Chapter One

The Ancient Discovery of

a Forgery: Serapion and
the Gospel of Peter
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Ancient Christians knew of far more Gospels than the four that eventually
came to be included in the New Testament. Most of them have been lost to us
in all but name. Some are quoted sporadically by early church writers who
opposed them. A few have been discovered in modern times.
We can assume, and in many cases we know, that the Christians who read,
preserved, and cherished these other Gospels understood them to be sacred
texts. The Christians who rejected them argued that they were heretical (pro­
moting false teachings) and, in many instances, forged.
The Christians who won the early conflicts and established their views as
dominant by the fourth century not only gave us the creeds that have been
handed down from antiquity,1 they also decided which books would belong to
the Scriptures. Once their battles had been won, they succeeded in labeling
themselves “orthodox” (i.e., those who hold to the “right beliefs”) and mar­
ginalized their opponents as “heretics.” But what should we call Christians
who held the views of the victorious party prior to their ultimate victory? It
may be best to call them the forerunners of orthodoxy, the “proto-orthodox.”
Proto-orthodox Christians accepted the four Gospels that eventually became
part of the New Testament and viewed other Gospels as heretical forgeries. As
the famous theologian of the early and mid-third century, Origen of Alexan­
dria, claimed, “The Church has four Gospels, but the heretics have many” (Hom­
ily on Luke 1).2 He goes on to list several of the heretical Gospels he himself
has read: the Gospel according to the Egyptians, the Gospel according to the
Copyright 2003. Oxford University Press.

Twelve Apostles, the Gospel of Basilides, the Gospel according to Thomas,

and the Gospel according to Matthias.
We know almost nothing of the Gospels of the Twelve Apostles and of
Basilides, a famous second-century Gnostic heretic.3 The Gospels of the Egyp­
tians and of Matthias are known only through a few quotations by Origen’s
13
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older contemporary, Clement of Alexandria. These quotations give a sense of

what we lost when these texts disappeared. The Gospel of the Egyptians appar­
ently opposed the notion of procreative sex. In one passage, a female follower
of Jesus, Salome, known slightly from the New Testament Gospels (see Mark
16:1), says to Jesus, “Then I have done well in not giving birth,” to which Jesus
is said to reply, “Eat of every herb, but do not eat of the one that is bitter”
(Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 3.9.66). At an earlier point he is said to
have declared, “I have come to undo the works of the female” (Miscellanies
3.9.63). The Gospel according to Matthias may have been an even more mys­
tical affair. At one point Clement quotes the intriguing words, “Wonder at the
things that are before you, making this the first step to further knowledge”
(Miscellanies 2.9.45).4
The other Gospel that Origen mentions, the Gospel of Thomas, has been
discovered in its entirety in modern times and is arguably the single most im­
portant Christian archaeological discovery of the twentieth century. It is a fas­
cinating document, the subject of an extensive modern literature; we will look
at it at length in a later chapter.5
Clement and Origen were not alone in acknowledging the existence of other
Gospels and assigning them to heretical forgers. The early fourth-century church
father Eusebius also mentions the Gospels of Thomas and Matthias, along with
the Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Gospel of Peter (Church History
3.25). The last named is of particular interest, because Eusebius gives an ex­
tended account of how it was used, questioned, and eventually condemned as
heretical by a proto-orthodox leader, to be relegated to the trash heaps of dis­
carded Gospels. But then it turned up again, not in a trash heap but in the tomb
of an Egyptian monk, discovered over a hundred years ago.

Eusebius, Serapion,
and the Gospel of Peter

Prior to its discovery, virtually everything we knew about the Gospel of Peter
came from Eusebius’s account. In his ten-volume Church History, Eusebius
narrates the history of the Christian Church from the days of Jesus down to his
own time, in the early fourth century. This writing is our best source for the
history of Christianity after the period of the New Testament to the time of the
emperor Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. The
work is filled with anecdotes and, of yet greater use to historians, extensive
quotations of earlier Christian writings. In many instances, Eusebius’s quota­
tions are our only source of knowledge of Christian texts from the second and
third centuries. The account we are particularly interested in here concerns
Serapion, a proto-orthodox bishop of the city of Antioch, Syria, one of the
hubs of Christian activity in the early centuries, and his encounter with the
Gospel of Peter.6

