IX

[pg 107]IXWe have now completed our comparison of the fragment with the canonical Gospels, and are able to form some opinion of its relative antiquity and relationship to our Gospels. Is it, as apologetic critics assert, a mere compilation from them, or can it take an independent position beside them, as a work derived from similar sources, and giving its own version of early Christian tradition? We have shown that it is not a compilation from our Gospels, but presents unmistakable signs of being an independent composition, and consequently a most interesting representation of Christian thought during the period when our Synoptic Gospels were likewise giving definite shape to the same traditions. Every part of this fragment has been set side by side with the corresponding narrative in the canonical Gospels, and it is simply surprising that a writing, dealing with a similar epoch of the same story, should have shown such freedom of handling. That there should be some correspondence between them was inevitable, but the wonder is not that there should be so much agreement, but so much divergence; and this wonder increases in proportion as a later date is assigned to the fragment, and the authority of the canonical Gospels had become more established.The theory of“tendency”was sure to be advanced as an explanation of differences of treatment of the same story, but this seems to us much exaggerated in what[pg 108]is said of the Gospel according to Peter. That early Docetic views might be supposed to be favoured by its representations is very possible; but these are far from being so pronounced as to render it unacceptable to those not holding such opinions, and the manner in which Justin and Origen make use of its statements is proof of this. As to its anti-Judaistic tone, a certain distinction has to be drawn. The expressions regarding“the Jews,”“their feast”(used in reference to the Passover), and so on, may be put in the same category as the definition of the veil of the Temple“of Jerusalem,”as indicating merely a work probably written out of Judaea, and for Gentile Christians; but in throwing upon the Jews, much more than on the Roman power, the odium of having crucified Jesus, the difference between Peter and the canonical Gospels is really infinitesimal. He certainly represents Pilate as retiring early from the trial, and leaving it to Herod, in whose“jurisdiction”it was, after washing his hands of the whole business; but this is a much more probable account, and perhaps an earlier tradition, than that which makes a Roman governor present the incredible and humiliating spectacle of a judge condemning and crucifying a man, in whom he finds no fault, at the dictation of a Jewish mob. The canonical Gospels, however, only accentuate the guilt of the Jews by representing the chief priests and elders, as well as the multitude, obstinately clamouring for his crucifixion, and finally overcoming Pilate's scruples. It is the chief priests and rulers who first seize Jesus and plot for his betrayal, who spit in his face, buffet and mock him, who prefer to him Barabbas, and cry:“His blood be on us and on our children”(Matt. xxvii. 25). The expressions of distinct antagonism to the Jews in the fourth Gospel far exceed any in the Gospel according[pg 109]to Peter. There is, therefore, no preconceived purpose conceivable to account for the characteristics of the narrative in this fragment.That a writer who had our canonical Gospels before him should so depart from their lines, alter every representation without dogmatic purpose, insert contradictory statements, and omit episodes of absorbing interest and passages which would have enriched his narrative, is a theory which cannot be established. It is obvious that the feeling of the writer is one of intense devotion and reverence, and it is unreasonable to suppose that he could have passed over, altered, and contradicted so many points in the narrative of the Gospels, had he had those works before him.120In all probability he composed his work from earlier records and traditions, of the existence of which we have evidence in Luke i. 1, and the degree of resemblance on the one hand, and of discrepancy on the other, proceeds from independent use of these sources, from which the materials used in the canonical Gospels may have been drawn. It had not the good fortune of these Gospels, however, to be adopted by the Church and subjected, like them, to repeated revisal; but, drifting apart on the stream of time, it at last comes to us with all its original sins and imperfections on its head. Of course, any judgment now formed on the Gospel according to Peter is subject to the unfortunate limitation that we have only a fragment of the work in our hands; but should the rest be discovered, as we hope, it will not affect conclusions now based upon the part before us, whatever may be the final verdict on the whole.[pg 110]XWe have still to consider objections raised by Mr. Rendel Harris, however, concerning the relation between this fragment and the Gospels accepted by the Church. In a long article in the“Contemporary Review”he tries to establish the thesis that“The Gospel of Peter shows everywhere the traces of a highly evolved prophetic gnosis, and in particular most of the apparently new matter which it contains is taken from the Old Testament.”121It would not be possible, without wearying the most patient of parishioners, to illustrate in any adequate manner the perverse and hair-splitting ingenuity with which the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”went to work, and which, in very parlous fashion, Mr. Harris applies to Peter; but, fortunately, this will not be necessary here. This gnosis doubtless began its operation early, and reached a climax towards the fourth century; but then it had ceased to be creative, and had become wildly analytical. Nothing then remained for it to do. Mr. Rendel Harris quotes, with admirable courage, a“significant sentence”from the“Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta,”a work of St. Sylvia of Aquitaine, or some other lady traveller of the fourth century, which has recently been published. She has been relating how the people were instructed in the mysteries of the faith by readings from the Scriptures,imprimis; of the Psalms predictive of the Messianic sufferings; then of[pg 111]passages from the Acts and Epistles which bear upon the interpretation of such predictions; further, the evidence of the prophets; and, to crown all, the story of the Passion itself from the Gospels.“The object of this service was, as Sylvia points out, that the people might understand by the Gospel record that whatever the psalmists and prophets had foretold concerning the Passion of the Lord had actually taken place.”And now comes the“significant sentence”to which we referred above, italicised by Mr. Harris himself:“And so for the space of three hours the people is taught thatnothing took place which had not been previously foretold, and nothing had been foretold which had not obtained its fulfilment.”Mr. Harris supports the accuracy of Sylvia's description.122But, whilst frankly admitting the application of this fundamental principle of the prophetic gnosis, more or less throughout all early Christian literature, Mr. Harris wishes to limit its influence upon works received into the canon, into which the two-edged weapon, however, pierces in spite of him to the sundering apart of soul and body. He says:Now no history is, in its ultimate analysis, so trustworthy as Christian history, but if we take the whole body of early literature, of which the canonical Gospels form the centre and crown, including Apocalypses, party-gospels, and the like, we shall find that there never was a body of history which was so overgrown with legend, and the major part of these legends result from the irregular study of the Old Testament, probably based on the synagogue methods of the time of the early Christian teachers. This reaction of the prophecy upon history colours the style of authors and affects their statements; and it is only by a close and careful study of the writers and their methods, that we are able to discriminate between what is abona fideallusion in the Prophets, or what is a trick of style borrowed from the Prophets, or what is a pure legend invented out of the Prophets.123[pg 112]The immediate object here, of course, is to lay the basis of an indictment against the fragment; but in this clear and excellent statement, a principle is enunciated, the application of which cannot be directed as the writer pleases, but is apt to be as deadly to friends as to foes. Mr. Harris may attempt to satisfy his doubts, in writing with the impartiality of a scholar, as he does, with the reservation that“no history is, in its ultimate analysis, so trustworthy as Christian history,”but he has only to formulate the reasons for such a statement, to recognise their utter inadequacy. In so far as he gives us any glimpse of them here, they are of sad insufficiency. He speaks, a little further on, regarding“the real need of a critical method that can distinguish between statements that are genuine history, and statements that are prophetic reflexes. For this discrimination,”he says,“our main guide is the Canon, which expresses the judgment of the primitive Christian Church upon its literary materials; but I think it will be generally felt that we shall need finer-edged tools than Church customs or decrees in the more difficult parts of the problem; and certainly we must not assumea prioriin a critical investigation, that there is no trace of legendary accretion in the Gospel, and no element of genuine fact in what are called the Apocrypha.”124Alas! is not the“main guide”a mere blind leader of the blind in regard to“the encroachment of prophetic interpretation upon the historical record”? We have no intention of maintaining here a very different view of the credibility of Christian history, the arguments against which we have elsewhere fully stated, but it is desirable, for reasons which will presently appear, that the fundamental principle of this attack on the Gospel according to Peter should be clearly understood. Mr.[pg 113]Harris goes on to affirm that the measure of this encroachment is, in the first two centuries, one of the best indications of documentary date we possess:“As a test, it will settle the period of many a document, and perhaps the measure of the appeal to prophecy will even determine the chronological order of the Gospels themselves: Mark, Luke, John, and Matthew.”125This order will probably surprise a good many readers, and shake the faith they might perhaps be disposed to repose in the test which is supposed to have decided it. Mr. Harris applies the test in various instances to Peter, and we shall briefly examine his results.It will be remembered that inv.35 f. whilst the soldiers were keeping watch over the sepulchre, there was a great voice in the heavens, and they saw the heavens opened, and“two men”(δύο ἄνδρας) came down from thence with great light, and approach the tomb, and the stone which had been laid at the door rolled away, and they entered it, but presently they beheld again three men (τρεῖς ἄνδρας) coming out, and the two were supporting or conducting the other by the hand, and the lofty stature of the three is described. Now the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”by which, according to Mr. Harris, this representation was composed is as follows, though only the main lines of the painful process can be given. In the prayer of Habakkuk (iii. 2), according to the Septuagint, the words which stand in our Bible,“In the midst of the years make known”reads:“In the midst oftwo lives”(or oftwo living creatures)“thou shalt be known.”This is referred in two ways: to“Christ's incarnation”and to his“Death and Resurrection.”In the former case the two animals are the ox and the ass at the Nativity. The interpretation in the second case: the[pg 114]“living creatures”are the seraphim, two in number, because in Isaiah (vi. 3)“one called to the other and said:”“and we have only to find a situation in which Christ is seen between two angels, and the prophecy is fulfilled. This situation is made in the Gospel of Peter by Christ rising between two supporting angels.”Mr. Harris endeavours to strengthen this by referring to Cyril of Alexandria's comment on the two living creatures (in the fourth century). Cyril is in doubt whether the two living creatures are the Father and the Holy Spirit, or the Old and New Testament, but recurs to the earlier interpretation that they are the Cherubim. Mr. Harris also cites the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel on Zechariah iii. 7:“If thou wilt keep the observation of my word,I will raise thee up in the resurrection of the dead, and set thy feet walking between the two cherubim.”Then, as soon as this identification of the two living creatures had been made, it was easy, says Mr. Harris, to pass over to the ninety-ninth Psalm, which Justin126affirms to be a prediction of Christ.A little study of the opening words will show some interesting parallels with Peter.“The Lord hath reigned! Let the people be enraged! Sitting on the Cherubim, let the earth be shaken. The Lord in Zion is great and high above all the people.”Here we have a parallel to the“Jews burning with rage,”and to the enormous stature of the risen Christ, and, perhaps to the quaking of the earth. Nor is it without interest that Justin, having spoken of this great and high Christ, should turn immediately to another Psalm (xix.) where the sun is said to come forth as a bridegroom from his chamber, and to rejoiceas a giantto run a race.127In order to be as just as possible, all this has been given in greater detail than perhaps the case deserves. It seems rather a heavy avalanche of conjecture to bring down upon Peter, who simply narrates, without the most distant reference to any prophetic texts; and[pg 115]it is perhaps a little hard that Justin, who in all probability had the Gospel already written and before him, should contribute in this casual way to the author's discomfiture. However, let us see what there is to be said upon the other side. The first general remark that may be made is, that it can scarcely be considered evidence of the later date of Peter to ascribe to him, as the source of this detail, an elaborate twisting of texts through the operation of gnosis, which has not been proved to have existed in this form before the epoch at which he wrote. This is said without any intention of casting doubt on the general operation of supposed prophetic passages on the evolution of Gospel history, but merely as questioning this particular explanation of the mode in which this representation was originally suggested, and more especially for the purpose of adding that, whatever reproach of this kind is cast upon the Gospel according to Peter, must equally be directed against the canonical gospels.It will be remembered that, in the third Synoptic,“two men in shining apparel”assist at the resurrection, and that in the fourth Gospel Mary sees in the tomb“two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.”Here there is an occasion for applying with equal—or, as we shall presently see, greater—propriety the argument of“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”to the writers, and so explaining their representation. But there is more to be suggested in connection with the matter. In the first and second Synoptics, only one angel assists at the scene, who in the second Synoptic is called“a young man”(νεανίσκος). Now the“two men”of great stature in Peter only go into the tomb and come out again with Jesus; but subsequently the heavens were again opened (v.44), and a certain man descends and[pg 116]goes into the tomb and remains there, for when the women come (v.55) they see there“a certain young man”(νεανίσκος)“sitting in the midst of the tomb, beautiful and clad in a shining garment,”who speaks to them as in the two Synoptics, and tells them that“Jesus is gone thither whence he was sent.”This, then, is the angel who appears in Matthew and Mark. We have already mentioned that the two men ofv.36 have been identified by some critics as Moses and Elias. The account of the transfiguration is given in all the Synoptics, though it does not seem to have been known to the author of the fourth Gospel—although“John”was an actor in the scene—but that in the third Synoptic is fuller than the rest (ix. 28 ff). Jesus takes with him Peter and John and James, and goes up into the mountain to pray; and as he prays his countenance was altered, and his raiment becomes white and dazzling;“and behold there talked with him two men (ἄνδρες δύο), which were Moses and Elijah; who appeared in glory,and spake of his decease which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”When Peter and the others were fully awake,“they saw his glory and the two men (δύο ἄνδρας) that stood with him. And it came to pass, as they were parting from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah:not knowing what he said. And while he said these things there came a cloud, and overshadowed them ... and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my son, my chosen: hear ye him.”To this episode Mr. Harris might reasonably apply the test of the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis;”but in any case, the view that the two men of the fragment are intended to represent Moses and Elijah—the law and the prophets—who had so short a time before“spoken of[pg 117]his decease which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem,”and who now came, in stature reaching to the heavens, but less than his which rose above the heavens, and conducted Jesus the Christ forth from the tomb, in which that decease had been fulfilled, is in the highest degree probable. Much more might be said regarding this, but too much time has already been devoted to the point.The second application of Mr. Harris's test is to the sealing of the stone at the sepulchre with seven seals. The Gospel of Peter simply states that the stone was sealed with seven seals, and Mr. Harris endeavours to find some abstruse meaning in the statement, which is peculiar to the fragment in so far as the number of seals is concerned. Where did Peter get the idea? Mr. Harris says, first from Zechariah iii. 9:“For behold the stone that I have set before Joshua; upon one stone are seven eyes; behold I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts;”and the name Joshua is the Hebrew equivalent of Jesus. A reference is also made by the Fathers of the second century to passages to prove that Christ was the stone (of stumbling to the Jews, but the corner stone to believers).