Apologetics

The 17th century commentary on Isaiah 22 by Jacobus Tirinus from the previous post didn’t outline an elaborate Eliakim-Peter typology. It is so brief it defies interpretation, apart from his poor understanding of Scripture, but as with any historical inquiry, there are other concerns. Anachronism is an enemy of understanding and we should be cautious of projecting ideas familiar to us back into a time when they were unknown and drawing unwarranted conclusions. We should also be careful to discern whether Tirinius or others do the same. Upon examination, we’ll see Tirinus does and we’ll also see a deafening silence in the fathers regarding the Eliakim-Peter link.

As a reminder, the English text of his commentary (via Google Translate), stated the following: “…The Messiah is allegorically represented by Eliakim, says Cyril. & Theodoretus. And here St. John observes [in Revelation 3:7] where he speaks of Christ, he who has the key of David opens and no one closes. And Christ promised to delegate the same key to his Vicar Peter, [in Matthew 16:19]. I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” – Jacobus Tirinus (c. ~1645 AD)

The Origin of the Eliakim-Peter Typology, Part 3: The Silence of the FathersRead More »

An apologetic army seeks reinforcements from defenders and interpreters of the past

In the first post of this series, we saw how the Eliakim-Peter typology claim has become a popular defense for the papacy in recent years and how it appears to have made it’s first appearance in the U.S. in the early 1990’s, courtesy of a popular “Protestant” convert to Roman Catholicism. I mentioned how the claim was dredged from the recesses of the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation, after laying dormant for around four centuries. The claim grew slowly after it’s reintroduction but now the curious case of theological amnesia is fully cured and a new generation of philosophers is poised to twist and distort Scripture, using their newfangled typology as bait, fishing for men who are wading in the Tiber, hungry with angst. To accomplish their mission, the new army of sacramental soldiers will need to improve upon the work of the defenders and interpreters of old, who we will meet in this post. The new army is scrounging for morsels in church history and is only just beginning to rediscover their forgotten fathers from the Early Modern period. The historical reinforcements they seek are ones I spent months searching for and I’ll these Rambling Reformers here.

The Origin of the Eliakim-Peter Typology, Part 2: Rambling ReformersRead More »

What is the Eliakim-Peter Typology claim?

The Eliakim-Peter typology is a now popular interpretation of Isaiah 22:15-24 that involves constructing a multi-faceted, complex typological relationship between it and two New Testament passages (Matthew 16:18-19 and Revelation 3:7). The interpretation attempts to correlate various Biblical and cultural concepts, words, and phrases from those passages. In recent years, it has become perhaps the most popular apologetic defense of the papacy. I will examine the particulars of the “interpretation” in a subsequent post but for the sake of simplicity, the current discussion is mostly focused on tracing the origin of the claim that Eliakim in Isaiah 22 prefigured Peter in Matthew 16 (and the papacy). I will also examine the recent developments in, and popularity of the claim.

The Origin of the Eliakim-Peter Typology, Part 1: Keys, Stewards, and Fathers, Oh My!Read More »