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Serapion had become bishop in 199 CE. Under his jurisdiction were not just
the churches of Antioch but also the Christian communities in the surrounding
area, including one in the town of Rhossus. Serapion had made a visit to the
Christians of Rhossus, trying, in good proto-orthodox fashion, to correct their
misperceptions about the true gospel message. While there he learned that the
church in Rhossus used as its sacred text a Gospel allegedly written by Simon
Peter. Not knowing the character of the book, but assuming that it must be
acceptable if Peter himself had written it, Serapion allowed its use, prior to
returning home to Antioch.
But some “informers” came forward to cast doubts on the authenticity of
the book, inducing him to read it for himself. When he did so, he realized that
this Gospel was susceptible to heretical misconstrual, specifically that some of
the passages found in it could be used in support of a docetic Christology.
Docetism was an ancient belief that very early came to be proscribed as
heretical by proto-orthodox Christians because it denied the reality of Christ’s
suffering and death. Two forms of the belief were widely known. According to
some docetists, Christ was so completely divine that he could not be human.
As God he could not have a material body like the rest of us; as divine he could
not actually suffer and die. This, then, was the view that Jesus was not really a
flesh-and-blood human but only “appeared” to be so (the Greek word for “ap­
pear” or “seem” is doceo, hence the terms docetic/docetism). For these docetists,
Jesus’ body was a phantasm.
There were other Christians charged with being docetic who took a slightly
different tack. For them, Jesus was a real flesh-and-blood human. But Christ
was a separate person, a divine being who, as God, could not experience pain
and death. In this view, the divine Christ descended from heaven in the form of
a dove at Jesus’ baptism and entered into him;7 the divine Christ then empow­
ered Jesus to perform miracles and deliver spectacular teachings, until the end
when, before Jesus died (since the divine cannot die), the Christ left him once
more. That is why Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me?” (see Mark 15:34). Or as it can be more literally translated, “Why have
you left me behind?” For these Christians, God had left Jesus behind, by
reascending to heaven, leaving the man Jesus to die alone on the cross.8
For proto-orthodox Christians, both forms of docetism were strictly off-
limits. With regard to the first—Jesus the phantasm—they asked: If Jesus did
not have a real body, how could he really die? And if he did not die, how could
his death bring salvation? If he did not have real blood, how could he shed his
blood for the sins of the world? With regard to the second view—Jesus and
Christ as separate beings—they asked: If the divine element in Jesus did not
suffer and die, how was his death different from that of any other crucified
man? How could his death be redemptive? It might be a miscarriage of justice,
perhaps, or a bad end to a good man. But it would be of no real relevance to the
plan of God for salvation. And so proto-orthodox Christians denounced both

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kinds of docetism as heresy and fought them with all their might. It was not
just their lives at stake but their eternal lives, the salvation of their souls.
When Serapion read the Gospel of Peter for himself, he realized that it could
be used in support of a docetic Christology. And so he wrote a little pamphlet,
“The So-Called Gospel of Peter,” in which he explained the problems of the text,
pointing out that whereas most of the Gospel was theologically acceptable,
there were “additions” to the Gospel story that could be used in support of a
docetic view. Serapion concluded that because the book was potentially hereti­
cal, it must not have been written by Peter—operating on the dubious assump­
tion that if a text disagreed with the truth as he and his fellow proto-orthodox
Christians saw it, then it could not possibly be apostolic.
Serapion then penned a letter to the Christians of Rhossus in which he for­
bade further use of the Gospel and appended his pamphlet detailing the prob­
lem passages. Eusebius narrates the tale and quotes the letter. But he does not
cite the passages.
That is unfortunate, since now it is impossible to know for certain whether
the Gospel of Peter discovered in the nineteenth century is the book condemned
by Serapion and known to Eusebius. Most scholars, however, assume that it is,
for this book, too, would have been acceptable in the main to proto-orthodox
thinkers. Yet there are several passages that could well lend themselves to a
docetic construal. And this is a book written in the first person by someone
who calls himself Simon Peter.
No one today thinks that Jesus’ disciple Peter wrote the book. To that extent,
Serapion was right. He had discovered a forgery.

The Discovery of the

Gospel of Peter

The text was forgotten for centuries, known only from Eusebius’s brief account.
That changed dramatically during an archaeological excavation conducted by a
French team operating out of Cairo, digging in upper Egypt in the town of Akhmim
during the winter season of 1886–87.9 Under the direction of M. Grébant, the
team uncovered the tomb of a monk in the Christian section of the town’s cem­
etery. The tomb could date anywhere from the eighth to the twelfth centuries.
What was of greatest significance, however, was not the tomb itself but what was
in it, along with the monk. The monk had been buried with a manuscript.
The manuscript probably dates to the seventh or eighth century, and it is
reasonable to assume that it was the cherished property of the monk. It is an
intriguing document. Sixty-six pages in length, written on parchment, it con­
tains fragmentary remains of several apocryphal texts, not all of them Chris­
tian but all of them significant. The first text, on pp. 2–10 (p. 1 contains only
the drawing of a cross), is a portion of the Gospel of Peter, about which I will
be speaking momentarily. Next, on pp. 13–19, sewn into the book upside down

