Why Do You Ask Me?
19 The high priest therefore asked Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. 20 Jesus answered him, “I spoke openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where the Jews always meet. I said nothing in secret. 21 Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them. Behold, they know the things which I said.” 22 When he had said this, one of the officers standing by slapped Jesus with his hand, saying, “Do you answer the high priest like that?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken evil, testify of the evil; but if well, why do you beat me?” 24 Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas, the high priest. 25 Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They said therefore to him, “You aren’t also one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.” 26 One of the servants of the high priest, being a relative of him whose ear Peter had cut off, said, “Didn’t I see you in the garden with him?” 27 Peter therefore denied it again, and immediately the rooster crowed.
The hearing is cut between two rooms — a prisoner answering a high priest and a friend at a fire.
The high priest therefore asked Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching.
Both halves of the question are improper. A prisoner was not required to supply evidence against himself, and asking him to name his followers is fishing for a list.
Jesus answered him, “I spoke openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where the Jews always meet. I said nothing in secret.
The answer refuses the second half entirely — not one name is given — and answers the first by pointing at the public record. Everything he taught was said in the two places where anyone could hear it.
Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them. Behold, they know the things which I said.”
He requires the court to follow its own procedure. Cases were to be established by witnesses, not by interrogating the accused, and he is telling a high priest how a hearing works.
When he had said this, one of the officers standing by slapped Jesus with his hand, saying, “Do you answer the high priest like that?”
The reply to a legal point is a blow. It is the first violence of the night and it comes from a subordinate defending the dignity of the proceeding — which is its own comment on the proceeding.
Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken evil, testify of the evil; but if well, why do you beat me?”
He does not turn the other cheek in the way the phrase is usually understood, and there is no contradiction in that. He does not retaliate; he asks for the rule to be applied. Objecting to injustice is not the same as returning it.
Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas, the high priest.
The old man has got nothing and passes him on. He was bound when he arrived and is still bound.
Then the account cuts back to the courtyard, and the cutting is the writer's art. Two hearings are running at once, and the reader is moved between them.
Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They said therefore to him, “You aren’t also one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.”
The same words as the first denial, and the same easy question expecting a no.
One of the servants of the high priest, being a relative of him whose ear Peter had cut off, said, “Didn’t I see you in the garden with him?”
The third is different and much worse. It comes from a relative of Malchus, the man whose ear Peter took off — somebody who was there and has a personal reason to remember his face. The question is not a suggestion; it is an identification.
And Peter had every reason to be frightened. He had committed assault with a weapon on a member of the high priest's household a few hours earlier, in front of witnesses.
Peter therefore denied it again, and immediately the rooster crowed.
The account stops there. No weeping is recorded in this Gospel, no glance across a courtyard — just a bird, and a sentence that ends.
The contrast the chapter has been building is complete. In one room a man is answering questions he need not answer and refusing to name anybody; in the courtyard his friend is being asked one question three times and getting it wrong.
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