Apocalypse of Peter

right|thumb|upright=1.3|The beginning of the Greek fragment of the Apocalypse of Peter found in [[Akhmim, Egypt|alt=Photograph of parchment]]

The Apocalypse of Peter, also called the Revelation of Peter, is an early Christian text of the 2nd century and a work of apocalyptic literature. It is the earliest-written extant work depicting a Christian account of heaven and hell in detail. The Apocalypse of Peter is influenced by both Jewish apocalyptic literature and Greek philosophy of the Hellenistic period. The text is extant in two diverging versions based on a lost Koine Greek original: a shorter Greek version and a longer Ethiopic version.

The work is pseudepigraphal: it is purportedly written by the disciple Peter, but its actual author is unknown. The Apocalypse of Peter describes a divine vision experienced by Peter through the risen Jesus Christ. After the disciples inquire about signs of the Second Coming of Jesus, the work delves into a vision of the afterlife (), and details both heavenly bliss for the righteous and infernal punishments for the damned. In particular, the punishments are graphically described in a physical sense, and loosely correspond to "an eye for an eye" (): blasphemers are hung by their tongues; liars who bear false witness have their lips cut off; callous rich people are pierced by stones while being made to go barefoot and wear filthy rags, mirroring the status of the poor in life; and so on.

The Apocalypse of Peter is not included in the standard canon of the New Testament, but is classed as part of New Testament apocrypha. It is listed in the canon of the Muratorian fragment, a 2nd-century list of approved books in Christianity and one of the earliest surviving proto-canons. However, the Muratorian fragment expresses some hesitation on the work, saying that some authorities would not have it read in church. While the Apocalypse of Peter influenced other Christian works in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries, it came to be considered inauthentic and declined in use. It was largely superseded by the Apocalypse of Paul, a popular 4th-century work heavily influenced by the Apocalypse of Peter that provides its own updated vision of heaven and hell. The Apocalypse of Peter is a forerunner of the same genre as the Divine Comedy of Dante, wherein the protagonist takes a tour of the realms of the afterlife.

Authorship and date

thumb|right|upright=1.35|The [[Eastern Mediterranean region around 125 AD. Scholars hypothesize that the author of the Apocalypse of Peter may have been from Roman Judea|alt=Refer to caption]]

The Apocalypse of Peter seems to have been written between 100 AD and 150 AD. The —the point after which the Apocalypse of Peter must have been written—is shown by its probable use of the Fourth Book of Esdras, which was written about 100 AD. The Apocalypse is quoted in Book 2 of the Sibylline Oracles (), and cited by name and quoted in Clement of Alexandria's Prophetical Extracts ().

The geographic origin of the author is unknown and remains a matter of scholarly debate. The main theories are for Palestine or Egypt. Other scholars suggest Roman Egypt as a possible origin; Jan Bremmer suggests that Greek philosophical influence in the work points to an author or editor in more Hellenized Egypt, although perhaps working off a Palestinian text. A fragmented Koine Greek manuscript was discovered during excavations initiated by Gaston Maspéro during the 1886–87 season in a desert necropolis at Akhmim in Upper Egypt. The fragment consisted of parchment leaves supposedly deposited in the grave of a Christian monk.

The Apocalypse of Peter is a predecessor of and has similarities with the genre of Clementine literature that would later be popular in Alexandria, although Clement himself does not appear in the Apocalypse of Peter. Clementine stories usually involved Peter and Clement of Rome having adventures, revelations, and dialogues together. Both Ethiopic manuscripts that include the Apocalypse of Peter are mixed in with other Ethiopic Clementine literature that feature Peter prominently. Clementine literature became popular in the third and fourth century, but it is not known when the Clementine sections of the Ethiopic manuscripts containing the Apocalypse of Peter were originally written. Daniel Maier proposes an Egyptian origin in the 6th–10th centuries, while Richard Bauckham suggests the author was familiar with the Arabic Apocalypse of Peter and proposes an origin in the 8th century or later. One change that the Apocalypse of Paul makes is describing personal judgments that happen immediately after death and decide whether a soul receives bliss or torment, rather than the Apocalypse of Peter being a vision of a future destiny that will take place after the Second Coming of Jesus. Hell and paradise are both on a future Earth in Peter, but are another realm of existence in Paul. The Apocalypse of Paul is also more interested in condemning sins committed by insufficiently devout Christians, while the Apocalypse of Peter seems to view the righteous as a unified group. The Apocalypse of Paul never saw official Church approval. Despite this, it would go on to be popular and influential for centuries, possibly due to the high esteem in which it was held among medieval monks. Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy would become extremely popular and celebrated in the 14th century and beyond, and was influenced by the Apocalypse of Paul.

