The Apocalypse of Peter a Jewish Christian Apocalypse From the Time of Bar Kokhba

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RichardBA UCKHAM University of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. THE APOCALYPSE OF PETER A JEWISH CHRISTIAN APOCALYPSE FROM THE TIME OF BAR KOKHBA Dans cette etude, I' Apocalypse de Pierre, trap longtemps negligee par les critiques,apresune miseen contextelitteraire et historique, est presen- tee en insistant sur les nombreusesthematiquesconcernantIe jugement eschatologique. The Apocalypse of Peter deservesto be rescued from the extreme scholarly neglect it has suffered. This is not because it is a work of any great literary or theological merit. But, of course, texts of historical importance for our understanding of the history of religion frequently have no great literary or theological merit. INTROD{!JCTION 1. Why study the Apocalypse of Peter? The Apocalypse of Peterdese~es to be studied for the follow- ing reasons: 1.- It is probably the most neglected of all Christian works written before 150 C.E. It has, of course, suffered the general stigma and neglect accordedto apocryphalworks by comparison with those in the canon of the New Test~ment or even those assigned to the category of the Apostolic Fathers. But whereas other Christian apocryphal literature of the earliest period - such as apocryphal Gospels or the Ascension of Isaiah -have very recently been studied in some depth and are beginning to be rescued as significant evidenQeof the early development of Christianity, the Apocalypse of Peter has been given very little serious scholarly attention. Sureltj for those who are interested in Christian origins any Christian work from the first century or so of Christian history deserves the closest study. Apocrypha 5,1994, p. 7-111

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The Apocalypse of Peter a Jewish Christian Apocalypse from the Time of Bar Kokhba.The Apocalypse of Peter a Jewish Christian Apocalypse from the Time of Bar Kokhba.The Apocalypse of Peter a Jewish Christian Apocalypse from the Time of Bar Kokhba.The Apocalypse of Peter a Jewish Christian Apocalypse from the Time of Bar Kokhba.The Apocalypse of Peter a Jewish Christian Apocalypse from the Time of Bar Kokhba.

Transcript of The Apocalypse of Peter a Jewish Christian Apocalypse From the Time of Bar Kokhba

  • Richard BA UCKHAMUniversity of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland.

    THE APOCALYPSE OF PETER

    A

    JEWISH CHRISTIAN APOCALYPSEFROM THE TIME OF BAR KOKHBA

    Dans cette etude, I' Apocalypse de Pierre, trap longtemps negligee parles critiques, apres une mise en contexte litteraire et historique, est presen-tee en insistant sur les nombreuses thematiques concernant Ie jugementeschatologique.

    The Apocalypse of Peter deserves to be rescued from the extremescholarly neglect it has suffered. This is not because it is a work of anygreat literary or theological merit. But, of course, texts of historicalimportance for our understanding of the history of religion frequentlyhave no great literary or theological merit.

    INTROD{!JCTION

    1. Why study the Apocalypse of Peter?

    The Apocalypse of Peter dese~es to be studied for the follow-ing reasons:

    1.- It is probably the most neglected of all Christian workswritten before 150 C.E. It has, of course, suffered the generalstigma and neglect accorded to apocryphal works by comparisonwith those in the canon of the New Test~ment or even thoseassigned to the category of the Apostolic Fathers. But whereasother Christian apocryphal literature of the earliest period -such as apocryphal Gospels or the Ascension of Isaiah -havevery recently been studied in some depth and are beginning tobe rescued as significant evidenQe of the early development ofChristianity, the Apocalypse of Peter has been given very littleserious scholarly attention. Sureltj for those who are interestedin Christian origins any Christian work from the first century orso of Christian history deserves the closest study.

    Apocrypha 5,1994, p. 7-111

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    2.- In section II of this book I shall argue that theApocalypse of Peter derives from Palestinian Jewish Christianityduring the Bar Kokhba war of 132-135 C.E. This makes it a veryrare example of an extant work deriving from Palestinian JewishChristianity in the period after the New Testament literature. Itdeserves an important place in any attempt to consider the veryobscure matter of what happened to Jewish Christianity inPalestine in the period after 70 C.E.

