Am I myself when, by an act of free choice, I deny the truth that I have established as such, having ascertained it as an eyewitness?

Did Peter, who affirmed “I do not know the man” (Mt. 26:72), deny only the truth?

Did he not also deny himself?

In betraying Christ, did he not also betray himself?

Would he not remain himself only by siding with the truth, by choosing to testify to it, and, in a certain sense, “transcending himself toward it”?

(My translation of the opening lines of Tadeuz Styczen’s Introduction to “Persona e atto” (“Person and Act”) by Karol Wojtyla, in Metafisica della persona, G. Reale e Tadeuz Styczen, eds., Bompiani, Milano, 2003.)