Those who look for the causes of Peter's threefold denial only in the “temperament” of the apostle or in his “psychology” are on the wrong track, in my opinion. They do not see anything in the episode that goes beyond Peter as an individual. They believe, therefore, that they can make a “portrait” of the apostle. They attribute to him a “temperament particularly impressionable and impulsive,” or owing to other formulas of the same kind, they destroy the typical character of the event and minimize its Christian significance. The main thing, I repeat, cannot be the psychology of the individual
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