    3.- Outside Palestinian Jewish Christianity, the Apocalypse ofPeter evidently became a very popular work in the church as awhole, from the second to the fourth centuries 1. It seems to havebeen widely read in east and west. In some circles at least it wastreated as Scripture. Along with the Shepherd of Hermas, it wasprobably the work which came closest to being i:ncluded in thecanon of the New Testament while being eventually excluded.After an early period of popularity, however, it almost disappear-ed. This must have been largely because in its major function -as a revelation of the fate of human beings after death -it wassuperseded by other apocalypses: in the Latin west and in theCoptic and Syriac speaking churches of the east by theApocalypse of Paul, in the Greek east by the Apocalypse of theVirgin Mary. For a number of reasons these proved in the longrun more acceptable, and the Apocalypse of Peter very nearlyperished altogether. But the fact that for two or three centuriesit seems to have appealed strongly to the Christian religiousimagination makes it an important historical source.

    4.- The Apocalypse of Peter preserves Jewish apocalyptictraditions. Because of the prevalent artificial distinction betweenthe Jewish apocalypses and the Christian apocalypses, this is therespect in which the Apocalypse of Peter has been neglectedeven more than in other respects. But there is in fact relativelylittle that is distinctively Christian about the Apocalypse of Pete!:Much of its content reproduces Jewish apocalyptic traditions. Itcan therefore be used, of course with appropriate caution, as asource for Jewish apocalyptic ideas of the early second centuryC.E. And it reminds us how very much Judaism and Christianityhad in common at that period.

    1. R. BAUCKHAM, The Apocalypse of Peter: An Account ofResearch , in W. HAASE ed., Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischenWelt, vol. 2.25/6 (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1988), p. 4739-4741;D. D. BUCHHOLZ, Your Eyes Will Be Opened,' A Study of the Greek(Ethiopic) Apocalypse of Peter (SBLDS 97; Atlanta, Georgia: ScholarsPress, 1988), p. 20-80.

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    As these four reasons for studying the Apocalypse of Petersuggest, our study of the work in this article will focus on the ori-ginal work in the context in which it was first written. This isonly one aspect of the way in which the Christian apocryphalliterature needs to be studied. Many Christian apocryphal works(and the same is true of Jewish apocryphal literature) are bestunderstood as developing literature: works which developed asthey were transmitted over many centuries in a variety of culturalcontexts. They were translated, expanded, abbreviated, adapted.In some cases the attempt to reconstruct an original text may bequite impossible or inappropriate. However, in the case of theApocalypse of Peter we may fairly confidently assign it a dateand place of origin, and also, despite the fact that most of thetext does not survive in its original language, we may be fairlyconfident of the content of the original work. There are placeswhere we may not be able to be sure of the original text, but byand large we can know what the first readers read. So in the caseof the Apocalypse of Peter, the liistorical exercise of placing thework in its original context is a justifiable one and will yieldsignificant historical results.

    2. The Text of the Apocalypse of Peter.

    The Apocalypse of Peter was probably written originally inGreek and certainly was known in Greek to the Church Fathers.(Whether a Latin version was known in the Latin-speakingchurches in the early centuries is much less certain.) Unfor-tunately, because, after an initial period of popularity, theApocalypse of Peter fell out of favour in most of the church, verylittle of it survives in Greek. We have only two small manuscriptfragments (the Bodleian and Rainer fragments) and a fewquotations in the Fathers. (For details on these fragments andquotations, see the Bibliography below.) In addition, there isone lengthy fragment in Greek (the Akhmim fragment), but thisis a secondary, redacted form of the text, which cannot be reliedon as evidence of the original form of the Apocalypse of Peter(see below). For our knowledge 'of the apocalypse we are there-fore largely dependent on the Ethiopic version. This version,which contains the full contents of the original second-centuryApocalypse of Peter, is the only version of the Apocalypse ofPeter known to be extant. It was probably, like most Ethiopicversions of apocryphal works, tr~slated from an Arabic transla-tion of the Greek, but an Arabic yersion has not been discovered.Any study of the Apocalypse of Peter must therefore depend

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    heavily on the Ethiopic version. Probably this is one reason why,since the identification of the Ethiopic version by M. R. James in1911, the Apocalypse of Peter has received very little scholarlyattention. Scholars have been dubious whether the Ethiopicversion can be trusted to give us reliable access to the second-century Apocalypse of Peter. Those who have studied the matterwith some care, such as M. R. James himself and, more recently,D. D. Buchholz, have not shared such doubts. But some indicationof the reasons for trusting the Ethiopic version must be givenhere, in order to justify our use of it in this book.

