Peter said unto him, Though I should die with you, yet will I not deny you. Likewise also said all the disciples.
All Commentaries on Matthew 26:35 Go To Matthew 26
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Let them hear this, who like swine with no thought but of eating rise from the table drunk, when they should have given thanks, and closed with a hymn. Letthem hear who will not tarry for the final prayer in the sacred mysteries; forthe last prayer of the mysteries represents that hymn. He gave thanks before He delivered the holy mysteries to the disciples, that we also might give thanks; He sung a hymn after He had delivered them, that we also should do the like.
In this we see what the disciples were both before and after the cross. They who could not stand with Christ whilst He was crucified, became after the death of Christ harder than adamant. This flight and fear of the disciples is ademonstration of Christ’s death against those who are infected with the heresy of Marcion. If He had been neither bound nor crucified, whence arose the terror of Peter and the rest?.
He produces this prophecy to teach them to attend to the things that arewritten, and to show that His crucifixion was according to the counsel of God, and (as He does throughout) that He was not a stranger to the Old Testament, but that it prophesied of Him. But He did not suffer them to continue in sorrow, but announces glad tidings, saying, “When I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.” After His resurrection He does not appear to them immediately from heaven, nor depart into any far country, but in the very same nation in which He was crucified, almost in the very place, giving them thereby assurance, that He who was crucified was the same as He who rose again, thereby to cheer their cast-down countenances. He fixes upon Galilee, that, being delivered from fear of the Jews, they might believe what He spoke to them.
What sayest thou, Peter? The Prophet says, “The sheep shall be scattered abroad,” and Christ has confirmed it, yet thou sayest, Never. When He said, "One of you shall betray me,” thou fearedst for thyself, although thou wert notconscious of such a thought; now when He openly affirms, “All ye shall be offended,” you deny it. But because when he was relieved of the anxiety he had concerning the betrayal, he grew confident concerning the rest, he therefore says thus, “I will never be offended.”.
Hence then we learn the great doctrine, that man’s wish is not enough, unless he enjoys Divine support.
