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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 September 2019
The Gospel of Peter (GP), often claimed to be theologically unsophisticated, offers a theological reflection upon the saving work of the Lord in his resurrection. GP receives the synoptic tradition, which itself has no narration of the resurrection (but only narrations of ‘appearances’), and fills in this lacuna. The narration of the resurrection is patterned upon GP's narration of the crucifixion, thereby suggesting that the resurrection and the crucifixion are two coordinated salvific events. GP's reception of the synoptic tradition is thus not only apologetic or polemical, but also theological.
1 Foster, P., The Gospel of Peter: Introduction, Critical Edition and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2010) 167CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See the almost identical comment in Foster, P., ‘Polymorphic Christology: Its Origins and Development in Early Christianity’, JTS 58 (2007) 66–99, at 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Foster, Gospel of Peter, 164.
3 Edo, P., ‘A Revision of the Origin and Role of the Supporting Angels in the Gospel of Peter (10:39b)’, VC 68 (2014) 206–25, at 225CrossRefGoogle Scholar, quoting Elliott, J. K., The Apocryphal Jesus: Legends of the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2008) 67Google Scholar. Edo goes on to write, ‘he rather inexpertly mixes or superposes elements from canonical tradition with inter-testamental elements, particularly those of an apocalyptic nature’ (225).
4 See, for example, Bockmuehl, M., Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2017) 235Google Scholar: ‘The strangeness of these texts is perhaps in the first instance a mark not of their heretical otherness, but rather of the breadth and diversity of Christians who encountered and appropriated the gospel narrative in the cultural maelstrom of antiquity, to which that story spoke of salvation in many different registers.’
5 Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels, 142.
6 See Brown, R., ‘The Gospel of Peter and Canonical Gospel Priority’, NTS 33 (1987) 321–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; this idea no doubt goes back to the early form critics, who saw the canonical Gospels themselves as folk literature.
7 Frey, J., ‘“Apocryphisierung” im Petrusevangelium: Überlegungen zum Ort des Petrusevangeliums in der Entwicklung der Evangelienüberlieferung’, The Apocryphal Gospels within the Context of Early Christian Theology (ed. Schröter, J.; Leuven: Peeters, 2013) 157–95, at 194Google Scholar, likewise speaks of ‘die relativ unreflektierte Christologie’. Although early assessments of GP, in reliance upon Eusebius’ testimony, judged the work to be ‘docetic’, this consensus has been overturned; see McCant, J., ‘The Gospel of Peter: Docetism Reconsidered’, NTS 30 (1984) 258–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Head, P., ‘On the Christology of the Gospel of Peter’, VC 46 (1992) 209–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Foster has gone further than this more recently in his ‘Polymorphic Christology’. On ‘docetism’ as a dubious heresiological category, see Dubois, J.-D., ‘Le docétisme des christologies gnostiques revisité’, NTS 63 (2017) 279–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 By Nicene standards, there are, of course, questions which surround Eusebius’ orthodox Christology. See, for example, Beeley, C., ‘Eusebius’ Contra Marcellum: Anti-Modalist Doctrine and Orthodox Christology’, ZAC 12 (2009) 433–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who disagrees with the typical assessment of Eusebius as a subordinationist.
9 On the dating of GP, see Foster, Gospel of Peter, 170–2.
10 For example, in his commentary on the signs at the time of the crucifixion, he compares GP to Matthew: ‘Although no explicit link is stated by the Matthean narrator, the series of signs, torn curtain, earthquake, split rocks, and the re-animation of dead corpses, are to be understood as portents that accompany the death of Jesus, and prefigure the eschatological age, or perhaps more accurately they function to collapse the eschatological event horizon into the very moment of Jesus’ death, thereby revealing that this is a key moment in salvation history. The phenomenon described in the Gospel of Peter does not appear to reflect the same degree of theological sophistication. […] Since the Gospel of Peter derives little, if any, theological insight from this detail … the report of the shaking of the earth appears rather to function narratologically as a prelude to the expression of fear that is noted as the conclusion of this verse’ (339–40). Though elsewhere Foster is willing to speak of an ‘implicit’ theology – such as take place in the ‘polymorphic’ moments (Gospel of Peter, 167) – here he judges Matthew worthy of sophisticated interpretation, but (with Raymond Brown) not GP.
11 There is also the issue of GP's ‘unrefined’ Greek. See, for example: ‘The Greek of the Akhmîm fragment is not particularly refined and consequently no attempt has been made to render the English translation using a more elevated linguistic or syntactical construction’ (Foster, Gospel of Peter, 197). This is not the kind of unsophistication with which I am here concerned.
