Special Literature. — M. Schneckenburgrer, Ueber das Evanrjelium, der Aegypter, Bern, 1834 (edition of the Gospel of the Hebrews, in the interests of an Ej;yplian Ebionitic sect) ; Hilgenfeld, Ketzergesch. des Urchristenthums, Leipzig, 1884, p. 546 f. ; D. Volter, Petrusevanqelium oder Aegypterevangelium) Tubingen, 1893 (cf. ZNTW, 1905, pp. 368-372) ; O. Pfleiderer, Prim. Christianity, iii., London, 1910, pp. 225-228. It is pos- sible (cf. Baumstark in ZNTW, 1913, pp. 232-247) that traces of the use of the Gospel of the Egyptians are to be found in the Ethiopia 'Testament of our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ,' recently edited by L. Guerrier and S. Gr^baut in Patmlogia Orientalis, ix. 3 [1913] ; and an attempt has been made (byF. P. Badham and F. C. Conybeare, HJ yii. [1912-13] 805 f.) to show that, like the ' Ascensio Isaiae,' it was read by the Cathars of Albi.
{d) The Gospel of Peter.— The Gospel of Peter was used, either for private reading or in public worship, by the Church at lihossus on the coast of Syria, not far from Antioch, in the last quarter of the 2nd cent. Its use appears to have occasioned some doubt and dispute, however. Serapion, the bishop of Antioch (A.D. 190-203), who seems to have been either a casual or a tolerant person, at first declined to take any steps in the matter ; he sanctioned the use of the Gospel, without troubling to examine it carefully. Sub- sequently, he borrowed a copy from some Docetic Christians, and discovered that ' although most of it belonged to the right teaching of the Saviour, some things were additions.' By the time Eusebius ( HE vi. 12) wrote, it was definitely branded as illegitimate.t It is doubtful whether Eusebius knew it at first-hand, and the later allusions to it
• The author is unknown, and no name was ever connected with it — which is one mark of early origin, at any rate of an origin apart from any special sect or tendency.
t The harsh censure of Eusebius (,HE iiL 8) ia repeated by Jerome {de Vir. iUuntr. 1).
are probably borrowed from him. At the same time, it has to be remembered that the Gospel of Peter was not obliterated by the episcopal censure of Serapion. Its circulation was never wide, but it was tenacious. The Syriac Didascalia (cf. TU, new ser., x. 2 [1904], p. 324 f.) in the 3rd cent, and Syriac Jewish Christians as late as the 5th witness to its existence and popularity (cf. Theod. Hmr.fabul. ii. 2)* in Syriac; and the discovery of the Akhmlm fragment atte.sts its circulation in Egypt. Still later traces are detected by Usener {ZNTW, 1902, p. 353 f.), Stocks {ZKG, 1913, p. 3), and Leipoldt [Geschichte des neutest. Kanons, i. 177 f.).
About A.D. 246 Origen, in his Commentary on Matthew (x. 17) observes that 'The citizens of Nazareth (Mt 13^*) supposed Jesus Avas the son of Joseph and Mary ; as for the brothers of Jesus, some say they were sons of Joseph by a former wife who had lived with him before Mary, on the ground of a tradition in the Gospel entitled /card tiirpov or the book of James.' This tradition, we now know, existed in the primitive source of the Protevangelium Jacobi (cf. p. 484). But it does not follow that it did not also exist in the Gospel of Peter. If so, that Gospel belongs to our second class ; and one consideration in favour of this is the extreme unlikelihood of Peter's name being specially attached to a Gospel which did not cover the ministry of Jesus. Till the winter of 1886- 1887 this solitary reference was all that was known of the Gospel ; but the discovery of an 8th cent, manuscript of fragments of Peter's Gospel, Peter's Apocalypse, and Enoch in Greek, at Akhmlm in Upper Egypt, revealed more of the characteristics of this Gospel. Unluckily, the frag- ment begins and ends abruptly. It opens with the end of the trial ; Pilate has washed his hands, but none of the other judges (including Herod) does so. Herod takes the leading part in what follows,t the aim of the author being to exculpate the Romans and emphasize the responsibility and guilt of the Jews. In the story of the Crucihxion one of the malefactors reproaches not his fellow- criminal but the Jewish by-standers, who retaliate by leaving his legs unbroken in order to prolong his agony. It is at this point that the Docetic and semi-Gnostic tendencies of the writer begin to show themselves. On the Cross the Lord ' was silent, as having no pain ' ; his last cry is, ' My Power, my Power, hast thou forsaken me?' When His dead body is lowered to the ground, there is an earthquake. The Jewish mob and their authorities then J repent, crying, ' Alas for our sins ! the judgment, the end of Jerusalem, is nigh ! ' At this point the author § brings Peter on the scene. ' I and my companions grieved, and, struck to the heart, we hid ourselves, for we were being sought for by them [i.e. the Jews] as male- factors and as intending to set hre to the temple.' Meantime Pilate has the tomb guarded, at the request of the Jews. The author then ventures to describe the Resurrection. || 'There was aloud