of *principal* or of a rank-based presidency, inasmuch as in the rank of the Holy Apostles Saint Petros showed himself foremost, offering from the mouth of all that confession unto Jesus which He required from them all; as the Holy Evangelists write: "And Jesus, having come into the parts of Philippian Caesarea, questioned the disciples and said: 'Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?' And they said: 'Some, Yohannēs the Baptist; and others, Eghia; and some, Yeremia, or one of the prophets.' Jesus said unto them: 'But whom say ye that I am?' Simovn Petros gave answer and said: 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God'" (Matt. 16:13–16; see also Mark 8:27–29; Luke 9:18–20). Wherefore, the holy Apostle Petros is termed "head" or "principal" of the Apostles nominal-wise only, and not by reason of any greater or peculiar pre-eminent authority over his fellow disciples; for he had not received from Christ some superior Apostolic grace, but solely according to the numerical ordering of the Apostles and Disciples of Christ was he named "first," as the Evangelist Mattʻēos writeth: "And of the twelve apostles these were the names: first, Simovn, who is called Petros, and Andreas his brother; Hakovbos of Zebedee, and Yohannēs his brother," etc. (Matt. 10:2, 3). All this our Holy Father Grigor Lusaworichʻ writeth briefly, yet powerfully: "Now, of the Christ-regimented and cross-bearing Apostles, whose principal is Petros, and Andreas, Hakovbos, and Yohannēs, Pʻilippos, and Bartʻughimēos, Tʻovmas, and Mattʻēos... and the others yet who were like unto them, who were also the Seventy; who received authority from the Lord to tread upon the asp and the basilisk, and to trample the power of the enemy, to be the light of the earth, and to season and salt the disorder of the wickedness of men's ignorance with the salt of the Divinity of the Holy Spirit" (in Agatʻ[angeghos], Constantinople edition, page 251). And Saint Grigor Narekatsʻi, according to the numerical precedence of the count of the Apostolic ranks, on Saint Petros being the first in number, writeth: "The first-numbered and the foremost-honored, the rock established and the pillar founded, the stone..."