In addition to the anti-Jewish character of this account, there are a number of other interesting legendary features. In the Gospels of the New Testament Jesus is crucified with two others, as happens here. But in this Gospel there is a curious incident. When those who crucify Jesus gamble for his clothes, one of the “evildoers” being crucified with him maligns them: “We have suffered like this for the evil things we did; but this one, the Savior of the people, what wrong has he done you?” The soldiers get angry at the man and order “his legs not be broken, so that he would die in torment” (vv. 14–15).9 The idea is that a crucified man would die more quickly if he could not push up with his legs to relieve the pressure on his lungs and breathe. By not breaking the criminal’s legs they prolong his torment.
One of the big questions of this Gospel is whether Jesus himself experiences any torment. In v. 11 we are told that Jesus was “silent, as if he had no pain.” Is it possible that this is one of the verses that Serapion found potentially objectionable? That Jesus appeared not to have pain, because in fact he did not have any pain? That his body was a phantasm?
A later verse is equally puzzling. When Jesus is about to die, rather than crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” as, say, in the Gospel of Mark (15:34), he instead cries, “My power, O power, you have left me behind!” And then we are told, “When he said this, he was taken up.” Doesn’t this sound like the other kind of docetism, the kind where the divine Christ leaves the human Jesus to die alone?10
The most striking passage of the Gospel comes at the very end, a passage that provides us with something we never find in the New Testament Gospels: an actual account of the resurrection. As I pointed out in Chapter 1, the canonical Gospels do not narrate the resurrection of Jesus. In their stories, Jesus is crucified, dies, and is buried, and on the third day the women go to the tomb and find it empty. But there is no story in the Gospels of the New Testament about Jesus coming out of the tomb alive. The Gospel of Peter, however, does have such a story.
As happens in the Gospel of Matthew, but in none of the other canonical Gospels, a guard is posted at the tomb of Jesus to make sure that no one comes to steal the body. But unlike in Matthew, in the Gospel of Peter a very peculiar sequence of events occurs while the guards are looking on. The heavens open up and two “men” descend, while the stone in front of the tomb rolls aside. The two heavenly men enter the tomb.
Terrified, the soldiers go off to wake the centurion to tell him what has happened. But while they are talking, they look up and see three figures emerge from the tomb. Two of them are so tall that their heads reach up to the sky. The one they are supporting—Jesus obviously—is taller still; his head reaches above the sky. And then, behind them, the cross itself emerges from the tomb. And a voice comes from heaven asking, “Have you preached to those who are asleep?” And the cross replies, “Yes.” So, at the resurrection, we have a giant Jesus and a walking, talking cross.
The narrative is meant, of course, to be highly symbolic. Divine beings are often portrayed as gigantic in ancient texts. Jesus is the tallest since he is the most divine. And the cross is said to have proclaimed its message, the news of the salvation brought to those who are “asleep,” that is, to those who are already dead and waiting for the salvation to come.
The Gospel continues by indicating that the Jewish authorities go to Pilate and urge him to cover up the story by ordering the soldiers not to breathe a word of what they have seen. Then comes an account of the women going to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus, only to learn that he has been raised. The disciples are still grieving over what has happened, not knowing yet about the resurrection. Then we have the concluding sentences of the Gospel: “But we, the twelve disciples of the Lord, wept and grieved; and each one returned to his home, grieving for what had happened. But I, Simon Peter, and my brother Andrew, took our nets and went off to the sea. And with us was Levi, the son of Alphaeus, whom the Lord…(vv. 59–60). And there it ends, right in the middle of a sentence.
The reason the account seems to start in the middle of a thought and definitely ends in the middle of a sentence is that the person who created this book of sixty-six pages—probably in the sixth century—had only a fragmentary account in front of him. It is impossible to say whether the complete Gospel of Peter included stories of Jesus’s birth, life, ministry, teachings, miracles, and so on before the account of his Passion and resurrection. What is clear, from the final verse, is that this Gospel, unlike the Gospels of the New Testament, is written in the first person. The author claims to be Peter. But there is no way he was Peter. This is an author claiming to be someone he is not. This is a forgery.
The reason Simon Peter could not have written this account is that it almost certainly dates to the second century, at least sixty years after Peter had died. Virtually all scholars agree on this, for compelling reasons. For one thing, the heightened anti-Judaism fits better with the second century, when it became common, for example, for Christians to blame the destruction of Jerusalem on the Jews themselves for killing Jesus. Moreover, there are the highly legendary aspects of the story, such as the robber whose legs were not broken, the giant Jesus, and the talking cross. These too suggest it is a later account. Scholars debate whether the author of this Gospel had access to the stories of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; there are numerous parallels with one or the other of the Gospels throughout. If he did use them, then he was obviously writing after them, that is, no sooner than the beginning of the second century.