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(accidentally, one would suppose), is a fragmentary copy of the Apocalypse of

Peter, an intriguing account, now known more fully from an ancient Ethiopic
translation, in which Peter is shown the glorious afterlives of the saints and the
eternal torments of the sinners. Then there are two passages taken from the
Jewish apocryphal book known as 1 Enoch, which is an account, known more
fully from other sources, of a revelation supposedly delivered to Enoch, the
famous figure from the Hebrew Bible who did not die but was taken alive up to
heaven (Gen. 5:21–24). Finally there is a fragmentary text of the Acts of Saint
Julian.
This was a remarkable find, not least for its silent and completely unex­
pected testimony in microcosm of Christian unity and diversity, tolerance and
intolerance. Tolerance: Here was a medieval monk buried with proscribed books,
an array of texts, both Jewish and Christian, both orthodox and heretical. And
yet intolerance: The manuscript contains the Apocalypse of Peter, whose au­
thor condemns to the fires of hell everyone who disagrees with his view of how
to behave (including women who braid their hair to make themselves attrac­
tive, anyone who disobeys their parents, and bankers who lend money out at
interest); and the Gospel of Peter, which is intolerant of Jews—who are por­
trayed as ignominious and responsible for the death of Jesus—and was itself
condemned to oblivion by intolerant Christian leaders who objected to its theo­
logical views.

The Gospel of Peter

It is regrettable that the manuscript presents only a fragment of the Gospel of

Peter. Not that the document in the monk’s tomb is itself fragmentary: It is
complete. But the first line of the Gospel text begins (after the opening decora­
tive) in midsentence and also ends, prior to two blank pages, in midsentence.
Whoever copied this Gospel in the seventh or eighth century, then, had before
him only a fragment, which he transcribed into this small anthology along with
other fragmentary texts available to him.
The surviving fragment of the Gospel contains an account of Jesus’ trial,
crucifixion, and resurrection.10 It is impossible to know whether the book origi­
nally contained more than that—whether, for example, it was a “complete”
Gospel like those of the New Testament, which begin with either Jesus’ bap­
tism (Mark and John) or his birth (Matthew and Luke), and contain accounts of
his sayings and deeds, along with a narrative of his passion and resurrection.
Scholars typically assume that the Gospel of Peter originally contained more
than the passion and resurrection narratives that survive in the Akhmim frag­
ment, that it was a fuller account like the New Testament Gospels—that is, that
it contained stories from Jesus’ public ministry as well. This is because several
tiny fragments of Jesus’ sayings have been discovered elsewhere in Egypt which

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may also have derived from the Gospel. These other fragments contain conver­
sations between Jesus and Peter recorded in the first person—conversations
not found in the fragment of the Gospel discovered in the monk’s tomb.11
In any event, the Gospel fragment as we have it begins with the following
words:

. . . but none of the Jews washed his hands, nor did Herod or any of his judges.
Since they did not wish to wash, Pilate stood up.

It is a significant beginning for two reasons. It shows that, just before the
fragment begins, the Gospel contained an account of Pilate washing his hands—
a story found, among our New Testament Gospels, only in Matthew 27:24. Yet
it displays a marked difference from the account in Matthew, which says not a
word about anyone refusing to wash their hands. Thus in the Gospel of Peter,
Herod, the “king of the Jews,” and his Jewish judges, unlike the Roman gover­
nor Pilate, refuse to declare themselves innocent of Jesus’ blood. This inti­
mates an important aspect of the rest of the account. For here it is not the
Romans who are responsible for Jesus’ death. It is the Jews. This fragmentary
Gospel is far more virulently anti-Jewish than any of those that made it into the
New Testament.
The intimation of an anti-Jewish slant is confirmed in the very next verse:

Then King Herod ordered the Lord to be taken away and said to them, “Do
everything that I ordered you to do to him.”

Here it is the Jewish king, not the Roman governor, who orders Jesus’ death.
The narrative continues with the request of Joseph (of Arimathea) for Jesus’
body, the mockery of Jesus, and his crucifixion. These accounts are both like
and unlike what we read in the canonical Gospels. For example, in v. 10, Jesus
is said to be crucified between two criminals, as in the other Gospels, but here
we find the unusual statement that “he was silent, as if he had no pain.” This
last statement could well be taken in a docetic way: Perhaps Jesus appeared to
have no pain because he did not have any (whether the author meant it to be
taken that way or not is another matter). Some scholars have seen this as sup­
porting evidence that this fragment is from the “heretical” Gospel known to
Serapion. Further confirmation may come several verses later. When Jesus is
about to die, he utters his “cry of dereliction” in words similar to, but not iden­
tical with, those found in Mark’s account. Here he says, “My power, O power,
you have left me” (v. 19; cf. Mark 15:34); he is then said to be “taken up,” even
though his body remains on the cross. Is Jesus here bemoaning the departure of
the divine Christ from him prior to his death, the view, as we have seen, of
some docetic Christians?
There is another interesting feature in this Gospel’s account of Jesus’ cruci­
fixion. As in the Gospel of Luke, only one of the two criminals has something
disparaging to say.12 He says it, however, not to Jesus but to the soldiers cruci­

