John 18:15-18

“ Now Simon Peter followed Jesus, as well as another disciple, and that disciple was known to the high-priest, and he entered in with Jesus into the court of the high-priest. 16. And Peter was standing without at the door; the other disciple, who was known to the high-priest, went out therefore and spoke to her who kept the door, and brought in Peter. 17. The maid that kept the door, therefore, says to Peter, Art not thou also of this man's disciples? Peter answers, I am not. 18. Now the servants and the officers were standing there, having made a fire of charcoal, because it was cold; and Peter was standing among them and warming himself. ”

While the Synoptics relate in a consecutive way the three denials of Peter, probably because in the oral preaching the narrative of this event formed an altogether peculiar little story, an ἀπομνημόνευμα, John separates the three acts of denial in the course of his narration, passing alternately from Peter to Jesus and from Jesus to Peter. This better articulated narrative certainly reproduces the true course of things, and nothing more clearly reveals in the author of our Gospel the witness of the facts, who through his own recollections exercised power over the received tradition. “The same superiority,” says Renan, rightly, “in the account of Peter's denials. All is more circumstantial, better explained.”

With the article ὁ, the, the term the other disciple could only be referred to the disciple whom Jesus loved, whose particular connection with Peter we have already ascertained in John 13:21; John 13:24. But this article is wanting in the Alexandrian documents and in the ancient Versions. Nothing, moreover, in the context justifies the use of the definite article. If we read, as we should, “ an other disciple,” it may be John himself; this is the more common supposition. The periphrasis, however, of which he makes use in order to preserve his anonymous character is rather this: “the disciple whom Jesus loved ” (John 13:23, John 19:26). I formerly attempted to justify this change of expression by saying that “it was not the occasion for using a term of tenderness when the disciples had just abandoned their Master;” but this explanation is somewhat subtle. Did not John designate by this phrase some other disciple, his brother James, for example, whom he does not mention by name anywhere in his whole Gospel, any more than he does himself or his mother?

We do not know the relations which Zebedee and his sons may have had with the household of the high-priest. Perhaps the very profession of Zebedee had furnished the occasion for it. Thanks to these relations, this disciple had been able to enter within the priestly palace with the company, and soon he was able to gain admission for Peter, who had undoubtedly asked of him this service.

But of what high-priest does John mean to speak when he says in John 18:15: into the court of the high-priest (αὐλή, more probably here the interior court than the palace itself)? On the one hand, if the relation of ἠκολούθει, followed, John 18:15, to ἀπήγαγον, led him away, John 18:13, is considered, it seems that there can be no question except of the palace of Annas. On the other hand, according to John 18:13-14, how can we suppose that there can be a question of another high-priest than Caiaphas, who has just now expressly received the title? Undoubtedly, Annas is also called ἀρχιερεύς (Acts 4:6). Schurer has even shown that this title might be applied to all the members of the privileged families from which the high-priests were ordinarily taken. Nevertheless, this title has nowhere in our Gospel this broad sense, and it would be difficult indeed to believe that after having contrasted, as he has done in John 18:13, Caiaphas as “ the high-priest of that year,” with Annas, his father-in-law, John would designate this latter person, a few lines farther on, simply by the title of high-priest. How could the readers, who had never heard of Annas, have supposed that he also bore this title? It is, therefore, clearly the house of Caiaphas of which John means to speak, if he has not written in an unintelligible way. But, in that case, it is asked how the relations which the disciple sustained to the high-priest Caiaphas and the members of his household could open to him the entrance into the abode of Annas, to whom Jesus was first led. There is but one solution to this question, which the narrative of John itself suggests, setting aside that of the Synoptics; it is that these two personages lived in the same palace. The bond of close relationship which united them explains this circumstance, and it is for this reason, undoubtedly, that John has so expressly noticed this particular. Meyer is wrong, therefore, in saying that the text does not offer the least indication in favor of this opinion. John's account leads directly to it.

The Hebrews very commonly had female doorkeepers (Josephus, Antiq. 7.2, 1; Acts 12:13; 2 Samuel 4:6, according to the text of the LXX).

The καί, also (“Art not thou also ”), shows that this woman already knew the unnamed disciple as one of the adherents of Jesus.

The three denials of Peter, as Luthardt observes, have three distinct historical starting-points, which are more or less distributed among the four evangelists: 1. The introduction of Peter into the court by a friend, who was himself known as a disciple of Jesus; 2. The recollection which had been retained of Peter by those who had seen him at the time of the arrest of Jesus; 3. His Galilean dialect. To these external circumstances, which called forth his trial, was added an internal one which facilitated his fall: the recollection of the blow which he had struck, and which exposed him, more than all the rest, to the danger of being involved in the judgment of his Master. Fear therefore combined with presumption; and thus was the warning which Jesus had given him verified: “ The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. ”

The δοῦλοι, servants, John 18:18, designate the domestic servants attached to the priestly house; the ὑπηρέται, officers, are the official servants of the Sanhedrim, charged with the police duties of the temple.

The last words of John 18:18: Peter was standing with them and warming himself, are repeated literally in John 18:25. They are placed here, as a stepping-stone with a view to the approaching resumption of the story relating to Peter, after the appearance of Jesus in the house of Annas. Hence it follows: 1. That there is an absolute impossibility in the way of placing the last two denials in another locality than the first; and 2. That these last two denials took place, not after, but during the examination of Jesus.

The verbs in the imperfect tense are picturesque, and signify that the situation described continues during the whole examination which is about to be related, so that, according to the narrative, the scene of John 18:25-26 (Peter) took place simultaneously with that of John 18:19-23 (Jesus).