Saint Peter

===Denial of Jesus by Peter===
[[File:El Greco - Las lágrimas de San Pedro.jpg|thumb|''The tears of Saint Peter'', by [[El Greco]], late 16th century]]
{{Main|Denial of Peter}}
[[File:The Denial of Saint Peter-Caravaggio (1610).jpg|thumb|''The Denial of Saint Peter'', by [[Caravaggio]], c. 1610]]

All four canonical gospels recount that, during the [[Last Supper]], Jesus foretold that Peter would deny him three times before the following cockcrow ("before the cock crows twice" in Mark's account). The three Synoptics and John describe the three denials as follows:
# A denial when a female servant of the high priest spots Simon Peter, saying that he had been with Jesus. According to Mark (but not in all manuscripts), "the rooster crowed". Only Luke and John mention a fire by which Peter was warming himself among other people: according to Luke, Peter was "sitting"; according to John, he was "standing".
# A denial when Simon Peter had gone out to the gateway, away from the firelight, but the same servant girl (per ''Mark'') or another servant girl (per ''Matthew'') or a man (per ''Luke'' and also ''John'', for whom, though, this is the third denial) told the bystanders he was a follower of Jesus. According to John, "the rooster crowed". 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 [[arrest of Jesus|Jesus was arrested]].
# A denial came when Peter's Galilean accent was taken as proof that he was indeed a disciple of Jesus. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, "the rooster crowed". Matthew adds that it was his [[Accent (sociolinguistics)|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. John does not mention the Galilean accent.

In the Gospel of Luke is a record of Christ telling Peter: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." In a reminiscent<ref name="May Metzger">May, Herbert G. and Bruce M. Metzger. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha. 1977.</ref> scene in John's epilogue, Peter affirms three times that he loves Jesus.