Part 2

It is unnecessary to discuss minutely the details of Serapion’s letter, which, if vague in parts and open to considerable doubt in some important respects, is at least sufficiently clear for our purpose in its general meaning. Nothing is known of the Marcianus to whom it refers. The bishop had evidently previously written of him, but the context has not been preserved. The Armenian version, made from a Syriac text, reads “Marcion” for “Marcianus,” but it would be premature on this authority to associate the episode with that arch-heretic of the second century. It is clear from the bishop’s words that on his previous visit to Rhossus, at the desire of part of the community, he sanctioned the public reading of the Gospel of Peter but, after personal acquaintance with its contents, he withdrew that permission. Zahn(8) maintains that the private reading by members of the Christian community, and not public reading at the services of the Church, is dealt with in this letter, but in this he stands alone. The _Index expurgatorius_ had not been commenced in the second century, and it is impossible to think that the sanction of a bishop was either sought or required for the private reading of individuals. We have here only an instance of the diversity of custom, as regards the public reading of early writings, to which reference is made in the writings of the Fathers and in the Muratorian and other Canons. In this way the Epistle of the Roman Clement, as Eusebius(9) mentions, was publicly read in the churches; as were the Epistle of Soter to the Corinthians, the “Pastor” of Hermas,(10) the “Apocalypse of Peter,”(11) and various Gospels which did not permanently secure a place in the Canon. Eusebius, for instance, states that the Ebionites made use only of the “Gospel according to the Hebrews.”(12)

Eusebius(13) mentions a certain number of works attributed to the Apostle Peter: the first Epistle, generally acknowledged as genuine, “but that which is called the second,” he says, “we have not understood to be incorporated with the testament” (ἐνδιάθηκον). The other works are, the “Acts of Peter,” the “Gospel according to Peter,” the “Preaching of Peter,” and the “Apocalypse of Peter,” the last being doubtless the work of which a fragment has now been discovered in the little volume which contains the fragment of the Gospel which we are considering. Of these Eusebius says that he does not know of their being handed down as Catholic, or universally received by the Church.

The “Gospel according to Peter” is directly referred to by Origen in his Commentary on Matthew. He says: “Some say, with regard to the brethren of Jesus, from a tradition in the Gospel entitled according to Peter, or of the Book of James, that they were sons of Joseph by a former wife.”(14) Although this statement does not in itself necessarily favour Docetic views, it is quite intelligible that it might be used in support of them and, therefore, might have been one of the passages which excited the suspicion of Serapion, more especially as a clear statement of this family relationship is not to be found in the canonical Gospels. The part of the Gospel referred to by Origen is not, unfortunately, contained in the fragment, and consequently cannot be verified, but it is quite in accordance with its general spirit, and at least we have here a distinct mention of the Gospel without any expression of unfavourable opinion. What is more important still is the fact that Origen certainly made use of the Gospel, amongst others, himself.(15)

Jerome(16) likewise refers to it, after repeating the tradition that the Gospel was said to be Peter’s, which Mark composed, who was his hearer and interpreter; and to the works ascribed to Peter, which Eusebius enumerates, he adds another—the “Judgment of Peter,” of which little or nothing is known.

Theodoret says that the Nazarenes made use of the Gospel according to Peter.(17) Zahn and some others(18) argue against the correctness of this statement; but reasoning of this kind, based upon supposed differences of views, is not very convincing, when we consider that inferences to be drawn from peculiarities in the narrative in this Gospel are neither so distinct, nor so inevitable, as to be forced upon a simple and uncritical community, and probably that the anti-Judaistic tendency of the whole, the strongest characteristic of the composition, secured its acceptance, and diverted attention from any less marked tendencies.

A number of passages have been pointed out in the Didascalia and Apostolical Constitutions, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Dionysius of Alexandria, and other ancient writers, showing the use of this Gospel according to Peter;(19) but into these later testimonies it is not necessary for us at present to go. That the work long continued to exercise considerable influence can scarcely be doubted. It is to the earlier history of the Gospel and its use in the second century that we must rather turn our attention.

