Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, but whoever killeth shall be liable to judgment. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be liable to judgment; Whosoever shall say to his brother, 'Cancer,' shall be liable to the Sanhedrin; but whoever says, "foolish," is liable to hell fire (Mt 5:21-22).

The best way to avoid being crucified is to ultimately do what everyone else does and participate in the crucifixion yourself. Thus, Peter's denial is one of the episodes of the Passion, a kind of vortex, a small whirlpool in a wide stream of victimized mimeticism, which carries everyone to Golgotha.

The amazing power of this text is also manifested in the fact that anyone who does not realize its true meaning immediately feels the consequences for himself and reproduces the structure of Peter's denial himself. Most often, this deviation from the true meaning looks like an appeal to the "psychology of the prince of the apostles," that is, Peter. But to understand someone's psychology always means to blame him. Peter's accusation usually ends with an acquittal with a tinge of reproach: although not a completely bad man, Peter is not quite good; it cannot be counted on; He is changeable, impulsive, a little weak-willed. In short, he is like Pilate, and Pilate is like Herod, who is like anyone. In the final analysis, there is nothing more monotonous, nothing more simplistic than this mimetic psychology of the Gospels. Perhaps this is not psychology at all. When viewed from a distance, it looks like an infinite variety of the world - so fascinating, exciting, satiating. And when viewed from a distance, it is always composed of the same elements, like our own existence, which, in truth, does not fascinate us in the least.

Thus, the same eternal religion is formed anew around the fire, flavored with sacrifices, protecting the inviolability of the language and household gods, the purity of the family cult. Peter is attracted to all this, and it is quite "natural". We ourselves should be attracted to this, since we reproach the God of the Bible for depriving us of all this. He deprived me out of pure malice, we say. Indeed, one would have to be very evil to expose the persecutory aspect of this age-old religion that still holds us under its grip on countless tethers. Indeed, the Gospel does not almond with the shameful persecutors that we all remain. Even today, in our most banal behavior, as we sit around a fire, it recognizes the ancient gesture of Aztec priests or witch-hunters throwing their prey into the fire.

Like all defectors, Peter demonstrates the sincerity of his conversion by denouncing his former friends. We are used to looking at the moral side of renunciation, but we need to see its anthropological aspect as well. With his curses and curses, Peter invites those around him to enter into a kind of conspiracy with him. Every human group bound by an oath forms a conspiracy, but first of all we apply the word to a group that conspires to kill a person. In the same way, this word is applied to the rites of exorcism, to magical practices directed against someone else's magic...

In many initiation rites, the test consists of some act of violence - the killing of an animal, and sometimes a person, who is considered an opponent of this group as a whole. To achieve belonging to a group, you need to turn its opponent into your victim. Peter resorts to oaths, that is, to religious formulas, in order to give his renunciation the force of initiation, which opens him the entrance to the group of persecutors.

For a correct interpretation of the renunciation, it is necessary to take into account everything that precedes it in the synoptic Gospels, and especially those two scenes that prepare and foreshadow it in the most direct way. These are the two main predictions of the Passion, uttered by Jesus himself. For the first time, Peter does not want to hear anything: "God save you from this, Lord! may it not be so with Thee!" (Mt 16:22*) His reaction is in line with that of all the other disciples. In the beginning, the ideology of success cannot but reign in this small group. The disciples argue about the best places in God's kingdom. Students feel mobilized for a good cause. Any community is obsessed with mimetic desire and is therefore blind to the true nature of the Gospel revelation. The disciples see in Jesus, first of all, a miracle worker, a conjurer of the crowd, a political leader.

The faith of the disciples is imbued with triumphant messianism. But this does not make it any less real. Peter demonstrated this clearly, but some part of him still measures his experiences by the standard of worldly success. Is it possible to imagine an enterprise that seeks only defeat, suffering, and death?

In this episode, Peter hears a stern answer: "Get thee behind me, Satan! you are a stumbling block to Me! [literally, 'You are a scandal to me']" (Mt 16:23). And as soon as a mistake is pointed out to Peter, he immediately changes direction and starts running in the other direction at the same speed. Therefore, at the second prediction of the Passion, just a few hours before his arrest, Peter reacts very differently from the first time:

Then Jesus said to them, "All of you will be offended in me [literally: "you will all be scandalized about me", "I will become a scandal to all of you"] this night <... >. Peter answered and said to Him, "If all are offended about You, I will never be offended [literally, "If everyone is scandalized about You, I will never be scandalized"]. Jesus said to him, "Truly I say to you, that this night, before the crows, you will deny me three times." Peter said to Him, "Though it behooves me to die with Thee, I will not deny Thee." All the disciples said the same (Matthew 26:31, 33-35).

Peter's outward determination is the same as the intensity of his mimeticism. His "discourse" has changed to the opposite compared to the first prediction, but the basis has not changed. And the same is true of the rest of the disciples, who always repeat what Peter says, for they are all as mimetic as he is. They imitate Jesus through the mediation of Peter.