12 For an example of the problems of this dichotomy, see Haines-Eitzen, K., The Gendered Palimpsest: Women, Writing, and Representation in Early Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)Google Scholar, in which she writes, ‘If, indeed, the form of ancient books can tell us something about their readers – a subject we still have much to learn about – then these apocryphal acts were not read by the “popular” masses or necessarily by “women” but rather by those members of the upper echelons who likewise enjoyed poetry, history, and perhaps philosophy’ (62–3).
13 The latter error is certainly something that Foster does not commit. Indeed, following the opening quotation above, he writes, ‘Nonetheless, there is an implicit Christology that is communicated through the vision of Jesus and his two attendants having enlarged heads’ (Foster, Gospel of Peter, 167).
14 Mara, M., Évangile de Pierre (Paris: Cerf, 2006 [1973])Google Scholar; Nicklas, T., ‘Die “Juden” im Petrusevangelium (PCair 10759): ein Testfall’, NTS 47 (2001) 206–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nicklas, T., ‘Die Leiblichkeit der Gepeinigten: Das Evangelium nach Petrus und frühchristliche Märtyrerakten’, Martyrdom and Persecution in Late Antique Christianity: Festschrift Boudewijn Dehandschutter (ed. Leemans, J.; Leuven: Peeters, 2010) 195–219Google Scholar; Nicklas, T., ‘Resurrection in the Gospels of Matthew and Peter: Some Developments’, Life beyond Death in Matthew's Gospel: Religious Metaphor or Bodily Reality? (ed. Weren, W., van de Sandt, H. and Verheyden, J.; Peeters: Leuven, 2011) 27–41Google Scholar.
15 Vaganay, L., L’Évangile de Pierre (Paris: Gabalda, 1930)Google Scholar.
16 Mara, Évangile de Pierre.
17 Koester, H., ‘Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels’, HTR 73 (1980) 105–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Crossan, J., The Cross That Spoke: The Origins of the Passion Narrative (San Francisco: Harper, 1988)Google Scholar.
18 Brown, ‘Gospel of Peter and Canonical Gospel Priority’.
19 Schonhoffer, T. N., ‘The Relationship of the Gospel of Peter to the Canonical Gospels: A Composition Critical Argument’, ETL 87 (2011) 229–49Google Scholar.
20 Among many others, see Foster, Gospel of Peter, 118–19; Vinzent, M. and Nicklas, T., ‘Das Petrusevangelium’, Antike christliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung, vol. i: Evangelien und Verwandtes (ed. Schröter, J. and Markschies, C.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012) 688–9Google Scholar.
21 Brown, ‘Gospel of Peter and Canonical Gospel Priority’, 336.
22 Foster, Gospel of Peter, 119.
23 Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels, 30.
24 Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels, 144.
25 Henderson, T., The Gospel of Peter and Early Christian Apologetics: Rewriting the Story of Jesus’ Death, Burial, and Resurrection (WUNT ii; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Frey, ‘“Apocryphisierung” im Petrusevangelium’, who largely follows Henderson's approach.
26 Henderson, Gospel of Peter and Early Christian Apologetics, 34–41. See Harrington, D., ‘Palestinian Adaptations of Biblical Narratives and Prophecies: i. The Bible Rewritten (Narratives)’, Early Judaism and its Modern Interpreters (ed. Kraft, R. and Nickelsburg, G.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986) 239–47Google Scholar.
27 For his original work, in which he coins the term ‘rewritten Bible’, see Vermes, G., Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies (Leiden: Brill, 1962)Google Scholar. In the posthumously published essay, ‘The Genesis of the Concept of “Rewritten Bible”’, Rewritten Bible after Fifty Years (Leiden: Brill, 2014) 1–9Google Scholar, Vermes writes, ‘I designated it as an enquiry “into the motives, exegetical or doctrinal, which originally prompted interpreters to develop, and even to supplement, the biblical narrative”’ (2).
28 Schröter, J., ‘Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels within the Development of the New Testament Canon’, EC 7 (2016) 24–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a similar assessment, see Nicklas, ‘Die Juden im Petrusevangelium’, 208–9.
29 There are, to be sure, other major differences between the synoptic tradition and GP. The one that has most often been noted is an instance of GP's apparent anti-Judaism: whereas in the canonical Gospels the Roman authorities crucify Jesus, in GP it is the Jewish authorities that crucify him. Even if there is some distinction between ‘the Jews’ and the various Jewish leaders in GP, as is pointed out by Nicklas, ‘Die Juden im Petrusevangelium’, and more recently by Marcus, J., ‘The Gospel of Peter as a Jewish Christian Document’, NTS 64 (2018) 473–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar, this nevertheless represents a major deviation from the synoptic tradition.
