Das Petrusevangelium und die canonischen Evangelien. By Von Soden, in Zeitschrift für Theologie and Kirche, III. 1, pp. 52-92.

The Gospel according to Peter: A Study.

By the author of "Supernatural Religion."
Pp. 139. Price, 68.

London: Longmans.

The little treatise of Professor Völter is an interesting specimen of remarkably acute criticism expressed in a singularly fresh and straightforward way. Parts I. and II. consist respectively of a translation and a discussion of the unity of the present text. Völter regards our present text as interpolated, and in his translation he marks the interpolations by italics. About 50 lines out of 160 are assigned to the interpolator. He shows very plausible grounds for his theory, as all the passages so marked certainly do interfere with the progress of the narrative, and also because in several cases the removal of them relieves the document of self-contradictory statements. The passages thus removed are, according to the prevailing verse distribution, vv. 3-5a, 11-13, 21-24, 36, 376, 39-42, 52-54, 565. This relieves the document of the story of Joseph's begging the body of Jesus before the crucifixion takes place, the strange episode of the refusal to break the legs of the malefactor in order that he might suffer torture, that of the earthquake resulting from the laying of the dead body of the crucified upon the earth. It also reduces the appearances of heavenly men at the sepulchre from two to one, and does away with the legendary story of the three men of whom two reached in height to heaven and the other above the heavens, and the speaking cross that followed them.

With regard to the original text as thus purified, Völter thinks that the two main tendencies of the writer are to cast the whole blame of the death of Jesus on the Jews, and to represent Jesus as the Son of God. This latter tendency at least the writer surely shares with the canonical gospels, and all the essential points in his representation seem quite easy of explanation as suggested by these writings; but Völter can only see the influence of Wisdom ii. 10-20, Is. lviii., and other Old Testament and Apocryphal passages. He does indeed point out the resemblance between the cry, My strength, My strength, thou hast forsaken Me, and that reported in Matthew and Mark, but only to contend that the duvauis pov of Peter can answer to the λe of our gospels, only if we understand the latter of the Divine Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and not the spirit of the personal life of Jesus. One of the most unsatisfactory features of the work is the way in

which the author seeks to exaggerate the Doketic tendency of Peter by understanding "the taking up" (åveλýp0ŋ) as the withdrawal of the divine Being before the death by crucifixion. It is quite evident that this is not the idea set forth in the fragment. Zahn has clearly shown, p. 72, what all students of Irenæus ought to have no doubt about (see especially, Haer. 1. 7, 2; 26, 1; iii. 11, 3; 16, 1), that the idea of the departure of the Spirit as the divine nature of Christ, not at, but before death, was a tenet of Western Valentinianism, not of the Eastern school, with which alone the author of Peter's gospel can even plausibly be supposed to be connected. The passage is quite parallel to, or rather an echo of Matt. xxvii. 50, and undoubtedly is intended to relate the death of the Lord, "the Son of God," upon the cross. It was evidently thus understood in early times. Serapion, about A.D. 200, who had first given his approval, though upon a more careful and critical examination of it he thought that he had discovered Doketic tendencies in it, yet even then found it generally sound and orthodox, which certainly could not have been a fair description of the book, if such full-blown Doketism as this implies had been found in it. The use of the term duvaus might easily be understood by Serapion as perhaps a somewhat suspicious mode of expression, but yet quite capable of being taken as an equivalent for the "God" of canonical scripture; but the idea of a withdrawal of the divine nature of Christ into heaven before the death of the body, or the semblance of a body, on the cross would have called forth a much more sweeping condemnation.

The latter half of Völter's pamphlet is occupied with a discussion as to the possible origin or source of our fragment. He thinks that it could not have originated with the Doketics of Antioch. Its Doketism is not of the gross kind of Saturninus, but is more closely allied to the moderate and refined gnosticism of Valentinus. It did not, however, originate with the Valentinians, but was rather used by them, and ranked among them as a gospel along with others. Its origin is not to be sought for among heretics, but at a period and in a community where the Doketic tendency was in the air. The region in which it made its appearance was not Syria, otherwise it would have been better known by Serapion of Antioch, but probably Alexandria, whose first bishop, Marcus, was the disciple of Peter, and where the writings of Peter were in highest esteem. In support of this hypothesis Völter traces resemblances between Peter and the Epistle of Barnabas, which certainly had its home in Egypt, and he thinks that he can even show a good case for the supposition that the author of the later added portions of the Epistle of Barnabas was acquainted with the Gospel of Peter in the form represented by our fragment. Also the so-called Second Epistle of Clement has used our Gospel and none of the canonical gospels as its source. So,

too, in agreement with Harnack, he holds that our Gospel is the source of the Didascalia. Finally, the presence, as Völter supposes, of monarchian modalistic tendencies in our Gospel supplies the cue which associates it with the "Gospel of the Egyptians." The reasoning in the latter part of the tract seems utterly inconclusive. Starting from Zahn's conjecture that Peter may have been the source of a report of a conversation between Jesus and Salome, not found in the canonical gospels, but in a writing of Cassian, the founder of the Doketics, as quoted by Clement of Alexandria, and in the so-called Second Epistle of Clement, and said to be derived from the Gospel of the Egyptians, and from the fact that Clement of Alexandria refers to the Apocalypse and Preaching, but never to the Gospel of Peter, he leaps to the conclusion that the Gospel of the Egyptians (which he does name along with the Gospel of the Hebrews) and Gospel of Peter are identical. Also Origen, in his history of Apocryphal Gospels, mentions the Gospel of the Egyptians, saying that some gave it that name, implying that it had another, but not the Gospel of Peter, of which he speaks elsewhere. The concluding conjecture is that the purified text represents the Gospel of Peter, and the interpolated text, as we have it, the Gospel of the Egyptians.