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fying him. He tells them that he and the other criminal have deserved their
punishment. But he asks, “This one, the Savior of the people, what wrong has
he done you?” (v. 14). Angered by the rebuke, the soldiers order that “his legs
not be broken, so that he would die in torment.”13
After Jesus dies, the account continues by describing his burial and then, in
the first person, the distress of the disciples: “We fasted and sat mourning and
weeping, night and day, until the Sabbath” (v. 27). As in Matthew’s Gospel, the
Jewish leaders ask Pilate for soldiers to guard the tomb (see Matt. 27:62–66).
This Gospel, however, provides more elaborate detail. The centurion in charge
is named Petronius, who along with a number of soldiers rolls a huge stone in
front of the tomb and seals it with seven seals. They then pitch their tent and
stand guard (vv. 29–33).
Then comes perhaps the most striking passage of the narrative, an actual
account of Jesus’ resurrection and emergence from the tomb, found in none of
our other early Gospels. A crowd has come from Jerusalem and the surround­
ing area to see the tomb. During the night hours, they hear a great noise and see
the heavens open up; two men descend in great splendor. The stone before the
tomb rolls away of its own accord, and the two men enter. The soldiers stand­
ing guard awaken the centurion, who comes out to see the incredible spectacle.
From the tomb there emerge three men; the heads of two of them reach up to
the sky. They are supporting the third, whose head reaches up beyond the skies.
Behind them emerges a cross. A voice then speaks from heaven: “Have you
preached to those who are asleep?” The cross replies, “Yes” (vv. 41–42).
The soldiers run to Pilate and tell him all that has happened. The Jewish
leaders beg him to keep the story quiet, for fear that they will be stoned, once
the Jewish people realize what they have done in putting Jesus to death. Pilate
commands the soldiers to silence, but only after reminding the Jewish leaders
that Jesus’ crucifixion was indeed their fault, not his (vv. 45–49). The next day
at dawn, not knowing what has happened, Mary Magdalene goes with several
women companions to the tomb to provide a more adequate burial for Jesus’
body. But the tomb is empty, save for a heavenly visitor who tells her that the
Lord has risen and gone. The manuscript then ends in the middle of a story that
apparently described Jesus’ appearance to some of his disciples (perhaps simi­
lar to that found in John 21:1–14): “But I, Simon Peter, and Andrew, my brother,
took our nets and went off to the sea; and with us was Levi, the son of Alphaeus,
whom the Lord . . .” (v. 60). Here the manuscript breaks off.
It is this ending which shows that the author is trying to pass himself off as
Jesus’ own disciple. The good Christians of Rhossus notwithstanding, modern
scholars have not been much fooled. This account was probably written after
the canonical Gospels, long after Peter had died.
Before giving reasons for thinking so, I should give a brief word of back­
ground. Most scholars think that Mark is our earliest surviving account of Jesus’
life, written somewhere around 65 or 70 CE; that Matthew and Luke were pro­
duced ten or fifteen years later, possibly 80–85 CE; and that John was the last

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of the canonical accounts, written near the end of the first century, around 90
or 95 CE. The earliest traditions of Peter’s death, however, indicate that he
was executed during the persecution of Christians under the emperor Nero,
around 64 CE.
The author of the Gospel of Peter may have utilized the Gospels of the New
Testament for his own accounts, but it is rather difficult to know for certain.
There are not, for example, extensive word-for-word agreements between his
account and any of the canonical four, and apart from evidence of this sort, it is
difficult to establish that one author used another for a source. It may just as
well be that this author, like our New Testament authors, had heard numerous
stories about Jesus’ life and death and recorded them in his own fashion, add­
ing his own touches. In this case, the touches involve some intriguing legend­
ary accretions—especially about the giant resurrected Jesus and the walking
cross that speaks to the skies.