Analysis

The punishments and lex talionis

The list of punishments for the damned is likely the most influential and famous part of the work, with almost two-thirds of the text dedicated to the calamitous end times that will accompany the return of Jesus (Chapters 4–6) and the punishments afterward (Chapters 7–13). The punishments in the vision generally correspond to the past sinful actions, usually with a correspondence between the body part that sinned and the body part that is tortured. It is a loose version of the Jewish notion of an eye for an eye, also known as , that the punishment should fit the crime. The phrase "each according to his deed" appears five times in the Ethiopic version to explain the punishments. In a dialogue with the angel Tatirokos, the keeper of Tartarus, the damned themselves admit that their fate is based on their own deeds, and is fair and just. Still, the connection between the crime and the punishment is not always obvious. David Fiensy writes that "It is possible that where there is no logical correspondence, the punishment has come from the Orphic tradition and has simply been clumsily attached to a vice by a Jewish redactor."

Callie Callon suggests a philosophy of "mirror punishment" as motivating the punishments where the harm done is reflected in a sort of poetic justice, and is determined more by symbolism than by the . She argues that this best explains the logic behind placing sorcerers in a wheel of fire, considered unclear by scholars such as Fiensy. Other scholars have suggested that it is perhaps a weak reference to the punishment of Ixion in Greek mythology; Callon suggests that it is, instead, a reference to a rhombus, a spinning top that was also used by magicians. The magicians had spun a rhombus for power in their lives, and now were tormented by similar spinning, with the usual addition of fire seen in other punishments. However, the next punishments do target children, saying that those who fail to heed tradition and their elders will be devoured by birds, while girls who do not maintain their virginity before marriage (implicitly also a violation of parental expectations) will have their flesh torn apart. This is possibly an instance of mirror punishment or bodily correspondence, where the skin which sinned is itself punished. The text also specifies ten girls are punished – possibly a loose reference to the Parable of the Ten Virgins in the Gospel of Matthew, although not a very accurate one if so, as only five virgins are reprimanded in the parable, and for unrelated reasons.

The Apocalypse of Peter is one of the earliest pieces of Christian literature to feature an anti-abortion message; mothers who abort their children are among those tormented.

Christology

The Akhmim Greek text generally refers to Jesus as , "Lord". The Ethiopic manuscripts are similar, but the style notably shifts in Chapters 15 and 16 in the last section of the work, which refer to Jesus by name and introduce him with exalted titles including "Jesus Christ our King" (negus) and "my God Jesus Christ". This is considered a sign this section was edited later by a scribe with a high Christology.

Angels and demons

It is unknown how much of the angelology and demonology in the Ethiopic version was in the older Greek versions. The Akhmim version does not mention demons when describing the punishment of those who forsook God's commandments; even in Ethiopic, it is possible that the demons are servants of God performing the punishment, rather than those who led the damned into sin. As the Ethiopic version was likely a translation of an Arabic translation, it may have picked up some influence from Islam centuries later; the references to Ezrael the Angel of Wrath were possibly influenced by Azrael the Angel of Death, who is usually more associated with Islamic angelology.

The children who died by infanticide are delivered to the angel "Temelouchus", which probably was a rare Greek word meaning "care-taking [one]". Later writers seem to have interpreted it as a proper name, however, resulting in a specific angel of hell appearing named "Temlakos" (Ethiopic) or "Temeluchus" (Greek), found in the Apocalypse of Paul and various other sources.

Literary merits

Scholars of the 19th and 20th century considered the work rather intellectually simple and naive; dramatic and gripping, but not necessarily a coherent story. Still, the Apocalypse of Peter was popular and had a wide audience in its time. M. R. James remarked that his impression was that educated Christians of the later Roman period considered the work somewhat embarrassing and "realized it was a gross and vulgar book", which might have partially explained a lack of elite enthusiasm for canonizing it later.

