This was the truth. Jesus was not esoteric. Even if He sometimes said to His Disciples words that He did not repeat in the open places of the city, He exhorted them to cry out on the housetops what He told them in the house. But Annas must have made a wry face at an answer which pre-supposed an honest trial, for one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, “Answerest thou the high priest so?”
This blow from the quick-tempered attendant was the beginning of the insults which were henceforth rained upon Christ up to the cross. But He who had been struck, with His cheek reddened by the boor, turned towards the man who had struck Him, “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?”
The rogue, abashed by such calm, found no answer. Annas began to see that this Galilean was no common adventurer, and he was all the more eager to get Him out of the way. Seeing, however, that he was not succeeding in extracting anything from Him, he sent Him bound to Caiaphas, the High Priest, so that the fiction of a legal prosecution might begin at once.
THE COCK CROWS
Only two of the fleeing Disciples repented of their cowardice, and trembling in the shadow of the walls, followed from afar the swaying lanterns which accompanied Christ to the den of fratricides: Simon, son of Jonas, and John, son of Zebedee.
John, who was known in the household of Caiaphas, went into the courtyard of the building with Jesus, but Simon, more shamefaced, or not so bold, did not enter and stood at the door without: then after a few moments John, not seeing his companion, and wishing to have him at hand for sympathy or defense, went out and persuaded the suspicious doorkeeper to let Peter also come in. But as he stepped through the door, the woman recognized him: “Art not thou also one of his disciples?”
But Peter took on an offended air, “I know not, neither understand I what thou sayest. I know him not.”
And he sat down with John near the brazier which the servants had kindled in the courtyard because, although it was in April, the night was cold. But the woman would not give up her idea, and coming to the fire and looking at him earnestly, said, “Thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth,” and he denied again with curses, “Woman, I know him not!”
The gate-keeper, shaking her head, turned back to her gate, but the men aroused by these heated denials looked at him more closely and said, “Surely thou art one of them: for thou art a Galilean, and thy speech agreeth thereto.”
Then Simon began to curse and to swear, but another, a kinsman of Malchus whose ear Peter had cut off, cut short his testimony: “Did I not see thee in the garden with him?”