The Gospel of Peter and

Traditions about Pontius Pilate

One of the reasons for thinking that the Gospel of Peter was written after our
canonical accounts (and therefore long after Peter’s death) involves the treat­
ment of “the Jews” in his narrative. The kind of heightened anti-Judaism here
corresponds with views that were developing in Christian circles in the second
century, a period in which Christian anti-Judaism began to assert itself with
particular vigor. One by-product of this increased animosity is that Christians
began to exonerate Pilate for Jesus’ death and to blame Jews—all Jews—more
and more.
It is an illuminating exercise to trace the treatment of Pilate through our
surviving Gospels. The more he is excused, the more the Jews are blamed. Our
earliest account, Mark, shows Pilate and the Jewish people reaching a kind of
agreement to have Jesus crucified. Pilate then orders it, and Jesus is taken off
immediately to his death (Mark 15:1–15). In Matthew’s Gospel, written some­
what later, Pilate is warned by his wife, who has had a bad dream, not to be
involved in the affair; Pilate then shows that he wants nothing to do with Jesus’
death by washing his hands of the business. “I am innocent of this man’s blood.
See to it yourselves,” he declares. The Jewish crowd then responds, “His blood
be on us and our children” (Matt. 27:25), a response doomed to wreak havoc in
the hands of Christian persecutors of Jews throughout the Middle Ages. But it
is also completely consonant with views developing in early Christianity: If
Pilate is innocent, then the Jews are themselves responsible for killing their
own messiah (Matt. 27:11–26).
In Luke’s Gospel, written about the same time as Matthew, Pilate declares
Jesus innocent three times, to no avail, and tries to arrange for King Herod, in
town for the Passover Feast, to do the dirty work for him. But again it is to no

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avail. With little way out, Pilate yields to the demands of the Jewish leaders and
orders Jesus crucified (Luke 23:1–15). In John’s Gospel, the final canonical ac­
count to be written, Pilate again declares Jesus innocent three times, and then
finally, when his hand is forced, turns Jesus over—not, however, to the Roman
soldiers but to the Jewish people. Jesus is then crucified (John 18:28–19:16).
So too in the somewhat later Gospel of Peter, where the Jewish culpability
is heightened even further and Pilate takes a back seat both to the Jewish king
Herod and to the Jewish people. It is Herod who orders the execution and the
Jewish people who take full responsibility for what they have done: “Then the
Jews, the elders, and the priests realized how much evil they had done to them­
selves and began beating their breasts, saying, ‘Woe to us because of our sins.
The judgment and the end of Jerusalem are near’” (v. 25). It is worth noting
that it was in the second and third centuries that Christians began blaming the
destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies in 70 CE on the Jews them­
selves, not for a foolish uprising against the power of Rome but for killing
Christ, whose death was avenged by the destruction of the city and the slaugh­
ter of its inhabitants.14
The traditions about Pilate’s innocence did not stop there. Some years later,
around 200 CE, the proto-orthodox Christian apologist (i.e., intellectual de­
fender of the faith), heresiologist (i.e., exposer of heresies), and moralist
Tertullian mentions a legendary report that Pontius Pilate had sent a letter to
the Roman emperor Tiberius, indicating that this one who had been crucified
was shown by his miraculous deeds to have been divine. Tiberius, Tertullian
indicates, was completely convinced, and brought a motion to the Roman Sen­
ate to have Jesus declared a god. The Senate proved recalcitrant, however, so
that even though the emperor acknowledged Christ’s divinity, he was not allot­
ted a place in the Roman pantheon (Tertullian, Apology 5). Pilate, however, was
said to have converted after Jesus’ resurrection and become a Christian. This is
all stuff of legend, of course, borne out by no non-Christian source.
An entire literature surrounding Pilate eventually emerged within Christian
circles, including other versions of the letter that he reportedly sent to the em-
peror,15 and several later, lengthier accounts of how the emperor reacted when
he learned that one of his governors had executed the Son of God. According
to a medieval legend, called the “Surrender of Pilate” (Paradosis Pilati), the
emperor recalled Pilate to Rome and put him on trial: “By daring to do an evil
deed you have destroyed the whole world!” Pilate responds, as one might ex­
pect: “Almighty King, I am innocent of these things; it is the multitude of the
Jews who are reckless and guilty.”16 Even so, the emperor orders Pilate’s ex­
ecution. Before placing his head on the chopping block, however, Pilate, now
a devout Christian, prays that Christ not blame him for yielding in ignorance to
the machinations of the Jews. A voice then comes from heaven: “All genera­
tions and families of the Gentiles shall call you blessed . . . and you yourself
shall appear as my witness at my second coming” (v. 10).

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In some parts of the church the exoneration of Pilate went even further. In
the Coptic (Egyptian) church, his death came to be seen as that of a Christian
martyr; in one of history’s most remarkable metamorphoses, he eventually came
to be regarded there as a Christian saint.
All this has brought us a long way from the Gospel of Peter. But already we
can see the trajectory: Pilate is exonerated to implicate the Jews, as those who
killed their own Messiah.

