Denial of Jesus
All four canonical gospels recount that, during the Last Supper, Jesus foretold that Peter would deny association with him three times that same night. The three Synoptics describe the three denials as follows:
1. A denial when a female servant of the high priest spots Simon Peter, saying that he had been with Jesus.
2. A denial when Simon Peter had gone out to the gateway, away from the firelight, but the same servant girl or another told the bystanders he was a follower of Jesus.
3. A denial came when recognition of Peter as a Galilean was taken as proof that he was indeed a disciple of Jesus.
Matthew adds that it was his accent that gave him away as coming from Galilee. Luke deviates slightly from this by stating that, rather than a crowd accusing Simon Peter, it was a third individual.
The Gospel of John places the second denial while Peter was still warming himself at the fire, and gives as the occasion of the third denial a claim by someone to have seen him in the garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was arrested.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus' prediction of Peter's denial is coupled with a prediction that all the apostles ("you," plural) would be "sifted like wheat," but that it would be Peter's task ("you," singular), when he had turned again, to strengthen his brethren.
In a reminiscent scene in John's epilogue, Peter affirms three times that he loves Jesus.
A most poignant literary "aftershock" of the story of Peter's denial may be found in Chekhov's tale, "The Student."
