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33 manner of speaking, the tone and vocal expression. One recalls that it was his manner of speaking, his diction, which revealed Peter to the bystanders at the trial as a follower of Christ. According to the Missal account of Palm Sunday, "the bystanders came up and said to Peter, 'Surely thou also art one of them, for even thy speech betrays thee.' " Usually the historical examples have reference to the often embarrassing factor of brogue or accent in speech, of speech peculiarities reflecting nationality or locality. Peter's speech was recognized as Galilean. The classical case of that sort is the word shibboleth. In Judges of the Old Testament, the Gileadites, trying to detect fleeing Ephraimites, made them pronounce that word. But every Ephraimite pronounced the "sh" as an "s," saying sibboleth, whereupon the Gileadites "took him and killed him in the very passage of the Jordan. And there fell at that time of Ephraim two and forty thousand" (Judg. 12:6). That was in the "good old days"! Now, except perhaps behind the Iron Curtain, an accent is not likely to lead to such serious damage. |
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