Nevertheless St. Peter’s testimony has a special value and is expressly invoked before and along with the testimony of the twelve. The reason is, not that St. Peter was the authentic and special, or the first witness, of the Resurrection, but rather that his word and his testimony in general were more highly treasured and that he enjoyed a higher prestige than the other disciples. In other words, St. Peter’s pre-eminence as a witness is not to be explained by his being the first to believe in the Resurrection, but contrariwise it is by his already recognized pre-eminence that we must explain the special value which his testimony enjoyed. The high esteem and special consideration given to his testimony—as evidenced by St. Mark and St. Paul, and by St. Luke also (xii, 42)—compel the historian to conjecture the existence of some fact, existing before the Resurrection of our Lord, which gave St. Peter a special standing in the primitive community, and which caused that community to give his testimony, though not an exclusive, yet an exceptional value. Is there such a fact?