    Only two, closely related manuscripts of the Apocalypse ofPeter are known. (For details, see the Bibliography.) In bothmanuscripts the Apocalypse of Peter is the first part of a longerwork < The second coming of Christ and the resurrection of thedead ), the rest of which was clearly inspired by the Apocalypseof Peter. This continuation of the ancient apocalypse, whichprobably originated in Arabic, would be of considerable interestif we were studying the later history of the Apocalypse of Pete!:But for our present intention of studying the Apocalypse ofPeter in its original, early second-century context, the importantpoint is that we can be sure that the text of the Apocalypse ofPeter itself has not been affected by this later continuation of it.The section of the Ethiopic work which is the ancientApocalypse of Peter can be distinguished from the rest with nodifficulty. Whereas the Apocalypse of Peter itself is written asthough by Peter in the first person, the later continuation beginsby introducing Peter's disciple Clement, who writes in the firstperson and reports what Peter said to him (according to a literaryconvention of the later Pseudo-Clementine literature). More-over, Buchholz has demonstrated that the writer responsible forthe continuation of the Apocalypse of Peter which we have inthe Ethiopic text did not tamper with the content of theApocalypse of Peter itself. He merely added; he did not modify 2.

    The general reliability of the Ethiopic version as faithful tothe original text of the Apocalypse of Peter can be demonstratedby four main points:

    1.- There is the general consideration that the Ethiopictranslation of apocryphal texts seems, as a general rule, to befaithful translation, and such works were not usually adapted or

    2. D. D. BUCHHOLZ, Your Eyes Will Be Opened, op. cit, p. 376-386.Buchholz argues for some minor changes, but I do not find his argumentthat these are due to the author of the continuation at all compelling.

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    modified in the Ethiopic tradition. This contrasts with someother languages in which apocryphal works have been transmitted-such as Slavonic and Armenian -where creative developmentof the text has often taken place in those traditions. Of course, theEthiopic may well include erroneous translations and textual cor-ruptions -and in the case of the Apocalypse of Peter these arecertainly present -but deliberate adaptation of the text is rare.

    2.- The general reliability of the Ethiopic version isconfirmed by the two small Greek fragments and the patristicquotations 3.

    3.- There are passages in the second Sibylline Oracle, probablyfrom the late second century, which are clearly closely depend-ent on the Apocalypse of Peter as we know it from the Ethiopicversion and confirm the reliability of the Ethiopic version 4.

    4.- Detailed study of the Apocalypse of Peter repeatedlyconfirms that the content of the work in the Ethiopic versionbelongs to the period in which the ancient Apocalypse of Peterwas written. All the parallels with other literature show this.There is hardly a single idea in the Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peterwhich can only be paralleled at a date much later than the earlysecond century.

    These reasons for confidence in the general reliability of theEthiopic version do not mean that it is reliable in every detail.The translation is clearly sometimes erroneous and was appar-ently. made by a translator whose command of Ge'ez was verylimited 5, so that the Ethiopic text is frequently obscure. Butsuch obscurities can often be clarified by careful use of parallelsin ancient Jewish and Christian literature.

    As well as thus justifying our predominant reliance on theEthiopic version in this book, it may be necessary also to justifythe fact that little reference will be made to the Akhmim Greekfragment. This fragment is part of a manuscript, probably of theeighth or ninth century, which also contains a section of theGospel of Peter (the only substantial section of this work whichhas survived) and parts of 1 Enoch, and which was placed in thegrave of a Christian monk. It is clear that the manuscript is asmall collection of texts about the other world, and was placed in

    3. M. R. JAMES, A New Text of the Apocalypse of Peter , Journal ofTheological Studies 12 (1911), p. 367-375, 573-583; K. PRIMM, Degenuino Apocalypsis Petri textu: Examen testiUm iam notorum et novifragmenti Raineriani , Biblica 10 (1929), p. 62-80; BUCHHOLZ, YourEyes Will Be Opened, op. cit., p. 145-152,418-422.4. M. R. JAMES, A New Text , op. cit., p. 39-44, 51-52.5. This is the judgment of P. Marrassini.