A probable reference to the Gospel of Peter in Polycarp’s “Epistle to the Corinthians” has been pointed out by Mr. F. C. Conybeare.(20) The writer speaks of “the testimony of the cross” (τὸ μαρτύριον τοῦ σταυροῦ), an expression which has puzzled critics a good deal. No passage in our Gospels has hitherto explained it, but if it be referred to the answer made by the cross, in our fragment, to the question from Heaven: “Hast thou preached to them that are sleeping? And an answer came from the cross, ‘Yea,’ ” it becomes at once intelligible. Mr. Taylor(21) suggests the question whether “the word of the cross” (ὁ λόγος τοῦ σταυροῦ) in 1 Cor. i. 18 is not also connected with the same tradition of the speaking cross and, as Mr. Conybeare points out, the context favours the idea, although he himself is not inclined to admit the interpretation. The words of Paul are worth quoting:

For the word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness; but unto us which are being saved it is the power of God. 19. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent will I reject;”

and so on. But although he cannot agree in the suggestion that Paul refers to this tradition, because, he says, “Such a view seems to me to be too bold and innovating in its character,” Mr. Conybeare goes on to suggest that the incident in Peter, with this reply to the voice from heaven, may be

one of the “three mysteries of crying” referred to by Ignatius, _ad Eph._ xix. “Ritschl and Lipsius,” says Lightfoot, _ad locum_ “agree that two of the three were, (1) the voice at the baptism, (2) the voice at the transfiguration. For the third ... Ritschl supposes that Ignatius used some other Gospel containing a third proclamation similar to the two others.” The Peter Gospel seems here to supply just what is wanted.(22)

These suggestions are quoted here, in dealing with Polycarp, to show that the supposition that he refers to the answer of the cross in the Gospel of Peter is not without support in other early writings. When it is remembered that the doctrine of a descent into Hell has a place in the Creed of Christendom, it is not surprising that it should be dwelt on in early writings, and that a Gospel which proclaims it by a voice from Heaven, coupled with a miraculous testimony from the cross, should be referred to. Of course it is impossible, in the absence of any explicit declaration, to establish by the passage we are discussing that the Gospel according to Peter was used by Polycarp, but there is some probability of it at least, since no other Gospel contains the episode to which the writer seems to refer.

IV

We may now consider whether Justin Martyr was acquainted with it, and here again it may be well to remind the reader that we have only a small fragment of the Gospel according to Peter to compare with the allusions to be found in writings of the Fathers. In these early works, few quotations are made with any direct mention of the source from which they were taken, and as only those parts of Patristic writings which deal with the trial, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus can be expected to present analogies with our fragment, it will readily be seen how limited the range of testimony must naturally be. Justin Martyr is usually supposed to have died about A.D. 163-165,(23) and his first “Apology” may be dated A.D. 147, and the “Dialogue with Trypho” somewhat later. In these writings, Justin very frequently refers to facts, and to sayings of Jesus, making, indeed, some hundred and fifty quotations of this kind from certain “Memoirs of the Apostles” (ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων), all of which differ more or less from our present canonical Gospels. He never mentions the name of any author of these Memoirs, if indeed he was acquainted with one, unless it be upon one occasion, which is of peculiar interest in connection with our fragment. The instance to which we refer is the following. Justin says: “The statement also that he [Jesus] changed the name of Peter, one of the Apostles, and that this is written in his [Peter’s] Memoirs as having been done, together with the fact that he also changed the name of other two brothers, who were sons of Zebedee, to Boanerges—that is, sons of thunder,” &c.(24) It was, of course, argued that the αὐτοῦ here does not refer to Peter but to Jesus; or that the word should be amended to αὐτῶν and applied to the Apostles; but the majority of critics naturally decided against such royal ways of removing difficulties, and were forced to admit a reference to “Memoirs of Peter.” Hitherto, the apologetic explanation has been that the allusion of Justin must have been to the second Synoptic, generally referred to Mark, who was held by many of the Fathers to be the mere mouthpiece and “interpreter of Peter,” and that this reference is supported by the fact that the Gospel according to Mark is the only one of the four canonical works which narrates these changes of name. This argument, however, is disposed of by the fact that our second Synoptic cannot possibly be considered the work referred to in the tradition of Papias.(25) Returning to Justin, we find that he designates the source of his quotations ten times as “Memoirs of the Apostles;” five times he calls it simply “Memoirs,” and upon one occasion only explains that they were written “by his Apostles and their followers.” He never speaks indefinitely of “Memoirs of Apostles,” but always of the collective Apostles, except in the one instance which has been quoted above. In a single passage there occurs an expression which must be quoted. Justin says: “For the Apostles in the Memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels,” &c.(26) The ἂ καλεῖται εὐαγγέλια has very much the appearance of a gloss in the margin of some MS., which has afterwards been transferred to the text by a scribe, as scholars have before now suggested; but in any case it makes little difference in the argument.