Scholars also debate whether this is the Gospel of Peter that was known to Serapion. In part the debate has been over whether this is really a docetic account, as the Gospel described by Serapion evidently was, at least in his eyes. Some scholars have their doubts. When it says that Jesus was silent on the cross “as if” he felt no pain, that isn’t really the same thing, it is often argued, as saying that he did not feel pain. And to say that “he was taken up” may not mean that the Christ had left Jesus. Jesus still has a miraculous body and divine power at the resurrection, for example. So the phrase about being taken up may simply be a euphemism for “he died.”
My own view is that the Gospel would not need to be actually docetic in order to be the Gospel mentioned by Serapion. Serapion admitted that most of the Gospel was perfectly orthodox, but he found some “additions” that were troubling and that could be used by docetic Christians. And certainly this Gospel fits that bill. It is by and large perfectly acceptable from an orthodox perspective, but several verses might easily lend themselves to a docetic reading. This would include the major account of Jesus emerging from the tomb, where he looks as if he has anything but a real body that has just suffered the agonies of crucifixion!
Whether or not this is Serapion’s Gospel, it is certainly a Gospel of Peter. It claims its authority in the name of Jesus’s closest disciple, in part, no doubt, to make its incredible and anti-Jewish narratives seem completely credible. But Peter didn’t write it. This is a forgery in the name of Peter. And it’s not the only one.11
THE EPISTLE OF PETER
Many scholars have thought of the early Christian church as seriously divided. On one side were the Jewish followers of Jesus, such as his brother James, who was the head of the church in Jerusalem, and the disciple Peter. On the other side were people like the apostle Paul, who focused on converting Gentiles (non-Jews). In this modern schema, James and Peter are often thought to have been more “true” to Jesus’s original message, that it was the God of Israel who had brought salvation to those who kept his teachings, as found in the Jewish law. For these early Christians, Jesus was the Jewish messiah sent from the Jewish God to the Jewish people in fulfillment of the Jewish law. Naturally, to be a follower of this Jewish savior, a person had to be Jewish. Gentiles were, of course, welcomed into the community with open arms, but only if they converted to Judaism. For men that meant getting circumcised, and for both men and women it meant observing the Sabbath, keeping kosher, and followi
ng the other Jewish laws.
Paul, in this understanding, taught something quite different, that believing in the death and resurrection of Christ was the only way to have a right standing before God. Moreover, this salvation applied equally to Jews and Gentiles, so that one did not have to be a Jew to be a follower of Jesus. For Paul, according to this view, the law had passed away; Jews could keep it if they chose (and as a Jew he himself kept it), but Gentiles were not supposed to keep it. This was the national law for Israel, and it had nothing to do with salvation. Only Jesus’s death and resurrection could bring salvation. Through Paul, then, the church largely filled up with Gentiles who did not see themselves as Jewish and who worshiped the God of Israel without following his law.
It is not necessary here for me to evaluate this common understanding of the relationship of Paul to the apostles before him, particularly James and Peter. But I do want to say that this idea that there was a split between their views is not just a modern notion. It goes way back to earliest Christianity. Historically speaking, it is true that Paul established churches made up of Gentiles and that he insisted that these converts not keep the Jewish law. This is a case he makes quite strenuously, for example, in the (orthonymous) letter to the Galatians. For Paul, any Gentile who tried to keep the law completely misunderstood that salvation comes from Christ’s death alone, to be received by faith. Keeping the law was worse than irrelevant; it was an admission that Christ’s death was insufficient for salvation (see 2:15–16, 21).
Other Christians did indeed disagree. Many of them were Paul’s opponents in his various churches. Later, in the second Christian century, there continued to be groups of Jewish Christians who insisted that the law certainly had to be followed by anyone who wanted to belong to God’s people. God had given the law, and he never changed his mind. This was the law that told people how to live, it was the law that Jesus himself taught and fulfilled, and it was the law that was to be followed, especially by followers of Christ.
This split in the early church between the (now) minority of Jewish Christians and the dominant majority of Gentiles can be seen nowhere more clearly than in a writing forged in Peter’s name called the Epistula Petri, or the Epistle of Peter.12 This book is not to be confused with 1 Peter or 2 Peter in the New Testament. It was written later, years after the New Testament writings had been completed.
The Epistle of Peter is found as a kind of introduction to group of writings that scholars call the Pseudo-Clementines. As implied by its scholarly name, this group of writings falsely claims (hence “Pseudo”) to be written by Clement, who, as we saw earlier, was widely thought to have been the fourth bishop of Rome (or pope), appointed to his position by none other than Peter. The Pseudo-Clementines have a highly complicated literary history. For over a century scholars have strenuously debated what sources the books used, how the various writings are related to each other, and other technical questions. But the basic character of the writings is clear. These are accounts of the travels and adventures of Clement, especially as he converts to Christianity through Peter’s preaching and then journeys with Peter as the apostle spreads the gospel, gives speeches, and performs miracles. These include miracle contests with the archheretic Simon the Magician, whom we saw earlier. The Acts of Peter may have been one of the sources for these stories.
