Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (845 page)

§ 129. THE DENIAL OF PETER.

The two first Evangelists state, that at the moment in which Jesus was led away from the garden, all the disciples forsook him and fled; but in their accounts, as well as in those of Luke and John, Peter is said to have followed him at a distance, and to have obtained admission with the escort into the court of the high priest’s palace: while, according to the synoptists, it is Peter alone who gives this proof of courage and attachment to Jesus, which however soon enough issues in the deepest humiliation for him; the fourth Evangelist gives him John for a companion, and moreover represents the latter as the one who, by means of his acquaintance with the high priest, procures admittance for Peter into his palace; a divergency which, with the whole peculiar relation in which this gospel places Peter with respect to John, has been already considered.||

According to all the Evangelists, it was in this
court,
a
u
l
h
, that Peter, intimidated by the inauspicious turn in the fortunes of Jesus, and the high priest’s domestics by whom he was surrounded, sought to allay the repeatedly expressed suspicion that he was one of the followers of the arrested Galilean, by reiterated asseverations that he knew him not. But, as we have already intimated, in relation to the owner of this habitation, there exists an apparent divergency between the fourth gospel and the synoptists. In John, to judge from the first glance at his narrative, the first denial (xviii. 17) happens during the trial before Annas, since it stands after the statement that Jesus was led to Annas (v.
13), and before the verse in which he is said to have been sent to Caiaphas (v. 24), and only the two further acts of denial (v. 25 — 27), in so far as they follow the last-named statement, and as immediately after them the delivery to Pilate is narrated (v. 28), appear in John also to have occurred during the trial before Caiaphas and in his palace. But to this supposition of a different locality for the first denial and the two subsequent ones, there is a hindrance in the account of the fourth gospel itself. After the mention of the first denial, which happened at the door of the palace (of Annas apparently), it is said that the night being cold the servants and officers had made a fire of coals,
and Peter stood with them and warmed himself,
h
n
d
e
k
a
i
m
e
t
‘
a
u
t
w
n
o
P
e
t
r
o
V
e
s
t
w
V
k
a
i
q
e
r
m
a
i
n
i
m
e
n
o
V
(v. 18). Now, when farther on, the narrative of the second and third denial is opened with nearly the same words:

^*
Ut sup.

^†
Matthew does not mention the blindfolding, and appears to imagine that Jesus named the person who maltreated him, whom he saw, but did not otherwise know.

^‡
Vid. Gesenius, in loc.

^§
Matth. xxvi. 63; comp. Mark xiv. 61:
o
d
e
I
h
s
o
u
V
e
s
i
w
p
a
.

Matth. xxvii. 12:
o
u
d
e
n
a
p
e
k
r
i
n
a
t
o
.

Matth.
xxvii.
14; comp. Mark xv.
5:
k
a
i
o
u
k
a
p
e
k
r
i
n
a
t
o
a
u
t
w
p
r
o
V
o
u
d
e
e
n
r
h
m
a
,
w
s
t
e
q
a
u
m
a
z
e
i
n
t
o
n
h
y
e
m
o
n
a
l
i
a
n
.

Luke xxiii. 9:
a
u
t
o
V
d
e
o
u
d
e
n
a
p
e
k
r
i
n
a
t
o
a
u
t
w
.