Theology

One of the theological messages of the Apocalypse of Peter is generally considered clear enough: the torments of hell are meant to encourage keeping a righteous path and to warn readers and listeners away from sin, knowing the horrible fate that awaits those who stray. The work also responds to the problem of theodicy addressed in earlier writings such as Daniel: the question of why a sovereign and just God allows the persecution of the righteous on Earth. The Apocalypse says that everyone will be repaid by their deeds, even the dead, and God will eventually make things right. Most scholars agree that the Apocalypse simultaneously advocates for both divine justice and divine mercy, and contains elements of both messages.

The version of the Apocalypse seen in the Ethiopic version could plausibly have originated from a Christian community that still considered itself as part of Judaism. The adaptation of the fig tree parables to an allegory about the flourishing of Israel and its martyrs pleasing God is only found in Chapter 2 of the Ethiopic version. While it is impossible to know for sure why it is absent in the Greek Akhmim version, one possibility is that it was edited out due to incipient anti-Jewish sentiment in the church. A depiction of Jews converting and Israel being especially blessed may have fit poorly with the strong repudiation of Judaism common in the Church during the 4th and 5th centuries.

In one passage in Chapter 16, Peter offers to build three tabernacles on Earth. Jesus sharply rebukes him, saying that there is only a single heavenly tabernacle. This is possibly a reference to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD and a condemnation of attempting to build a replacement "Third Temple", although perhaps it is only a reference to all of God's elect living together with a unified tabernacle in Paradise. (Other pieces of apocalyptic literature are implicitly acknowledged, yet not "received".) Both the Apocalypse of Peter and the Apocalypse of John (the Book of Revelation) appear to have been controversial, with some churches of the 2nd and 3rd centuries using them and others not. Eusebius personally classified the work as inauthentic and spurious, yet not heretical, in his book Church History (). The Apocalypse of Peter is listed in the catalog of the 6th-century Codex Claromontanus, which was probably copying a 3rd- or 4th-century source. The entry in the catalog is marked with an obelus (along with the Epistle of Barnabas, The Shepherd of Hermas, and the Acts of Paul): probably an indication by the scribe that its status was not authoritative. As late as the 5th century, Sozomen indicates that some churches in Palestine still read it, but by then, it seems to have been considered inauthentic by most Christians. The Byzantine-era Stichometry of Nicephorus lists both the Apocalypses of Peter and John as used if disputed books. The passage in the Rainer fragment that the saints, seeing the torment of sinners from heaven, could ask God for mercy, and these damned souls could be retroactively baptized and saved, had significant theological implications. Presumably, all of hell could eventually be emptied in such a manner. M. R. James argued that the original Apocalypse of Peter may well have suggested universal salvation after a period of cleansing suffering in hell. This ran against the stance of many Church theologians of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries who strongly felt that salvation and damnation were eternal and strictly based on actions and beliefs while alive. Augustine of Hippo, in his work The City of God, denounces arguments based on very similar logic to what is seen in the Rainer passage. Such a system, where saints could at least pray their friends and family out of hell, and possibly any damned soul, would have been considered incorrect at best, and heretical at worst. Most scholars since agree with James: the reading in the Rainer fragment was that of the original. The contested passage was not copied by later scribes who felt it was in error, hence not appearing in later manuscripts, along with the addition of the sentences indicating the punishment would be eternal. Bart Ehrman suggests that the damage to the book's reputation was already done, however. The Origenist Controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries retroactively condemned much of the thought of the theologian Origen, particularly his belief in universal salvation, and this anti-Origen movement was at least part of why the book was not included in the biblical canons of later centuries.

Translations

Selected modern English translations of the Apocalypse of Peter can be found in:

(a composite translation drawing from both the Greek and the Ethiopic; available openly at pages 98–112 of Beck's thesis)
(a translation of solely the Ethiopic text; available open-access)

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

, translation by M. R. James in the 1924 book The Apocryphal New Testament, with quotations from the Sibylline Oracles and writings of the early Church
The Apocalypse of Peter (Greek Akhmim Fragment Text), transcribed by Mark Goodacre from Erich Klostermann's edition (HTML, PDF)
"Apocalypse of Peter", overview and bibliography by Cambry Pardee. NASSCAL: e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha.
Bibliography of works on the Apocalypse of Peter, by Eileen Gardiner