10. Non-Canonical writings ascribed to St. Peter. — Eusebius (EZ 011. iii.), after mentioning the two Epistles which have a place in tke Canon (see
776 PETER (SIMON)
separate articles), proceeds to speak of other writings connected with Peters name—the Acts 4 Peter (see above), the Gospel according to
eter, the Preaching of Peter, and the Apocalypse. These, he adds, ‘ we do not acknowledge as handed down to us among the Catholic writings, for no Church writer, either in ancient times or in our own, ever made use of the testimonies they supply (cf. 11. xxv.). To this list Jerome (de Virr. Iilustr. 1) adds the Judicium.
(1) The Gospel of Peter.—A portion of what is aniversally agreed to have been the Petrine Gospel mentioned by Eusebius was found among the Akhmim fragments, and published by M. Bouriant in Novy. 1892. The fragment begins with a reference to our Lord’s trial before Pilate and Herod, and then gives an account of the mockery, the crucifixion, the burial, and the resurrection. The author writes in the first person (cc. vii. xii.), and identi- fies himself with Peter: ‘But I Simon Peter and Andrew my brother’ (c. xiv.). The Gospel is the subject of a letter written by Serapion, who was bishop of Antioch during the last decade of the 2nd cent., and preserved by Eusebius (HE vi. 12). Serapion had found the Gospel at Rhosus on the Bay of Issus, and had at first approved it. Further knowledge, however, led him to condemn it on the double ground that it owed its origin to the Docetz, and that it contained additions to ‘the true teaching about the Saviour.’ The fact that Serapion, a man of literary and controversial activity, did not know of the Gospel before his accidental discovery of it, that no other 2nd cent. writer is proved to have used it, and that few later writers were acquainted with it, and these only men in some way connected with Syria, shows that its circulation and influence were confined within narrow limits. As to its date, Harnack holds that in the fragment the four Gospels are not placed on the same level, Mt proba ly not being used at all, and that the Petrine Gospel was used by Justin. These considerations seem to him to point to the beginning of the 2nd cent. (cf. Sanday, Inspiration (1893) p. 310, ‘hardly later than the end of the first quarter of the 2nd cent.’). On the other hand, it is by no means certain that Justin used the Gospel; their un- doubted connexion can be explained in other ways. And, further, the text of the Gospels had already had a history before it was used by the author of the Petrine Gospel; indeed there is strong reason to think that he used a harmony of the Gospels, that of Tatian or some earlier harmony, at least for the portion of the history covered by the ex- tant fragment.* The implied text, then, of the Gospels suggests that the date can hardly be much before 150 (so Swete: Zahn 130), while a limit in the other direction is supplied by the fact that the Gospel had been in existence some time before Serapion discovered it. See the editions of Bouriant, Lods, Robinson (1892), Har- nack, Zahn, Swete (1893); also von Schubert, Die Composition des peter a stag ait Evangelien- fragments, 1893; Salmon, Introduction, Appendix (1894) pe 581 ff.
_ (2) The Preaching of Peter (κήρυγμα TWérpov).—It is probable that this document is quoted by Origen (de Prine. Pref. 8) under the title ‘Petri doc- trina’+; it is possible that it is to be identified with the ‘Predicatio Petri et Pauli,’ quoted by Lact. Instit. Div. iv. 21, comp. pseudo-Cyprian
__* The present writer has elsewhere (The Old Syriac Element in the Tezt of Cod. Beze p. 121 ff.) given reasons for thinking that ‘behind those parts of the fragment which are based on the Canonical Gospels there lie the corresponding sentences of the Syriac Diatessaron.’
t This is to be distinguished from the διδασχαλία Πέτρου re- ferred to by later Greek Fathers. Von Dobschiitz (p. 107) identi- fies this Peter with Peter of Alexandria.
PETER (SIMON)
——
The extant fragments of the
de Rebapt. 17. Preaching are collected in Hilgenfeld’s NT extra Canonem (1884) iv. p. 51 ff., and in von Dobschiitz, ‘Das Kerygma Petri kritisch untersucht’ (1893 ;
Texte u. Unters. xi. 1).* It is clear from what has come down to us that the book gave—not a single discourse, but—the substance of discourses by one speaking in the name of the apostles (the first person plural is always used 6). It deals with the rplrov yévos among Jews and Gentiles, insistin on a pure monotheism as opposed to the errors o Judaism and of heathenism alike, and incorporat- ing directions of our Lord in reference to the evangelization of the Gentiles. Clement of Alex- andria (cf. Heracleon ap. Origen, in Lv. Joh. Tom, xiii. 17) regards the spokesman of the apostles throughout as Peter; and further, having the whole book before him, he implies that it claimed to be written by Peter—6 Πέτρος γράφει (Strom. vi. 7, p. 769 ed. Potter; comp. Origen’s question in the passage just referred to—rérepév ποτε γνήσιόν ἐστιν ἢ νόθον ἢ μικτόν). The Preaching exercised a wide influence. It was apparently used amon others by Apollonius of Asia Minor (ap. Eus. H. y. xviii. 14) at the end of the 2nd cent., Heracleon, the author of the Epistle to Diognetus, Justin, Aristides (Robinson in Texts and Studies i. 1, p. 86ff.). Its date must therefore be very early. Harnack, holding that Egypt was the birthplace of the book, gives its date as. 110-130 (140); Zahn as 90-100. Von Dobschiitz suggests that in the first decade of the 2nd cent. a Christian at Alexandria felt that St. Mark’s Gospel (ending at 16%) needed a supplement, and wrote the Preaching as a δεύτερος λόγος, and further that from it the ‘shorter ending’ of Cod. L (Swete, St. Mark p. xevii ff.) is derive For further information see von Dobschiitz, ‘Das Kerygma Petri’ (Texte u. Untersuch. xi. 1, 1893) ; Harnack, Die Chronologie, 1897, pp. 472-474; Zahn, Geschichte des NT Kanons, 1892, 11. ii. pp. 820-832 ; Salmon, art. ‘Preaching of Peter,’ in Dict. Chr. Biog. (vol. iv. 1887); Hilgenfeld, NT extra Can. Rec., ed. altera, 1884, iv. pp. 50-65.