John xix. 9:
o
d
e
I
.
a
p
o
k
r
i
s
i
n
o
u
k
e
d
w
k
e
n
a
u
t
w

^||
Vol. II. § 74.
And Simon Peter stood and warmed himself
h
n
d
e
S
i
m
w
n
P
e
t
r
o
V
e
s
t
w
V
k
a
i
q
e
r
m
a
i
n
o
m
e
n
o
V
(v. 25): this cannot be understood otherwise than as an allusion to the previously noticed circumstances of the fire of coals, and of Peter’s standing by it to warm himself, and hence it must be inferred that the Evangelist intended to represent the second and third denial as having occurred by the same fire, consequently, on the above supposition, likewise in the house of Annas. It is true that the synoptists speak of a fire in the court of the palace of Caiaphas also (Mark v. 54.; Luke v. 55), at which Peter warmed himself (here, however, sitting, as in John standing): but it does not thence follow that John also imagined a similar fire to have been in the court of the actual high priest, and according to the supposition on which we have hitherto proceeded, he only mentions such a fire in the house of Annas. They who regard as too artificial an expedient the conjecture of Euthymius, that the dwellings of Annas and Caiaphas perhaps had a common court, and that consequently Peter could remain standing by the same fire after Jesus had been led away from the former to the latter, prefer the supposition that the second and third denial occurred, according to John, not after, but during the leading away of Jesus from Annas to Caiaphas.* Thus on the presupposition that John narrates a trial before Annas, the difference between the gospels in relation to the locality of the denial remains a total one; and in this irreconcilable divergency, some have decided in favour of John, on the ground that the scattered disciples had only fragmentary information concerning this scene, — that Peter himself being a stranger in Jerusalem did not know in which palace he had, to his misfortune, entered; but that he, and after him the first Evangelists, supposed the denials to have taken place in the court of Caiaphas; whereas John, from his more intimate acquaintance with the city and the high priest’s palace, was able to rectify this mistake.† But even admitting the incredible supposition that Peter erroneously believed himself to have denied Jesus in the palace of Caiaphas, still John, who in these days was in the society of Peter, would certainly at once have corrected his assertion, so that such an erroneous opinion could not have become fixed in his mind. Hence it might be preferred to reverse the attempt, and to vindicate the synoptists at the expense of John: were it not that the observations contained in the foregoing section (according to which John, after having merely mentioned that Jesus was led away to Annas, may speak from V. 15 of what occurred in the palace of Caiaphas), present a possible solution of this contradiction also.

In relation to the separate acts of denial, all the Evangelists agree in stating that there were three of them, in accordance with the prediction of Jesus; but in the description of the several instances they are at variance. First, as it regards place and persons; according

^*
Thus Schleiermacher, über den Lukas, s,
289; Olshausen,
2,
s. 445.

^†
Thus Paulus, ut sup. s.
577 f.to John the first denial is uttered on the very entrance of Peter, to
a damsel that kept the door,
p
a
i
d
i
s
k
h
q
u
r
w
r
o
V
(v. 17); in the synoptists, in the inner court, where Peter sat at the fire, to
a damsel,
p
a
i
d
i
s
k
h
(Matt. v. 69 f. parall.). The second takes place, in John (v.
25),
and also in Luke, who at least notices no change of position (v.
58),
at the fire: in Matthew (v. 71) and Mark (v. 68 ff.), after Peter was gone out into the
porch,
p
u
l
w
n
,
p
r
o
a
u
l
i
o
n
;
further, in John it is made to several persons; in Luke, to one; in Matthew to another damsel than the one to whom he made the first denial; in Mark, to the same. The third denial happened, according to Matthew and Mark, who mention no change of place after the second, likewise in the porch; according to Luke and John, since they likewise mention no change of place, undoubtedly still in the inner court, at the fire; further, according to Matthew and Mark, to many bystanders, according to Luke to one: according to John, to one who happens to be a relative of the servant who had been wounded in the garden. As regards the conversation which passed on this occasion, the suspicious queries are at one time addressed to Peter himself at another to the bystanders, in order to point him out to their observation, and in the two first instances they are given by the different Evangelists with tolerable agreement, as merely expressing the opinion that he appeared to be one of the adherents of the man recently taken prisoner. But in the third instance, where the parties render a motive for their suspicion, they according to the synoptists mention his Galilean dialect as a proof of its truth; while in John the relative of Malchus appeals to his recollection of having seen Peter in the garden. Now the former mode of accounting for the suspicion is as natural as the second, together with the designation of the individual who adduced it as a relative of Malchus, appears artificial, and fabricated for the sake of firmly interweaving into the narrative the connexion of the sword-stroke given in the garden with the name of Peter.* In the answers of Peter there is the divergency, that according to Matthew he already the second time fortifies his denial by an oath, while according to Mark this is not the case until the third denial, and in the two other Evangelists this circumstance is not mentioned at all; moreover, Matthew, to preserve a gradation, adds on the third denial that Peter began to
curse
k
a
t
a
n
a
q
e
m
a
t
i
z
e
i
n
as well as to
swear
o
m
n
u
e
i
n
,
a representation which when compared with the other gospels may appear exaggerated.