“Justin recognised Christ in the stone cut out without hands, of which Daniel speaks; in the stone which Jacob set for his pillow, and which he anointed with oil; in the stone on which Moses sat in the battle with Amalek,”and the like.“Bearing in mind that there was an early tendency to connect the language of the‘Branch’passage with the resurrection, we can see that the interpretation took a second form, viz. to regard the stone before the face of Jesus as a prophecy of the stone which closed the tomb in the evangelic story.”There is evidence, Mr. Harris says, that the seven eyes were early interpreted by Biblical Targumists to mean seven seals.[pg 118]We need not be surprised, then, that the Peter Gospel speaks of the stone as sealed with seven seals; it is an attempt to throw the story into closer parallelism with Zechariah, no doubt for polemic purposes against the Jews. That he uses the curious word ἐπέχρισαν, which we are obliged, from the exigencies of language, to translate“they smeared”or“plastered”seven seals, but which to the writer meant much the same as if he were to say,“they on-christed seven seals,”is due to the lurking desire to make a parallel with Christ and the stone directly, and with the anointed pillar of Jacob. The stone has a chrism.... But this is not all; in Zechariah (iv. 10) there is a passage,“they shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel,”but in the Septuagint it runs,“they shall see the tin-stone.”How is this to be connected with the“stone before the face of Joshua or Jesus”? The answer is found in the pages of the Peter Gospel:“a great crowd came from Jerusalem and the neighbourhoodto see the tomb which had been sealed.”It only remains to identify the stone which they saw with the tin-stone. Symmachus retranslated the Hebrew word for“tin”as if it came from the root which means“to separate or divide,”and in the Gospel of Peter,“the stone which had been laid on the door of the tomb withdrew (or separated) gradually”(ἐπεχώρησε παρὰ μέρος).“The‘plummet’of Zerubbabel,”Mr. Harris triumphantly concludes,“is used by Peter to make history square with prophecy.”128Now again the general remark has to be made that, in order to convict Peter of a late date, Mr. Harris takes all this“highly evolved gnosis”wherever he can find it, without consideration of epochs, and in some parts upon mere personal conjecture. He even confesses that he does not know the date of the translation of Symmachus, which he nevertheless uses as an argument. He observes, himself, that it is“a little awkward”that the stone, which at one time represents Jesus, has to be treated in the same breath as before the face of Jesus. The terribly complicated and involved process, by which it is suggested that the author of the Gospel according to Peter evolved a detail so apparently simple[pg 119]as the sealing of the sepulchre with seven seals, is difficult enough to follow, and must have been still more difficult to invent, but in his anxiety to assign a late date to the fragment, Mr. Harris forgets that, if the number seven is evidence of it, a large part of the New Testament must be moved back with the fragment. The Synoptics are full of it,129but it is quite sufficient to point to the Apocalypse, which has this typical number in almost every chapter: the message to the seven churches; the seven spirits before the throne; the seven golden candlesticks; the seven stars; seven lamps of fire burning; seven angels; seven trumpets; seven thunders; the dragon with seven heads, and seven diadems; the seven angels with seven plagues; the woman with seven heads, and so on. The most striking and apposite instance, which Mr. Harris indeed does not pass over, but mentions as having“a curious and suggestive connection”and“every appearance of being ultimately derived from the language of Zechariah,”130is the Book which is close sealed with seven seals, and the Lamb standing as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are seven spirits of God, which is found worthy to take the book and open the seals.131Instead of giving the author of the fragment, who does not make the slightest claim to it, credit for so extraordinary a feat of synthetic exegesis, is it not more simple and probable that he used the number seven as a mere ordinary symbol of completeness? but if more than this be deemed requisite, and the detail has a deeper mystical sense, he can only be accused of“highly evolved prophetic gnosis,”in company with the author of the[pg 120]Apocalypse and other canonical books, and this still gives him a position in the same epoch with them, more than which, probably, no one demands.Another instance may be rapidly disposed of. The writer of Peter, Mr. Harris affirms, was not ignorant of the gnosis of the Cross wrought out by the Fathers from the Old Testament, on the“Wood”and the“Tree.”One passage at which they laboured heavily is in Habakkuk ii. 11:“The stone cries out of the wall, and the cross-beam answers back to it.”Mr. Harris proceeds:Now the author of the Peter Gospel has been at work on the passage; he wishes to make the cross talk, and not only talk, but answer back; accordingly, he introduces a question:“Hast thou preached to them that are asleep?”and the response is heard from the cross,“Yea.”As far as I can suspect, the first speaker is Christ, the Stone; and the answer comes from the Cross, the Wood. It is then the Cross that has descended into Hades. But perhaps this is pressing the writer's words a little too far.132Is it not also pressing the writer's thoughts a little too far to suggest such trains of childish interpretation as the origin of all his characteristic representations? Mr. Harris, by way of bringing the charge nearer to Peter, says that the passage of Habakkuk“is quoted by Barnabas, though no doubt from a corrupted text, with a positive assertion that the Cross is here intimated by the prophet.”133This is not so. The passage in Barnabas (xii.) reads:“He defineth concerning the Cross in another prophet, who saith:‘And when shall these things be accomplished? saith the Lord. Whensoever a tree shall be bended and stand upright, and whensoever blood shall drop from a tree.’Again thou art taught concerning the cross and him that was to be crucified.”This is not a quotation from Habakkuk,[pg 121]but from 4 Esdras v. 5. This is, however, not of much importance. It is of greater moment to observe that Mr. Harris, in applying this test, is only able to“suspect”that, in this episode in Peter, the speaker who asks the question is Christ the“stone,”and the answer from the cross, the“wood;”but as the first“speaker”is a voice“out of the heavens,”it is difficult to connect it with“Christ the Stone,”to whom the question is actually addressed. According to this, he puts the question to himself. Such exegesis, applied to almost any conceivable statement, might prove almost any conceivable hypothesis.The next instance requires us to turn to a passage in Amos (viii. 9-10, LXX):“And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that the sun shall set at midday, ... and I will turn your feasts into wailing and all your songs to lamentation, and I will lay sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; and I will set him as the wailing for the beloved, and those that are with him as a day of grief.”With it, we are told, must be taken the parallel verse in which Zechariah (xiv. 6, 7) predicts a day in which“there shall be no light, but cold and frost ... but towards evening there shall be light.”This was one of the proofs with early Christians of the events which happened at the crucifixion, and St. Cyprian, for instance, quotes it. It is also quoted in the sixth Homily of the Persian Father Aphrahat against the Jews.“The Gospel of Peter did not apparently possess the gnosis in such a highly evolved form as this,”but works on the same lines. Mr. Harris then quotes passages from the fragment, which we shall give after him, with his inserted comments, but as he does not mark the intervals which occur between them, we shall take the liberty of inserting[pg 122]the verses from which they are taken between brackets.15. It was mid-day and darkness over all the land of Judaea.... 22. then the sun shone out, and it was found to be the ninth hour [at evening time it shall be light]; 23. and the Jews rejoiced.... 25. and the Jews began to wail [I will turn your feasts into mourning].... 26. We also were fasting and sitting down (i.e.sitting on the ground in sackcloth134); [I will lay sackcloth on all loins]. 50. Mary Magdalene had not done at the tomb as women are wont to do over their dead beloveds, so she took her friends with her to wail [I will set him as the Wailing for the Beloved].The writer is, therefore, drawing on the details of prophecy, as suggested by the current testimonies against the Jews, and most likely on a written gnosis involving these testimonies. That he veils his sources simply shows that he is not one of the first brood of anti-Jewish preachers. If he had been early, he would not have been artificial or occult.135Now, as before, Mr. Harris uses the eccentricities of a gnosis which he does not prove to have existed at the time the fragment may have been written and, for instance, he quotes St. Cyprian, who wrote in the second half of the third century, and the Persian Father Aphrahat, also a writer long after the Gospel of Peter was composed, and his remark that the writer“did not apparently possess the gnosis in so highly evolved a form”as Aphrahat, is not so much an admission in his favour as to prepare the reader to be content with inferior evidence. The test, however, quite as much applies to our Gospels as to the Gospel of Peter. In the previous working, of which the fragment says nothing, those who pass“wag their heads”and rail, in each of the Synoptics, in a jubilant way. The first Synoptic says (xxvii. 45 f.)“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth[pg 123]hour.”The centurion and those who were watching“feared exceedingly.”In Mark (xv. 33) there also“was darkness over the whole earth until the ninth hour,”but in Luke (xxiii. 44 f.) the resemblance is still more marked. The darkness comes over the whole earth from the sixth until the ninth hour,“the sun's light failing.”(48)“And all the multitudes that came together to this sight, when they beheld the things that were done,returned smiting their breasts.”In the fourth Gospel (xx. 11), Mary goes to the tomb weeping. We shall have more to say regarding the Gospels presently, but here we need only remark that, whether in exactly the same way or not, the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”has certainly done its work in all of them. In this respect, the Gospel of Peter merely takes its place with the rest.There is only one other instance to be noticed here. It refers to some of the details which the writer of the fragment introduces into the mockery which precedes the crucifixion. Some of the mockers“prick”Jesus with a reed; others spat on his eyes. This, Mr. Harris says, is connected with a view early taken regarding a change of Jewish feasts. In the Epistle of Barnabas, there is the best exposition of the doctrine that the Feast should be turned into mourning and the Passover at which Jesus suffered should be treated as if it had been the Day of Atonement. In Barnabas, the ritual of the great day is discussed in detail, and the rules of procedure for the Priests and the People, apparently taken, Mr. Harris thinks, from a Greek handbook, prove a variety of local usage such as would not have been suspected from the Scripture, read apart from the rest of the literature of the time. The“unwashed inwards”of one goat, offered at the fast for all sins, are to be eaten by the priests alone, with vinegar, while the[pg 124]people fast and wail in sackcloth and ashes. This goat is one of two over which lot is cast on the Day of Atonement; the other is the scape-goat, Azazel, which, according to Barnabas, was to be treated with contumely, and sent away into the wilderness:“All of you spit on him, and prick him, and put the scarlet wool on his head,”&c. Now the two goats both represent Christ, according to Barnabas,“who twists these written regulations into prophecies of the first and second Advents, and of the details of the Passion.”The mention of vinegar to be eaten with the bitter portion of the goat, suggested the words of the Psalm:“Gall for my meat and vinegar for my drink;”the command to spit on the goat and prick (or pierce) him [which ill-usage, by the way, the Talmud admits to have been the practice of the Alexandrian Jews], is interpreted by Barnabas to be a type or a prophecy of Christ“set at naught and pierced and spat on.”Is there any trace of the gnosis of the two goats in Peter? If we may judge from the conjunction of the words in the account of the Mockery, there is a decided trace:“Others stood and spat on his eyes ... others pricked him with a reed;”it is Christ as the goat Azazel.Mr. Harris quotes“an almost contemporary Sibyllist,”“They shall prick his side with a reed,according to their law;”and he continues:“If the Sybillist is quoting Peter, he is also interpreting him, and his interpretation is, they shall prick him, as is done to the goat Azazel.”To make Peter responsible for the ideas or interpretations of the Sybillist is a little hard. However, let us examine this matter. It is to be observed that the only innovation in Peter, regarding the spitting, is the expression that they“spat uponhis eyes”instead of simply“upon him,”or“in his face,”as in the Gospels; but upon this nothing turns. The point is not even mentioned; so it may be dismissed. Regarding the reed, Peter says they“pierced”him with it, instead of“smote him”with it. Let us leave the“piercing”aside[pg 125]for the moment. In all other respects, the contumely is the same in the Gospels. Before the high priest, in Matthew and Mark (Matt. xxvi. 67, Mark xiv. 65), they spit in his face and buffet him, and smite him with the palms of their hands; and in Luke (xxii. 63 f.) they mock and beat him and revile him. It is curious that, according to the second Synoptist, all this was foretold, for he makes Jesus say (x. 33 f.):“Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and the scribes: and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him unto the Gentiles: and they shall mock him, and shall spit upon him, and shall scourge him, and shall kill him, and after three days he shall rise again.”After the trial before Pilate, in Mark (xv. 17 ff.), they put on him a purple robe, and the crown of thorns on his head, and a reed in his hand, and spit upon him, and take the reed and smite him on the head. In Peter, likewise, they clothe him in purple, put on his head the crown of thorns, spit upon his eyes, smite him on the cheeks, and pierce him with a reed.What difference is there here except the mere piercing? Yes! there is a difference, for Mr. Harris has forgotten to refer to the scarlet wool put on the goat Azazel. There is nothing in Peter which corresponds with the scarlet wool. The robe that is put upon Jesus is purple. Now Barnabas, in the chapter from which Mr. Harris quotes all these passages, finds this point of the“scarlet wool”fulfilled in Jesus:“For they shall see him in that day wearing the long scarlet robe about his flesh.”136But if we look in the first Synoptic we also find this, for we read (xxvii. 28):“And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe”(χλαμύδα κοκκίνην). The mere detail of piercing with[pg 126]the reed instead of smiting with it is trifling compared with this, and in all essential points Mr. Harris's test more fitly applies to the first Synoptic than to Peter, and equally so to the other two.As for the piercing with the reed, however, we have only to turn to the fourth Gospel, and we find its counterpart (xix. 34) where one of the soldiers with a spear pierced the side of Jesus. Why? (36)“That the Scripture might be fulfilled....‘They shall look on him whom they pierced.’”Here is the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”without any disguise. If one writer prefer to fulfil one part of Scripture, the other may select another without much difference in standing. Even Mr. Harris admits that“the gnosis on which Barnabas works is ultimately based on the same passage”as that quoted as fulfilled in the fourth Gospel137; then what distinction of date is possible when both apply the same gnosis based on the same texts?[pg 127]

