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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
The story of Jesus' prediction of Peter's denial, along with its subsequent realization, forms part of the material transmitted by all four evangelists. In all four it is embedded in the Passion narrative, and all four accounts share many unquestionable similarities: e.g. the prediction’ by Jesus of the denial, Peter's protestation of loyalty and his willingness to suffer death, the denial itself, in which Jesus' prediction is carried out in detail. Nevertheless, in spite of this wide measure of agreement, difficulties remain.
page 426 note 1 i.e. Matt. xxvi. 30–5, 69–75; Mark xiv. 26–31, 54, 66–72; Luke xxii. 31–4, 54b-62; John xiii. 36–8, and xviii. 15–18, 25–7.
page 426 note 2 John xviii. 12–27. However, the sections dealing with Peter's movements and conduct are relatively easily isolated from the whole.
page 426 note 3 Cf. for example, Dodd, C. H., Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, 1963), p. 83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 426 note 4 E.g. Finegan, J., Die Überlieferung der Leidens- und Auferstehungsgeschichte Jesu’, B.Z.N.W. XV (Giessen, 1934), 14, 52,Google Scholar etc.; Linnemann, Eta, Die Verleugnung des Petrus’, Z.Th.K. LXIII (1966), 1–32, esp. 22–5Google Scholar; etc.
page 426 note 5 The question is posed by Greeven, H., Gebet und Eschatologie im Neuen Testament (1931), pp. 50 f.Google Scholar (cited by Klein, G., Z.Th.K. LVIII (1961), 312).Google Scholar
page 426 note 6 Cf. the discussion in Taylor, V., The Gospel according to St Mark (London, 1952), pp. 548 ff., 571–2Google Scholar; also Finegan, op. cit. p. 70. So too, Merkel, Helmut, Peter's Curse’, in: The Trial of Jesus—Cambridge Studies in honour of C. F. D. Moule, ed. by Bammel, Ernst (London, 1970) (SBT, Second Series, 13), pp. 70–1.Google Scholar He draws attention to the use of the term άναθεματlзειν in Mark xiv. 71 contending that it implies that Peter cursed Christ, and arguing that if so, then strong support’ is given to the comment of Schniewind, J. (Das Evangelium des Markus, NTD, 10th ed. 1963, p. 195)Google Scholar that it is quite unthinkable that the community should have invented a story about her recognized leader which humbled him so deeply, unless something of the sort had actually taken place’.
page 427 note 1 So Finegan, op. cit. pp. 69, 73; Dibelius, M., Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums4 (Tübingen, 1961), p. 216.Google Scholar
page 427 note 2 Did Peter deny his Lord? A Conjecture’, H.Th.R. XXV (1932), 1–27.Google Scholar
page 427 note 3 Bundy, W. E., Jesus and the First Three Gospels (Cambridge, Mass., 1955), p. 504CrossRefGoogle Scholar; E. Linnemann, loc. cit. pp. 20–1.
page 427 note 4 Die Verleugnung des Petrus’, Z.Th.K. LVIII (1961), 285–328.Google Scholar
page 427 note 5 Ibid. p. 324.
page 427 note 6 Cf. E. Linnemann, loc. cit. p. 1, etc.
page 427 note 7 Finegan, op. cit. p. 69; Bultmann, R., Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition2 (Göttingen, 1931 = 5 1961),Google ScholarET, The History of the Gospel Tradition (Oxford, 1963), p. 266Google Scholar; cf. also Bundy, op. cit. p. 502.
page 428 note 1 Das Evangelium Marci2 (Berlin, 1909), p. 119.Google Scholar
page 428 note 2 The Denials of Peter’, Exp.T. XXVIII (1916-1917), 297.Google Scholar
page 428 note 3 Op. cit. p. 184.
page 428 note 4 Weiss, J., Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments2 (Göttingen, 1907–1908), I, 208.Google Scholar
page 428 note 5 Ibid. p. 297.
page 428 note 6 Wellhausen, op. cit. p. 119; Lohmeyer, E., Das Evangelium des Markus11 (1951), p. 311Google Scholar; V. Taylor, op. cit. p. 549, etc.
page 429 note 1 Loc. cit. p. 3.
page 429 note 2 Cf. Bultmann, op. cit. p. 267; Finegan, op. cit. p. 69; V. Taylor, op. cit. p. 549.
