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The Gospel of Peter and Canonical Gospel Priority*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Raymond E. Brown
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Extract

A frequent source of consolation among Christians is that, while they do not have the same attitudes towards creeds, liturgies, or church structures, they all share the same canon of the NT. That common heritage might seem to be reinforced by B. S. Childs' recent insistence, or even hyper-insistence, on canonical dimensions in studying NT text questions, in interpreting individual NT books, and in evaluating the whole collection. In point of fact, despite Childs's emphasis (which, while exaggerated, makes some very important points), scholarship has gone in the opposite direction. For various reasons and from various vantage points, the validity and value of the NT canon are being seriously questioned.

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Articles
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New Testament Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , July 1987 , pp. 321 - 343
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

NOTES

[1] The New Testament as Canon (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985).Google Scholar

[2] I use this term to describe the 1st-2nd century works ultimately accepted into the canon.

[3] The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982) 106.Google ScholarMayer, A., Der Zenzierte Jesus (Freiburg: Walter, 1983) has carried this to the point of describing a proletarian Jesus censored by Luke and Paul.Google Scholar

[4] The Oral and the Written Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress 1983).Google Scholar In debate with Kelber, Gerhardsson, B., The Gospel Tradition (ConBNT 15; Lund: Gleerup, 1986) integrates oral and written tradition in a more balanced way.Google Scholar

[5] ‘Das Magnificat und die älteste Tradition über Jesus von Nazaret’, Evt 38 (1978) 298–313.Google Scholar

[6] Essays on the Sermon on the Mount (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984).Google Scholar

[7] In Memory of Her (New York: Crossroads, 1983).Google Scholar

[8] The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random, 1979).Google Scholar

[9] ‘Jesus: From Easter to Valentinus (or to the Apostles' Creed)’, JBL 101 (1982) 5–37.Google Scholar

[10] ‘Thomas – the Fourth Gospel’, BA 46 (1983) 8–17.Google Scholar

[11] Koester, H., ‘One Jesus and Four Primitive Gospels’, HTR 61 (1968) 203–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Trajectories through Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971) 158–204.Google Scholar

[12] Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1973).Google Scholar Also the update on Secret Mark: ‘The Score at the End of the First Decade’, HTR 75 (1982) 449–61.Google Scholar

[13] ‘History and Development of Mark's Gospel (From Mark to Secret Mark and ‘Canonical Mark’)’, in Colloquy on New Testament Studies (ed. Corley, B.; Macon, GA: Mercer, 1983) 35–57, esp. 54–57.Google Scholar

[14] ‘The Mystery of the Gospel of Mark’, The Second Century 4 (1984) 65–82.Google Scholar

[15] ‘Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels’, HTR 73 (1980) 105–30, esp. 112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[16] The Other Gospels (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982).Google Scholar

[17] Four Other Gospels (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985).Google Scholar

[18] E.g. Neirynck, F., ‘La Fuite du Jeune Homme’, ETL 55 (1979) 43–66 (with reference to Secret Mark)Google Scholar; ‘Papyrus Egerton 2 and the Healing of the Leper’, ETL 61 (1985) 153–60.Google Scholar

[19] Those who think facts favour the fidelity and priority of the canonical Gospels are not uniformly church traditionalists. Nor is church tradition so simple; for where canonicity is determined by long and continuous church usage, Mark, 16. 9–20Google Scholar and John, 7. 53–8. 12 are considered canonical even though they may postdate some of the apocrypha.Google Scholar

[20] E.g. on Valentinus, on Christianity in Egypt, and on Rome's role. McCue, J. F., ‘Walter Bauer and the Valentinians’, VC 33 (1979) 118–30.Google ScholarBurke, G. T., ‘Walter Bauer and Celsus’, Second Century 4 (1984) 1–7.Google ScholarRousseau, P., Pachomius (Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1985) 19–23.Google Scholar

[21] ‘New Testament Trajectories and Biblical Authority’, SE 7 (TU 126; Berlin, 1982) 189–99.Google Scholar Also Hawkin, D. J., ‘A Reflective Look at the Recent Debate on Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity’, Eglise et Théologie 7 (1976) 367–78.Google Scholar

[22] A Genre for the Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982).Google Scholar In many writings C. H. Talbert has emphasized the biographical element in the Gospels. See my ‘Jesus and Elisha’, Perspective 12 (Spring 1971) 85–104.Google Scholar

[23] The Greek/French ed. of Mara, M. G. (SC 201; Paris: Cerf, 1973)Google Scholar contains a bibliography. J. Armitage Robinson divided the text into 14 chaps.; Harnack, into 60 vv. It is now normal to use both systems of reference simultaneously, wherein chap. 1 v. 2 is followed by chap. 2 v. 3.