It is obvious that the name “Memoirs” cannot with any degree of propriety be applied to our canonical Gospels; but the discovery of this fragment, which is distinctly written as a personal narrative, throws fresh light upon the subject, and the title “Memoirs of Peter,” would exactly describe the form in which the Gospel is written. It may further be suggested whether it does not give us reason for conjecturing that the earlier documents, from which our Gospels were composed, were similarly personal narratives or memoirs of those who took part in early Christian development. The tradition preserved to us by Papias distinctly points in this direction:

This also the Presbyter said: Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote accurately whatever he remembered, though he did not arrange in order the things which were either said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord, nor followed him; but afterwards, as I said, accompanied Peter, who adapted his teaching to the occasion, and not as making a consecutive record of the Lord’s oracles.(27)

There can be very little doubt that the first teaching of Apostles and early catechists must have taken the form of personal recollections of various episodes of Christian history and reports of discourses and parables, with an account of the circumstances under which they were delivered. This familiar and less impressive mode of tracing Christian history must gradually have been eliminated from successive forms of the story drawn up for the use of the growing Church, until, in the Gospels adopted into the Canon, it had entirely disappeared. In the fourth Gospel, a slight trace of it remains in the reference in the third person to the writer, and it is present in parts of the Apocalypse; but a more marked instance is to be found in the “Acts of the Apostles;” not so much in the prologue—which, of course, is not really part of the book—where the author distinctly speaks in the first person, as in the narrative after the call to Macedonia (xvi. 10-17), where the writer falls into the use of the first person plural (ἡμεῖς), resumes it after a break (xx. 5-15), and abandons it again, till it is recommenced in xxi. 1-18, xxvii. 1, xxviii. 16. As the author doubtless made use of written sources of information, like the writers of our Gospels, it is most probable that, in these portions of the Acts, he simply inserted portions of personal written narratives which had come into his possession. The Gospel according to Peter, which escaped the successive revisals of the canonical Gospels, probably presents the more original form of such histories. We are, of course, unable to say whether the change of names referred to by Justin was recorded in earlier portions of this Gospel which have not been recovered, but the use of the double name, “I, Simon Peter,” favours the supposition that it was.

