We may note finally: (1) that the word 'coat' (so RV; AV 'fisher's coat') in Jn 21' stands for the large loose garment (iTrevSiTris) which St. Peter threw as a covering over his almost naked body when he left his fishing and came into the Master s presence ; (2) that it was the under-garments (xiTui-es) that the high priest rent when he ' heard the blasphemy' at our Lord's trial (Mk 14"^; see Swete's notes, in loc.). See also Cloke, Dress. C. L. Feltoe.
COCK See An'Bials, p. 64", and following
article.
COCK-CROWING (dXe/(To/)o0Mi';a). — The word occurs only in Mk 13'*, where it is evidently used to designate the third of four parts into which the night was divided — ' at even, or at midnight, or at (III' r(Hk-rri>\\ iiiu, or in the morning.' In OT tiiiii'^ ihtri- wi-vr (.nl\- lliree watches in the night — till- liiM, th.' miliar.', .'uul the last; but by the tiiui' nf (liiist till' l!i)iiian division into four watches had become common, though it had not altogether superseded the threefold division of the Jews. The night was reckoned, roughly speak- ing, from our 6 P.M. to 6 A.M., and these twelve hours were divided into four watches of three hours each. Jerome says : ' Nox in quatuor vigilias dividitur, qua? singul;e trium horaruin spatio sup- putantur ' (£•/?. cxl. 8). Tlie cock-crowing in Mk 13'* thus refers to the third watch of the night, between the hours of 12 and 3.
Although the noun ' cock-crowing ' occurs only once in the NT, each of the four Evangelists records the fact that on the night of the betrayal Jesus forewarned Peter that before the cock crew he should thrice deny his Lord, and each of them also records a crowing of the cock immediately after the denial (Mt 26*' and "■ ", Lk22'^ and «»• ", .In 1338 18=^). In St. Mark we have the variations —all the more significant because of the writer's commonly acknowledged dependence uiwn the Petrine tradition — that Jesus said to Peter, ' Before
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the cock crow tivicc, thou shalt deny me thrice ' ; and in correspondence with this a record of two distinct cock-crowings (Mk H^"- ««• ■>■).
Attempts have been made to distinguisli between these two cock-crowings in St. Mark as occurring at definite seasons of the night, the one about midnight and the other at the first approaeli of dawn, just before the commencement of the fourth or morning watch, and to define tlie second of the two as tlie gallicinium proper, and consequently the only one of which the other three Evangelists take notice. No doubt it is true that in the most distinctive sense of the word ' the cock-crowing,' as an indication of time, refers to the breaking of the dawn ; thus in the Talmud it is prescribed that at cock-crow the benediction shall be used : ' Praised be Thou, O God, the Lord of the world, that givest understanding to the cock to dis- tinguish between day and night.' But as a matter of fact cocks crow during the night, in the East as elsewhere, at irregular times from midnight on- ward ; and the narrative of Mk 14"*-'= does not suggest that there was an interval of anything like three hours between the first cock-crowing and the second. The probability is that Jesus meant no more than this, that before Peter him- self had twice heard the cock crow he should thrice have been guilty of his great denial. And if we accept St. Mark's narrative as embodying Peter's own account of the incident, it will seem natural that the disciple to whom the warning was directly addressed, and on whom it would make the aeepest impression, should distinguish between two sejiarate cock-crowings where others thought only of the last.
There is no mention of the cock in the Mosaic law, and the supposed allusion to the breed in 1 K 4^* (D-13-13, translated 'fatted fowls' both in AV and RV j is very doubtful. It may be that Solomon had imported these birds from the East ; but, on the other hand, the fact that in the Talmudical literature the cock is always called by the name tarnegdl (^niyi), suggests rather that it was intro- duced into Palestine from Babylonia.* But while the domestic fowl was quite familiar to the Jews of our Lord's time, both the Mishna and the Midrash state that, so long as the Temple stood, the breeding or keeping of cocks in Jerusalem was forbidden, on the ground that by scratching in the earth they dug up unclean things, thus spreading the contagion of Levitical uncleanness, and even contaminating the sacrifices of the altar. On this ground exception has sometimes been taken, especially from Jewish sources, to the statements
of the Evangelists as to the crowing of the cock in Jerusalem on the night before the crucifixion. But if such an ordinance existed, it is very unlikely that it could be strictly enforced in a city like Jerusalem, with a large and mixed population. In partiwilar, we must remember that cock-fighting was one of the favourite sports of the Romans ; and the Roman soldiers of the garrison would con- cern themselves very little about any Jewish pro- hibition of this kind.
Literature. — Grimm-Thayer, Lexicon, s.v. ccXucrcpoi^cviu, ; Smith's Lat.-Eng. Diet. s.». ' Vigilia' ; Meyer's Commentarv on Matthew ; Lange's Life of Christ ; Andrews, Life 0/ our Lord upon the Earth, p. 521 ; Eneiic. BiU. and Jewish Encyclo- pedia, articles 'Coclc' and 'Day'; Hastings' DB, articles