page 429 note 3 So Stendahl, K., The School of St Matthew2 (Lund, 1967), p. 81Google Scholar; his view is corrected somewhat by de Waard, J., A Comparative Study of the Old Testament Text in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the New Testament (Leiden, 1966)Google Scholar (Studies in the Texts of the Desert of Judah, 4), pp. 37–41, esp. p. 38 n. I.
page 429 note 4 Suhl, Alferd, Die Funktion der alttestamentlichen Zitate und Anspielungen im Markusevangelium (Gütersloh, 1965), p. 62.Google Scholar
page 429 note 5 See E. Linnemann, loc. cit. p. 16.
page 429 note 6 Suhl, op. cit. pp. 62 f.
page 429 note 7 Linneman, loc. cit. p. 17.
page 428 note 1 Lohmeyer, op. cit. p. 311.
page 428 note 2 Loc. cit. p. 297.
page 429 note 1 V. Taylor, commenting on Mark xiii. 3, argues that its vocabulary suggests that it is a Markan composition—Every word in 3 is well represented in Mark's vocabulary’: he claims nevertheless that it is not just a literary setting for vv. 5–37, and looks rather to oral or written tradition (op. cit. pp. 501–2). Careful comparison with the LXX text of Zech. xiv. 4, however, would suggest that reference to Markan vocabulary is misleading here. The subject of Zech. xiii. 7-xiv. 4 is altogether too conveniently similar to that of Mark xiii. 3 ff. for the almost verbal parallel to be wholly fortuitous. Rather than seek here a piece of oral or written tradition’, we may suggest the use of a piece of Scripture, consciously or unconsciously built into the narrative—we suggest that it is deliberate. Note too, that the change from Jerusalem’ to temple’ is possible in Greek only, not in either Hebrew or Aramaic; this too would fit in with the fact that the citation from Zech. xiii. 7 in Mark xiv. 27b is from the LXX in the Q-text. The whole is probably to be seen against the Temple-destruction’ logion of xiii. 2, and the charge against Jesus in Mark xiv. 58.
page 429 note 2 E.g. Actsxx. 35; John xv. 20 (=John xiii. 16); John ii. 22; etc.
page 430 note 1 Die Parallelperikopen bei Lukas und Johannes, 1914 (repr. Darmstadt, 1958), pp. 28–32, 37–62.Google Scholar
page 430 note 2 Cf. p. 426 n. 3, above.
page 430 note 3 Op. cit. p. 32.
page 430 note 4 Cf. Schille, G., Das Leiden des Herrn’, Z.Th.K. LII (1955), 161–205, esp. p. 178.Google Scholar A similar trait is noticeable in John xiii. 30: see the discussion in the writer's essay, The Composition of John xiii. 21–30’, in Neotestamentica et Semitica: Studies in honour of Matthew Black, edited by E. Earle Ellis and Max Wilcox (Edinburgh, 1969), pp. 143–56, esp. p. 144.Google Scholar
page 430 note 5 Cf. Goguel, loc. cit. pp. 6, 27. In this connection we may refer to the collection of saying of Jesus in Mark viii. 34–8, on the theme of the cost of discipleship’, the need to lay down one's life for the sake of Christ and the Gospel (v. 35), the warning against denial’ (using the verb, άπαπνετσθαι, which is also found in our present passage (Mark xiv. 30, 31 and xiv. 72) —although not in the actual denials’ themselves, xiv. 68, 70. Cf. viii. 34). This same collection of saying would moreover fit in well with the Lukan and Johannine denial-prediction logia, viz. Luke xxii. 33–4 and John xiii. 37–8. But it must not be forgotten that the collection of the sayings into a group may itself not be original, but due either to the Evangelist or to a prior stage in his tradition. That this group of sayings follows the sharp rebuke to Peter in viii. 33 has led some to seek to press the parallel with the denial-sequence in Mark xiv.
page 431 note 1 Dibelius, op. cit. p. 218.
page 431 note 2 So, e.g. Taylor, op. cit. p. 563; Bultmann, op. cit. p. 269.