[pg 107]IXWe have now completed our comparison of the fragment with the canonical Gospels, and are able to form some opinion of its relative antiquity and relationship to our Gospels. Is it, as apologetic critics assert, a mere compilation from them, or can it take an independent position beside them, as a work derived from similar sources, and giving its own version of early Christian tradition? We have shown that it is not a compilation from our Gospels, but presents unmistakable signs of being an independent composition, and consequently a most interesting representation of Christian thought during the period when our Synoptic Gospels were likewise giving definite shape to the same traditions. Every part of this fragment has been set side by side with the corresponding narrative in the canonical Gospels, and it is simply surprising that a writing, dealing with a similar epoch of the same story, should have shown such freedom of handling. That there should be some correspondence between them was inevitable, but the wonder is not that there should be so much agreement, but so much divergence; and this wonder increases in proportion as a later date is assigned to the fragment, and the authority of the canonical Gospels had become more established.The theory of“tendency”was sure to be advanced as an explanation of differences of treatment of the same story, but this seems to us much exaggerated in what[pg 108]is said of the Gospel according to Peter. That early Docetic views might be supposed to be favoured by its representations is very possible; but these are far from being so pronounced as to render it unacceptable to those not holding such opinions, and the manner in which Justin and Origen make use of its statements is proof of this. As to its anti-Judaistic tone, a certain distinction has to be drawn. The expressions regarding“the Jews,”“their feast”(used in reference to the Passover), and so on, may be put in the same category as the definition of the veil of the Temple“of Jerusalem,”as indicating merely a work probably written out of Judaea, and for Gentile Christians; but in throwing upon the Jews, much more than on the Roman power, the odium of having crucified Jesus, the difference between Peter and the canonical Gospels is really infinitesimal. He certainly represents Pilate as retiring early from the trial, and leaving it to Herod, in whose“jurisdiction”it was, after washing his hands of the whole business; but this is a much more probable account, and perhaps an earlier tradition, than that which makes a Roman governor present the incredible and humiliating spectacle of a judge condemning and crucifying a man, in whom he finds no fault, at the dictation of a Jewish mob. The canonical Gospels, however, only accentuate the guilt of the Jews by representing the chief priests and elders, as well as the multitude, obstinately clamouring for his crucifixion, and finally overcoming Pilate's scruples. It is the chief priests and rulers who first seize Jesus and plot for his betrayal, who spit in his face, buffet and mock him, who prefer to him Barabbas, and cry:“His blood be on us and on our children”(Matt. xxvii. 25). The expressions of distinct antagonism to the Jews in the fourth Gospel far exceed any in the Gospel according[pg 109]to Peter. There is, therefore, no preconceived purpose conceivable to account for the characteristics of the narrative in this fragment.That a writer who had our canonical Gospels before him should so depart from their lines, alter every representation without dogmatic purpose, insert contradictory statements, and omit episodes of absorbing interest and passages which would have enriched his narrative, is a theory which cannot be established. It is obvious that the feeling of the writer is one of intense devotion and reverence, and it is unreasonable to suppose that he could have passed over, altered, and contradicted so many points in the narrative of the Gospels, had he had those works before him.120In all probability he composed his work from earlier records and traditions, of the existence of which we have evidence in Luke i. 1, and the degree of resemblance on the one hand, and of discrepancy on the other, proceeds from independent use of these sources, from which the materials used in the canonical Gospels may have been drawn. It had not the good fortune of these Gospels, however, to be adopted by the Church and subjected, like them, to repeated revisal; but, drifting apart on the stream of time, it at last comes to us with all its original sins and imperfections on its head. Of course, any judgment now formed on the Gospel according to Peter is subject to the unfortunate limitation that we have only a fragment of the work in our hands; but should the rest be discovered, as we hope, it will not affect conclusions now based upon the part before us, whatever may be the final verdict on the whole.[pg 110]XWe have still to consider objections raised by Mr. Rendel Harris, however, concerning the relation between this fragment and the Gospels accepted by the Church. In a long article in the“Contemporary Review”he tries to establish the thesis that“The Gospel of Peter shows everywhere the traces of a highly evolved prophetic gnosis, and in particular most of the apparently new matter which it contains is taken from the Old Testament.”121It would not be possible, without wearying the most patient of parishioners, to illustrate in any adequate manner the perverse and hair-splitting ingenuity with which the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”went to work, and which, in very parlous fashion, Mr. Harris applies to Peter; but, fortunately, this will not be necessary here. This gnosis doubtless began its operation early, and reached a climax towards the fourth century; but then it had ceased to be creative, and had become wildly analytical. Nothing then remained for it to do. Mr. Rendel Harris quotes, with admirable courage, a“significant sentence”from the“Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta,”a work of St. Sylvia of Aquitaine, or some other lady traveller of the fourth century, which has recently been published. She has been relating how the people were instructed in the mysteries of the faith by readings from the Scriptures,imprimis; of the Psalms predictive of the Messianic sufferings; then of[pg 111]passages from the Acts and Epistles which bear upon the interpretation of such predictions; further, the evidence of the prophets; and, to crown all, the story of the Passion itself from the Gospels.“The object of this service was, as Sylvia points out, that the people might understand by the Gospel record that whatever the psalmists and prophets had foretold concerning the Passion of the Lord had actually taken place.”And now comes the“significant sentence”to which we referred above, italicised by Mr. Harris himself:“And so for the space of three hours the people is taught thatnothing took place which had not been previously foretold, and nothing had been foretold which had not obtained its fulfilment.”Mr. Harris supports the accuracy of Sylvia's description.122But, whilst frankly admitting the application of this fundamental principle of the prophetic gnosis, more or less throughout all early Christian literature, Mr. Harris wishes to limit its influence upon works received into the canon, into which the two-edged weapon, however, pierces in spite of him to the sundering apart of soul and body. He says:Now no history is, in its ultimate analysis, so trustworthy as Christian history, but if we take the whole body of early literature, of which the canonical Gospels form the centre and crown, including Apocalypses, party-gospels, and the like, we shall find that there never was a body of history which was so overgrown with legend, and the major part of these legends result from the irregular study of the Old Testament, probably based on the synagogue methods of the time of the early Christian teachers. This reaction of the prophecy upon history colours the style of authors and affects their statements; and it is only by a close and careful study of the writers and their methods, that we are able to discriminate between what is abona fideallusion in the Prophets, or what is a trick of style borrowed from the Prophets, or what is a pure legend invented out of the Prophets.123[pg 112]The immediate object here, of course, is to lay the basis of an indictment against the fragment; but in this clear and excellent statement, a principle is enunciated, the application of which cannot be directed as the writer pleases, but is apt to be as deadly to friends as to foes. Mr. Harris may attempt to satisfy his doubts, in writing with the impartiality of a scholar, as he does, with the reservation that“no history is, in its ultimate analysis, so trustworthy as Christian history,”but he has only to formulate the reasons for such a statement, to recognise their utter inadequacy. In so far as he gives us any glimpse of them here, they are of sad insufficiency. He speaks, a little further on, regarding“the real need of a critical method that can distinguish between statements that are genuine history, and statements that are prophetic reflexes. For this discrimination,”he says,“our main guide is the Canon, which expresses the judgment of the primitive Christian Church upon its literary materials; but I think it will be generally felt that we shall need finer-edged tools than Church customs or decrees in the more difficult parts of the problem; and certainly we must not assumea prioriin a critical investigation, that there is no trace of legendary accretion in the Gospel, and no element of genuine fact in what are called the Apocrypha.”124Alas! is not the“main guide”a mere blind leader of the blind in regard to“the encroachment of prophetic interpretation upon the historical record”? We have no intention of maintaining here a very different view of the credibility of Christian history, the arguments against which we have elsewhere fully stated, but it is desirable, for reasons which will presently appear, that the fundamental principle of this attack on the Gospel according to Peter should be clearly understood. Mr.[pg 113]Harris goes on to affirm that the measure of this encroachment is, in the first two centuries, one of the best indications of documentary date we possess:“As a test, it will settle the period of many a document, and perhaps the measure of the appeal to prophecy will even determine the chronological order of the Gospels themselves: Mark, Luke, John, and Matthew.”125This order will probably surprise a good many readers, and shake the faith they might perhaps be disposed to repose in the test which is supposed to have decided it. Mr. Harris applies the test in various instances to Peter, and we shall briefly examine his results.It will be remembered that inv.35 f. whilst the soldiers were keeping watch over the sepulchre, there was a great voice in the heavens, and they saw the heavens opened, and“two men”(δύο ἄνδρας) came down from thence with great light, and approach the tomb, and the stone which had been laid at the door rolled away, and they entered it, but presently they beheld again three men (τρεῖς ἄνδρας) coming out, and the two were supporting or conducting the other by the hand, and the lofty stature of the three is described. Now the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”by which, according to Mr. Harris, this representation was composed is as follows, though only the main lines of the painful process can be given. In the prayer of Habakkuk (iii. 2), according to the Septuagint, the words which stand in our Bible,“In the midst of the years make known”reads:“In the midst oftwo lives”(or oftwo living creatures)“thou shalt be known.”This is referred in two ways: to“Christ's incarnation”and to his“Death and Resurrection.”In the former case the two animals are the ox and the ass at the Nativity. The interpretation in the second case: the[pg 114]“living creatures”are the seraphim, two in number, because in Isaiah (vi. 3)“one called to the other and said:”“and we have only to find a situation in which Christ is seen between two angels, and the prophecy is fulfilled. This situation is made in the Gospel of Peter by Christ rising between two supporting angels.”Mr. Harris endeavours to strengthen this by referring to Cyril of Alexandria's comment on the two living creatures (in the fourth century). Cyril is in doubt whether the two living creatures are the Father and the Holy Spirit, or the Old and New Testament, but recurs to the earlier interpretation that they are the Cherubim. Mr. Harris also cites the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel on Zechariah iii. 7:“If thou wilt keep the observation of my word,I will raise thee up in the resurrection of the dead, and set thy feet walking between the two cherubim.”Then, as soon as this identification of the two living creatures had been made, it was easy, says Mr. Harris, to pass over to the ninety-ninth Psalm, which Justin126affirms to be a prediction of Christ.A little study of the opening words will show some interesting parallels with Peter.“The Lord hath reigned! Let the people be enraged! Sitting on the Cherubim, let the earth be shaken. The Lord in Zion is great and high above all the people.”Here we have a parallel to the“Jews burning with rage,”and to the enormous stature of the risen Christ, and, perhaps to the quaking of the earth. Nor is it without interest that Justin, having spoken of this great and high Christ, should turn immediately to another Psalm (xix.) where the sun is said to come forth as a bridegroom from his chamber, and to rejoiceas a giantto run a race.127In order to be as just as possible, all this has been given in greater detail than perhaps the case deserves. It seems rather a heavy avalanche of conjecture to bring down upon Peter, who simply narrates, without the most distant reference to any prophetic texts; and[pg 115]it is perhaps a little hard that Justin, who in all probability had the Gospel already written and before him, should contribute in this casual way to the author's discomfiture. However, let us see what there is to be said upon the other side. The first general remark that may be made is, that it can scarcely be considered evidence of the later date of Peter to ascribe to him, as the source of this detail, an elaborate twisting of texts through the operation of gnosis, which has not been proved to have existed in this form before the epoch at which he wrote. This is said without any intention of casting doubt on the general operation of supposed prophetic passages on the evolution of Gospel history, but merely as questioning this particular explanation of the mode in which this representation was originally suggested, and more especially for the purpose of adding that, whatever reproach of this kind is cast upon the Gospel according to Peter, must equally be directed against the canonical gospels.It will be remembered that, in the third Synoptic,“two men in shining apparel”assist at the resurrection, and that in the fourth Gospel Mary sees in the tomb“two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.”Here there is an occasion for applying with equal—or, as we shall presently see, greater—propriety the argument of“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”to the writers, and so explaining their representation. But there is more to be suggested in connection with the matter. In the first and second Synoptics, only one angel assists at the scene, who in the second Synoptic is called“a young man”(νεανίσκος). Now the“two men”of great stature in Peter only go into the tomb and come out again with Jesus; but subsequently the heavens were again opened (v.44), and a certain man descends and[pg 116]goes into the tomb and remains there, for when the women come (v.55) they see there“a certain young man”(νεανίσκος)“sitting in the midst of the tomb, beautiful and clad in a shining garment,”who speaks to them as in the two Synoptics, and tells them that“Jesus is gone thither whence he was sent.”This, then, is the angel who appears in Matthew and Mark. We have already mentioned that the two men ofv.36 have been identified by some critics as Moses and Elias. The account of the transfiguration is given in all the Synoptics, though it does not seem to have been known to the author of the fourth Gospel—although“John”was an actor in the scene—but that in the third Synoptic is fuller than the rest (ix. 28 ff). Jesus takes with him Peter and John and James, and goes up into the mountain to pray; and as he prays his countenance was altered, and his raiment becomes white and dazzling;“and behold there talked with him two men (ἄνδρες δύο), which were Moses and Elijah; who appeared in glory,and spake of his decease which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”When Peter and the others were fully awake,“they saw his glory and the two men (δύο ἄνδρας) that stood with him. And it came to pass, as they were parting from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah:not knowing what he said. And while he said these things there came a cloud, and overshadowed them ... and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my son, my chosen: hear ye him.”To this episode Mr. Harris might reasonably apply the test of the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis;”but in any case, the view that the two men of the fragment are intended to represent Moses and Elijah—the law and the prophets—who had so short a time before“spoken of[pg 117]his decease which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem,”and who now came, in stature reaching to the heavens, but less than his which rose above the heavens, and conducted Jesus the Christ forth from the tomb, in which that decease had been fulfilled, is in the highest degree probable. Much more might be said regarding this, but too much time has already been devoted to the point.The second application of Mr. Harris's test is to the sealing of the stone at the sepulchre with seven seals. The Gospel of Peter simply states that the stone was sealed with seven seals, and Mr. Harris endeavours to find some abstruse meaning in the statement, which is peculiar to the fragment in so far as the number of seals is concerned. Where did Peter get the idea? Mr. Harris says, first from Zechariah iii. 9:“For behold the stone that I have set before Joshua; upon one stone are seven eyes; behold I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts;”and the name Joshua is the Hebrew equivalent of Jesus. A reference is also made by the Fathers of the second century to passages to prove that Christ was the stone (of stumbling to the Jews, but the corner stone to believers).“Justin recognised Christ in the stone cut out without hands, of which Daniel speaks; in the stone which Jacob set for his pillow, and which he anointed with oil; in the stone on which Moses sat in the battle with Amalek,”and the like.“Bearing in mind that there was an early tendency to connect the language of the‘Branch’passage with the resurrection, we can see that the interpretation took a second form, viz. to regard the stone before the face of Jesus as a prophecy of the stone which closed the tomb in the evangelic story.”There is evidence, Mr. Harris says, that the seven eyes were early interpreted by Biblical Targumists to mean seven seals.[pg 118]We need not be surprised, then, that the Peter Gospel speaks of the stone as sealed with seven seals; it is an attempt to throw the story into closer parallelism with Zechariah, no doubt for polemic purposes against the Jews. That he uses the curious word ἐπέχρισαν, which we are obliged, from the exigencies of language, to translate“they smeared”or“plastered”seven seals, but which to the writer meant much the same as if he were to say,“they on-christed seven seals,”is due to the lurking desire to make a parallel with Christ and the stone directly, and with the anointed pillar of Jacob. The stone has a chrism.... But this is not all; in Zechariah (iv. 10) there is a passage,“they shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel,”but in the Septuagint it runs,“they shall see the tin-stone.”How is this to be connected with the“stone before the face of Joshua or Jesus”? The answer is found in the pages of the Peter Gospel:“a great crowd came from Jerusalem and the neighbourhoodto see the tomb which had been sealed.”It only remains to identify the stone which they saw with the tin-stone. Symmachus retranslated the Hebrew word for“tin”as if it came from the root which means“to separate or divide,”and in the Gospel of Peter,“the stone which had been laid on the door of the tomb withdrew (or separated) gradually”(ἐπεχώρησε παρὰ μέρος).“The‘plummet’of Zerubbabel,”Mr. Harris triumphantly concludes,“is used by Peter to make history square with prophecy.”128Now again the general remark has to be made that, in order to convict Peter of a late date, Mr. Harris takes all this“highly evolved gnosis”wherever he can find it, without consideration of epochs, and in some parts upon mere personal conjecture. He even confesses that he does not know the date of the translation of Symmachus, which he nevertheless uses as an argument. He observes, himself, that it is“a little awkward”that the stone, which at one time represents Jesus, has to be treated in the same breath as before the face of Jesus. The terribly complicated and involved process, by which it is suggested that the author of the Gospel according to Peter evolved a detail so apparently simple[pg 119]as the sealing of the sepulchre with seven seals, is difficult enough to follow, and must have been still more difficult to invent, but in his anxiety to assign a late date to the fragment, Mr. Harris forgets that, if the number seven is evidence of it, a large part of the New Testament must be moved back with the fragment. The Synoptics are full of it,129but it is quite sufficient to point to the Apocalypse, which has this typical number in almost every chapter: the message to the seven churches; the seven spirits before the throne; the seven golden candlesticks; the seven stars; seven lamps of fire burning; seven angels; seven trumpets; seven thunders; the dragon with seven heads, and seven diadems; the seven angels with seven plagues; the woman with seven heads, and so on. The most striking and apposite instance, which Mr. Harris indeed does not pass over, but mentions as having“a curious and suggestive connection”and“every appearance of being ultimately derived from the language of Zechariah,”130is the Book which is close sealed with seven seals, and the Lamb standing as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are seven spirits of God, which is found worthy to take the book and open the seals.131Instead of giving the author of the fragment, who does not make the slightest claim to it, credit for so extraordinary a feat of synthetic exegesis, is it not more simple and probable that he used the number seven as a mere ordinary symbol of completeness? but if more than this be deemed requisite, and the detail has a deeper mystical sense, he can only be accused of“highly evolved prophetic gnosis,”in company with the author of the[pg 120]Apocalypse and other canonical books, and this still gives him a position in the same epoch with them, more than which, probably, no one demands.Another instance may be rapidly disposed of. The writer of Peter, Mr. Harris affirms, was not ignorant of the gnosis of the Cross wrought out by the Fathers from the Old Testament, on the“Wood”and the“Tree.”One passage at which they laboured heavily is in Habakkuk ii. 11:“The stone cries out of the wall, and the cross-beam answers back to it.”Mr. Harris proceeds:Now the author of the Peter Gospel has been at work on the passage; he wishes to make the cross talk, and not only talk, but answer back; accordingly, he introduces a question:“Hast thou preached to them that are asleep?”and the response is heard from the cross,“Yea.”As far as I can suspect, the first speaker is Christ, the Stone; and the answer comes from the Cross, the Wood. It is then the Cross that has descended into Hades. But perhaps this is pressing the writer's words a little too far.132Is it not also pressing the writer's thoughts a little too far to suggest such trains of childish interpretation as the origin of all his characteristic representations? Mr. Harris, by way of bringing the charge nearer to Peter, says that the passage of Habakkuk“is quoted by Barnabas, though no doubt from a corrupted text, with a positive assertion that the Cross is here intimated by the prophet.”133This is not so. The passage in Barnabas (xii.) reads:“He defineth concerning the Cross in another prophet, who saith:‘And when shall these things be accomplished? saith the Lord. Whensoever a tree shall be bended and stand upright, and whensoever blood shall drop from a tree.’Again thou art taught concerning the cross and him that was to be crucified.”This is not a quotation from Habakkuk,[pg 121]but from 4 Esdras v. 5. This is, however, not of much importance. It is of greater moment to observe that Mr. Harris, in applying this test, is only able to“suspect”that, in this episode in Peter, the speaker who asks the question is Christ the“stone,”and the answer from the cross, the“wood;”but as the first“speaker”is a voice“out of the heavens,”it is difficult to connect it with“Christ the Stone,”to whom the question is actually addressed. According to this, he puts the question to himself. Such exegesis, applied to almost any conceivable statement, might prove almost any conceivable hypothesis.The next instance requires us to turn to a passage in Amos (viii. 9-10, LXX):“And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that the sun shall set at midday, ... and I will turn your feasts into wailing and all your songs to lamentation, and I will lay sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; and I will set him as the wailing for the beloved, and those that are with him as a day of grief.”With it, we are told, must be taken the parallel verse in which Zechariah (xiv. 6, 7) predicts a day in which“there shall be no light, but cold and frost ... but towards evening there shall be light.”This was one of the proofs with early Christians of the events which happened at the crucifixion, and St. Cyprian, for instance, quotes it. It is also quoted in the sixth Homily of the Persian Father Aphrahat against the Jews.“The Gospel of Peter did not apparently possess the gnosis in such a highly evolved form as this,”but works on the same lines. Mr. Harris then quotes passages from the fragment, which we shall give after him, with his inserted comments, but as he does not mark the intervals which occur between them, we shall take the liberty of inserting[pg 122]the verses from which they are taken between brackets.15. It was mid-day and darkness over all the land of Judaea.... 22. then the sun shone out, and it was found to be the ninth hour [at evening time it shall be light]; 23. and the Jews rejoiced.... 25. and the Jews began to wail [I will turn your feasts into mourning].... 26. We also were fasting and sitting down (i.e.sitting on the ground in sackcloth134); [I will lay sackcloth on all loins]. 50. Mary Magdalene had not done at the tomb as women are wont to do over their dead beloveds, so she took her friends with her to wail [I will set him as the Wailing for the Beloved].The writer is, therefore, drawing on the details of prophecy, as suggested by the current testimonies against the Jews, and most likely on a written gnosis involving these testimonies. That he veils his sources simply shows that he is not one of the first brood of anti-Jewish preachers. If he had been early, he would not have been artificial or occult.135Now, as before, Mr. Harris uses the eccentricities of a gnosis which he does not prove to have existed at the time the fragment may have been written and, for instance, he quotes St. Cyprian, who wrote in the second half of the third century, and the Persian Father Aphrahat, also a writer long after the Gospel of Peter was composed, and his remark that the writer“did not apparently possess the gnosis in so highly evolved a form”as Aphrahat, is not so much an admission in his favour as to prepare the reader to be content with inferior evidence. The test, however, quite as much applies to our Gospels as to the Gospel of Peter. In the previous working, of which the fragment says nothing, those who pass“wag their heads”and rail, in each of the Synoptics, in a jubilant way. The first Synoptic says (xxvii. 45 f.)“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth[pg 123]hour.”The centurion and those who were watching“feared exceedingly.”In Mark (xv. 33) there also“was darkness over the whole earth until the ninth hour,”but in Luke (xxiii. 44 f.) the resemblance is still more marked. The darkness comes over the whole earth from the sixth until the ninth hour,“the sun's light failing.”(48)“And all the multitudes that came together to this sight, when they beheld the things that were done,returned smiting their breasts.”In the fourth Gospel (xx. 11), Mary goes to the tomb weeping. We shall have more to say regarding the Gospels presently, but here we need only remark that, whether in exactly the same way or not, the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”has certainly done its work in all of them. In this respect, the Gospel of Peter merely takes its place with the rest.There is only one other instance to be noticed here. It refers to some of the details which the writer of the fragment introduces into the mockery which precedes the crucifixion. Some of the mockers“prick”Jesus with a reed; others spat on his eyes. This, Mr. Harris says, is connected with a view early taken regarding a change of Jewish feasts. In the Epistle of Barnabas, there is the best exposition of the doctrine that the Feast should be turned into mourning and the Passover at which Jesus suffered should be treated as if it had been the Day of Atonement. In Barnabas, the ritual of the great day is discussed in detail, and the rules of procedure for the Priests and the People, apparently taken, Mr. Harris thinks, from a Greek handbook, prove a variety of local usage such as would not have been suspected from the Scripture, read apart from the rest of the literature of the time. The“unwashed inwards”of one goat, offered at the fast for all sins, are to be eaten by the priests alone, with vinegar, while the[pg 124]people fast and wail in sackcloth and ashes. This goat is one of two over which lot is cast on the Day of Atonement; the other is the scape-goat, Azazel, which, according to Barnabas, was to be treated with contumely, and sent away into the wilderness:“All of you spit on him, and prick him, and put the scarlet wool on his head,”&c. Now the two goats both represent Christ, according to Barnabas,“who twists these written regulations into prophecies of the first and second Advents, and of the details of the Passion.”The mention of vinegar to be eaten with the bitter portion of the goat, suggested the words of the Psalm:“Gall for my meat and vinegar for my drink;”the command to spit on the goat and prick (or pierce) him [which ill-usage, by the way, the Talmud admits to have been the practice of the Alexandrian Jews], is interpreted by Barnabas to be a type or a prophecy of Christ“set at naught and pierced and spat on.”Is there any trace of the gnosis of the two goats in Peter? If we may judge from the conjunction of the words in the account of the Mockery, there is a decided trace:“Others stood and spat on his eyes ... others pricked him with a reed;”it is Christ as the goat Azazel.Mr. Harris quotes“an almost contemporary Sibyllist,”“They shall prick his side with a reed,according to their law;”and he continues:“If the Sybillist is quoting Peter, he is also interpreting him, and his interpretation is, they shall prick him, as is done to the goat Azazel.”To make Peter responsible for the ideas or interpretations of the Sybillist is a little hard. However, let us examine this matter. It is to be observed that the only innovation in Peter, regarding the spitting, is the expression that they“spat uponhis eyes”instead of simply“upon him,”or“in his face,”as in the Gospels; but upon this nothing turns. The point is not even mentioned; so it may be dismissed. Regarding the reed, Peter says they“pierced”him with it, instead of“smote him”with it. Let us leave the“piercing”aside[pg 125]for the moment. In all other respects, the contumely is the same in the Gospels. Before the high priest, in Matthew and Mark (Matt. xxvi. 67, Mark xiv. 65), they spit in his face and buffet him, and smite him with the palms of their hands; and in Luke (xxii. 63 f.) they mock and beat him and revile him. It is curious that, according to the second Synoptist, all this was foretold, for he makes Jesus say (x. 33 f.):“Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and the scribes: and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him unto the Gentiles: and they shall mock him, and shall spit upon him, and shall scourge him, and shall kill him, and after three days he shall rise again.”After the trial before Pilate, in Mark (xv. 17 ff.), they put on him a purple robe, and the crown of thorns on his head, and a reed in his hand, and spit upon him, and take the reed and smite him on the head. In Peter, likewise, they clothe him in purple, put on his head the crown of thorns, spit upon his eyes, smite him on the cheeks, and pierce him with a reed.What difference is there here except the mere piercing? Yes! there is a difference, for Mr. Harris has forgotten to refer to the scarlet wool put on the goat Azazel. There is nothing in Peter which corresponds with the scarlet wool. The robe that is put upon Jesus is purple. Now Barnabas, in the chapter from which Mr. Harris quotes all these passages, finds this point of the“scarlet wool”fulfilled in Jesus:“For they shall see him in that day wearing the long scarlet robe about his flesh.”136But if we look in the first Synoptic we also find this, for we read (xxvii. 28):“And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe”(χλαμύδα κοκκίνην). The mere detail of piercing with[pg 126]the reed instead of smiting with it is trifling compared with this, and in all essential points Mr. Harris's test more fitly applies to the first Synoptic than to Peter, and equally so to the other two.As for the piercing with the reed, however, we have only to turn to the fourth Gospel, and we find its counterpart (xix. 34) where one of the soldiers with a spear pierced the side of Jesus. Why? (36)“That the Scripture might be fulfilled....‘They shall look on him whom they pierced.’”Here is the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”without any disguise. If one writer prefer to fulfil one part of Scripture, the other may select another without much difference in standing. Even Mr. Harris admits that“the gnosis on which Barnabas works is ultimately based on the same passage”as that quoted as fulfilled in the fourth Gospel137; then what distinction of date is possible when both apply the same gnosis based on the same texts?[pg 127]