The Popularity of the

Gospel of Peter

We have seen a number of intriguing features of the Gospel of Peter: its simi­
larity to the New Testament Gospel accounts of Jesus’ death, its legendary
accretions, its virulent anti-Judaism, its potentially docetic character, its sup­
pression by the proto-orthodox bishop Serapion, its importance for the Chris­
tians of Rhossus. But was it used only in Rhossus? Was the Gospel of Peter
merely a local production, forged on the site, with limited impact on the rest of
Christendom? It was virtually unknown, after all, down through the ages until
French archaeologists happened to find it in a monk’s tomb.
Nevertheless, there are indications that the Gospel of Peter was widely popu­
lar in the early church, arguably at least as popular as one of the Gospels that did
make it into the New Testament, the Gospel of Mark.17 It is worth observing that
the Gospel of Mark itself is hardly ever cited in the early centuries of Christian­
ity, even within the writings of the proto-orthodox. Possibly this is because as the
shortest of the four Gospels that came to be included in the New Testament it was
not read as much as the others. As readers have long noticed, nearly all the stories
found in Mark are found also in Matthew and/or Luke. For this reason Mark
eventually came to be seen as a condensed edition of Matthew, a kind of Reader’s
Digest version. Possibly it was not read as much as the others, since their fuller
accounts could give its story and much more.
The archaeological finds of early Christian manuscripts bear out the con­
clusion that the Gospel of Mark was not widely read. Over the past hundred
years or so, numerous fragmentary copies of ancient Christian writings have
turned up, principally in the sands of Egypt, where the consistently dry climate
makes preservation possible over the centuries. The earliest manuscripts of the
early Christian literature were written, as was most literature, pagan, Jewish,
and Christian, on writing material manufactured from papyrus, a reed that grows
on the banks of the Nile and that can be made into a very nice writing surface
resembling coarse paper. Since the 1880s, thirty manuscripts of the New Testa­
ment Gospels have been discovered that date from the second and third centu­
ries. Most of them contain only one or the other of the Gospels, as these books
were originally circulated separately, not as a collection. Of these thirty (frag­
mentary) Gospel manuscripts, only one contains the Gospel of Mark.

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In contrast, from the same period, five (partial) unidentified Gospels have
been discovered; these are texts that provide accounts of Jesus’ words and deeds
but that are too fragmentary to establish which Gospel they belonged to, ex­
cept to say that they did not belong to any Gospel we know about by name. In
addition, there are three fragmentary copies of the Gospel of Thomas, alleg­
edly written by Jesus’ twin brother, Didymus Judas Thomas (the subject of
chapter 3). And there are two fragmentary copies of a Gospel allegedly written
by Mary Magdalene, in which she reveals the secrets that Jesus had given her
as his closest companion. From the same period we also have three fragmen­
tary copies of the Gospel of Peter (this is not counting the later copy found in
the monk’s tomb in Akhmim).
And so it is an interesting question to ask: Which Gospel was more popular
in early Christianity, Mark or Peter? It is rather hard to say. But if the material
remains are any gauge, one would have to give the palm to Peter, with three
times as many surviving manuscript remains as Mark.
These three fragments of the Gospel of Peter are small. One of them con­
sists of just seven partial lines. But the fragments, taken as a whole, have a
significance that transcends their size. One of them appears to have come from
a second-century (or early third-century) copy that contained the same account
of Joseph of Arimathea asking for Jesus’ body that is found in the larger copy
discovered in the monk’s tomb in Akhmim. That is significant because it shows
that the later seventh- or eighth-century copy may faithfully represent the text
as found already in Serapion’s day.
The other two fragments come from other portions of the Gospel, and there
are debates about whether they stem from the same Gospel of Peter or a differ­
ent one. It is hard to know, because the credit card-sized fragments contain so
little text, making their reconstruction complicated. But both of them appear to
represent a conversation between Jesus and Peter, in which Peter speaks in the
first person. The first (the one with only seven partial lines) has Jesus predict­
ing that all the disciples, even Peter, will betray him. This would be, then, the
familiar account of the Last Supper, but told by Peter himself.
The second contains a saying not found in the canonical Gospels but known
to scholars of Christian antiquity from another surviving document called 2
Clement, a proto-orthodox document of the mid-second century, which none­
theless records a rather peculiar interchange between Jesus and Peter.18 Ac­
cording to 2 Clement, the conversation went like this:

