Jesus, asking of his disciples, “Will ye also go away?” Simon answered, “Lord, to whom should we go?  Thou hast the words of eternal life."[5] Jesus, at various times, gave him a certain priority in his church;[6] and gave him the Syrian surname of Kepha (stone), by which he wished to signify by that, that he made him the corner-stone of the edifice.[7] At one time he seems even to promise him “the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” and to grant him the right of pronouncing upon earth decisions which should always be ratified in eternity.[8]

[Footnote 1:  Matt. xviii. 4, xx. 25-26, xxiii. 8-12; Mark ix. 34, x. 42-46.]

[Footnote 2:  Luke v. 3.]

[Footnote 3:  Matt. xvii. 23.]

[Footnote 4:  Matt. xvi. 16, 17.]

[Footnote 5:  John vi. 68-70.]

[Footnote 6:  Matt. x. 2; Luke xxii. 32; John xxi. 15, and following; Acts i., ii., v., etc.; Gal. i. 18, ii. 7, 8.]

[Footnote 7:  Matt. xvi. 18; John i. 42.]

[Footnote 8:  Matt. xvi. 19.  Elsewhere, it is true (Matt. xviii. 18), the same power is granted to all the apostles.]

No doubt, this priority of Peter excited a little jealousy.  Jealousy was kindled especially in view of the future—­and of this kingdom of God, in which all the disciples would be seated upon thrones, on the right and on the left of the master, to judge the twelve tribes of Israel.[1] They asked who would then be nearest to the Son of man, and act in a manner as his prime minister and assessor.  The two sons of Zebedee aspired to this rank.  Preoccupied with such a thought, they prompted their mother Salome, who one day took Jesus aside, and asked him for the two places of honor for her sons.[2] Jesus evaded the request by his habitual maxim that he who exalteth himself shall be humbled, and that the kingdom of heaven will be possessed by the lowly.  This created some disturbance in the community; there was great discontent against James and John.[3] The same rivalry appears to show itself in the Gospel of John, where the narrator unceasingly declares himself to be “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” to whom the master in dying confided his mother, and seeks systematically to place himself near Simon Peter, and at times to put himself before him, in important circumstances where the older evangelists had omitted mentioning him.[4]

[Footnote 1:  Matt. xviii. 1, and following; Mark ix. 33; Luke ix. 46, xxii. 30.]

[Footnote 2:  Matt. xx. 20, and following; Mark x. 35, and following.]

[Footnote 3:  Mark x. 41.]

[Footnote 4:  John xviii. 15, and following, xix. 26, 27, xx. 2, and following, xxi. 7, 21.  Comp. i. 35, and following, in which the disciple referred to is probably John.]