Without attaching undue importance to it, it may be well to point out—in connection with Origen’s statement that, in the Gospel according to Peter, the brethren of Jesus are represented as being of a previous marriage—that the only genealogy of Jesus which is recognised by Justin is traced through the Virgin Mary, and excludes Joseph.(28) She it is who is descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and from the house of David. The genealogy of Jesus in the canonical Gospels, on the contrary, is traced solely through Joseph, who alone is stated to be of the lineage of David. The genealogies of the first and third Synoptics, though differing in several important particulars, at least agree in excluding Mary. In the third Gospel Joseph goes to Judæa “unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David.”(29) Justin simply states that Joseph went “to Bethlehem ... for his descent was from the tribe of Judah, which inhabited that region.”(30) Justin could not, therefore, derive his genealogies from the canonical Gospels; and his Memoirs, from which he learns the Davidic descent through Mary only, to which he refers no less than eleven times, differed from them distinctly on this point. The Gospel according to Peter, which, according to Origen, contained a statement which separated Jesus from his brethren in the flesh, in all probability must have traced the Davidic descent through Mary. The Gospel of James, commonly called the “Protevangelium,” to a form of which, at least, Origen refers at the same time as the Gospel according to Peter, states that Mary was of the lineage of David.(31) There are other peculiarities in Justin’s account of the angelic announcement to Mary differing distinctly from our canonical Gospels,(32) regarding some of which Tischendorf was of opinion that they were derived from the “Protevangelium;” but there are reasons for supposing that they may have come from a still older work, and if it should seem that Justin made use of the Gospel according to Peter, these may also have been taken from it. In the absence of the rest of the Gospel, however, all this must be left for the present as mere conjecture.

The fragment begins with a broken sentence presenting an obviously different story of the trial of Jesus from that of the canonical Gospels. “... but of the Jews no man (τῶν δὲ Ἰουδαίων οὐδεὶς) washed his hands, neither Herod (οὐδὲ Ἡρῴδης) nor any of his judges.... Pilate rose up (ἀνέστη Πειλᾶτος). And then Herod the King (Ἡρῴδης ὁ βασιλεὺς) commandeth the Lord to be taken,” &c. Justin in one place(33) refers to this trial as foretold by the prophetic spirit, and speaks of what was done against the Christ “by Herod the King of the Jews, and the Jews themselves, and Pilate who was your governor among them, and his soldiers” (Ἡρώδου τοῦ βασιλέως Ἰουδαίων καὶ αὐτῶν Ἰουδαίων καὶ Πιλάτου τοῦ ὑμετέρου παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς γενομένου ἐπιτρόπου σὺν τοῖς αὐτοῦ στρατιώταις). This combination agrees with the representation of the fragment, and of course differs from that of the Gospels. In Dial. ciii. Justin repeats this to some extent, adding that he sent Jesus “bound” (δεδεμένον). This representation does not exist in Luke, but neither is it found in what we have of the Gospel according to Peter, though it may have occurred in the commencement of the scene to which we are so abruptly introduced.

Justin says in another place: “For as the prophet said, worrying him(34) (διασύροντες αὐτὸν), they set him (ἐκάθισαν) upon a judgment seat (ἐπὶ βήματος), and said, ‘Judge for us’ (Κρῖνον ἡμῖν).”(35) In the Gospel according to Peter we have: “They said, ‘Let us drag along (σύρωμεν) the Son of God’ ... and they set Him (ἐκάθισαν αὐτὸν) upon a seat of judgment (καθέδραν κρίσεως), saying, ‘Judge justly (Δικαίως κρῖνε), King of Israel.’ ”(36) This representation is different from any in our Gospels, and it has some singular points of agreement with our fragment. It has frequently been suggested that Justin, in this passage, makes use of our canonical Gospels with a combination of the Septuagint version of Isaiah lviii. 2, 3, and that this is supported by the expression “as said the prophet.” This does not sufficiently explain the passage, however. The Septuagint version of the part of Isaiah lviii. 2 referred to reads: αἰτοῦσίν με νῦν κρίσιν δικαίαν—“They ask me now for just judgment.”