For the Lord said, “You will be like sheep in the midst of wolves.”
But Peter replied to him, “What if the wolves rip apart the sheep?”
Jesus said to Peter, “After they are dead, the sheep should fear the wolves no
longer. So too you: Do not fear those who kill you and then can do nothing more
to you; but fear the one who, after you die, has the power to cast your body and
soul into the hell of fire.” (2 Clement 5:2–4)

The fragment of the Gospel of Peter we are concerned with here, published
just in 1994, contains a similar account, with two main differences. For one

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thing, here the words of Jesus are given a broader context. It begins with Jesus
telling his disciples that they are to be “as innocent as doves but wise as ser­
pents” and that they will be like “sheep among the wolves.” They respond,
quite sensibly, one might think: “But what if we are ripped apart?” Then comes
the second difference: “And Jesus replied to me. . . .” What follows is the
saying that dead sheep have nothing to fear from wolves, and so on.
Since in the version of 2 Clement this is a response to Peter, but in this
fragment it is a response to someone speaking in the first person, it seems
likely that the fragment comes from a Gospel in which the author is speaking
in the name of Peter himself, as in the longer text discovered in the monk’s
tomb in Akhmim. It is not completely clear where the anonymous author of 2
Clement derived his knowledge of this conversation. Since it is not in any of
the other Gospels. Possibly he too had read the Gospel of Peter and accepted it
as an authoritative account of Jesus’ words.19
One other interesting archaeological find relates to the Gospel of Peter and
shows that the book continued to be read and revered as Scripture for centu­
ries. There was published in 1904 an edition of a small ostracon, a piece of
earthenware pottery, broken off and used for writing/drawing. It has not re­
ceived much critical attention from scholars but is one of the oddest pieces to
survive from Christian antiquity. It appears to date from the sixth or seventh
century. On one side of the triangular piece (roughly 3? × 4? × 5½?) is a crude
drawing of a man with wide eyes, long nose, hair at the top of his head, a beard
(or a collar?) on his chin, shoulders, and stick arms with stick hands, one open
in a gesture of prayer, the other holding a stick or staff (with a cross at the top)
raised up over his head. The ostracon contains several pieces of writing, all in
Greek. Over the stick figure’s head is written “Peter”; to the left is written “The
Saint”; and to the right is written “The Evangelist.” That is noteworthy: Peter
is identified not merely as an apostle or a disciple of Jesus but as an author of
one of the Gospels, an Evangelist. More striking still is the Greek writing on
the reverse side: “Let us venerate him, let us receive his Gospel.”
Somebody revered Peter and his Gospel, somebody living in Egypt, some
four or five hundred years after Serapion had forbidden the Gospel’s use. And
this Egyptian was not alone. She or he must have been part of a community,
which must have had a contemporary copy of the Gospel and accepted it as a
sacred text. Nor was the community of the ostracon’s inscriber alone: A frag­
ment of the Gospel was buried, presumably as a cherished text, in the tomb of
a monk a century or so later. The Gospel of Peter may have become lost to us,
but it was widely used in the early centuries of Christianity, and it continued to
be used down to the early Middle Ages in some parts of the church.

The Accompanying Apocalypse of Peter

The community or communities that used the Gospel of Peter may have used

other noncanonical texts as well. As I have noted, the Gospel of Peter is bound

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The

Peter E
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Let us venerate
him, let us receive
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up in a manuscript that contains other documents, including one we will meet

with again in our discussion, since it stood on the fringes of the New Testament
canon for centuries. Like the Gospel, it, too, is attributed to Peter. This, how­
ever, is an “apocalypse,” a revelation of the heavenly realities that can make
sense of life here on earth. In this case, the realities are not so much future
catastrophes that God will bring against this planet, as one finds in the book of
Revelation, the one apocalypse that made it into the New Testament. Instead,
the Apocalypse of Peter shows the fates of those who have died, both those
who have done the will of God and those who have opposed him. These fates
are described in remarkably concrete and authoritative terms, for Jesus himself
takes his disciple Peter on a guided tour of the abodes of the blessed and damned,
of heaven and hell. Dante did not invent the idea of such a tour; The Divine
Comedy was already standing in a long Christian tradition, going back at least
to the once-lost but now-found Apocalypse of Peter.20
The account begins with Jesus teaching his disciples on the Mount of Ol­
ives and the disciples asking when the end will come (cf. Matthew 24). Jesus
responds by telling them the parable of the fig tree: “. . . as soon as its shoots
have come forth and the twigs grown, the end of the world shall come” (ch. 1).
Peter and the others are understandably confused: “And I, Peter, answered and
said to him, ‘Interpret the fig tree to me: How can we understand it? For through­
out all its days the fig tree sends forth shoots and every year it brings forth its
fruit” (ch. 2).
Jesus goes on to explain that the fig tree refers to Israel and that in the future
there will come forth from it false Christs and prophets. This is then the beginning
of the end, which Jesus describes not so much in terms of earthly disasters—there
are some of these, to be sure—as in terms of the fates of individuals in the
afterlife.
It is the fate of the damned and their various eternal tortures that have sparked
the greatest interest in this text. The torments are particularly lurid, with the
punishments matching the sinners’ crimes. Blasphemers are hanged by their
tongues, forever, over unquenchable fire; women who braided their hair to
make themselves attractive to lustful men are hanged by their hair; the men
who committed fornication with these women are hanged by their genitals.
Those who trusted in riches are eternally cast onto a razor-sharp pillar of fire;
bankers who made money on interest spend eternity up to their knees in filth;
children who disobeyed their parents are incessantly eaten by savage birds;
slaves who disobeyed their masters are forced to gnaw their own tongues with­
out ceasing.
The blessings of the saved are understandably less graphic. Anyone with
sufficient imagination can devise numerous creative torments, but there are
only so many ways to describe eternal bliss. Still, for this text, the rewards of
the blessed make any temporary hardship here on earth clearly worth the price.
This is an eternal ecstasy reserved for the few.