page 431 note 3 See Finegen, op. cit. pp. 72–3. Its allegedly secondary character is carefully examined and rejected by Catchpole, D. R. in The Historicity of the Sanhedrin Trial’, in the C. F. D. Moule Festschrift (see above, p. 426 n. 6), pp. 45–65.Google Scholar Catchpole rightly observes that exposing the editorial method of Mark does not actually determine the question of historicity either way’. He also questions the validity of the objections raised against the Marken Sanhedrin-trial account on the basis of Jewish law. But neither of these points really affects the fact that we have here two stories, notone. For our present purpose it does not really matter whether the trial-story is secondary or not: it is sufficient that it is a separate story and interrupts the immediate context.
page 431 note 4 Loc. cit. p. 297.
page 431 note 5 Ibid. p. 296.
page 431 note 6 Bundy, op. cit. p. 521; cf. Goguel, loc. cit. p. 6, cited with approval by Klein, loc. cit. p. 308.
page 431 note 7 Klein, loc. cit. p. 307, referring to Finegan, op. cit. pp. 69 f.
page 432 note 1 Seitz, O. J. F., Peter's “Profanity”. Mark xiv. 71 in the light of Matthew xvi. 22’, in Studia Evangelica, T. U. LXXIII (Berlin, 1959), 516–19; see p. 519.Google Scholar
page 432 note 2 Loc. cit. p. 13.
page 433 note 1 Note that the text of Isa. liii. 4 cited here by Matthew is akin to the MT, not the LXX. Cf. Stendahl, op. cit. pp. 106–7.
page 433 note 2 We may refer to p. 432 n. 5 above. Thus, whereas the saying in v. 27a may well have belonged to the context of the Supper sequence’ (as do the Luken and Johannine, denial-predicition’ logia, Luke xxii. 33–4Google Scholar and John xiii. 37–8), that in v. 30 shows points of affinity with the cost of discipleship’ sayings in Mark viii. 34ix. I. But although the setting of the Lukan and Johannine denialpredicition sayings is the Support sequence, their content, like that of the Markan sayings in Mark xiv. 30, 31, is akin to that of the cost of discipleship’ sayings also. Note especially, Luke xxii. 33, where Peter protests his willingness to suffer prison and death’ for Jesus, and John xiii. 37b, where he offers to lay down his life for JesusW. Grundmann seems to be right when he comments on Mark xiv. 31: Die Entscheidungsfrage Tod oder Verleugnung führt in die Situation des Martyriums, in der Jesus allein steht’ (Das Evangelium des Markus2, Th.H.K.N.T. II (Berlin, n.d.), p. 289). One also calls to mind the Johannine presentation of Jesus as the Good Shepherd’ who voluntarily lays down his life for the sheep (John x. 11–18; cf. xv. 13, and I John iii. 16).
page 433 note 3 On άπνε⋯σθαι as meaning not to believe’, and not to confess’, etc., as opposed to όμολογετν, see Riesenfeld, H., The Verb άπνετσθα’, in In honorem Antonii Fridrichsen, C.N. XI (Lund/Copenhagen, 1947), pp. 207–19.Google Scholar
page 433 note 4 Cf. the discussion of this verse by Black, Matthew, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts8 (Oxford, 1967), p. 218,Google Scholar where an explanation of this odd expression, ύπαγε ίπισω μον, in terms of an Aramaic original is questioned. The further point, concerning the apparently anti-Petrine’ triat discernible in both Mark viii. 33 and in the denial-sequence, draws from Klein the comment that Matt. xiv. 28–31 (only in Matt.) the underlining of Peter's όλγοποτια’ is nicht etwa nur eine marcinische Spezialität’ (Klein, loc. cit. p. 326.)
page 434 note 1 Loc. cit. p. 31.
page 434 note 2 It may well be that Mark xiv. 31 reflects viii. 31; but we ought also to remember that the whole theme of the disciples being handed over to the Sanhedrin, the synagogue, and the pagan authorities is depicted in Mark xiii. 5 ff. The preamble to this section, however, is Mark xiii. 3 ff., and we saw above (pp. 430 f.) reason for asking whether there might not have been a link between both Mark xiii. 3 ff. and the denial-prediction sayings by way of Zech. xiii. 7—xiv. 4. The note of the cock-crow’ in Mark xiii. 35 and in the denial-sequence would seem to add weight to this view. (Cf. also M. Dibelius, op. cit. p. 218). See also p. 433 above.