Justin drops the “just,” which stands both in Isaiah and in the fragment, and therefore the omission may be considered equally unfavourable to both writings as the source. In other respects Justin is nearer the Gospel than the prophet. On the other hand, the proposed use of καθίζειν as a transitive verb would make the fourth Gospel, xix. 13, read: “Pilate ... brought Jesus out, and set him (ἐκάθισεν) upon a judgment seat (ἐπὶ βήματος),” &c.; and it is pretended that Justin may have taken it in this sense, and that by the use of the word βῆμα he betrays his indebtedness to the fourth Gospel. This use of the verb, however, can scarcely be maintained. It is impossible to suppose that Pilate himself set Jesus on a judgment seat, as this transitive use of ἐκάθισε would require us to receive; and we must, more especially in the absence of a distinct object, receive it as the Revisers of the New Testament have rightly done—intransitively: “He brought Jesus out and sat down.”(37) In Justin it is not Pilate but the Jews who drag Jesus along, and put him on a judgment seat, and the use of the ordinary βῆμα for the expression of the fragment, “a seat of judgment” (καθέδρα κρίσεως), is not surprising in a writer like Justin, who is not directly quoting, but merely giving the sense of a passage. However this may be, the whole representation is peculiar, and the conclusion of many critics is that it proves Justin’s dependence on the Gospel according to Peter.(38)

Justin, speaking of an incident of the crucifixion, says: “And those who were crucifying him parted his garments (ἐμερίσαν τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ) amongst themselves, casting lots (λαχμὸν βάλλοντες), each taking what pleased him, according to the cast of the lot (τοῦ κλήρου).”(39) In the Gospel according to Peter it is said: “And they laid the clothes (τὰ ἐνδύματα) before him, and distributed them (διεμερίσαντο), and cast lots (λαχμὸν ἔβαλον) for them.” The use of the peculiar expression λαχμὸν βάλλειν both by the Gospel and Justin is undoubtedly striking, especially, as Dr. Swete properly points out, as its use in this connection is limited, so far as we know, to the Gospel of Peter, Justin, and Cyril.(40) It is rendered more important by the fact that, both in the Gospel and Justin, the casting of lots is applied to all the clothes, in contradistinction to the fourth Gospel, in which it is connected with the coat alone, and that neither has any mention of the Johannine peculiarity that the coat was without seam.

Justin says that after he was crucified all the “acquaintances of Jesus forsook him” (οἱ γνώριμοι αὐτοῦ πάντες ἀπέστησαν);(41) and in another place that after his crucifixion “the disciples who were with him dispersed (διεσκεδάσθησαν) until he rose from the dead.”(42) This representation is found in the first Synoptic only, but agrees still better with _vv._ 26, 27, and 59 of our fragment. Elsewhere, Justin, in agreement with the fragment, speaks of Herod, “King of the Jews.”(43) Further, he says, more than once, that the Jews sent persons throughout the world to spread calumnies against Christians, amongst which was the story that “his disciples stole him by night from the grave (κλέψαντες αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ μνήματος νυκτός) where he had been laid when he was unloosed from the cross (ἀφηλωθεὶς ἀπὸ τοῦ σταυροῦ).”(44) The first Synoptic alone has the expression regarding the disciples stealing the body, using the same verb, but our fragment alone uses μνῆμα for the tomb and offers a parallel for the unloosing from the cross in _v._ 21. We must, however, point out that the statement regarding these emissaries from the Jews is not found at all in our canonical Gospels.(45)

It will be remembered that, in the fragment, the only cry from the cross is: “ ‘Power, my Power, thou hast forsaken me,’ and having spoken, he was taken up.” This is one of the most striking variations from the canonical Gospels. It is also claimed as, perhaps, the most Docetic representation of the fragment, for the idea was that one Christ suffered and rose, and another flew up and was free from suffering.(46) It was believed by the Docetae that the Holy Spirit only descended upon the human Jesus, at his baptism, in the shape of a dove. Now one of the statements of Justin from his Memoirs, which has no existence in our Gospels, was that, when Jesus went to be baptized by John,

As Jesus went down to the water, a fire was also kindled in the Jordan; and when he came up from the water, the Holy Spirit like a dove fell upon him, as the Apostles of this very Christ of ours wrote ... and at the same time a voice came from the heavens ... “Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.”