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    a grave in accordance with the traditional Egyptian practice ofproviding the dead with a guide to what they will encounter afterdeath 6. The problem with the fragment of the Apocalypse ofPeter is that it differs significantly in several ways from theEthiopic version. But some of its important differences from theEthiopic version are at points where the patristic quotations andthe Bodleian fragment confirm the originality of the form of thetext in the Ethiopic version 7. So it has now come to be universallyaccepted by those who have examined the issue carefully thatthe Akhmim fragment is a deliberately edited form of materialfrom the Greek Apocalypse of Pete!: It may not even be, as such,a fragment of the Apocalypse of Peter itself: it may well be afragment of another work which utilized the Apocalypse of Peteras a source. There is still a case to be made for the view of someearlier scholars that it is actually another section of the Gospelof Peter 8. In any case, although it may sometimes help us toclear up an obscurity in the Ethiopic version of the Apocalypseof Peter, it must be used with great caution in studying theApocalypse of Pete!: Priority must be given to the Ethiopicversion.

    3. Outline and Summary of the Apocalypse of Peter.

    The Apocalypse of Peter can be divided into three main sec-tions, whose contents can be briefly outlined as follows:

    I. Discourse on the Signs and Time of the Parousia.1:1-3 The disciples' enquiry.1:4-8 The parousia will be unmistakable.2 The parable of the fig tree: the false Messiah and

    the martyrs of the last days.II. Vision of the Judgment and its Explanation.

    3 Picture of the judgment and Peter's distress.4 The resurrection.S The cosmic conflagration.6:1-6 The last judgment.

    6. M. TARDIEU, Arda Viraz Narnag et l'eschatologie grecque , Studialranica 14 (1985), p. 20.7. See references in n. 3 above.8. See R. BAUCKHAM, The Apocalypse of Peter: An Account ofResearch, op. cit., p. 4719-4720.

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    6:7-9 The judgment of the evil spirits.7-12 The punishments in hell.13 The punishments confirmed as just.14:1 The prayers of the elect save some.14:2-3 The elect inherit the promises.14:4-6 Peter's earthly future.

    III. Visions of the Reward of the Righteous.15 Vision of Moses and Elijah.16:1-6 Vision of Paradise.16:7-17:1 Vision of the true T~mple and Audition about the

    true Messiah.17:2-7 The ascension.

    For readers coming fresh to the Apocalypse of Peter, a fullersummary of its contents may be helpful.

    I. Discourse on the Signs and Time of the Parousia(chapters 1-2):[Although it is not made clear by the opening of the work, the

    events take place after Jesus' resurrection.] Jesus and hisdisciples are on the Mount of Olives. They ask him about thesigns and the time of his parousia and the end of the world. Jesuswarns them not to believe the false claimants to messiahship whowill come. His own coming to judgment will be in unmistakableglory.

    In order to indicate the time of the end, Jesus gives them theparable of the fig tree: when its shoots become tender, the endof the world will come. When Peter asks for explanation, Jesustells another parable of a fig tree: the barren fig tree which willbe uprooted unless it bears fruit. The fig tree in both parables isIsrael. The sprouting of the fig tree will take place when a falsemessiah arises and Israel follows him. When they reject him, hewill put many to death. They will be martyrs. Enoch and Elijahwill show them that he is not the true messiah.

    II. Vision of the Judgment and its Explanation (chapters 3-14)..Jesus shows Peter a vision of the judgment of all people at the

    last day. Peter is distressed at the fate of sinners, but his claimthat it would have been better for them not to have been createdis rejected by Jesus, who promises to show Peter the sinners'deeds (in order to enable him to appreciate the justice of theircondemnation).

    A long prophecy (by Jesus) of the judgment of sinners follows.It begins with an account of the resurrection, which must take

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    place so that all humanity may appear before God on the day ofjudgment. God's word will reclaim all the dead, because for Godnothing is impossible. Then will follow the cosmic conflagration,in which a flood of fire will consume the heavens and the sea anddrive all people to judgment in the river of fire. Then JesusChrist will come and be enthroned and crowned as judge. Allwill be judged according to their deeds, which will appear inorder to accuse the wicked. The river of fire through which allmust pass will prove their innocence or guilt. The angels willtake the wicked to hell. The demons will also be brought tojudgment and condemned to eternal punishment.