IXWe have now completed our comparison of the fragment with the canonical Gospels, and are able to form some opinion of its relative antiquity and relationship to our Gospels. Is it, as apologetic critics assert, a mere compilation from them, or can it take an independent position beside them, as a work derived from similar sources, and giving its own version of early Christian tradition? We have shown that it is not a compilation from our Gospels, but presents unmistakable signs of being an independent composition, and consequently a most interesting representation of Christian thought during the period when our Synoptic Gospels were likewise giving definite shape to the same traditions. Every part of this fragment has been set side by side with the corresponding narrative in the canonical Gospels, and it is simply surprising that a writing, dealing with a similar epoch of the same story, should have shown such freedom of handling. That there should be some correspondence between them was inevitable, but the wonder is not that there should be so much agreement, but so much divergence; and this wonder increases in proportion as a later date is assigned to the fragment, and the authority of the canonical Gospels had become more established.The theory of“tendency”was sure to be advanced as an explanation of differences of treatment of the same story, but this seems to us much exaggerated in what[pg 108]is said of the Gospel according to Peter. That early Docetic views might be supposed to be favoured by its representations is very possible; but these are far from being so pronounced as to render it unacceptable to those not holding such opinions, and the manner in which Justin and Origen make use of its statements is proof of this. As to its anti-Judaistic tone, a certain distinction has to be drawn. The expressions regarding“the Jews,”“their feast”(used in reference to the Passover), and so on, may be put in the same category as the definition of the veil of the Temple“of Jerusalem,”as indicating merely a work probably written out of Judaea, and for Gentile Christians; but in throwing upon the Jews, much more than on the Roman power, the odium of having crucified Jesus, the difference between Peter and the canonical Gospels is really infinitesimal. He certainly represents Pilate as retiring early from the trial, and leaving it to Herod, in whose“jurisdiction”it was, after washing his hands of the whole business; but this is a much more probable account, and perhaps an earlier tradition, than that which makes a Roman governor present the incredible and humiliating spectacle of a judge condemning and crucifying a man, in whom he finds no fault, at the dictation of a Jewish mob. The canonical Gospels, however, only accentuate the guilt of the Jews by representing the chief priests and elders, as well as the multitude, obstinately clamouring for his crucifixion, and finally overcoming Pilate's scruples. It is the chief priests and rulers who first seize Jesus and plot for his betrayal, who spit in his face, buffet and mock him, who prefer to him Barabbas, and cry:“His blood be on us and on our children”(Matt. xxvii. 25). The expressions of distinct antagonism to the Jews in the fourth Gospel far exceed any in the Gospel according[pg 109]to Peter. There is, therefore, no preconceived purpose conceivable to account for the characteristics of the narrative in this fragment.That a writer who had our canonical Gospels before him should so depart from their lines, alter every representation without dogmatic purpose, insert contradictory statements, and omit episodes of absorbing interest and passages which would have enriched his narrative, is a theory which cannot be established. It is obvious that the feeling of the writer is one of intense devotion and reverence, and it is unreasonable to suppose that he could have passed over, altered, and contradicted so many points in the narrative of the Gospels, had he had those works before him.120In all probability he composed his work from earlier records and traditions, of the existence of which we have evidence in Luke i. 1, and the degree of resemblance on the one hand, and of discrepancy on the other, proceeds from independent use of these sources, from which the materials used in the canonical Gospels may have been drawn. It had not the good fortune of these Gospels, however, to be adopted by the Church and subjected, like them, to repeated revisal; but, drifting apart on the stream of time, it at last comes to us with all its original sins and imperfections on its head. Of course, any judgment now formed on the Gospel according to Peter is subject to the unfortunate limitation that we have only a fragment of the work in our hands; but should the rest be discovered, as we hope, it will not affect conclusions now based upon the part before us, whatever may be the final verdict on the whole.