[24] Coles, R. A., The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Vol. 41 (ed. Browne, G. M. et al. ; London: British Acad., 1972) 15–16.Google ScholarLührmann, D., ‘POx 2949: EvPt 3–5 in einer Handschrift des 2./3. Jahrhunderts’, ZNW 72 (1981) 216–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[25] Origen (Comm. in Matt 10. 17) mentions GP, but did he come to know this work in Alexandria or Caesarea?

[26] GP 5. 19, ‘My power [δύναμις], O power, you have left me’, is not plausibly an indication that the divinity left the body of Jesus before death, because GP's description of a Jesus who came forth from the tomb is supernatural and because GP implies that Jesus acted salvifically between death and resurrection (10. 40–42). GP's statement that the Lord was silent ‘as he felt no pain’ when he was crucified need not be an affirmation of docetic impassibility, for a similar description implies bravery and divine help in Christian martyrdom (Mart. Pol. 8. 3).

[27] I owe a debt to earlier work on GP: Swete, H. B., Euangelion kata Petron: The Akhmim Fragment of the Apocryphal Gospel of St Peter (London: Macmillan, 1893).Google ScholarVaganay, L., L'Évangile de Pierre (EB; 2nd ed.; Paris: Gabalda, 1930).Google ScholarSchmidt, K. L., Kanonische und Apokryphe Evangelien und Apostelgeschichten (Basel: Majer, 1944) 37–78.Google ScholarBeyschlag, K., Die verborgene Überlieferung von Christus (Siebenstern Taschenbuch 136; Munich, 1969) 27–64.Google Scholar

[28] Harnack, A. von, Bruchstücke des Evangeliums and der Apokalypse des Petrus (2nd ed.; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1893).Google ScholarGardner-Smith, P., ‘The Gospel of Peter’, JTS 27 (1926) 255–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘The Date of the Gospel of Peter’, JTS 27 (1926) 401–7.Google ScholarJohnson, B. A., ‘Empty Tomb Tradition in the Gospel of Peter’ (Th.D. diss.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard Divinity, 1966).Google ScholarDenker, J., Die theologiegeschichtliche Stellung des Petrusevangeliums (Bern: Lang, 1975). Denker makes available a digest of Johnson.Google Scholar

[29] His treatment in Four (n. 17 above) 123–81 covers both the passion and resurrection, but concerning the latter he indulges in hypotheses about Mark that would take us far afield from GP. Denker's arguments are more detailed than Crossan's but reflect much the same methodology.

[30] The redaction inserted 2. 3–5a to prepare for the addition of 6. 23–24; inserted 7. 26–27 to prepare for 14. 58–60; inserted 9. 37 and 11.43–44 to prepare for 12. 50–13. 57.

[31] Already in 1968 Koester (‘One Jesus’, n. 11 above) had spelled out the presuppositions. In recent writing, however, the majority has still favoured GP dependence on the canonical Gospels (e.g. Beyschlag, Mara, Lührmann).

[32] ‘Die alttestamentliche Motive in der Leidensgeschichte des Petrus- und des Johannes-Evangeliums’, BZAW 33 (1918) 125–50Google Scholar; repr. in Botschaft und Geschichte (Tübingen: Mohr, 1953–1956) 1. 221–47.Google Scholar Although Dibelius thought GP more original than John in using the OT, he found it clearly dependent on the Synoptics (146).

[33] ‘Apocryphal’ (n. 15 above) 127; also Denker, , Stellung 58–77Google Scholar; Crossan, , Four 138–9.Google Scholar

[34] Such splitting was common in the NT and early Jewish writing as the individual lines of Scripture were seen to be fulfilled exactly. GP 4. 12 sees the parallel lines of Ps 22. 19 (‘They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots’) as describing two separate actions (dividing and casting lots), even as does John 19. 23–24 which distinguishes between the garments and the clothing.

[35] The reference to an initial wine mixed with myrrh occurs in Mark at the beginning of the crucifixion in a list of laconic descriptions: they brought him to the place of the skull, offered him wine, and crucified him. Originally it may have had no more scriptural significance than the items before and after it.

[36] One can detect the truly redactional characteristics of Matthew and Luke by seeing the changes the two evangelists made in Mark. The truly redactional characteristics of Mark and John have to be detected by comparison with non-extant reconstructed sources. These two evangelists have stylistic peculiarities, but we cannot be certain that the peculiarities have not been taken over from the sources.

[37] Brown, R. E., ‘The Relation of “The Secret Gospel of Mark” to the Fourth Gospel’, CBQ 36 (1974) 466–85.Google Scholar In Mark, 10. 21 Jesus loved the rich young man who did not become a disciple.Google Scholar

[38] What the impenitent wrongdoer says, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us’ is made up from the two previous revilings (23. 35, 37).

