Matthew 26:71,72

When he was gone out into the porch Or portico, as Dr. Doddridge renders it, who observes, “I apprehend that the word προαυλιον, (used by Mark here.) most exactly answers to the Latin word vestibulum, by which many interpreters render it. And, considering the magnificence of the Jewish buildings at this time, it is reasonable to conclude that this, which belonged to the high-priest's palace, was some stately piazza, or colonnade; and therefore I choose rather to render it, portico, than porch, a word applicable to the meanest buildings of that kind.” Another maid saw him, and said, This fellow was also with Jesus Whatever he may pretend to the contrary, and how positively soever he may deny it. And again he denied with an oath A sin to which possibly he was not unaccustomed before our Lord called him. Saying, I do not know the man Jesus was so public a person, and so well known to thousands, not at all in his interest, that this additional falsehood was most unnecessary; and, as it frequently happens when people allow themselves to transgress the bounds of truth, it was more likely to entangle and discover him than to clear him. A learned divine conjectures, that Peter was suffered to fall more foully than any of the rest of the apostles, except Judas the traitor, and to make more remarkable mistakes in his conduct, that we might thus be cautioned against that extravagant regard which would afterward be demanded to him and his pretended successors. How must these people, before whom Peter denied his Lord, be surprised when they saw, as no doubt some of them did, this timorous disciple, within the compass of a few weeks, when he was brought with John before the council, not only maintaining the cause and honour of Jesus, but boldly charging the murder of this Prince of life on the chief men of the nation, and solemnly warning them of their guilt and danger in consequence of it. Acts 4:5. Perhaps when it is said there, Matthew 26:13, that they took knowledge of Peter and John that they had been with Jesus, the meaning may be, that some of them, or their attendants, remembered Peter and John as the two persons who had followed Jesus thus far, when the rest had forsaken him. See Clarke's Seventeen Sermons, p. 236, and Doddridge.