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The author of this firsthand narrative, allegedly Peter himself, clearly pro­
duced his account not merely to entertain his Christian readers but also to ad­
vance several major theological views. In particular, of course, he shows that
anyone who sides with God will reap a reward whereas anyone who opposes
God will pay an everlasting and horrific price. Just as important, however, the
author stresses that God is in control of all that happens in this world, appear­
ances notwithstanding. In other words, this account, like other early Christian
“apocalypses,” is not meant simply to scare people into avoiding certain kinds
of behavior—lying, committing adultery, blaspheming, relying on wealth, etc.—
but also to explain that the evil and suffering of this age will be resolved in the
next, that what happens here will be overturned there, that those who succeed
by being wicked now will pay an eternal price later, whereas those who suffer
for doing what is right now will be vindicated forever, as God shows once and
for all that he and he alone is sovereign over this world.

The Gospel of Peter and

Other Early Christian Literature

This initial foray into the Christian apocrypha of the second century shows that
Christians were reading far more sacred literature than one might think. They
were not reading only the books that eventually made it into the New Testa­
ment. There is no way of knowing whether during the time of Serapion of
Antioch (end of the second century) the Christians of Rhossus ever had heard
of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Their Gospel was the Gospel of Peter, until
the bishop asserted his authority and banned its use. Whether he was success­
ful in doing so, in the short run, is something we will never know. What we can
know is that the Gospel was being read not just in Syria but also in Egypt,
possibly at an early stage, since the papyri that contain it are roughly contem­
porary with Serapion. And it is more widely attested than even some of our
canonical books, including the Gospel of Mark.
Christians were reading other texts as well. Some were reading the Acts of
Pilate, a book I have not yet mentioned. This is an account which describes the
trial of Jesus in a much fuller fashion than in the surviving fragment of the
Gospel of Peter, showing the guilt of the Jews and the superiority of Jesus over
everything pagan. In this account, which is referred to by the second-century
author Justin Martyr, the images of the Roman gods bow down to Jesus when
he enters the room. At a later date this account was combined with a detailed
description of Christ’s descent into Hades, which took place between his death
and resurrection to form what is now known as the Gospel of Nicodemus. Had
Tertullian read early versions of any of this material? He certainly had read
some version of the letter Pilate had sent back to the Roman emperor, pro­
claiming Jesus’ innocence and divinity. As we saw at the outset, his contempo­
rary Origen had read yet other Gospels—those according to the Egyptians, the

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Twelve Apostles, Matthias, Basilides, and Thomas. And we know of apocalypses

being read as well, including the one allegedly written by Peter and lost until
discovered in a monk’s tomb along with Peter’s Gospel.
What else might early Christians have been reading as Scripture? Lots of
texts, most of them proscribed, burned, lost. Some of them have been recently
found, if only in tantalizing fragments. What we would give for a complete
copy of Peter’s Gospel, or of the stories of Pilate, or of the Gospels or
apocalypses that we know only by name. But only a few of these early Chris­
tian writings managed to survive the proscriptions of their proto-orthodox en­
emies, sometimes circulating in clandestine copies in the Middle Ages,
occasionally being quoted by this or that church father for reasons of his own,
and in those rare moments of genuine discovery, sometimes turning up in the
sands of Egypt, uncovered by trained archaeologists digging through ancient
garbage heaps of ancient cities or stumbled upon by bedouin, going about their
business and serendipitously unearthing finds that can tell us something about
the lost Christianities of antiquity.

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