[39] Even when others can we Jesus' innocence and when there are marvellous phenomena, the Jewish leaders are obdurate in a guilty refusal to be persuaded: GP 1. 1; 4. 13–14; 5. 15–18; 6. 21–23; 8. 28–30; 11. 45–48.

[40] In addition, Crossan agrees with interpreters who think Mark deleted from the tradition the appearances of the risen Jesus. Yet far from being opposed to appearances of the risen Jesus, Mark may have deemed that they belonged to the postGospel story of the church rather than to the Gospel story of Jesus' ministry. The other evangelists considered such appearances to belong to the Gospel story, although Luke recounts some of them in the Acts story of the church.

[41] The pattern of preserving the two confessions which had different titles of Jesus may have been suggested to the GP author by Wis 2. 18: ‘For if the just man is God's son [δίκαιος νιός ΘεουΘ], He will help him and deliver him.’

[42] There is no parallel to this Matthean verse in the best readings of Mark, 15. 24–25Google Scholar, but the D text has the soldiers watching Jesus [φυλάσσεω] - the verb used in GP.

[43] For the complicated issue of preMatthean tradition here, we Riebl, Maria, Auferstehung Jesu in der Stunde seines Todes? Zu Botschaft von Mt 27, 51b–53 (SBB 8; Stuttgart: KBW, 1978)Google Scholar; Fascher, E., Das Weib des Pilatus (Mt. 27, 19). Die Auferweckung der Heiligen (Mt. 27, 51–53) (Halle: Niemeyer, 1951) 32–51.Google Scholar Parallels exist in the Pseudo-Clementine Recog. 41. 3: ‘When he suffered, the whole world suffered with him: both the sun was darkened and the stars were disturbed; the sea was shaken and the mountains moved, and the graves opened’ and more poetically in the Paschal Homily of Melito 98: ‘… the earth trembled…the heavens feared…the angel tore his clothes…the Lord sounded from the heaven, and the Most High gave voice.’

[44] But the fact that Melito is even more poetic in the late 2nd century warns us that this argument is unreliable.

[45] Arguments advanced by a Columbia Univ. and Union Theological Seminary doctoral student, Michael Winger, have convinced me that the ambiguous ἔχετε κονστωδίαν in Matt 27. 65 does not mean ‘You have a (Jewish) guard of your own’ but ‘Take a (Roman) guard (that I am giving you).’ The sense of ‘take’ is attested for the verb (BAGD s.v. I. 7b); the form is then imperative like the following two verbal forms; the Latin loan word appropriately refers to Roman troops; and it becomes explicable why the guard would be in trouble if this came to Pilate's ears (28. 14).

[46] A similar phrase occurs in Matt 27. 25: ‘All the people answered, “His blood on us and on our children.”’

[47] See my The Birth of the Messiah (Garden City: Doubleday, 1977) 105, n. 21.Google Scholar

[48] Crossan, (Four 149, 157, 160) contends that GP 12. 50–13.Google Scholar 57 belongs to the redactional stage which drew on the canonical Gospels, essentially Mark. P. Gardner-Smith,. who argued for GP's independence of the canonical Gospels, thought the author knew an earlier form of the women's visit story than that found in Mark, even though it is in this section that GP is closest to Mark (‘Gospel’ [n. 28 above] 269). Also Denker, Stellung 38.

[49] Luke, 24. 39Google Scholar, ‘See my hands and my feet’ is parallel to John 20. 20, ‘He showed them his hands and his side’; it does not mention nails as do John 20. 25 and GP 6. 21.

[50] In discussing Secret Mark, (‘Score’ [n. 12 above] 454; ‘Merkel on the Longer Text of Mark’, ZTK 72 [1975] 133–50, esp. 141) M. Smith is quite correct in arguing that small similarities of wording are not probative of literary dependence. For that reason I discount many of the verbal relations listed by Swete, Euangelion (n. 27 above) xviii–xx, who judges from them that GP certainly used Mark and Matt, presumably Luke, and possibly John.

[51] In this GP differs from Secret Mark which has close verbal parallels throughout; see Schmidt, D. in Colloquy 18 of the Center for Hermeneutical Studies (Berkeley, CA: Graduate Theological Union, 1976) 41–5.Google Scholar

[52] Euangelion xxiii–xxv. He thought that GP might have drawn on a pre-Tatian harmony of the Passion history, of a looser type than Tatian's. That solution moves the problem earlier: How did this posited harmony relate to the canonical Gospels?