We have now completed our comparison of the fragment with the canonical Gospels, and are able to form some opinion of its relative antiquity and relationship to our Gospels. Is it, as apologetic critics assert, a mere compilation from them, or can it take an independent position beside them, as a work derived from similar sources, and giving its own version of early Christian tradition? We have shown that it is not a compilation from our Gospels, but presents unmistakable signs of being an independent composition, and consequently a most interesting representation of Christian thought during the period when our Synoptic Gospels were likewise giving definite shape to the same traditions. Every part of this fragment has been set side by side with the corresponding narrative in the canonical Gospels, and it is simply surprising that a writing, dealing with a similar epoch of the same story, should have shown such freedom of handling. That there should be some correspondence between them was inevitable, but the wonder is not that there should be so much agreement, but so much divergence; and this wonder increases in proportion as a later date is assigned to the fragment, and the authority of the canonical Gospels had become more established.

The theory of“tendency”was sure to be advanced as an explanation of differences of treatment of the same story, but this seems to us much exaggerated in what[pg 108]is said of the Gospel according to Peter. That early Docetic views might be supposed to be favoured by its representations is very possible; but these are far from being so pronounced as to render it unacceptable to those not holding such opinions, and the manner in which Justin and Origen make use of its statements is proof of this. As to its anti-Judaistic tone, a certain distinction has to be drawn. The expressions regarding“the Jews,”“their feast”(used in reference to the Passover), and so on, may be put in the same category as the definition of the veil of the Temple“of Jerusalem,”as indicating merely a work probably written out of Judaea, and for Gentile Christians; but in throwing upon the Jews, much more than on the Roman power, the odium of having crucified Jesus, the difference between Peter and the canonical Gospels is really infinitesimal. He certainly represents Pilate as retiring early from the trial, and leaving it to Herod, in whose“jurisdiction”it was, after washing his hands of the whole business; but this is a much more probable account, and perhaps an earlier tradition, than that which makes a Roman governor present the incredible and humiliating spectacle of a judge condemning and crucifying a man, in whom he finds no fault, at the dictation of a Jewish mob. The canonical Gospels, however, only accentuate the guilt of the Jews by representing the chief priests and elders, as well as the multitude, obstinately clamouring for his crucifixion, and finally overcoming Pilate's scruples. It is the chief priests and rulers who first seize Jesus and plot for his betrayal, who spit in his face, buffet and mock him, who prefer to him Barabbas, and cry:“His blood be on us and on our children”(Matt. xxvii. 25). The expressions of distinct antagonism to the Jews in the fourth Gospel far exceed any in the Gospel according[pg 109]to Peter. There is, therefore, no preconceived purpose conceivable to account for the characteristics of the narrative in this fragment.

That a writer who had our canonical Gospels before him should so depart from their lines, alter every representation without dogmatic purpose, insert contradictory statements, and omit episodes of absorbing interest and passages which would have enriched his narrative, is a theory which cannot be established. It is obvious that the feeling of the writer is one of intense devotion and reverence, and it is unreasonable to suppose that he could have passed over, altered, and contradicted so many points in the narrative of the Gospels, had he had those works before him.120In all probability he composed his work from earlier records and traditions, of the existence of which we have evidence in Luke i. 1, and the degree of resemblance on the one hand, and of discrepancy on the other, proceeds from independent use of these sources, from which the materials used in the canonical Gospels may have been drawn. It had not the good fortune of these Gospels, however, to be adopted by the Church and subjected, like them, to repeated revisal; but, drifting apart on the stream of time, it at last comes to us with all its original sins and imperfections on its head. Of course, any judgment now formed on the Gospel according to Peter is subject to the unfortunate limitation that we have only a fragment of the work in our hands; but should the rest be discovered, as we hope, it will not affect conclusions now based upon the part before us, whatever may be the final verdict on the whole.