    There follows a long description of the punishments in hell. Aspecific, different punishment is described for each of twenty-onetypes of sinner. The types of sinner and their punishments are:

    1) those who blasphemed the way of righteousness -hung bytongues;

    2) those who denied justice -pit of fire;3) women who enticed men to adultery -hung by necks;4) adulterers -hung by genitals;5) murderers -poisonous animals and worms;6) women who aborted their children -in a pit of excrement

    up to the throat;7) infanticides -their milk produces flesh-eating animals;8) persecutors and betrayers of Christ's righteous ones ~

    scourged and eaten by unsleeping worm;9) those who perverted and betrayed Christ's righteousness ~

    bite tongues, hot irons in eyes;10) those who put the martyrs to death with their lies -lips cut

    off, fire in mouth and entrails;11) those who trusted in their riches and neglected the poor-

    fiery sharp column, clothed in rags;12) usurers -in pit of excrement up to the knees;13) male and female practising homosexuals -fall from precip-

    ice repeatedly;14) makers of idols -scourged by chains of fire;15) those who forsook God's commandmnts and obeyed demons

    -burning in flames;16) those who did not honour, their parents -roll down fiery

    precipice repeatedly;17) those who disobeyed the teaching of their fathers and elders

    -hung and attacked by flesh-eating birds;18) girls who had sex before marriage -dark clothes, flesh

    dissolved;19) disobedient slaves -bite tongues continuously;

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    20) those who gave alms hypocritically -blind and deaf, coalsof fire;

    21) male and female sorcerers -: on wheel of fire in the river offire.

    The elect will be shown the p*ishments of the damned. Thelatter cry for mercy, but the angel in charge of hell,Tartarouchos, tells them it is now too late for repentance. Thedamned acknowledge the justice of their punishment. But whenthe righteous intercede for the daqrned, Jesus Christ the judge willgrant their prayers. Those for w~om they pray will be baptisedin the Acherusian lake and will Jshare the destiny of the elect.The elect will enter Jesus Chri t's eternal kingdom, with thepatriarchs, and his promises to them will be fulfilled.

    Concluding the prophecy of judgment, Jesus now addressesPeter personally about his future. He is to spread the Gospelthrough the whole world. He is tq go to Rome, where he will diea martyr at the hands of the soq of the one who is in Hades 9.

    III. Visions of the Reward of t~e Righteous (chapters 15-17).-Jesus and the disciples go to the holy mountain , where the

    disciples are granted five revela~ons. The first is of Moses andElijah, appearing in resplende t beauty as heavenly beings.When Peter asks where the othe patriarchs are, they are shownthe heavenly paradise. Jesus says that this destiny of thepatriarchs is also to be that of those who are persecuted for hisrighteousness.

    When Peter offers to construct three tents for Jesus, Mosesand Elijah, he is severely rebuked by Jesus, but promised avision and an audition (the third and fourth of the five revela-tions) to enlighten him. The v~sion is of the tent which theFather has made for Jesus and the elect. The audition is of avoice from heaven declaring Jesu~ to be God's beloved Son whoshould be obeyed. Finally, the di$ciples witness the ascension ofJesus, with Moses and Elijah, through the heavens. Jesus takeswith him people in the flesh . The disciples descend themountain, glorifying God, who has written the names of therighteous in the book of life in heaven.

    9. Quotations from the APocalYP~ of Peter (Ethiopic version) are

    based on a preliminary English tra slation by Paolo Marrassini, from

    his edition of the Ethiopic text. Thi edition and an improved Englishtranslation will appear in the Cor us Christiano rum Series Apocry-phorum volume on the Apocalypse 0 Peter.

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    I. THE LITERARY AND mSTORICAL CONTEXTS

    1. Literary Context.

    We cannot be sure whether the title Apocalypse of Peter isoriginal. It does not occur in the Ethiopic version, which has alengthy title or prologue which certainly does not belong to theoriginal text. But the title Apocalypse of Peter is already used bythe Muratorian Canon and by Clement of Alezandria, and so itmay well be original. It is true that many of the works which nowbear the title Apocalypse came to be so called only at a laterdate (quite apart from those which have been so called only bymodern scholars), but the period in which the Apocalypse ofPeter must have been written -the early second century C.E.-is one in which it is plausible to hold that the term &no1(l1-AU'l'1.~ could be being used as the description of a literary workcontaining the account of a revelation given by a supernaturalbeing to a prophet or visionary.