[53] See CBQ 40 (1978) 624–8 for my problems with this approach.Google Scholar

[54] ‘Text and Canon: Old Testament and New’, in Mélanges Dominique Barthélemy (ed. Casetti, P. et al. ; Fribourg: Ed. Univ., 1981) 375–94, esp. 379.Google Scholar

[55] ‘Studies in Methodology in Textual Criticism of the New Testament’, in New Testament Tools and Studies (ed. Metzger, B. M.; 9th ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969) 164:Google Scholar ‘The story of the manuscript tradition of the New Testament is the story of progression from a relatively uncontrolled tradition to a rigorously controlled tradition.’

[56] Sanders himself relates it to the church status received under Constantine.

[57] The rare instances of Matthew doing this in relation to Mark can easily be explained by redactional theological interests, e.g. switching an ambitious request from the sons of Zebedee (apostles) to their mother, or a contemptuous designation as carpenter from Jesus to his father.

[58] Origen cited GP (n. 25 above) for the thesis that Joseph had children by a previous marriage - a thesis supported by Prot. Jas. Oral dependence of Secret Mark on John was a possibility I raised previously (n. 37 above). Memory, not consultation of Gospel mss., may have been the rule rather than the exception in the late 1st and early 2nd century.

[59] Similarly Matthew (chaps. 1–2) added to the beginning of Mark an infancy narrative shaped from pre-Matthean scripturally nourished traditions that had acquired an apologetic function (Birth [n. 47 above] 104–19).

[60] We remember that scribes felt free to add to Mark several endings and to John (or Luke) the story of the woman caught in adultery, thus preserving accounts that in likelihood were transmitted orally for a long period of time.

[61] In my judgment Denker, Stellung (n. 28 above) 48, is wrong in so simply accepting Dibelius' view that the Herod of the Lucan passion is derived from the very different Herod of Acts 4. He is much closer to the Herodian Agrippa of Acts 26. 30–31. Christian tradition had different images of the Herodian kings.

[62] The contention that GP could not have drawn on John because the non-breaking of the legs would never have been shifted from Jesus to a criminal, besides ignoring the possibility I have mentioned, overlooks the ambiguity of the pronoun in GP 4. 14. The last mentioned subject is the Saviour: and it would fit GP's hostility toward the Jews if because of the intercession of the wrong-doer, they punished Jesus. As for GP and John having two different forms of an earlier story, R. H. Fuller, ‘Longer Mark: Forgery, Interpolation, or Oral Tradition’, in the Colloquy cited in n. 51 above, maintains that Secret Mark and John may have drawn upon and developed independently an earlier raising-from-the-tomb story.

[63] This point is well made by Mara in her translation-commentary (n. 23 above) 29–33; also Lambiasi, F., ‘I criteri d'autenticità storica dei vangeli applicati ad un apocrifo: it Vangelo di Pietro’, Beo 18 (1976) 151–60.Google Scholar

[64] The verisimilitude of GP is far less than that of the Matthean infancy narrative whose tradents knew something about Herod the Great: that his rule included Judea and Bethlehem, that he was pathologically afraid of threats to his regal status, that he was capable of inhuman brutality even toward children, and that he was succeeded by Archelaus. The infancy story could have been shaped early in Palestine.

[65] In the context of John and GP the use of ‘the Jews’ does represent alienation and not merely a distinction reflecting geographical locale, as advocated by Lowe, M. (NovT 18 [1976] 101–31)Google Scholar, who has now applied his theory to the ‘IOTΔAIOI of the Apocrypha’ (NovT 23 [1981] 56–90) as a means of determining which works were composed in Palestine.

[66] There is a dispute as to whether some of these passages refer only to Easter Sunday or to Sunday in general (Stott, W., NTS 12 [1965–1966] 70–75)Google Scholar, but there can be little doubt that at the turn of the 1st century ‘the Lord's Day’ was becoming common for Sunday.

[67] Überlieferung (n. 27 above) 46. It is interesting that this date, so commonly advocated in the past, continues among modern investigators: Mara, Johnson, and even Denker (Stellung 86: a Jewish Christianity between the two wars).

[68] Weissengruber, F. in Fuchs, A., Das Petrusevangelium (SNTU B.2; Linz, 1978) 117–20, based on the use of atticisms and the optative.Google Scholar

[69] See Crosson, , Four 147.Google Scholar

[70] Johnson, B. A., ‘The Gospel of Peter: Between Apocalypse and Romance’ (Studia Patristica 16; TU 129; Berlin: Akademie, 1985) 170–4Google Scholar, sees GP as an intermediary work between the apocalyptically viewed history of the canonical Gospels and the apocryphal romances that have no relation to actual events (e.g. Acts of Paul). See Perry, B. E., The Ancient Romances (Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1967).Google Scholar