XWe have still to consider objections raised by Mr. Rendel Harris, however, concerning the relation between this fragment and the Gospels accepted by the Church. In a long article in the“Contemporary Review”he tries to establish the thesis that“The Gospel of Peter shows everywhere the traces of a highly evolved prophetic gnosis, and in particular most of the apparently new matter which it contains is taken from the Old Testament.”121It would not be possible, without wearying the most patient of parishioners, to illustrate in any adequate manner the perverse and hair-splitting ingenuity with which the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”went to work, and which, in very parlous fashion, Mr. Harris applies to Peter; but, fortunately, this will not be necessary here. This gnosis doubtless began its operation early, and reached a climax towards the fourth century; but then it had ceased to be creative, and had become wildly analytical. Nothing then remained for it to do. Mr. Rendel Harris quotes, with admirable courage, a“significant sentence”from the“Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta,”a work of St. Sylvia of Aquitaine, or some other lady traveller of the fourth century, which has recently been published. She has been relating how the people were instructed in the mysteries of the faith by readings from the Scriptures,imprimis; of the Psalms predictive of the Messianic sufferings; then of[pg 111]passages from the Acts and Epistles which bear upon the interpretation of such predictions; further, the evidence of the prophets; and, to crown all, the story of the Passion itself from the Gospels.“The object of this service was, as Sylvia points out, that the people might understand by the Gospel record that whatever the psalmists and prophets had foretold concerning the Passion of the Lord had actually taken place.”And now comes the“significant sentence”to which we referred above, italicised by Mr. Harris himself:“And so for the space of three hours the people is taught thatnothing took place which had not been previously foretold, and nothing had been foretold which had not obtained its fulfilment.”Mr. Harris supports the accuracy of Sylvia's description.122But, whilst frankly admitting the application of this fundamental principle of the prophetic gnosis, more or less throughout all early Christian literature, Mr. Harris wishes to limit its influence upon works received into the canon, into which the two-edged weapon, however, pierces in spite of him to the sundering apart of soul and body. He says:Now no history is, in its ultimate analysis, so trustworthy as Christian history, but if we take the whole body of early literature, of which the canonical Gospels form the centre and crown, including Apocalypses, party-gospels, and the like, we shall find that there never was a body of history which was so overgrown with legend, and the major part of these legends result from the irregular study of the Old Testament, probably based on the synagogue methods of the time of the early Christian teachers. This reaction of the prophecy upon history colours the style of authors and affects their statements; and it is only by a close and careful study of the writers and their methods, that we are able to discriminate between what is abona fideallusion in the Prophets, or what is a trick of style borrowed from the Prophets, or what is a pure legend invented out of the Prophets.123[pg 112]The immediate object here, of course, is to lay the basis of an indictment against the fragment; but in this clear and excellent statement, a principle is enunciated, the application of which cannot be directed as the writer pleases, but is apt to be as deadly to friends as to foes. Mr. Harris may attempt to satisfy his doubts, in writing with the impartiality of a scholar, as he does, with the reservation that“no history is, in its ultimate analysis, so trustworthy as Christian history,”but he has only to formulate the reasons for such a statement, to recognise their utter inadequacy. In so far as he gives us any glimpse of them here, they are of sad insufficiency. He speaks, a little further on, regarding“the real need of a critical method that can distinguish between statements that are genuine history, and statements that are prophetic reflexes. For this discrimination,”he says,“our main guide is the Canon, which expresses the judgment of the primitive Christian Church upon its literary materials; but I think it will be generally felt that we shall need finer-edged tools than Church customs or decrees in the more difficult parts of the problem; and certainly we must not assumea prioriin a critical investigation, that there is no trace of legendary accretion in the Gospel, and no element of genuine fact in what are called the Apocrypha.”124Alas! is not the“main guide”a mere blind leader of the blind in regard to“the encroachment of prophetic interpretation upon the historical record”? We have no intention of maintaining here a very different view of the credibility of Christian history, the arguments against which we have elsewhere fully stated, but it is desirable, for reasons which will presently appear, that the fundamental principle of this attack on the Gospel according to Peter should be clearly understood. Mr.[pg 113]Harris goes on to affirm that the measure of this encroachment is, in the first two centuries, one of the best indications of documentary date we possess:“As a test, it will settle the period of many a document, and perhaps the measure of the appeal to prophecy will even determine the chronological order of the Gospels themselves: Mark, Luke, John, and Matthew.”125This order will probably surprise a good many readers, and shake the faith they might perhaps be disposed to repose in the test which is supposed to have decided it. Mr. Harris applies the test in various instances to Peter, and we shall briefly examine his results.It will be remembered that inv.35 f. whilst the soldiers were keeping watch over the sepulchre, there was a great voice in the heavens, and they saw the heavens opened, and“two men”(δύο ἄνδρας) came down from thence with great light, and approach the tomb, and the stone which had been laid at the door rolled away, and they entered it, but presently they beheld again three men (τρεῖς ἄνδρας) coming out, and the two were supporting or conducting the other by the hand, and the lofty stature of the three is described. Now the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”by which, according to Mr. Harris, this representation was composed is as follows, though only the main lines of the painful process can be given. In the prayer of Habakkuk (iii. 2), according to the Septuagint, the words which stand in our Bible,“In the midst of the years make known”reads:“In the midst oftwo lives”(or oftwo living creatures)“thou shalt be known.”This is referred in two ways: to“Christ's incarnation”and to his“Death and Resurrection.”In the former case the two animals are the ox and the ass at the Nativity. The interpretation in the second case: the[pg 114]“living creatures”are the seraphim, two in number, because in Isaiah (vi. 3)“one called to the other and said:”“and we have only to find a situation in which Christ is seen between two angels, and the prophecy is fulfilled. This situation is made in the Gospel of Peter by Christ rising between two supporting angels.”Mr. Harris endeavours to strengthen this by referring to Cyril of Alexandria's comment on the two living creatures (in the fourth century). Cyril is in doubt whether the two living creatures are the Father and the Holy Spirit, or the Old and New Testament, but recurs to the earlier interpretation that they are the Cherubim. Mr. Harris also cites the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel on Zechariah iii. 7:“If thou wilt keep the observation of my word,I will raise thee up in the resurrection of the dead, and set thy feet walking between the two cherubim.”Then, as soon as this identification of the two living creatures had been made, it was easy, says Mr. Harris, to pass over to the ninety-ninth Psalm, which Justin126affirms to be a prediction of Christ.A little study of the opening words will show some interesting parallels with Peter.“The Lord hath reigned! Let the people be enraged! Sitting on the Cherubim, let the earth be shaken. The Lord in Zion is great and high above all the people.”Here we have a parallel to the“Jews burning with rage,”and to the enormous stature of the risen Christ, and, perhaps to the quaking of the earth. Nor is it without interest that Justin, having spoken of this great and high Christ, should turn immediately to another Psalm (xix.) where the sun is said to come forth as a bridegroom from his chamber, and to rejoiceas a giantto run a race.127In order to be as just as possible, all this has been given in greater detail than perhaps the case deserves. It seems rather a heavy avalanche of conjecture to bring down upon Peter, who simply narrates, without the most distant reference to any prophetic texts; and[pg 115]it is perhaps a little hard that Justin, who in all probability had the Gospel already written and before him, should contribute in this casual way to the author's discomfiture. However, let us see what there is to be said upon the other side. The first general remark that may be made is, that it can scarcely be considered evidence of the later date of Peter to ascribe to him, as the source of this detail, an elaborate twisting of texts through the operation of gnosis, which has not been proved to have existed in this form before the epoch at which he wrote. This is said without any intention of casting doubt on the general operation of supposed prophetic passages on the evolution of Gospel history, but merely as questioning this particular explanation of the mode in which this representation was originally suggested, and more especially for the purpose of adding that, whatever reproach of this kind is cast upon the Gospel according to Peter, must equally be directed against the canonical gospels.It will be remembered that, in the third Synoptic,“two men in shining apparel”assist at the resurrection, and that in the fourth Gospel Mary sees in the tomb“two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.”Here there is an occasion for applying with equal—or, as we shall presently see, greater—propriety the argument of“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”to the writers, and so explaining their representation. But there is more to be suggested in connection with the matter. In the first and second Synoptics, only one angel assists at the scene, who in the second Synoptic is called“a young man”(νεανίσκος). Now the“two men”of great stature in Peter only go into the tomb and come out again with Jesus; but subsequently the heavens were again opened (v.44), and a certain man descends and[pg 116]goes into the tomb and remains there, for when the women come (v.55) they see there“a certain young man”(νεανίσκος)“sitting in the midst of the tomb, beautiful and clad in a shining garment,”who speaks to them as in the two Synoptics, and tells them that“Jesus is gone thither whence he was sent.”This, then, is the angel who appears in Matthew and Mark. We have already mentioned that the two men ofv.36 have been identified by some critics as Moses and Elias. The account of the transfiguration is given in all the Synoptics, though it does not seem to have been known to the author of the fourth Gospel—although“John”was an actor in the scene—but that in the third Synoptic is fuller than the rest (ix. 28 ff). Jesus takes with him Peter and John and James, and goes up into the mountain to pray; and as he prays his countenance was altered, and his raiment becomes white and dazzling;“and behold there talked with him two men (ἄνδρες δύο), which were Moses and Elijah; who appeared in glory,and spake of his decease which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”When Peter and the others were fully awake,“they saw his glory and the two men (δύο ἄνδρας) that stood with him. And it came to pass, as they were parting from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah:not knowing what he said. And while he said these things there came a cloud, and overshadowed them ... and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my son, my chosen: hear ye him.”To this episode Mr. Harris might reasonably apply the test of the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis;”but in any case, the view that the two men of the fragment are intended to represent Moses and Elijah—the law and the prophets—who had so short a time before“spoken of[pg 117]his decease which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem,”and who now came, in stature reaching to the heavens, but less than his which rose above the heavens, and conducted Jesus the Christ forth from the tomb, in which that decease had been fulfilled, is in the highest degree probable. Much more might be said regarding this, but too much time has already been devoted to the point.The second application of Mr. Harris's test is to the sealing of the stone at the sepulchre with seven seals. The Gospel of Peter simply states that the stone was sealed with seven seals, and Mr. Harris endeavours to find some abstruse meaning in the statement, which is peculiar to the fragment in so far as the number of seals is concerned. Where did Peter get the idea? Mr. Harris says, first from Zechariah iii. 9:“For behold the stone that I have set before Joshua; upon one stone are seven eyes; behold I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts;”and the name Joshua is the Hebrew equivalent of Jesus. A reference is also made by the Fathers of the second century to passages to prove that Christ was the stone (of stumbling to the Jews, but the corner stone to believers).“Justin recognised Christ in the stone cut out without hands, of which Daniel speaks; in the stone which Jacob set for his pillow, and which he anointed with oil; in the stone on which Moses sat in the battle with Amalek,”and the like.“Bearing in mind that there was an early tendency to connect the language of the‘Branch’passage with the resurrection, we can see that the interpretation took a second form, viz. to regard the stone before the face of Jesus as a prophecy of the stone which closed the tomb in the evangelic story.”There is evidence, Mr. Harris says, that the seven eyes were early interpreted by Biblical Targumists to mean seven seals.[pg 118]We need not be surprised, then, that the Peter Gospel speaks of the stone as sealed with seven seals; it is an attempt to throw the story into closer parallelism with Zechariah, no doubt for polemic purposes against the Jews. That he uses the curious word ἐπέχρισαν, which we are obliged, from the exigencies of language, to translate“they smeared”or“plastered”seven seals, but which to the writer meant much the same as if he were to say,“they on-christed seven seals,”is due to the lurking desire to make a parallel with Christ and the stone directly, and with the anointed pillar of Jacob. The stone has a chrism.... But this is not all; in Zechariah (iv. 10) there is a passage,“they shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel,”but in the Septuagint it runs,“they shall see the tin-stone.”How is this to be connected with the“stone before the face of Joshua or Jesus”? The answer is found in the pages of the Peter Gospel:“a great crowd came from Jerusalem and the neighbourhoodto see the tomb which had been sealed.”It only remains to identify the stone which they saw with the tin-stone. Symmachus retranslated the Hebrew word for“tin”as if it came from the root which means“to separate or divide,”and in the Gospel of Peter,“the stone which had been laid on the door of the tomb withdrew (or separated) gradually”(ἐπεχώρησε παρὰ μέρος).“The‘plummet’of Zerubbabel,”Mr. Harris triumphantly concludes,“is used by Peter to make history square with prophecy.”128Now again the general remark has to be made that, in order to convict Peter of a late date, Mr. Harris takes all this“highly evolved gnosis”wherever he can find it, without consideration of epochs, and in some parts upon mere personal conjecture. He even confesses that he does not know the date of the translation of Symmachus, which he nevertheless uses as an argument. He observes, himself, that it is“a little awkward”that the stone, which at one time represents Jesus, has to be treated in the same breath as before the face of Jesus. The terribly complicated and involved process, by which it is suggested that the author of the Gospel according to Peter evolved a detail so apparently simple[pg 119]as the sealing of the sepulchre with seven seals, is difficult enough to follow, and must have been still more difficult to invent, but in his anxiety to assign a late date to the fragment, Mr. Harris forgets that, if the number seven is evidence of it, a large part of the New Testament must be moved back with the fragment. The Synoptics are full of it,129but it is quite sufficient to point to the Apocalypse, which has this typical number in almost every chapter: the message to the seven churches; the seven spirits before the throne; the seven golden candlesticks; the seven stars; seven lamps of fire burning; seven angels; seven trumpets; seven thunders; the dragon with seven heads, and seven diadems; the seven angels with seven plagues; the woman with seven heads, and so on. The most striking and apposite instance, which Mr. Harris indeed does not pass over, but mentions as having“a curious and suggestive connection”and“every appearance of being ultimately derived from the language of Zechariah,”130is the Book which is close sealed with seven seals, and the Lamb standing as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are seven spirits of God, which is found worthy to take the book and open the seals.131Instead of giving the author of the fragment, who does not make the slightest claim to it, credit for so extraordinary a feat of synthetic exegesis, is it not more simple and probable that he used the number seven as a mere ordinary symbol of completeness? but if more than this be deemed requisite, and the detail has a deeper mystical sense, he can only be accused of“highly evolved prophetic gnosis,”in company with the author of the[pg 120]Apocalypse and other canonical books, and this still gives him a position in the same epoch with them, more than which, probably, no one demands.Another instance may be rapidly disposed of. The writer of Peter, Mr. Harris affirms, was not ignorant of the gnosis of the Cross wrought out by the Fathers from the Old Testament, on the“Wood”and the“Tree.”One passage at which they laboured heavily is in Habakkuk ii. 11:“The stone cries out of the wall, and the cross-beam answers back to it.”Mr. Harris proceeds:Now the author of the Peter Gospel has been at work on the passage; he wishes to make the cross talk, and not only talk, but answer back; accordingly, he introduces a question:“Hast thou preached to them that are asleep?”and the response is heard from the cross,“Yea.”As far as I can suspect, the first speaker is Christ, the Stone; and the answer comes from the Cross, the Wood. It is then the Cross that has descended into Hades. But perhaps this is pressing the writer's words a little too far.132Is it not also pressing the writer's thoughts a little too far to suggest such trains of childish interpretation as the origin of all his characteristic representations? Mr. Harris, by way of bringing the charge nearer to Peter, says that the passage of Habakkuk“is quoted by Barnabas, though no doubt from a corrupted text, with a positive assertion that the Cross is here intimated by the prophet.”133This is not so. The passage in Barnabas (xii.) reads:“He defineth concerning the Cross in another prophet, who saith:‘And when shall these things be accomplished? saith the Lord. Whensoever a tree shall be bended and stand upright, and whensoever blood shall drop from a tree.’Again thou art taught concerning the cross and him that was to be crucified.”This is not a quotation from Habakkuk,[pg 121]but from 4 Esdras v. 5. This is, however, not of much importance. It is of greater moment to observe that Mr. Harris, in applying this test, is only able to“suspect”that, in this episode in Peter, the speaker who asks the question is Christ the“stone,”and the answer from the cross, the“wood;”but as the first“speaker”is a voice“out of the heavens,”it is difficult to connect it with“Christ the Stone,”to whom the question is actually addressed. According to this, he puts the question to himself. Such exegesis, applied to almost any conceivable statement, might prove almost any conceivable hypothesis.The next instance requires us to turn to a passage in Amos (viii. 9-10, LXX):“And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that the sun shall set at midday, ... and I will turn your feasts into wailing and all your songs to lamentation, and I will lay sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; and I will set him as the wailing for the beloved, and those that are with him as a day of grief.”With it, we are told, must be taken the parallel verse in which Zechariah (xiv. 6, 7) predicts a day in which“there shall be no light, but cold and frost ... but towards evening there shall be light.”This was one of the proofs with early Christians of the events which happened at the crucifixion, and St. Cyprian, for instance, quotes it. It is also quoted in the sixth Homily of the Persian Father Aphrahat against the Jews.“The Gospel of Peter did not apparently possess the gnosis in such a highly evolved form as this,”but works on the same lines. Mr. Harris then quotes passages from the fragment, which we shall give after him, with his inserted comments, but as he does not mark the intervals which occur between them, we shall take the liberty of inserting[pg 122]the verses from which they are taken between brackets.15. It was mid-day and darkness over all the land of Judaea.... 22. then the sun shone out, and it was found to be the ninth hour [at evening time it shall be light]; 23. and the Jews rejoiced.... 25. and the Jews began to wail [I will turn your feasts into mourning].... 26. We also were fasting and sitting down (i.e.sitting on the ground in sackcloth134); [I will lay sackcloth on all loins]. 50. Mary Magdalene had not done at the tomb as women are wont to do over their dead beloveds, so she took her friends with her to wail [I will set him as the Wailing for the Beloved].The writer is, therefore, drawing on the details of prophecy, as suggested by the current testimonies against the Jews, and most likely on a written gnosis involving these testimonies. That he veils his sources simply shows that he is not one of the first brood of anti-Jewish preachers. If he had been early, he would not have been artificial or occult.135Now, as before, Mr. Harris uses the eccentricities of a gnosis which he does not prove to have existed at the time the fragment may have been written and, for instance, he quotes St. Cyprian, who wrote in the second half of the third century, and the Persian Father Aphrahat, also a writer long after the Gospel of Peter was composed, and his remark that the writer“did not apparently possess the gnosis in so highly evolved a form”as Aphrahat, is not so much an admission in his favour as to prepare the reader to be content with inferior evidence. The test, however, quite as much applies to our Gospels as to the Gospel of Peter. In the previous working, of which the fragment says nothing, those who pass“wag their heads”and rail, in each of the Synoptics, in a jubilant way. The first Synoptic says (xxvii. 45 f.)“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth[pg 123]hour.”The centurion and those who were watching“feared exceedingly.”In Mark (xv. 33) there also“was darkness over the whole earth until the ninth hour,”but in Luke (xxiii. 44 f.) the resemblance is still more marked. The darkness comes over the whole earth from the sixth until the ninth hour,“the sun's light failing.”(48)“And all the multitudes that came together to this sight, when they beheld the things that were done,returned smiting their breasts.”In the fourth Gospel (xx. 11), Mary goes to the tomb weeping. We shall have more to say regarding the Gospels presently, but here we need only remark that, whether in exactly the same way or not, the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”has certainly done its work in all of them. In this respect, the Gospel of Peter merely takes its place with the rest.There is only one other instance to be noticed here. It refers to some of the details which the writer of the fragment introduces into the mockery which precedes the crucifixion. Some of the mockers“prick”Jesus with a reed; others spat on his eyes. This, Mr. Harris says, is connected with a view early taken regarding a change of Jewish feasts. In the Epistle of Barnabas, there is the best exposition of the doctrine that the Feast should be turned into mourning and the Passover at which Jesus suffered should be treated as if it had been the Day of Atonement. In Barnabas, the ritual of the great day is discussed in detail, and the rules of procedure for the Priests and the People, apparently taken, Mr. Harris thinks, from a Greek handbook, prove a variety of local usage such as would not have been suspected from the Scripture, read apart from the rest of the literature of the time. The“unwashed inwards”of one goat, offered at the fast for all sins, are to be eaten by the priests alone, with vinegar, while the[pg 124]people fast and wail in sackcloth and ashes. This goat is one of two over which lot is cast on the Day of Atonement; the other is the scape-goat, Azazel, which, according to Barnabas, was to be treated with contumely, and sent away into the wilderness:“All of you spit on him, and prick him, and put the scarlet wool on his head,”&c. Now the two goats both represent Christ, according to Barnabas,“who twists these written regulations into prophecies of the first and second Advents, and of the details of the Passion.”The mention of vinegar to be eaten with the bitter portion of the goat, suggested the words of the Psalm:“Gall for my meat and vinegar for my drink;”the command to spit on the goat and prick (or pierce) him [which ill-usage, by the way, the Talmud admits to have been the practice of the Alexandrian Jews], is interpreted by Barnabas to be a type or a prophecy of Christ“set at naught and pierced and spat on.”Is there any trace of the gnosis of the two goats in Peter? If we may judge from the conjunction of the words in the account of the Mockery, there is a decided trace:“Others stood and spat on his eyes ... others pricked him with a reed;”it is Christ as the goat Azazel.Mr. Harris quotes“an almost contemporary Sibyllist,”“They shall prick his side with a reed,according to their law;”and he continues:“If the Sybillist is quoting Peter, he is also interpreting him, and his interpretation is, they shall prick him, as is done to the goat Azazel.”To make Peter responsible for the ideas or interpretations of the Sybillist is a little hard. However, let us examine this matter. It is to be observed that the only innovation in Peter, regarding the spitting, is the expression that they“spat uponhis eyes”instead of simply“upon him,”or“in his face,”as in the Gospels; but upon this nothing turns. The point is not even mentioned; so it may be dismissed. Regarding the reed, Peter says they“pierced”him with it, instead of“smote him”with it. Let us leave the“piercing”aside[pg 125]for the moment. In all other respects, the contumely is the same in the Gospels. Before the high priest, in Matthew and Mark (Matt. xxvi. 67, Mark xiv. 65), they spit in his face and buffet him, and smite him with the palms of their hands; and in Luke (xxii. 63 f.) they mock and beat him and revile him. It is curious that, according to the second Synoptist, all this was foretold, for he makes Jesus say (x. 33 f.):“Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and the scribes: and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him unto the Gentiles: and they shall mock him, and shall spit upon him, and shall scourge him, and shall kill him, and after three days he shall rise again.”After the trial before Pilate, in Mark (xv. 17 ff.), they put on him a purple robe, and the crown of thorns on his head, and a reed in his hand, and spit upon him, and take the reed and smite him on the head. In Peter, likewise, they clothe him in purple, put on his head the crown of thorns, spit upon his eyes, smite him on the cheeks, and pierce him with a reed.What difference is there here except the mere piercing? Yes! there is a difference, for Mr. Harris has forgotten to refer to the scarlet wool put on the goat Azazel. There is nothing in Peter which corresponds with the scarlet wool. The robe that is put upon Jesus is purple. Now Barnabas, in the chapter from which Mr. Harris quotes all these passages, finds this point of the“scarlet wool”fulfilled in Jesus:“For they shall see him in that day wearing the long scarlet robe about his flesh.”136But if we look in the first Synoptic we also find this, for we read (xxvii. 28):“And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe”(χλαμύδα κοκκίνην). The mere detail of piercing with[pg 126]the reed instead of smiting with it is trifling compared with this, and in all essential points Mr. Harris's test more fitly applies to the first Synoptic than to Peter, and equally so to the other two.As for the piercing with the reed, however, we have only to turn to the fourth Gospel, and we find its counterpart (xix. 34) where one of the soldiers with a spear pierced the side of Jesus. Why? (36)“That the Scripture might be fulfilled....‘They shall look on him whom they pierced.’”Here is the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”without any disguise. If one writer prefer to fulfil one part of Scripture, the other may select another without much difference in standing. Even Mr. Harris admits that“the gnosis on which Barnabas works is ultimately based on the same passage”as that quoted as fulfilled in the fourth Gospel137; then what distinction of date is possible when both apply the same gnosis based on the same texts?