In the little treatise of Zahn we have the text and translation of the fragment followed by a careful discussion of the spirit and style of the work. The position which he maintains in regard to the origin and source of the Gospel of Peter is sufficiently indicated by what he says on p. 47: “The only sources from which the Gospel of Peter has drawn its materials are our four gospels, and those too in a text which has already necessarily had for its development some time since the origin of these gospels. In this lies the great significance of the Gospel of Peter." In opposition to Harnack, he thinks that the fact of Peter being so often in direct contradiction to the four, instead of being a proof that the canonical gospels were not before the writer of the new gospel, affords rather a presumption in favour of that view, for his undertaking of his task is evidence of his dissatisfaction with what they had said on certain important points. There is ex hypothesi on the part of the author no pious reverential regard for the earlier gospels such as could make him careful to follow them closely; yet he will freely use them for his own ends. In detail Zahn shows (pp. 49-56) how closely Peter follows John, Mark, Matthew, and Luke in expression and in substance.

Zahn looks to Antioch, rather than to Alexandria, as its home. In the fourth century it was used by a heretical party in Syria, though certainly not by the Nazareans, as Theodoret absurdly supposes. In A.D. 1099 Crusaders found a Christian sect in the neigh

bourhood of Antioch in possession of a Gospel of St Peter.

The

Antiochean origin of the gospel accounts for the author's special knowledge of the historical Petronius, and also the philological knowledge implied in the rendering of the words uttered on the cross. As to its date, Zahn points to what he regards as the undoubted fact of this writer's use of our four gospels. This makes the beginning of the second century the earliest limit. But the use

of the canonical gospels by our author implies that they had a history behind them, and were already in possession of an established reputation, and that around them glosses and misinterpretations had gathered. This brings us down to the middle of the second century, not earlier than A.D. 130. There is no trace of independent traditions such as we would have had in a document written in the beginning of the century. Again, Serapion's reference to it does not admit of our assigning to it a later date than A.D. 170. It was among the Oriental Valentinians what the evangelium veritatis was among the Western. Zahn concludes by saying that the great significance of the Gospel of Peter consists in this, that it witnesses to the supremacy of our four gospels as we now possess them, about A.D. 150; and especially, that more distinctly than other witnesses it attests the truth of the 21st chapter joined to the Gospel of John, and the narrative broken off at the 8th verse of the 16th chapter of Mark.

The paper by the distinguished Berlin exegete and New Testament critic, von Soden, in the Ritschlian organ Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, attaches itself closely to the work of Harnack on the Gospel of Peter, and may be described generally as a justification of that work by the production in detail of the evidence required to warrant the conclusions that had been there laid down. He is quite prepared at the outset to assume that Harnack has proved the use of Peter by Justin as well as by the compiler of the Didascalia, Clement of Alexandria, &c., possibly even by Ignatius and Papias, while he accepts the suggestion that Tatian was acquainted with it, though he declined to use it in the composition of his Diatessaron. He does indeed feel the difficulty of reconciling Serapion's ignorance of it, except in connection with the small community at Rhossus in Cilicia, and this widespread use of it by the best known teachers of that age and earlier ages. But this really is only one of many objections which those who argue in favour of this Gospel's early date and use by the most ancient writers have altogether failed to meet.

The fragment falls into two parts, which give respectively the story of the trial and crucifixion, vv. 1-24, and that of the resurrection, vv. 25-60. Von Soden deals with the latter first, distinguished

from the earlier portion by its more complicated construction and greater freedom and originality of treatment on the part of the writer. We have, pp. 59-58, a careful detailed comparison in respect of form and contents between Peter and our gospels, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. His conclusion is that our author used a source identical with, or somewhat shorter than, Mark xvi. 1-8; that the other three canonical gospels were unknown, any similarities being explained by the use of some common sources; that Peter has made use of a series of traditions peculiar to himself, which must be judged of on their own merits; and that common elements can be traced in this and in other primitive Christian documents. The first part of the fragment is subjected to a similar scrutiny, pp. 68-79, and then, the relation of the whole fragment to our canonical gospels is considered, pp. 79-87.

The home of the gospel was Syria or South-Eastern Asia Minor, close on the borders of Syria, where it became known to Serapion in the end of the second century, it having been already driven out of other places in consequence of the Roman canonization of the four gospels. It had been the Syrian gospel just as Mark and Matthew were specially connected with Rome, and Luke and John with Asia Minor. As resting on traditions current in those regions in which Peter, according to 1 Peter i. 1, must have spent part of his later ministry, it may have some rightful claim to the designation which it has assumed. Finally, as to the date of our gospel, Von Soden, being firmly convinced of its use by Justin, and evidently strongly inclined to accept Harnack's view that it lay before Papias, Ignatius, and the author of the Didache, concludes that it is certainly not later than our canonical gospels, but that it originated in the same period and under a similar inspiration as these, just missing what they obtained by the arbitrary action of the Church in its rigid determination of the contents of the Scripture Canon. In this respect his conclusion is quite the same as that of "the author of Supernatural Religion."

It may be useful to compare Völter, Zahn, and Von Soden with the author of "Supernatural Religion" in these discussions. The work of the anonymous writer has now been a sufficient length of time before the public to make it possible to form a just and sober judgment of it. The character of the so-called study will be best seen from the summary statement of results which the author gives us in his closing page. "In so far as the Gospel according to Peter is concerned, the impartial verdict must be: It is neither better nor worse than the more fortunate works which have found a safe resting-place within the Canon of the Church. It is almost impossible now to judge of