30 See, for example, Easter, M., ‘“Certainly This Man Was Righteous”: Highlighting a Messianic Reading of the Centurion's Confession in Luke 23:47’, TynBul 63/1 (2012) 35–51Google Scholar.
31 Foster, Gospel of Peter, 339–40. Foster cites Riches, J. K., Conflicting Mythologies: Identity Formation in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000) 237 n. 14Google Scholar. This passage in Matthew has rightly elicited a fair amount of scholarship; in addition to the many commentaries on the Gospel, see Senior, D., ‘Death of Jesus and the Resurrection of the Holy Ones’, CBQ 38 (1976) 312–29Google Scholar; Brown, R., ‘Eschatological Events Accompanying the Death of Jesus, Especially the Raising of the Holy Ones from their Tombs (Matt 27:51–53)’, Faith and the Future: Studies in Christian Eschatology (ed. Brown, R., Kasper, W., O'Collins, G. and Galvin, J.; New York: Paulist, 1994) 43–73Google Scholar; Herzer, J., ‘The Riddle of the Holy Ones in Matthew 27:51b–53: A New Proposal for a Crux Interpretum’, ‘What Does the Scripture Say?’ Studies in the Function of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity (ed. Evans, C. and Zacharias, D.; London: T&T Clark, 2012) 142–57Google Scholar.
32 See Henderson, Gospel of Peter and Early Christian Apologetics, 109–11; for the parallels he finds in second-century Christian literature, see the following pages (especially on Melito of Sardis, 113–18).
33 Nicklas, ‘Die Juden im Petrusevangelium’, mentions this as a lamentation of repentance, but does not expand upon it (219).
34 Foster, P., ‘Do Crosses Walk and Talk? A Reconsideration of Gospel of Peter 10.39-42’, JTS 64 (2013) 89–104, at 98CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Foster, Gospel of Peter, 340: ‘The phenomenon described in the Gospel of Peter does not appear to reflect the same degree of theological sophistication [as in Matthew]’; Foster, Gospel of Peter, 340: ‘the Gospel of Peter derives little, if any, theological insight from [the shaking of the ground]’. And in the notes on this page, he writes, ‘Mara's attempt to find a theological agenda behind this incident seems somewhat forced. She argues in relation to the author's intention that, “il propose, sous forme de récit, un discours théologique. C'est la présentation du Κύριος, de tout ce qu'il est, de tout ce qu'il a fait et fera”’ (Foster, Gospel of Peter 340, quoting Mara, Évangile de Pierre, 142).
35 Eubank, N., ‘Dying with Power: Mark 15,39 from Ancient to Modern Interpretation’, Biblica 95 (2014) 247–68Google Scholar, studies the reception of the Markan passage, including GP. He only notes the centurion's post-resurrection proclamation as reception, and does not include the Jewish leaders’ declaration.
36 Henderson, Gospel of Peter and Early Christian Apologetics, 123–75. Interestingly, we could actually see this narration of the resurrection scene as responding to this very passage in the Gospel of Matthew – that is, it is already present in the synoptic tradition – rather than responding to polemical claims contemporary to the penning of GP. Henderson appears never to have considered this, since his project is to glean all he can from the Gospel to determine some social historical context.
37 Edo, ‘A Revision of the Origin and Role of the Supporting Angels’.
38 A search for this lemma in the Thesaurus linguae Graecae returns only twenty-three results – none of which seems to be a significant parallel. Lampe, G. W. H., A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961)Google Scholar s.v. ὑπορθόω provides ‘raise up’ as a definition.
39 Foster, ‘Do Crosses Walk and Talk?’ See the compelling explanation of the cross in Galbraith, D., ‘Whence the Giant Jesus and his Talking Cross? The Resurrection in Gospel of Peter 10.39-42 as Prophetic Fulfilment of LXX Psalm 18’, NTS 63 (2017) 473–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
40 As is also the case with the Lukan and Matthean–Markan proclamations, GP has separated out the two versions into two different events. In the resurrection scene, GP follows Luke, who has two angels waiting in the tomb; Mark's ‘young man’ (Mark 16.5) will meet Mary later in GP when she comes surreptitiously to the tomb (13.55).
41 Mara, Évangile de Pierre; see above.
42 See Nicklas, ‘Die Juden im Petrusevangelium’.
43 In a way not unlike, for example, the Secret Book of James in that the forty days between the resurrection and the ascension are filled in with his secret teaching.
44 Also in, for example, the Pilate cycle.
