Now Peter sat outside in the courtyard: and a maidservant came unto him, saying, You also were with Jesus of Galilee.
All Commentaries on Matthew 26:69 Go To Matthew 26
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Oh strange and wonderful acts! When indeed he saw his master seized only, he was so fervent as both to draw his sword, and to cut off the man's ear; but when it was natural for him to be more indignant, and to be inflamed and to burn, hearing such revilings, then he becomes a denier. For who would not have been inflamed to madness by the things that were then done? Yet the disciple, overcome by fears, so far from showing indignation, even denies, and endures not the threat of a miserable and mean girl, and not once only, but a second and third time does he deny Him; and in a short period, and not so much as before judges, for it was without for when he had gone out into the porch, they asked him, and he did not even readily come to a sense of his fall. And this Luke says, Luke 22:61 namely, that Christ looked on him showing that he not only denied Him, but was not even brought to remembrance from within, and this though the cock had crowed; but he needed a further remembrance from his master, and His look was to him instead of a voice; so exceedingly was he full of fear.
