The Foundation Stone

When Christ said to St Peter, "You are Rock, and on this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it", he was not merely referring to something strong and unshakeable as a foundation. It is that, but it is much more. He was making reference to the Foundation Rock on which the old Temple was built. Just as the old Temple was built on a special Rock, so the new Church will be established forever on a better Rock foundation. Just what was the old Foundation Rock?

    If you have ever heard of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, you have heard of the Foundation Rock. It is the same Rock. The Moslems built a shrine over it in the 7th century. It is actually a huge slab of exposed bedrock, upon which the Temple of Solomon was originally built. There is a great deal of Jewish tradition about this Rock, though, that is very pertinent to the words of Jesus. The Apostles were certainly familiar with these traditions, although the significance is mostly lost on Christians nowadays.

    In Hebrew tradition, the Temple was built on this bedrock slab, called Even ha-shetiya in Hebrew. This Foundation Stone, which is what the Hebrew words mean, was the floor of the Holy of Holies in the Temple, and the Ark of the Covenant stood upon it. Before it was the Temple, though, it was the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, which King David purchased from him and built an altar upon it. It was on this altar where he made the sacrifice that stemmed the slaughter of Jerusalem by the Angel of the Lord (2 Sam 24:16-24). It is also the site of the altar where Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac (Gen 22:1-19). According to Jewish rabbis and the Zohar, this Foundation Stone was originally part of Yahweh's throne, which He detached and hurled to earth when He had finished Creation, where it plugged up the abyss of chaos and the realm of the underworld. Underneath the Rock, there is a cave with a shaft cut into it, which is called the Well of the Souls, or Bir el Arweh in Arabic. According to ancient Hebrew legend, this shaft leads to the underworld and the abode of the dead, and the Foundation Stone on which the Temple was built acts as a plug or capstone, to prevent the chaos of the abyss from welling out into this world. Echoes of this theme may be found in several places in the Old Testament, such as Job 38:4-11. It is this shaft to the Abyss, the chaos of the underworld, that is referenced in Rev 9:1. 

     In this light, the words of Christ to the Jewish Apostles in Matt 16, take on fuller meaning. "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it". Christ's promise to his Church echoes the familiar legend of the ancient Foundation Rock. Yet his words are no legend; they are Truth itself, and they speak of a better Rock, a more sure foundation, which will keep the forces of evil and chaos at bay until the end of time. It is his holy Church, unshakeable, founded on Peter and preserved by his successors as solid Rock, which Christ, the true Wise Man, built his house upon.