    But whether or not its title is original, the Apocalypse of Petercertainly belongs to that rather broad genre of ancient literaturewhich we call apocalypses. Indeed, its date -in the early secondcentury C.E. -places it in a golden age, perhaps the golden ageof Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature. The period bet-ween the two great Jewish revolts (between 70 and 132 C.E.)produced the greatest of all the Jewish and Christian apoca-lypses: the Book of Revelation, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch -works inwhich the genre of apocalyptic became the vehicle for truly greatliterature and truly profound theology. A considerable numberof other extant Jewish and Christian apocalypses also date fromthe late first and early second centuries: the Apocalypse ofAbraham, the Ladder of Jacob, the Ascension of Isaiah, theGreek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch), the Shepherd ofHermas, and quite probably also the Parables of Enoch, theSlavonic Apocalypse of Enoch (2 Enoch), and so-called 5 Ezra.It is hard to be sure whether thi& period really was exceptionallyproductive of apocalypses, or whether that impression is due tothe accidents of survival. There certainly were more Jewish apoc-alypses in earlier periods, such as the early first century C.E.,than have survived, and it is always very important to rememberthat all extant ancient Jewish apocalypses, with the exception ofDaniel and the apocalyptic works found at Qumran, have beenpreserve.d by Christians. Many which were not congenial toChristian use may not have survived. With due allowance forthese factors, however, it does seem probable that the writing of

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    apocalypses especially flourished in the period from 70 C.E. toabout the middle of the secon century. The reasons will bepartly that the destruction of erusalem and the temple in70 C.E. posed for Judaism issu s of theodicy and eschatologywhich were most suitably wres led with or answered in theliterary genre of apocalypse, a d partly that much of earlyChristianity remained during this eriod a strongly eschatologicalreligious movement which theref re found one of its most naturalforms of expression in the apoc lypse. I do not make the mis-take of considering eschatology t e sole content of apocalypses 1,but most of the apocalypses I h ve mentioned do in fact focusespecially on matters of eschatol gy, as the Apocalypse of Peteralso does. Of course, during t e same period -the secondcentury -the genre apocalypse was also adopted and adaptedby Christian Gnostics as a vehi Ie for the kind of revelationsthey wished to present.

    The Apocalypse of Peter has so e close links, by way of themesand traditions, with some of the J wish apocalypses of its period:4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, the Parables 0 Enoch. If, as I shall argue, theApocalypse of Peter is a Palestini n Jewish Christian work, theselinks with contemporary Palestini n Jewish apocalypses are espe-cially interesting. They help to e plain the preservation of theseJewish works by Christians, b showing us the context ofPalestinian Jewish Christian apo alyptic in which these Jewishapocalypses would have been of i terest. It was doubtless in suchChristian circles as those from hich the Apocalypse of Petercomes that Jewish apocalypses such as 4 Ezra were read and thenpassed on to the wider church whi h later preserved them.

    That there is actual literary de endence by the Apocalypse ofPeter on any extant Jewish apoc ypse is much less certain. Thelinks which exist are explicable as common apocalyptic tradition,current in Jewish and Christia apocalyptic circles of thatperiod. It is an important genera feature of the apocalypses ofthis period that they are all de ndent on blocks of traditionalapocalyptic material 11. The mor one studies the way the sametraditions reappear in various apocalypses, the more it becomesimpossible to suppose that literary borrowing from one apoca-lypse to another can fully explai~ the recurrence of traditional

    \10. This mistake has been correcte especially by C. ROWLAND, TheOpen Heaven (London: SPCK, 1982)11. Cf., e.g., M. E. STONE, Fourth zra (Hermeneia; Minneapolis:Fortress Press, 1990), p. 21-22, on suqh blocks of traditional material in4 Ezra. I

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    material. Apocalyptic traditions must have existeq in some form,oral or written, independently of the apocalypses in which suchtraditions are now incorporated. (Of course, such traditionalmaterial is also sometimes preserved in works which are notapocalypses, such as the Biblical Antiquities of Pseudo-Philo orthe letters of Paul.) We do not know the sociological context inwhich these apocalyptic traditions were handed on, whether asoral traditions in circles of apocalyptists or as written notespassed between learned individuals. But certainly what passedfrom one apocalyptist to another was not just ideas, but blocksof tradition.

