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Mat_16:13 ff. Comp. Mar_8:27 ff.; Luk_9:18 ff. (which latter evangelist rejoins, at this point, the synoptic narrative, having left it immediately after recording the first miraculous feeding of the multitude, a circumstance which is sometimes alleged as a reason for doubting the authenticity of the second miracle of this kind).
Caesarea Philippi, a town in Gaulonitis, at the foot of Mount Lebanon, which was formerly known by the name of Paneas, Plin. N. H. v. 15. Philip the tetrarch enlarged and embellished it (Joseph. Antt. xviii. 2, Bell. ii. 9. 1), and called it Caesarea in honour of Caesar (Tiberius). It received the name of Philippi in order to distinguish it from Caesarea Palestinae. Robinson, Pal. III. pp. 612, 626 ff., and neuere Forsch. p. 531 ff.; Ritter, Erdk. XV. 1, p. 194 ff.
τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ] See, in general, note on Mat_8:20. The words are in characteristic apposition with με . That is to say, Matthew does not represent Jesus as asking in a general way (as in Mark and Luke) who it was that the people supposed Him to be, but as putting the question in this more special and definite form: whom do the people suppose me, as the Son of man, to be? He had very frequently used this title in speaking of Himself; and what He wanted to know was, the nature of the construction which the people put upon the designation in Daniel, which He had ascribed to Himself, whether or not they admitted it to be applicable to Him in its Messianic sense. Comp. Holtzmann in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr. 1865, p. 228. From the answer it appears that, as a rule, He was not being taken for the Messiah as yet (that consequently the more general appellation: ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρ ., was not as yet being applied to Him in the special sense in which Daniel uses it), He was only regarded as a forerunner; but the disciples themselves had understood Him to be the Son of man in Daniel’s sense of the words, and, as being such, they looked upon Him as the Messiah, the Son of God. Accordingly it is not necessary to regard τ . υἱὸν τ . ἀνθρ . as interpolated by Matthew (Holtzmann, Weizsäcker), thereby destroying the suggestive correlation in which it stands to the expression, Son of God, in Peter’s reply. It is not surprising that Strauss should have been scandalized at the question, seeing that he understood it in the anticipatory sense of: “whom do the people suppose me to be, who am the Messiah?” Beza inserts a mark of interrogation after εἶναι , and then takes the following words by themselves thus: an Messiam? But this would involve an anticipation on the part of the questioner which would be quite out of place. De Wette (see note on Mat_8:20) imports a foreign sense into the passage when he thus explains: “whom do the people say that I am, I, the obscure, humble man who have before me the lofty destiny of being the Messiah, and who am under the necessity of first of all putting forth such efforts in order to secure the recognition of my claims?” Keim’s view is correct, though he rejects the με (see critical notes).
Observe, moreover, how it was, after He had performed such mighty deeds in His character of Messiah, and had prepared His disciples by His previous training of them, and when feeling now that the crisis was every day drawing nearer, that Jesus leads those disciples to avow in the most decided way possible such a conviction of the truth of the Christian confession as the experience of their own hearts might by this time be expected to justify. Comp. note on Mat_16:17. As for themselves, they needed a religious confession thus deeply rooted in their convictions to enable them to confront the trying future on which they were about to enter. And to Jesus also it was a source of comfort to find Himself the object of such sincere devotion; comp. Joh_6:67 ff. But to say that it was not till now that He Himself became convinced of His Messiahship (Strauss, before 1864, Schenkel), is to contradict the whole previous narrative in every one of the evangelists. Comp. Weizsäcker, Keim, Weissenborn, p. 41 ff.