We have still to consider objections raised by Mr. Rendel Harris, however, concerning the relation between this fragment and the Gospels accepted by the Church. In a long article in the“Contemporary Review”he tries to establish the thesis that“The Gospel of Peter shows everywhere the traces of a highly evolved prophetic gnosis, and in particular most of the apparently new matter which it contains is taken from the Old Testament.”121It would not be possible, without wearying the most patient of parishioners, to illustrate in any adequate manner the perverse and hair-splitting ingenuity with which the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”went to work, and which, in very parlous fashion, Mr. Harris applies to Peter; but, fortunately, this will not be necessary here. This gnosis doubtless began its operation early, and reached a climax towards the fourth century; but then it had ceased to be creative, and had become wildly analytical. Nothing then remained for it to do. Mr. Rendel Harris quotes, with admirable courage, a“significant sentence”from the“Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta,”a work of St. Sylvia of Aquitaine, or some other lady traveller of the fourth century, which has recently been published. She has been relating how the people were instructed in the mysteries of the faith by readings from the Scriptures,imprimis; of the Psalms predictive of the Messianic sufferings; then of[pg 111]passages from the Acts and Epistles which bear upon the interpretation of such predictions; further, the evidence of the prophets; and, to crown all, the story of the Passion itself from the Gospels.“The object of this service was, as Sylvia points out, that the people might understand by the Gospel record that whatever the psalmists and prophets had foretold concerning the Passion of the Lord had actually taken place.”And now comes the“significant sentence”to which we referred above, italicised by Mr. Harris himself:“And so for the space of three hours the people is taught thatnothing took place which had not been previously foretold, and nothing had been foretold which had not obtained its fulfilment.”Mr. Harris supports the accuracy of Sylvia's description.122

But, whilst frankly admitting the application of this fundamental principle of the prophetic gnosis, more or less throughout all early Christian literature, Mr. Harris wishes to limit its influence upon works received into the canon, into which the two-edged weapon, however, pierces in spite of him to the sundering apart of soul and body. He says:

Now no history is, in its ultimate analysis, so trustworthy as Christian history, but if we take the whole body of early literature, of which the canonical Gospels form the centre and crown, including Apocalypses, party-gospels, and the like, we shall find that there never was a body of history which was so overgrown with legend, and the major part of these legends result from the irregular study of the Old Testament, probably based on the synagogue methods of the time of the early Christian teachers. This reaction of the prophecy upon history colours the style of authors and affects their statements; and it is only by a close and careful study of the writers and their methods, that we are able to discriminate between what is abona fideallusion in the Prophets, or what is a trick of style borrowed from the Prophets, or what is a pure legend invented out of the Prophets.123

The immediate object here, of course, is to lay the basis of an indictment against the fragment; but in this clear and excellent statement, a principle is enunciated, the application of which cannot be directed as the writer pleases, but is apt to be as deadly to friends as to foes. Mr. Harris may attempt to satisfy his doubts, in writing with the impartiality of a scholar, as he does, with the reservation that“no history is, in its ultimate analysis, so trustworthy as Christian history,”but he has only to formulate the reasons for such a statement, to recognise their utter inadequacy. In so far as he gives us any glimpse of them here, they are of sad insufficiency. He speaks, a little further on, regarding“the real need of a critical method that can distinguish between statements that are genuine history, and statements that are prophetic reflexes. For this discrimination,”he says,“our main guide is the Canon, which expresses the judgment of the primitive Christian Church upon its literary materials; but I think it will be generally felt that we shall need finer-edged tools than Church customs or decrees in the more difficult parts of the problem; and certainly we must not assumea prioriin a critical investigation, that there is no trace of legendary accretion in the Gospel, and no element of genuine fact in what are called the Apocrypha.”124Alas! is not the“main guide”a mere blind leader of the blind in regard to“the encroachment of prophetic interpretation upon the historical record”? We have no intention of maintaining here a very different view of the credibility of Christian history, the arguments against which we have elsewhere fully stated, but it is desirable, for reasons which will presently appear, that the fundamental principle of this attack on the Gospel according to Peter should be clearly understood. Mr.[pg 113]Harris goes on to affirm that the measure of this encroachment is, in the first two centuries, one of the best indications of documentary date we possess:“As a test, it will settle the period of many a document, and perhaps the measure of the appeal to prophecy will even determine the chronological order of the Gospels themselves: Mark, Luke, John, and Matthew.”125This order will probably surprise a good many readers, and shake the faith they might perhaps be disposed to repose in the test which is supposed to have decided it. Mr. Harris applies the test in various instances to Peter, and we shall briefly examine his results.

It will be remembered that inv.35 f. whilst the soldiers were keeping watch over the sepulchre, there was a great voice in the heavens, and they saw the heavens opened, and“two men”(δύο ἄνδρας) came down from thence with great light, and approach the tomb, and the stone which had been laid at the door rolled away, and they entered it, but presently they beheld again three men (τρεῖς ἄνδρας) coming out, and the two were supporting or conducting the other by the hand, and the lofty stature of the three is described. Now the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”by which, according to Mr. Harris, this representation was composed is as follows, though only the main lines of the painful process can be given. In the prayer of Habakkuk (iii. 2), according to the Septuagint, the words which stand in our Bible,“In the midst of the years make known”reads:“In the midst oftwo lives”(or oftwo living creatures)“thou shalt be known.”This is referred in two ways: to“Christ's incarnation”and to his“Death and Resurrection.”In the former case the two animals are the ox and the ass at the Nativity. The interpretation in the second case: the[pg 114]“living creatures”are the seraphim, two in number, because in Isaiah (vi. 3)“one called to the other and said:”“and we have only to find a situation in which Christ is seen between two angels, and the prophecy is fulfilled. This situation is made in the Gospel of Peter by Christ rising between two supporting angels.”Mr. Harris endeavours to strengthen this by referring to Cyril of Alexandria's comment on the two living creatures (in the fourth century). Cyril is in doubt whether the two living creatures are the Father and the Holy Spirit, or the Old and New Testament, but recurs to the earlier interpretation that they are the Cherubim. Mr. Harris also cites the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel on Zechariah iii. 7:“If thou wilt keep the observation of my word,I will raise thee up in the resurrection of the dead, and set thy feet walking between the two cherubim.”Then, as soon as this identification of the two living creatures had been made, it was easy, says Mr. Harris, to pass over to the ninety-ninth Psalm, which Justin126affirms to be a prediction of Christ.

A little study of the opening words will show some interesting parallels with Peter.“The Lord hath reigned! Let the people be enraged! Sitting on the Cherubim, let the earth be shaken. The Lord in Zion is great and high above all the people.”Here we have a parallel to the“Jews burning with rage,”and to the enormous stature of the risen Christ, and, perhaps to the quaking of the earth. Nor is it without interest that Justin, having spoken of this great and high Christ, should turn immediately to another Psalm (xix.) where the sun is said to come forth as a bridegroom from his chamber, and to rejoiceas a giantto run a race.127

In order to be as just as possible, all this has been given in greater detail than perhaps the case deserves. It seems rather a heavy avalanche of conjecture to bring down upon Peter, who simply narrates, without the most distant reference to any prophetic texts; and[pg 115]it is perhaps a little hard that Justin, who in all probability had the Gospel already written and before him, should contribute in this casual way to the author's discomfiture. However, let us see what there is to be said upon the other side. The first general remark that may be made is, that it can scarcely be considered evidence of the later date of Peter to ascribe to him, as the source of this detail, an elaborate twisting of texts through the operation of gnosis, which has not been proved to have existed in this form before the epoch at which he wrote. This is said without any intention of casting doubt on the general operation of supposed prophetic passages on the evolution of Gospel history, but merely as questioning this particular explanation of the mode in which this representation was originally suggested, and more especially for the purpose of adding that, whatever reproach of this kind is cast upon the Gospel according to Peter, must equally be directed against the canonical gospels.

It will be remembered that, in the third Synoptic,“two men in shining apparel”assist at the resurrection, and that in the fourth Gospel Mary sees in the tomb“two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.”Here there is an occasion for applying with equal—or, as we shall presently see, greater—propriety the argument of“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”to the writers, and so explaining their representation. But there is more to be suggested in connection with the matter. In the first and second Synoptics, only one angel assists at the scene, who in the second Synoptic is called“a young man”(νεανίσκος). Now the“two men”of great stature in Peter only go into the tomb and come out again with Jesus; but subsequently the heavens were again opened (v.44), and a certain man descends and[pg 116]goes into the tomb and remains there, for when the women come (v.55) they see there“a certain young man”(νεανίσκος)“sitting in the midst of the tomb, beautiful and clad in a shining garment,”who speaks to them as in the two Synoptics, and tells them that“Jesus is gone thither whence he was sent.”This, then, is the angel who appears in Matthew and Mark. We have already mentioned that the two men ofv.36 have been identified by some critics as Moses and Elias. The account of the transfiguration is given in all the Synoptics, though it does not seem to have been known to the author of the fourth Gospel—although“John”was an actor in the scene—but that in the third Synoptic is fuller than the rest (ix. 28 ff). Jesus takes with him Peter and John and James, and goes up into the mountain to pray; and as he prays his countenance was altered, and his raiment becomes white and dazzling;“and behold there talked with him two men (ἄνδρες δύο), which were Moses and Elijah; who appeared in glory,and spake of his decease which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”When Peter and the others were fully awake,“they saw his glory and the two men (δύο ἄνδρας) that stood with him. And it came to pass, as they were parting from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah:not knowing what he said. And while he said these things there came a cloud, and overshadowed them ... and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my son, my chosen: hear ye him.”To this episode Mr. Harris might reasonably apply the test of the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis;”but in any case, the view that the two men of the fragment are intended to represent Moses and Elijah—the law and the prophets—who had so short a time before“spoken of[pg 117]his decease which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem,”and who now came, in stature reaching to the heavens, but less than his which rose above the heavens, and conducted Jesus the Christ forth from the tomb, in which that decease had been fulfilled, is in the highest degree probable. Much more might be said regarding this, but too much time has already been devoted to the point.

The second application of Mr. Harris's test is to the sealing of the stone at the sepulchre with seven seals. The Gospel of Peter simply states that the stone was sealed with seven seals, and Mr. Harris endeavours to find some abstruse meaning in the statement, which is peculiar to the fragment in so far as the number of seals is concerned. Where did Peter get the idea? Mr. Harris says, first from Zechariah iii. 9:“For behold the stone that I have set before Joshua; upon one stone are seven eyes; behold I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts;”and the name Joshua is the Hebrew equivalent of Jesus. A reference is also made by the Fathers of the second century to passages to prove that Christ was the stone (of stumbling to the Jews, but the corner stone to believers).“Justin recognised Christ in the stone cut out without hands, of which Daniel speaks; in the stone which Jacob set for his pillow, and which he anointed with oil; in the stone on which Moses sat in the battle with Amalek,”and the like.“Bearing in mind that there was an early tendency to connect the language of the‘Branch’passage with the resurrection, we can see that the interpretation took a second form, viz. to regard the stone before the face of Jesus as a prophecy of the stone which closed the tomb in the evangelic story.”There is evidence, Mr. Harris says, that the seven eyes were early interpreted by Biblical Targumists to mean seven seals.

