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Apocalypse of Peter

Apocalypse of Peter: Encyclopedia - Apocalypse of Peter

The recovered Apocalypse of Peter or Revelation of Peter is extant in two translations of a lost original, one Greek, one Ethiopic, which diverge considerably. The Greek manuscript was unknown at first hand, until it was discovered during excavations under Sylvain Grébaut during the 1886-87 season in a desert necropolis at Akhmim in Upper Egypt. The fragment consisted of parchment leaves of the Greek version in the grave of a Christian monk of the 8th or 9th century. The manuscript is in the Egyptian Mu ...

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Apocalypse of Peter: Encyclopedia - Apocalypse of Peter

Apocalypse of Peter

The recovered Apocalypse of Peter or Revelation of Peter is extant in two translations of a lost original, one Greek, one Ethiopic, which diverge considerably. The Greek manuscript was unknown at first hand, until it was discovered during excavations under Sylvain Grébaut during the 1886-87 season in a desert necropolis at Akhmim in Upper Egypt. The fragment consisted of parchment leaves of the Greek version in the grave of a Christian monk of the 8th or 9th century. The manuscript is in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. An Ethiopic version was discovered in 1910.

Before that, the work was known only through copious quotes in early Christian writings. In addition, some common lost source had been necessary to account for closely parallel passages in such apocalyptic literature as the (Christian) Apocalypse of Esdras, the Vision of Paul, and the Passion of Saint Perpetua.

The terminus after which the Apocalypse of Peter was written is revealed by its use of 4 Esther, the fourth book continuing Esther, which was written about 100 A.D., used in Chapter 3 of the Apocalypse. The intellectually simple Apocalypse of Peter, with its Hellenistic Greek overtones, belongs to the same genre as the Clementine literature that was popular in Alexandria.

Indeed, the Apocalypse of Peter was popular and had a wide readership. The Muratorian fragment, the earliest existing list of canonic sacred writings of the New Testament, which is assigned on internal evidence to the third quarter of the second century (i.e. ca 175-200), gives a list quite similar to the modern accepted canon, but also includes the Apocalypse of Peter. The fragment states: "the Apocalypses also of John and Peter only do we receive, which some among us would not have read in church." The original is ambiguous whether both books of Revelations were meant, or just Peter's. (It is interesting that the existence of other Apocalypses is implied, for several early apocryphal ones are known. See Apocalyptic literature.)

The Apocalypse of Peter is framed as a vision first of heaven, and then of hell, granted to Peter, the favourite figure of the Orthodox church (as opposed to James the Just, favourite of the Jewish Christians). It goes to extreme detail about the punishment in hell for each type of crime, later to be depicted by Hieronymous Bosch, and the pleasures given in heaven for each virtue. In heaven, in the vision,

People have pure milky white skin, curly hair, and generally beautiful
The earth blooms with everlasting flowers and spices
People wear shiny clothes made of light, like the angels
Everyone sings in choral prayer

Some of the punishments in hell according to the vision include:

Blasphemers are hung by the tongue.
Women who use makeup, or dress in a sexually suggestive manner, are hung by the hair over a bubbling mire (and men that had sex with them are hung by the feet next to them).
Murderers are set in a pit of poisoned snakes
Men who take the passive role in anal sex, and sexually active lesbians, are hurled off a great cliff, and then made to climb it again, ceaselessly.
Women who have abortions are set in a lake formed from the blood and gore from all the other punishments, up to their necks.

"The Revelation of Peter shows remarkable kinship in ideas with the Second Epistle of Peter... It also presents notable parallels to the Sibylline Oracles (cf. Orac. Sib., ii., 225 sqq.), while its influence has been conjectured, almost with certainty, in the Acts of Perpetua and the visions narrated in the Acts of Thomas and the History of Barlaam and Josaphat. It certainly was one of the sources from which the writer of the Vision of Paul drew. And directly or indirectly it may be regarded as the parent of all the mediaeval visions of the other world." (Roberts-Donaldson introduction)

Clement of Alexandria considered the Apocalypse of Peter to be holy scripture, as Eusebius recorded in Historia Ecclesiae (VI.14.1), when he described a work of Clement that gave "abridged accounts of all the canonical Scriptures, not even omitting those that are disputed, I mean the book of Jude and the other general epistles. Also the Epistle of Barnabas and that called the Revelation of Peter." So the work must have existed in the first half of the 2nd century, which is also the commonly accepted date of the canonic Second Epistle of Peter.

The Apocalypse of Peter was eventually not accepted into the Christian canon and thus remains today among the New Testament apocrypha, though references to it attest to its once in wide circulation. Thus the disappearance of every single manuscript of the work is perhaps not entirely coincidental.

Note that another text, given the modern title the Apocalypse of Peter, was found in the Nag Hammadi library. It is unrelated to the text discussed here.