Poor Peter! the more he swore and cursed the more clearly he revealed his identity. His cowardice might have concealed him, but for his dialect. He spoke the dialect of Galilee in the city of Jerusalem, and so far as the identification of his person was concerned, even a certificate from the authorities of the town of his birth, testifying to his being a native of Galilee, could not have so effectively served that purpose.
The second characteristic is the juvenile habit of imploring "in season and out of season" when asking a favor. To try to exert "undue" influence, virtually to beg in most persuasive tones, is an Oriental habit which to an American must seem unendurable. Of the many illustrations of this custom which fill my memory I will relate the following incident, which I once heard a man relate to my father.
This man had bought, for six hundred piasters, a piece of land which had been given as a _nezer_ (vow) to our Greek Orthodox Church. After he had given his note for the { 179} sum and secured the deed, it occurred to him that the price was too high, and, being himself a son of the Church, that he ought to secure the land for four hundred piasters. So, as he stated, he went to Beyrout, the seat of our bishop, where he stayed three days. By constant petitioning, he secured the privilege of interviewing the bishop four times on the subject. With great glee he stated that at the last interview he refused to rise from his seat at the feet of that long-suffering ecclesiastic until his petition was granted.
One of the most striking examples of this characteristic is the parable of the unrighteous judge, in the eighteenth chapter of Luke. "There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: and there was a widow in that city, and she came unto him saying, Avenge me [the original is "do me justice"] of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man, yet because this widow troubleth me, I will { 180} avenge her, _lest by her continual coming she weary me_."
Here is a case--by no means a rare exception in that country--where a judge rendered a verdict against his own best judgment in sheer self-defense. And I must say that, knowing such Oriental tendencies as I do, especially as manifested by widows, I am in deep sympathy with the judge.