John 18:17Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

What then does this woman say? "Are you not also one of this Man's disciples?" And he answers, "I am not."

What are you saying, Peter? Did you not recently say, "If I must lay down my life for You, I will lay it down"?

What has happened, then, that you cannot endure even a doorkeeper's question? Was it a soldier who questioned you? Was it one of those who seized Him?

It was a simple and insignificant doorkeeper, and the question was not harsh. Indeed, she did not say, "Are you also a disciple of this deceiver and destroyer?" but "of this Man."

These were rather words of one showing compassion and sympathy. Yet Peter could not endure even this.

The words "Are you not also one of the disciples?" were spoken because John was already in the courtyard.

The woman questions Peter without insolence and without harshness, but very gently. For she did not say, "Are you also one of the disciples of this deceiver?" but, "of this Man."

These were rather the words of one who felt pity and was moved by love for a man. She said, "Are you also one of the disciples?" because John was inside the courtyard.

This woman spoke so gently. But Peter noticed none of this. He also let Christ's prediction slip from his attention.

So weak is human nature in itself when it is abandoned by God.

Some, vainly wishing to please Peter, say that Peter denied not because he was afraid, but because he constantly desired to be with Christ and follow Him.

After our Savior Jesus Christ had already foretold Peter's coming threefold denial, and that before the rooster crowed he would grow weak in faith, the Evangelist now gives a particular account of where and how this event occurred.

The woman stationed at the gates asks whether he is one of the disciples of Him who was undergoing an unjust trial. But Peter denies it, as though turning aside an accusation, and says, "I am not."

This, undoubtedly, was not because he feared being seized or refused to declare the truth. Rather, he placed the possibility of suffering something, even unwillingly, behind his desire to be with Christ.

Thus the fall came from love. The denial, though not caused by sound reasoning, was rooted, as it were, in love for God. It was stirred by zeal to be together with the One who suffered.

See how the firmest pillar was shaken by one single breath of air.

Where is the boldness of the disciple who promised to die for the Lord and trusted so greatly in himself? Where are those words he once spoke: "Why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for You" (Jn 13:37)?

Does following the Teacher mean denying that you are His disciple? Does one lay down his life for the Lord by fearing the voice of a doorkeeper, lest such self-sacrifice should occur?

Yet what is astonishing in this, that God foretold the truth and man supposed falsely?

In this denial of the Apostle Peter, which had only begun, we must understand that not only he denies Christ who says that He is not the Christ.

The chief of the disciples, Simon Peter, fell into defeat and temptation so that he might become a physician of the wounded. Since sinners might perhaps be ashamed to repent, the Lord, through Simon the sinner, urged them to turn to Him, who is above all sinners.

Simon denied Him by night and confessed Him by day (Jn 21:4-10). By the fire he denied Him (Jn 18:17-18), and by the fire he confessed Him.

Where he denied Him, the earth was witness. Where he confessed Him, the sea and the earth, each according to its nature, appeared as witnesses.

Since he had fallen away and denied Him with his tongue, he subjected himself to the yoke and gave his shoulders to the cross. He humbly asked to be crucified with his head turned downward.

John relates it in this way. When the servant girl first asked Peter whether he was one of this Man's disciples, he answered for the first time: "I am not."

An apostle of Christ cannot be an apostle of man. So also Paul denied that he was an apostle of man: "Paul, an apostle, chosen not by men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father" (Gal 1:1).

But lest doubt arise about the Incarnation, he added: "the Father, who raised Him from the dead" (Gal 1:1). After you have believed in His divinity, you must also believe in His humanity.

In another place he reasons in the same order: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5).

Read the explanation of the sayings from the Gospel according to Matthew: "And having gone inside, he sat with the servants to see the end" (Mt 26:58), and also: "Now Peter sat outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him" (Mt 26:69). All this is necessary for understanding this verse.

It was a cold night. The slaves and servants had kindled a fire in the courtyard, and all were warming themselves around it.

Peter also stood and warmed himself with them. The doorkeeper who had let Peter in also came near to warm herself.

At that time Annas was questioning Jesus. All the details of the questioning were immediately reported by the servants to those standing in the courtyard.

Therefore those warming themselves at the fire began speaking about the disciples of Jesus. Then the doorkeeper looked closely at Peter and asked: "Are you also not one of this Man's disciples?"

Peter lost courage and answered: "I am not."

While this lawless tribunal against the Holiest of men was taking place, an armed crowd of servants and attendants gathered in the high-priestly courtyard around a blazing fire.

They were occupied with their own discussion of all that had happened. This whole company of servants was naturally hostile toward Christ, in whom they saw only a rebellious Galilean.

They mocked Him and His disciples, who had scattered from fear. Yet not all of them had fled.

In that very courtyard there were two of them, who had enough courage to penetrate into the very midst of their Teacher's enemies.

One was John, the beloved disciple. As a fisherman not unknown in the high-priestly house, he could enter the courtyard without particular difficulty.

The servant girl who kept the door said, and so forth. This was not at the very entrance of Peter, when John was leading him in, but somewhat later.

According to the account of the first three Evangelists, Peter was already sitting by the fire and warming himself. John also narrates this immediately afterward in verse 18.

But now there follow, one after another, events of another meaning.

The servant girl who kept the door, the very one who had let Peter into the courtyard, approached Peter out of a curiosity proper to a woman and asked: "Are you not one of the disciples of Him who was brought bound?" (Jn 18:17).

"Were you with Jesus the Nazarene?" (Mk 14:67). The woman's curiosity seemed unpleasant to Peter, since he did not wish to be recognized.

But by calling Christ Jesus "Jesus the Nazarene," the name used by those who did not believe in Him and by His enemies, the doorkeeper troubled Peter still more.

"I do not know, nor do I understand what you are saying" (Lk 22:57), Peter answered the curious doorkeeper.

According to Mt 26:56, "all the disciples," except Peter and John, "fled."

Peter and another disciple follow the Lord. That this other disciple was the Evangelist John himself has never been doubted, either in ancient times or in our own.

John Chrysostom, in Homily 83 on John, points to the Evangelist's modesty. He seeks to diminish the significance of his act, which was in itself bold, by not mentioning himself by name.

At the same time, he lets us understand that he was an eyewitness of the events and speaks of them with full knowledge.

John enters after the Lord into the courtyard of the high priest. There all the servants not only knew him personally, but also knew that he was one of the Lord's closest disciples.