In today’s Gospel, it is peter who answers on behalf of the other eleven disciples.

Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ, that is, the one who has been anointed by God and send as    his final messenger to the people of Israel, in Israel those who were traditionally anointed were the priests(Ex 28:41, 40:15, Nm3:3)
the kings (1 SM 9:16, 16:3,2SM 12:7) and later on the prophets (1kings 19:16). The anointing was always an expression of being set apart by God for a specific task (Is61:1-11)  Due to the failure, to varying degrees of  those who were anointed, the hope was that the Messiah would combine in

As priest he would be the mediator between God and his people , as king he would

give a sense of direction to the people and ensure that the rights of all especially of the weakest, were respected

and finally as prophet he would denounce deviations from the covenant, announce God’s will and commit himself to

carrying it out with them.

The popular conception of the Messiah at the time of Jesus was that he would be a sociology-political leader who would

help the people regain the political independence they had lost to the Romans in 63B.C when Syria fell to Rome and

Pompey took Jerusalem. It was difficult for people who knew that they were the chosen of God to think that God would

not one day re-establish his Lordship among them.

Peter is accurate when he says that Jesus is the messiah, but he still has to understand that his image of Messiah,

which is largely influenced by the political expectations of the time, does not correspond to the type of Messiah

Jesus is.