Peter is the most spectacular example of mimetic contagion. His love for Jesus is not in question; it is as sincere as it is profound. Yet as soon as the apostle is plunged into a crowd hostile to Jesus, he is unable to avoid imitating its hostility. If the first of the disciples, the rock on which the Church will be established, succumbs to the collective pressure, how will the others around Peter, just average people, be able to resist? To indicate that Peter will deny him, Jesus refers expressly to the role of scandal—mimetic conflict—in the apostle's life. The Gospels show him to be the
...more
