Under the weight of this look, Simon hung his head and his heart beat furiously in his breast. Not for his very life could he have brought out another “No.” His face burned with an intolerable heat as if the brazier before him had been the mouth of Hell. He was torn by an unbearable tumult of passion and of remorse; in one breath he seemed frozen, in the next all his body flamed. A moment before he had said that he had never known Jesus, and now it seemed to him that he had spoken truly, that at this moment he knew Him for the first time: that he finally understood who He was, as if those eyes full of loving grief had pierced him with a flash like an archangel’s sword. He was scarcely able to drag himself to his feet and to stumble out to the door. As he went out into the street in the silent, solitary darkness a distant cock crew. This gay, bold note was for Peter like the cry which awakens a sleeper from his nightmare. Then in the dim light of dawn the last stars saw a man staggering along like a drunkard, his head hidden in his cloak, his shoulders shaken by the sobs of a despairing lament. Weep, Peter, now that God mercifully grants you the grace of tears, weep for yourself and for Him, weep for Judas, your traitor brother; weep for your fleeing brothers, weep for the death of Him who is dying to save your poor soul, for all those who will come after you and who will do as you have done, deny their Saviour, and who will not pay for their redemption by repentance. Weep for all the apostates, for all the others who will deny Him, all those who will say as you have said, “I am not one of His disciples!” Who of us has not done at least once what Simon Peter did? Who of us, born in the Church of Christ, having prayed to Him with our childish lips, having knelt before His blood-stained face, has not said, fearing a mocking smile, “I never knew Him.” Thou at least, unfortunate Simon, although thou wast Peter the rock, wept bitterly and hid in thy cloak thy face convulsed with remorse. And before many days Christ risen from the dead will kiss thee once more because thy perjured mouth has been washed clean forever by thy tears. THEN THE HIGH PRIEST RENT HIS CLOTHES Caiaphas’ real name was Joseph. Caiaphas is a surname and is the same word as Cephas, Simon’s surname, that is to say, Rock. On that Friday morning’s dawn, the Son of Man was caught between those two rocks like a grain of wheat between two millstones. Simon Peter is the type of the timid friends who knew not how to save Him: Joseph Peter, of His enemies, determined at any cost to destroy Him. Between the denial of Simon and the hatred of Joseph, between the head of the church about to disappear and the head of the Church just coming into existence, between those two rocks Jesus was like wheat between the mill-stones.