    Every apocalypse is therefore a mixture of tradition and origin-ality. The truly great apocalypses -Revelation and 4 Ezra, forexample -are works of remarkable creativity, in both literaryand theological terms. The traditional material they certainlyincorporate is used in highly creative ways. In these works theuse of tradition is consistent with considerable originality andwith very carefully studied composition. In other cases, traditionalmaterial has been put together by a much less gifted writer and amuch less profound thinker. In one sense, the Apocalypse ofPeter is one of the least original of the apocalypses. Blocks oftraditional material seem to be incorporated often more or lessas they stand. Virtually all the contents of the Apocalypse ofPeter probably already existed in some form, some as Gospeltraditions, most as Jewish apocalyptic traditions. Probably nopassage of more than a few verses was freely composed by theauthor. But this does not mean that the author is a mere compil-er of traditions. The combination and redaction of his materialhas been done with a certain real skill. His creative redactionalactivity has made of the traditional material he used a particularwhole with a coherent message. While the Apocalypse of Peter isnot a great example of the genre, while its literary and theologicalmerit is small, it is nevertheless a literary work in its own right. Ifwe are to appreciate what it meant to its contemporaries andlater readers, we must study its traditional components not onlyas blocks of tradition, but as they relate to each other in thisparticular literary whole.

    So the Apocalypse of Peter turns out to have a double interest.Because of its very conservative preservation of apocalyptic trad-itions, it is actually a source of knowledge of Jewish apocalyptictraditions. It has rarely been treated in this way, because of theartificial distinction which is prevalent between the apocalypseswhich belong to the so-called Old Testament Pseudepigraphaand those which belong to the so-called New TestamentApocrypha. So far as apocalypses go, this distinction between

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    Old Testament Pseudepigrapha dnd New Testament Apocrypha

    is wholly artificial. The Christian tradition of writing apocalypses

    was almost entirely continuous with the Jewish tradition. In the

    second century, as I have indicated, even Jewish apocalypses

    recently written were read an imitated by Christians. The

    Jewish and Christian apocalypse of the period must be studied

    together. Moreover, there is 0 useful distinction between

    Christian apocalypses written un er the name of Old Testament

    figures such as Ezra and those ritten under the name of New

    Testament figures such as Peter The latter are no less closely

    related to Jewish apocalypses tha are the former.

    So the Apocalypse of Peter is of interest for its preservation of

    those apocalyptic traditions which were common to Christian

    and non~Christian Jews of the period. But it is also of interest as

    a work in its own right, with a me sage of its own. As such, it was

    no doubt read mostly by Chris ians, though it may also have

    functioned as missionary literat re used by Christian Jews in

    their mission to non-Christian J ws. In any case, it reached not

    only its immediate readership 0 Jewish Christians but a wide

    Christian readership througho t the church for a century or

    more after it was written. Some hing about it evidently proved

    popular and relevant.

    One important literary feature does distinguish the

    Apocalypse of Peter as a Christi n apocalypse from the Jewish

    apocalypses to which it is closely akin. It is a revelation of Jesus

    Christ to the apostle Peter. In eing pseudonymous, it differs

    from the Johannine Apocalypse and the Shepherd of Hermas,

    whose authors broke with Jewi h apocalyptic tradition by not

    hiding behind an ancient pseud nym but writing in their own

    names as recipients of revelation as Christian prophets. But like

    those Christian apocalypses, it 's a revelation given by Jesus

    Christ. The Apocalypse of Peter is probably the earliest extant

    Christian apocalypse which use an apostolic pseudonym. The

    difference which this makes to its .terary form is that the narrative

    framework -which most apoca ypses have -is in this case a

    Gospel narrative framework. f begins with Jesus and the disciples on the mount of Olive; it ends with Jesus' ascension

    to heaven. The revelation is thus placed within the Gospel story

    of Jesus, specifically within the pe iod of the resurrection appear-

    ances. It purports in fact to ecord Jesus' final revelatory~

    U. On this point, see R. BAUCKHf ' The Apocalypses in the NewPseudepigrapha , Journal for the St y of the New Testament 26 (1986),p.105-106,111-113. ,

  • 20 R. BAUCKHAM

    teaching to his disciples prior to his departure to heaven. In asense this gives it the character of a testament of Jesus, but itwould be a mistake to make too much of this testamentarycharacter of the Apocalypse of Peter: apart from revelation ofthe future, it shares none of the standard features of the Jewishtestament literature. It is better to think of it as an apocalypseset at the end of the Gospel story of Jesus.

    As an apocalypse set at the end of the Gospel story of Jesus,the Apocalypse of Peter is an example of a genre of Christianapocalypses which seems to have become very popular in thesecond and third centuries: the revelatory discourse of Jesus toone or more disciples or the revelatory dialogue of Jesus withthe disciples after the resurrection. Like the Apocalypse of Peter,such works are often set on the mount of Olives or some othermountain 13; they often end with an account of the ascension 14.Unlike the Apocalypse of Peter they usually begin with anaccount of the risen Jesus' appearance to the disciples; in thisrespect, the Apocalypse of Peter is rather peculiar. The way itdoes open makes it unlikely that an account of an appearance ofJesus has been lost at the beginning, but means that there isactually no way of knowing that the scene is set after the resur-rection until one reaches the account of Jesus' ascension at theend of the work.

