Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol IX:
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.: Chapter XXI

21.  The Rebuke of Peter and the Answer of Jesus.

“And Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him, saying, God be propitious to Thee.  Lord, this shall never be unto thee.” 5694   To whom He said, “Get thee behind Me, Satan; thou art a stumbling-block unto Me; for thou mindest not the things of God but the things of men.” 5695   Since Jesus had begun to show unto His disciples that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things, Peter up to this point learned the beginnings of those things which were shown. 5696   But since he thought that the sufferings were unworthy of Christ the Son of the living God, and below the dignity of the Father who had revealed to him so great things about Christ,—for the things that concerned His coming suffering had not been revealed to him,—on this account he took Him, and as one forgetful of the honour due to the Christ, and that the Son of the living God neither does nor says anything worthy of rebuke, he began to rebuke Him; and as to one who needed propitiation,—for he did not yet know that “God had set Him forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood,” 5697 he said, “God be propitious to thee, O Lord.” 5698   Approving his purpose, indeed, but rebuking his ignorance, because of the purpose being right, He says to him, “Get thee behind Me,” 5699 as to one who, by reason of the things of which he was ignorant and spake not rightly, had abandoned the following of Jesus; but because of his ignorance, as to one who had something antagonistic to the things of God, He said, “Satan,” which in the Hebrew means “adversary.”  But, if Peter had not spoken from ignorance, nor rebuked the Son of the living God, saying unto Him, “God be propitious to thee, Lord, this shall never be unto Thee,” Christ would not have said to him, “Get thee behind Me,” as to one who had given up being behind Him and following Him; nor would He have said as to one who had spoken things adverse to what He had said, “Satan.”  But now Satan prevailed over him who had followed Jesus and was going behind Him, to turn aside from following Him and from being behind the Son of God, and to make him, by reason of the words which he spoke in ignorance, worthy p. 463 of being called “Satan” and a stumbling-block to the Son of God, and “as not minding the things of God but the things of men.”  But that Peter was formerly behind the Son of God, before he committed this sin, is manifest from the words, “Come ye behind Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 5700

Footnotes

Matt. xvi. 22.

Matt. xvi. 23.

These three sentences are supplied from the old Latin version, as at this point there is a hiatus in the mss.

Rom. iii. 25.

Matt. xvi. 22.

Matt. xvi. 23.

Matt. iv. 19.