And the second time the cock crowed. And Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him,
Before the cock crows twice, you shall deny me three times.
And when he thought on this, he wept.
All Commentaries on Mark 14:72 Go To Mark 14
Eusebius of Caesarea
AD 339
Mark writes these things, and through him Peter bears witness, for the whole of Mark is said to be a record of Peter’s teaching. Note how scrupulously the disciples refused to record those things that might have given the impression of their fame. Note how they handed down in writing numerous charges against themselves to unforgetting ages, and accusations of sins, which no one in later years would ever have known about unless hearing it from their own voice. By thus honestly reporting their own faults, it is reasonable to view them as relatively void of false speaking and egoism. This habit gives plain and clear proof of their truthloving disposition. As for such critics who imagine they invented and lied, and try to slander them as deceivers, should they not to be regarded as absurd? Aren’t they thereby being convicted as friends of envy and malice, and foes of truth itself? For have they not taken those who have exhibited in their own words good proof of their integrity, and their straightforward and sincere character, and suggested that they are rascals and clever sophists who invent what never took place, and ascribe gratuitously to their own master what he never did? This is why I think it has been rightly said that “One must put complete confidence in the disciples of Jesus, or none at all.” And if we are to distrust them, we must also distrust all writers on the same principle, any who at any time have compiled, either in Greece or anywhere, lives and histories and records of persons of their own times, celebrating their noble achievements. Otherwise we would be considering it reasonable to believe others, and to disbelieve the evangelists only. And this would be clearly invidious. How could it be that these supposed liars would falsify the account of his death? What would be their motive in writing down deeds he never did? They candidly report his betrayal by one of his disciples, explicit accusations by dubious witnesses, insults and blows to his face, the scourging of his back, the crown of acanthus set on his head in a demeaning way, and finally his carrying of his own cross, and his being nailed to it! They report his hands and feet being pierced, his being given vinegar to drink, struck on the cheek with a reed, and reviled by those who looked upon him. Were these things and all else like them in the Gospels simply invented out of whole cloth by the disciples? Highly unlikely. Or must we doubt only the more glorious and lofty parts of the narrative? How could they do so and doubt these candid reports of ignominious actions? How could they reasonably support such an unreasonable conclusion—that the same witnesses spoke the truth and at the same time lied. That would be to predict contraries about the same people at the same time. How then are we to disprove their assertions? If it was their aim to deceive, and to adorn their master with false words, they would never have written these demeaning accounts of his pain and agony and that he was disturbed in spirit, that they themselves forsook him and fled, or that Peter the apostle and disciple who was chief of the apostles denied him three times, unless they had an extraordinarily high standard of truthtelling.
