Note 73 — Chapter III · RETIREMENT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, ARREST, TRIAL, CONDEMNATION AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.

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 to John the first denial is uttered on the very entrance of Peter, to a damsel that kept the door, παιδίσκη θυρωρός (v. 17); in the synoptists, in the inner court, where Peter sat at the fire, to a damsel, παιδίσκη (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. πυλὼν, προαύλιον; 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.73 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 καταναθεματίζειν as well as to swear ὀμνύειν, a representation which when compared with the other gospels may appear exaggerated.