Gospel of Peter
In the early history of Christianity, the Gospel of Peter had formerly been a prominent passion narrative, before it was suppressed and considered lost. It was known from hearsay, especially in a letter from Serapion, Bishop of Antioch in 190 - 203, who found upon examining it that "most of it belonged to the right teaching of the Saviour," but that some fell into the Docetist heresy. In the 5th century, Theodoret (Religious History ii.2) reports that the Jewish Christian sect of the Nazarenes used "the gospel called `according to Peter.'" Later Western eferences to the work, such as Jerome, ("Of famous men" i.) and the Decretum Gelasianum that condemns the work, are apparently based upon the judgment of Eusebius, not upon direct knowledge of the text.
When it was first recovered from a manuscript in 1886, the Gospel of Peter was the first non-canonical ("heretical") gospel to have been rediscovered, preserved in the dry sand of Egypt. To date it is one of four extracanonical narrative gospels, which exist only in fragmentary form: this Gospel of Peter, the Egerton Gospel, and the very fragmentary Oxyrhynchus Gospels 840 and 1224.
While scholars debate as to whether this text is dependent upon the canonical gospels or to what extent it contains an independent witness of the earliest Christian traditions, they generally agree on a date between 150 and 250 CE, for it was condemned by Serapion upon inspection at Rhossos, where the community was using it in liturgy. Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome also refer to the Gospel of Peter. Like the canonic gospels, it is epigraphical; in other words, it bears the name of a supposed author who did not actually compose the text. This was a common Jewish and Christian convention for lending weight to a text. Thus, though the writer identifies himself as Simon Peter in the first person singular, this is impossible. But this gospel may be the oldest extant writing produced and circulated under the authority of the apostle Peter.
Sources
Some characteristics of Peter suggest a place early in an oral tradition. The developed apologetic technique typical of the final edition of the Gospel of Matthew and of Justin Martyr, which seeks to demonstrate a correspondence between prophetic predictions in the Tanakh and their detailed fulfillments in the fate of Jesus, is quite lacking.
The author may have written independently of the synoptic Gospels, (the conclusion reached by Ron Cameron and others); he may have, directly or indirectly used the Q Gospel, a source also employed by Luke and Matthew, but applying to his borrowings a theology that was later unacceptable to the developing mainstream Christianity. Or, as Raymond Brown and other scholars find, he may have been acquainted with the synoptic gospels and even the Gospel of John. Eusebius wrote that Serapion of Antioch found no objections to the gospel being used in the churches of Western Syria (e.g. by the community at Rhossus), but feared that it might promote docetic christology. Certainly the text avers that Christ on the cross "remained silent, as though he felt no pain" and his death is paraphrased as a direct assumption.
Transmission
As far as currently known, the gospel is preserved in three fragments. In the late 19th century, an 8th century text was discovered, with other manuscripts, in a monk's grave in the modern Egyptian city of Akhmim (sixty miles north of Nag Hammadi). Later, two small 6th century papyri were uncovered at Oxyrhynchus and published in 1972.
The opening leaves of the text are lost, so the story begins abruptly with the trial of Jesus before Pilate, and closes with its unusual version of the resurrection. The Gospel of Peter is more detailed in its account of events after the Crucifixion than any of the canonical gospels.
Though apocryphal, it is of considerable value as showing that the main facts of the history of Jesus were widely known at the time. It was condemned as heretical after the time of Eusebius, for its Docetic elements.
Secure that other scholars were preparing critical and scholarly editions, J. Rendel Harris decided to introduce it to the public in a popular account. He opens with a description of its discovery, offering his opinions regarding its date and original language. Classifying the work as a Docetic gospel, Harris defines the community in which it arose as well as its use during the Patristic age. He translates the fragment and then proceeds to discuss the sources behind it. Harris is convinced that the author borrowed from the canonical accounts, and he lists other literature that may have incorporated the Gospel of Peter, with special emphasis on the Diatessaron. One of the chief characteristics of the work is its anti-semitism; Pontius Pilate is exonerated of all responsibility for the Crucifixion, the onus laid upon the scribes and Jews.
See also Biblical canon, apocrypha.
