Before the Sanhedrin Court

184:2.1As the band of guards and sol­diers ap­proached the en­trance to the palace of An­nas, John Zeb­e­dee was march­ing by the side of the cap­tain of the Ro­man sol­diers. Ju­das had dropped some dis­tance be­hind, and Si­mon Pe­ter fol­lowed afar off. Af­ter John had en­tered the palace court­yard with Je­sus and the guards, Ju­das came up to the gate but, see­ing Je­sus and John, went on over to the home of Cai­a­phas, where he knew the real trial of the Mas­ter would later take place. Soon af­ter Ju­das had left, Si­mon Pe­ter ar­rived, and as he stood be­fore the gate, John saw him just as they were about to take Je­sus into the palace. The portress who kept the gate knew John, and when he spoke to her, re­quest­ing that she let Pe­ter in, she gladly as­sented.

184:2.2Pe­ter, upon en­ter­ing the court­yard, went over to the char­coal fire and sought to warm him­self, for the night was chilly. He felt very much out of place here among the en­e­mies of Je­sus, and in­deed he was out of place. The Mas­ter had not in­structed him to keep near at hand as he had ad­mon­ished John. Pe­ter be­longed with the other apos­tles, who had been specif­i­cally warned not to en­dan­ger their lives dur­ing these times of the trial and cru­ci­fix­ion of their Mas­ter.

184:2.3Pe­ter threw away his sword shortly be­fore he came up to the palace gate so that he en­tered the court­yard of An­nas un­armed. His mind was in a whirl of con­fu­sion; he could scarcely re­al­ize that Je­sus had been ar­rested. He could not grasp the re­al­ity of the sit­u­a­tion—that he was here in the court­yard of An­nas, warm­ing him­self be­side the ser­vants of the high priest. He won­dered what the other apos­tles were do­ing and, in turn­ing over in his mind as to how John came to be ad­mit­ted to the palace, con­cluded that it was be­cause he was known to the ser­vants, since he had bid­den the gate-keeper ad­mit him.

184:2.4Shortly af­ter the portress let Pe­ter in, and while he was warm­ing him­self by the fire, she went over to him and mis­chievously said, “Are you not also one of this man’s dis­ci­ples?” Now Pe­ter should not have been sur­prised at this rec­og­ni­tion, for it was John who had re­quested that the girl let him pass through the palace gates; but he was in such a tense ner­vous state that this iden­ti­fi­ca­tion as a dis­ci­ple threw him off his bal­ance, and with only one thought up­per­most in his mind—the thought of es­cap­ing with his life—he promptly an­swered the maid’s ques­tion by say­ing, “I am not.”

184:2.5Very soon an­other ser­vant came up to Pe­ter and asked: “Did I not see you in the gar­den when they ar­rested this fel­low? Are you not also one of his fol­low­ers?” Pe­ter was now thor­oughly alarmed; he saw no way of safely es­cap­ing from these ac­cusers; so he ve­he­mently de­nied all con­nec­tion with Je­sus, say­ing, “I know not this man, nei­ther am I one of his fol­low­ers.”

184:2.6About this time the portress of the gate drew Pe­ter to one side and said: “I am sure you are a dis­ci­ple of this Je­sus, not only be­cause one of his fol­low­ers bade me let you in the court­yard, but my sis­ter here has seen you in the tem­ple with this man. Why do you deny this?” When Pe­ter heard the maid ac­cuse him, he de­nied all knowl­edge of Je­sus with much curs­ing and swear­ing, again say­ing, “I am not this man’s fol­lower; I do not even know him; I never heard of him be­fore.”

184:2.7Pe­ter left the fire­side for a time while he walked about the court­yard. He would have liked to have es­caped, but he feared to at­tract at­ten­tion to him­self. Get­ting cold, he re­turned to the fire­side, and one of the men stand­ing near him said: “Surely you are one of this man’s dis­ci­ples. This Je­sus is a Galilean, and your speech be­trays you, for you also speak as a Galilean.” And again Pe­ter de­nied all con­nec­tion with his Mas­ter.

184:2.8Pe­ter was so per­turbed that he sought to es­cape con­tact with his ac­cusers by go­ing away from the fire and re­main­ing by him­self on the porch. Af­ter more than an hour of this iso­la­tion, the gate-keeper and her sis­ter chanced to meet him, and both of them again teas­ingly charged him with be­ing a fol­lower of Je­sus. And again he de­nied the ac­cu­sa­tion. Just as he had once more de­nied all con­nec­tion with Je­sus, the cock crowed, and Pe­ter re­mem­bered the words of warn­ing spo­ken to him by his Mas­ter ear­lier that same night. As he stood there, heavy of heart and crushed with the sense of guilt, the palace doors opened, and the guards led Je­sus past on the way to Cai­a­phas. As the Mas­ter passed Pe­ter, he saw, by the light of the torches, the look of de­spair on the face of his for­mer self-con­fi­dent and su­per­fi­cially brave apos­tle, and he turned and looked upon Pe­ter. Pe­ter never for­got that look as long as he lived. It was such a glance of com­min­gled pity and love as mor­tal man had never be­held in the face of the Mas­ter.

184:2.9Af­ter Je­sus and the guards passed out of the palace gates, Pe­ter fol­lowed them, but only for a short dis­tance. He could not go far­ther. He sat down by the side of the road and wept bit­terly. And when he had shed these tears of agony, he turned his steps back to­ward the camp, hop­ing to find his brother, An­drew. On ar­riv­ing at the camp, he found only David Zeb­e­dee, who sent a mes­sen­ger to di­rect him to where his brother had gone to hide in Je­ru­sa­lem.

184:2.10Pe­ter’s en­tire ex­pe­ri­ence oc­curred in the court­yard of the palace of An­nas on Mount Oli­vet. He did not fol­low Je­sus to the palace of the high priest, Cai­a­phas. That Pe­ter was brought to the re­al­iza­tion that he had re­peat­edly de­nied his Mas­ter by the crow­ing of a cock in­di­cates that this all oc­curred out­side of Je­ru­sa­lem since it was against the law to keep poul­try within the city proper.

184:2.11Un­til the crow­ing of the cock brought Pe­ter to his bet­ter senses, he had only thought, as he walked up and down the porch to keep warm, how clev­erly he had eluded the ac­cu­sa­tions of the ser­vants, and how he had frus­trated their pur­pose to iden­tify him with Je­sus. For the time be­ing, he had only con­sid­ered that these ser­vants had no moral or le­gal right thus to ques­tion him, and he re­ally con­grat­u­lated him­self over the man­ner in which he thought he had avoided be­ing iden­ti­fied and pos­si­bly sub­jected to ar­rest and im­pris­on­ment. Not un­til the cock crowed did it oc­cur to Pe­ter that he had de­nied his Mas­ter. Not un­til Je­sus looked upon him, did he re­al­ize that he had failed to live up to his priv­i­leges as an am­bas­sador of the king­dom.

184:2.12Hav­ing taken the first step along the path of com­pro­mise and least re­sis­tance, there was noth­ing ap­par­ent to Pe­ter but to go on with the course of con­duct de­cided upon. It re­quires a great and no­ble char­ac­ter, hav­ing started out wrong, to turn about and go right. All too of­ten one’s own mind tends to jus­tify con­tin­u­ance in the path of er­ror when once it is en­tered upon.

184:2.13Pe­ter never fully be­lieved that he could be for­given un­til he met his Mas­ter af­ter the res­ur­rec­tion and saw that he was re­ceived just as be­fore the ex­pe­ri­ences of this tragic night of the de­nials.