We need not be surprised, then, that the Peter Gospel speaks of the stone as sealed with seven seals; it is an attempt to throw the story into closer parallelism with Zechariah, no doubt for polemic purposes against the Jews. That he uses the curious word ἐπέχρισαν, which we are obliged, from the exigencies of language, to translate“they smeared”or“plastered”seven seals, but which to the writer meant much the same as if he were to say,“they on-christed seven seals,”is due to the lurking desire to make a parallel with Christ and the stone directly, and with the anointed pillar of Jacob. The stone has a chrism.... But this is not all; in Zechariah (iv. 10) there is a passage,“they shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel,”but in the Septuagint it runs,“they shall see the tin-stone.”How is this to be connected with the“stone before the face of Joshua or Jesus”? The answer is found in the pages of the Peter Gospel:“a great crowd came from Jerusalem and the neighbourhoodto see the tomb which had been sealed.”It only remains to identify the stone which they saw with the tin-stone. Symmachus retranslated the Hebrew word for“tin”as if it came from the root which means“to separate or divide,”and in the Gospel of Peter,“the stone which had been laid on the door of the tomb withdrew (or separated) gradually”(ἐπεχώρησε παρὰ μέρος).

“The‘plummet’of Zerubbabel,”Mr. Harris triumphantly concludes,“is used by Peter to make history square with prophecy.”128

Now again the general remark has to be made that, in order to convict Peter of a late date, Mr. Harris takes all this“highly evolved gnosis”wherever he can find it, without consideration of epochs, and in some parts upon mere personal conjecture. He even confesses that he does not know the date of the translation of Symmachus, which he nevertheless uses as an argument. He observes, himself, that it is“a little awkward”that the stone, which at one time represents Jesus, has to be treated in the same breath as before the face of Jesus. The terribly complicated and involved process, by which it is suggested that the author of the Gospel according to Peter evolved a detail so apparently simple[pg 119]as the sealing of the sepulchre with seven seals, is difficult enough to follow, and must have been still more difficult to invent, but in his anxiety to assign a late date to the fragment, Mr. Harris forgets that, if the number seven is evidence of it, a large part of the New Testament must be moved back with the fragment. The Synoptics are full of it,129but it is quite sufficient to point to the Apocalypse, which has this typical number in almost every chapter: the message to the seven churches; the seven spirits before the throne; the seven golden candlesticks; the seven stars; seven lamps of fire burning; seven angels; seven trumpets; seven thunders; the dragon with seven heads, and seven diadems; the seven angels with seven plagues; the woman with seven heads, and so on. The most striking and apposite instance, which Mr. Harris indeed does not pass over, but mentions as having“a curious and suggestive connection”and“every appearance of being ultimately derived from the language of Zechariah,”130is the Book which is close sealed with seven seals, and the Lamb standing as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are seven spirits of God, which is found worthy to take the book and open the seals.131Instead of giving the author of the fragment, who does not make the slightest claim to it, credit for so extraordinary a feat of synthetic exegesis, is it not more simple and probable that he used the number seven as a mere ordinary symbol of completeness? but if more than this be deemed requisite, and the detail has a deeper mystical sense, he can only be accused of“highly evolved prophetic gnosis,”in company with the author of the[pg 120]Apocalypse and other canonical books, and this still gives him a position in the same epoch with them, more than which, probably, no one demands.

Another instance may be rapidly disposed of. The writer of Peter, Mr. Harris affirms, was not ignorant of the gnosis of the Cross wrought out by the Fathers from the Old Testament, on the“Wood”and the“Tree.”One passage at which they laboured heavily is in Habakkuk ii. 11:“The stone cries out of the wall, and the cross-beam answers back to it.”Mr. Harris proceeds:

Now the author of the Peter Gospel has been at work on the passage; he wishes to make the cross talk, and not only talk, but answer back; accordingly, he introduces a question:“Hast thou preached to them that are asleep?”and the response is heard from the cross,“Yea.”As far as I can suspect, the first speaker is Christ, the Stone; and the answer comes from the Cross, the Wood. It is then the Cross that has descended into Hades. But perhaps this is pressing the writer's words a little too far.132

Is it not also pressing the writer's thoughts a little too far to suggest such trains of childish interpretation as the origin of all his characteristic representations? Mr. Harris, by way of bringing the charge nearer to Peter, says that the passage of Habakkuk“is quoted by Barnabas, though no doubt from a corrupted text, with a positive assertion that the Cross is here intimated by the prophet.”133This is not so. The passage in Barnabas (xii.) reads:“He defineth concerning the Cross in another prophet, who saith:‘And when shall these things be accomplished? saith the Lord. Whensoever a tree shall be bended and stand upright, and whensoever blood shall drop from a tree.’Again thou art taught concerning the cross and him that was to be crucified.”This is not a quotation from Habakkuk,[pg 121]but from 4 Esdras v. 5. This is, however, not of much importance. It is of greater moment to observe that Mr. Harris, in applying this test, is only able to“suspect”that, in this episode in Peter, the speaker who asks the question is Christ the“stone,”and the answer from the cross, the“wood;”but as the first“speaker”is a voice“out of the heavens,”it is difficult to connect it with“Christ the Stone,”to whom the question is actually addressed. According to this, he puts the question to himself. Such exegesis, applied to almost any conceivable statement, might prove almost any conceivable hypothesis.

The next instance requires us to turn to a passage in Amos (viii. 9-10, LXX):“And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that the sun shall set at midday, ... and I will turn your feasts into wailing and all your songs to lamentation, and I will lay sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; and I will set him as the wailing for the beloved, and those that are with him as a day of grief.”With it, we are told, must be taken the parallel verse in which Zechariah (xiv. 6, 7) predicts a day in which“there shall be no light, but cold and frost ... but towards evening there shall be light.”This was one of the proofs with early Christians of the events which happened at the crucifixion, and St. Cyprian, for instance, quotes it. It is also quoted in the sixth Homily of the Persian Father Aphrahat against the Jews.“The Gospel of Peter did not apparently possess the gnosis in such a highly evolved form as this,”but works on the same lines. Mr. Harris then quotes passages from the fragment, which we shall give after him, with his inserted comments, but as he does not mark the intervals which occur between them, we shall take the liberty of inserting[pg 122]the verses from which they are taken between brackets.

15. It was mid-day and darkness over all the land of Judaea.... 22. then the sun shone out, and it was found to be the ninth hour [at evening time it shall be light]; 23. and the Jews rejoiced.... 25. and the Jews began to wail [I will turn your feasts into mourning].... 26. We also were fasting and sitting down (i.e.sitting on the ground in sackcloth134); [I will lay sackcloth on all loins]. 50. Mary Magdalene had not done at the tomb as women are wont to do over their dead beloveds, so she took her friends with her to wail [I will set him as the Wailing for the Beloved].The writer is, therefore, drawing on the details of prophecy, as suggested by the current testimonies against the Jews, and most likely on a written gnosis involving these testimonies. That he veils his sources simply shows that he is not one of the first brood of anti-Jewish preachers. If he had been early, he would not have been artificial or occult.135

15. It was mid-day and darkness over all the land of Judaea.... 22. then the sun shone out, and it was found to be the ninth hour [at evening time it shall be light]; 23. and the Jews rejoiced.... 25. and the Jews began to wail [I will turn your feasts into mourning].... 26. We also were fasting and sitting down (i.e.sitting on the ground in sackcloth134); [I will lay sackcloth on all loins]. 50. Mary Magdalene had not done at the tomb as women are wont to do over their dead beloveds, so she took her friends with her to wail [I will set him as the Wailing for the Beloved].

The writer is, therefore, drawing on the details of prophecy, as suggested by the current testimonies against the Jews, and most likely on a written gnosis involving these testimonies. That he veils his sources simply shows that he is not one of the first brood of anti-Jewish preachers. If he had been early, he would not have been artificial or occult.135

Now, as before, Mr. Harris uses the eccentricities of a gnosis which he does not prove to have existed at the time the fragment may have been written and, for instance, he quotes St. Cyprian, who wrote in the second half of the third century, and the Persian Father Aphrahat, also a writer long after the Gospel of Peter was composed, and his remark that the writer“did not apparently possess the gnosis in so highly evolved a form”as Aphrahat, is not so much an admission in his favour as to prepare the reader to be content with inferior evidence. The test, however, quite as much applies to our Gospels as to the Gospel of Peter. In the previous working, of which the fragment says nothing, those who pass“wag their heads”and rail, in each of the Synoptics, in a jubilant way. The first Synoptic says (xxvii. 45 f.)“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth[pg 123]hour.”The centurion and those who were watching“feared exceedingly.”In Mark (xv. 33) there also“was darkness over the whole earth until the ninth hour,”but in Luke (xxiii. 44 f.) the resemblance is still more marked. The darkness comes over the whole earth from the sixth until the ninth hour,“the sun's light failing.”(48)“And all the multitudes that came together to this sight, when they beheld the things that were done,returned smiting their breasts.”In the fourth Gospel (xx. 11), Mary goes to the tomb weeping. We shall have more to say regarding the Gospels presently, but here we need only remark that, whether in exactly the same way or not, the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”has certainly done its work in all of them. In this respect, the Gospel of Peter merely takes its place with the rest.

There is only one other instance to be noticed here. It refers to some of the details which the writer of the fragment introduces into the mockery which precedes the crucifixion. Some of the mockers“prick”Jesus with a reed; others spat on his eyes. This, Mr. Harris says, is connected with a view early taken regarding a change of Jewish feasts. In the Epistle of Barnabas, there is the best exposition of the doctrine that the Feast should be turned into mourning and the Passover at which Jesus suffered should be treated as if it had been the Day of Atonement. In Barnabas, the ritual of the great day is discussed in detail, and the rules of procedure for the Priests and the People, apparently taken, Mr. Harris thinks, from a Greek handbook, prove a variety of local usage such as would not have been suspected from the Scripture, read apart from the rest of the literature of the time. The“unwashed inwards”of one goat, offered at the fast for all sins, are to be eaten by the priests alone, with vinegar, while the[pg 124]people fast and wail in sackcloth and ashes. This goat is one of two over which lot is cast on the Day of Atonement; the other is the scape-goat, Azazel, which, according to Barnabas, was to be treated with contumely, and sent away into the wilderness:“All of you spit on him, and prick him, and put the scarlet wool on his head,”&c. Now the two goats both represent Christ, according to Barnabas,“who twists these written regulations into prophecies of the first and second Advents, and of the details of the Passion.”

The mention of vinegar to be eaten with the bitter portion of the goat, suggested the words of the Psalm:“Gall for my meat and vinegar for my drink;”the command to spit on the goat and prick (or pierce) him [which ill-usage, by the way, the Talmud admits to have been the practice of the Alexandrian Jews], is interpreted by Barnabas to be a type or a prophecy of Christ“set at naught and pierced and spat on.”Is there any trace of the gnosis of the two goats in Peter? If we may judge from the conjunction of the words in the account of the Mockery, there is a decided trace:“Others stood and spat on his eyes ... others pricked him with a reed;”it is Christ as the goat Azazel.

Mr. Harris quotes“an almost contemporary Sibyllist,”“They shall prick his side with a reed,according to their law;”and he continues:“If the Sybillist is quoting Peter, he is also interpreting him, and his interpretation is, they shall prick him, as is done to the goat Azazel.”

To make Peter responsible for the ideas or interpretations of the Sybillist is a little hard. However, let us examine this matter. It is to be observed that the only innovation in Peter, regarding the spitting, is the expression that they“spat uponhis eyes”instead of simply“upon him,”or“in his face,”as in the Gospels; but upon this nothing turns. The point is not even mentioned; so it may be dismissed. Regarding the reed, Peter says they“pierced”him with it, instead of“smote him”with it. Let us leave the“piercing”aside[pg 125]for the moment. In all other respects, the contumely is the same in the Gospels. Before the high priest, in Matthew and Mark (Matt. xxvi. 67, Mark xiv. 65), they spit in his face and buffet him, and smite him with the palms of their hands; and in Luke (xxii. 63 f.) they mock and beat him and revile him. It is curious that, according to the second Synoptist, all this was foretold, for he makes Jesus say (x. 33 f.):“Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and the scribes: and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him unto the Gentiles: and they shall mock him, and shall spit upon him, and shall scourge him, and shall kill him, and after three days he shall rise again.”After the trial before Pilate, in Mark (xv. 17 ff.), they put on him a purple robe, and the crown of thorns on his head, and a reed in his hand, and spit upon him, and take the reed and smite him on the head. In Peter, likewise, they clothe him in purple, put on his head the crown of thorns, spit upon his eyes, smite him on the cheeks, and pierce him with a reed.

What difference is there here except the mere piercing? Yes! there is a difference, for Mr. Harris has forgotten to refer to the scarlet wool put on the goat Azazel. There is nothing in Peter which corresponds with the scarlet wool. The robe that is put upon Jesus is purple. Now Barnabas, in the chapter from which Mr. Harris quotes all these passages, finds this point of the“scarlet wool”fulfilled in Jesus:“For they shall see him in that day wearing the long scarlet robe about his flesh.”136But if we look in the first Synoptic we also find this, for we read (xxvii. 28):“And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe”(χλαμύδα κοκκίνην). The mere detail of piercing with[pg 126]the reed instead of smiting with it is trifling compared with this, and in all essential points Mr. Harris's test more fitly applies to the first Synoptic than to Peter, and equally so to the other two.

As for the piercing with the reed, however, we have only to turn to the fourth Gospel, and we find its counterpart (xix. 34) where one of the soldiers with a spear pierced the side of Jesus. Why? (36)“That the Scripture might be fulfilled....‘They shall look on him whom they pierced.’”Here is the“highly evolved prophetic gnosis”without any disguise. If one writer prefer to fulfil one part of Scripture, the other may select another without much difference in standing. Even Mr. Harris admits that“the gnosis on which Barnabas works is ultimately based on the same passage”as that quoted as fulfilled in the fourth Gospel137; then what distinction of date is possible when both apply the same gnosis based on the same texts?

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