The Clementine books clearly were not written by the historical Clement, but long after his death, even though they are (allegedly) narrated by him in the first person. They are, therefore, forged. In one set of these writings the adventures of Clement are prefaced by the Epistle of Peter, a letter supposedly written by Peter to the brother of Jesus, James, head of the church in Jerusalem. The letter instructs James not to allow Peter’s writings to be handed over to just anyone, because they might be misinterpreted or altered, but only to a select group of trustworthy people. The author, “Peter,” attacks Christians who interpret his message as saying that the Jewish law is no longer in force. That is completely false, says the author, for Jesus himself had indicated that “not one jot or tittle will pass away from the law” and that it would be eternally valid (see Matt. 5:17–20). According to this letter, one of Peter’s opponents in particular has led “the Gentiles” to reject Peter’s “lawful preaching” and, instead, to prefer “a lawless and absurd doctrine of the man who is my enemy.”
It does not take a lot of thought to realize who the enemy is whom “Peter” is opposing. It is someone who preaches to the Gentiles, insists on a gospel apart from the Jewish law (a “lawless doctrine”), and claims that Peter himself subscribes to that view (see Gal. 2). Without naming him, this author is talking about Paul.
Here we have a view of Peter and Paul very much at odds with what we find in some of the writings of the New Testament.13 In the history of the early church found in the book of Acts, for example, Peter and Paul see eye to eye, they agree on every major point, they stand arm in arm in the mission to spread the gospel, and most important, they wholeheartedly concur that Gentiles do not need to be Jews to be followers of Jesus (see Acts 10–11; 15). This is not the case, however, for the author of the Epistle of Peter. Here there is a clear split between Peter, Jesus’s closest disciple, and Paul, an interloper who has misinterpreted Peter. Paul has misrepresented the gospel.
This, then, is an author who saw Paul as the enemy and his “lawless and absurd” doctrine as heresy. For this author, Paul not only disagreed with Peter; he was wrong. And on what authority does the author claim this? On the authority of Peter himself. The author forged the letter in Peter’s name in order to make his point.
THE APOCALYPSE OF PETER
I will not be talking at length in this book about how we got our twenty-seven books of the New Testament, that is, how the canon was formed and how some writings came to be included and others left out. Plenty of other books describe this process at length.14 I can say, though, that there were some writings that were a “close call,” that nearly made it in but did not, just as there were others that nearly were left out, but finally made it in. One of the books that nearly made it in is called the Apocalypse of Peter.15
From authors such as Eusebius, we know that there were Christian communities as late as the fourth century who thought that the Apocalypse of Peter should be included in the canon, either in place of the Apocalypse of John (i.e., the book of Revelation), which obviously ended up being included, or alongside it.16 The Apocalypse of Peter is very different from the Apocalypse of John, however. Both books are apocalypses, in which an author is given a secret revelation about the divine, heavenly mysteries that can make sense of the mundane, earthly realities. In the New Testament Apocalypse of John, these mysteries have to do with the future course of history to be unfurled on earth, as has been decided already in heaven. In the noncanonical Apocalypse of Peter, these mysteries have to do with the fate of souls in life after death. This book describes a personal tour that Peter is given of the realms of the blessed and of the damned.
Most readers are familiar with the idea of a tour of heaven and hell from Dante’s Divine Comedy. Dante did not invent the idea, however. He stood in a long line of Christian authors who used the motif of a tour of the afterlife in order to make whatever important points they wanted to stress about life here on earth. Our earliest example of this kind of writing is the Apocalypse of Peter.
Here again we knew about the book for centuries before it was available. As it turns out, it was another of the four texts found in the sixty-six-page book uncovered by archaeologists near Akhmim, Egypt, in 1886–87. Since then an Ethiopic version has been found, which gives an even fuller account.
The narrative begins with Peter and the disciples talking with Jesus on the Mount of Olives (see Mark 13). They ask Jesus about what will happen when the world comes to an end, and he provides them with a brief account. But then the discussion shifts to a description, given in some graphic detail, of what happens to souls after they die, either in the place of torment or the place of eternal bliss
. As sometimes happens in these personal tours of heaven and hell, the description of the realms of the blessed is a bit stereotyped and brief. There are, after all, only so many ways you can describe eternal, ecstatic joy. It’s fantastic! What more can one say? The realms of the damned, however, are a different matter altogether. Anyone with any creativity and imagination can invent lurid and detailed descriptions of the torments of sinners.
In Peter’s vision, a number of the damned are tortured in ways that befit their characteristic sins, so that the punishment fits the crime. Those who have blasphemed against the ways of God, for example—that is, sinned by what they’ve said—are hanged by their tongues over eternal flames. Women who have braided their hair in order to make themselves attractive to men so as to seduce them are hanged by their hair over eternal flames. The men they seduced are hanged by a different body part over the flames. In this case, the men cry out, as you might imagine, “We didn’t know it would come to this!”
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