Apocalypse of Peter

After the disciples inquire about signs of the Second Coming of Jesus, the work delves into a vision of the afterlife (katabasis), 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" (lex talionis): 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.

As an example, the writer seems to write from a position of persecution, condemning those who caused the deaths of martyrs by their lies, and Bar Kokhba is reputed to have punished and killed Christians.

This suggestion is not accepted by all; Eibert Tigchelaar wrote a rebuttal of the argument as unconvincing, as other calamities such as the Jewish revolt under Trajan (115–117) could have been the inspiration, as could forgotten local persecutions.

[15] 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.

[18] The French explorer Antoine d'Abbadie acquired a large number of manuscripts in Ethiopia in the 19th century, but many sat unanalyzed and untranslated for decades.

[20] After reading the French translations, the English scholar M. R. James realized in 1910 that there was a strong correspondence with the Akhmim Greek Apocalypse of Peter, and that an Ethiopic version of the same work was within this cache.

In the form of a Greek katabasis or nekyia, it goes into elaborate detail about the punishment in hell for each type of crime, as well as briefly sketching the nature of heaven.

The setting "in the summer" is transferred to "the end of the world"; the fig tree represents Israel, and the flourishing shoots are Jews who have adopted Jesus as Messiah and achieve martyrdom.

And I will give them [i.e. those for whom the elect pray] a fine baptism in salvation from the Acherousian lake which is, they say, in the Elysian field, a portion of righteousness with my holy ones.

[45]While not found in later manuscripts, this reading was likely original to the text, as it agrees with a quotation in the Sibylline Oracles:[45] To these pious ones imperishable God, the universal ruler, will also give another thing.

For he will pick them out again from the undying fire and set them elsewhere and send them on account of his own people to another eternal life with the immortals in the Elysian plain where he has the long waves of the deep perennial Acherusian lake.Other pieces of Christian literature with parallel passages probably influenced by this include the Epistle of the Apostles and the Coptic Apocalypse of Elijah.

[50] Despite this, the other Clementine works in the Ethiopic manuscripts discuss a great act of divine mercy to come that must be kept secret, yet will rescue some or all sinners from hell, suggesting this belief had not entirely fallen away.

Nekyia, a work by Albrecht Dieterich published in 1893 on the basis of the Akhmim manuscript alone, identified parallels and links with the Orphic religious tradition and Greek cultural context.

[49] While much work has been done on predecessor influences, Eric Beck stresses that much of the Apocalypse of Peter is distinct among extant literature of the period, and may well have been unique at the time, rather than simply adapting lost earlier writings.

This appears to have been a popular setting in 2nd century Christian works, with the dialogue generally taking place on a mountain, as in the Apocalypse of Peter.

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.

[89] 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.

[90] 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.

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.

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.

[99] 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.

[12][103] 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.

[2] The Muratorian fragment is one of the earliest-created extant lists of approved Christian sacred writings, part of the process of creating what would eventually be called the New Testament.

[108] 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.

[55] Although these references to it attest that it was in wide circulation in the 2nd and 3rd century, the Apocalypse of Peter was ultimately not accepted into the Christian biblical canon, although the reason why is not entirely clear.

One hypothesis for why the Apocalypse of Peter failed to gain enough support to be canonized is that its view on the afterlife was too close to endorsing Christian universalism and the related doctrine of apokatastasis, that God will make all things perfect in the fullness of time.

[111] 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.

[9][112] 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.

[113] 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.