    The genre of the post-resurrection revelatory dialogue is oftenthought of as a Gnostic literary geme. It did indeed become verypopular with the Gnostics. But it did not originate with them.Non-Gnostic examples of the geme -such as the Apocalypse ofPeter, the Epistle of the Apostles, the Testament of our Lord andthe Questions of Bartholomew -are not imitations of the Gnosticuse of the geme. They show that the geme itself originated beforeGnostics adopted it. Those who wished to attribute to JesusChrist further revelations additional to those known from theGospel traditions evidently found it appropriate to place suchrevelations in the period of the resurrection appearances. Thiswas because these additional revelations presupposed theteaching of Jesus already given in the Gospel traditions. Theyinterpreted and developed the teaching of Jesus that was already

    13. lApJas (CG V,3) 30:18-31:2; EpPetPhil (CG VIII,2) 133:14-17;SophJesChr (CG 111,4) 90:14-20 (ct. 91:18-20); Pistis Sophia;QuestBarth 4:1; ApPaul (Coptic conclusion); HistJos 1.14. ApocrJas (CG 1,2) 15:5-16:2; EpApp 51; Testament of ourLord 2:27; ct. SophJesChr (CG 111.4) 119:10.

  • 21APOCALYPrSE OF PETER

    known. They often refer back tio the teaching Jesus had given

    before his death and offer furth~r explanation of what Jesus had

    meant or further information pn subjects that Jesus' earlierteaching had not sufficiently covered. Such further revelation

    may be eschatological, as it is ih the Apocalypse of Peter, in a

    large part of the Epistle of the Apostles, and in the oldest, apoca-

    lyptic part of the Testament of our Lord. The Gnostics then

    found this genre the obvious literary vehicle for conveying the

    esoteric, Gnostic meaning of Jes ; s' teaching. In the Apocalypse of Peter th re is one very explicit reference

    back to the earlier teaching of esus in the Gospel traditions,

    whose full meaning is now revealed to Peter by further revela-

    tion. This is in 16:5-6. Jesus has given Peter a vision of paradise,

    which is said to be a revelation of the honour and glory of

    those who are persecuted for my righteousness (16:5). Petercomments: Then I understood that which is written in the

    scripture of our Lord Jesus Chri t . The reference is certainly to

    Matthew's Gospel, evidently the only written Gospel the author

    of the Apocalypse of Peter us d 15, and to the beatitude in

    Matthew 5:10: Blessed are hose who are persecuted for

    righteousness' sake, for theirs i the kingdom of heaven . The

    Matthean saying, and the subs quent reference to reward in

    heaven, leaves the nature of the heavenly reward undeveloped.

    The apocalyptic revelation of par dise in the Apocalypse of Peter,

    precisely the kind of apocalyp ic revelation which is notably

    absent from the Gospel traditio s, is thought by the author of

    the Apocalypse of Peter to be n eded to fill out the mere hints

    given in the pre-resurrection tea hing of Jesus.

    We should understand the wa the Apocalypse of Peter begins

    in a rather similar way:

    As he was sitting on t e Mount of Olives, his own

    approached him. We bowed own and begged him privately

    and asked him, saying, "Tell s, what will be the signs of your

    coming and of the end of the orld? -so that we may know

    and understand the time of our coming, and instruct those

    who will come after us, thos to whom we shall preach the

    word of your Gospel and w om we shall put in charge of

    your church, so that they too ay hear and apply themselves

    to understand the time of you coming" (ApPet 1:1-3).

    I

    15. See R. BAUCKHAM, The ApoLalypse of Peter: An Account ofResearch , op. cit., p. 4723-4724. r

  • 22 R. BAUCKHAM

    Ostensibly this does little more than reproduce, with a littleexpansion and adaptation, the opening of the eschatologicaldiscourse of Jesus in Matthew 24. But the author is not intendingto give, as it were, a version of that eschatological discourse,moving it from its Matthean place before the resurrection to apost-resurrection setting. Rather he is intending to representJesus, in response to the disciples' questions, as taking up thesame subject again and this time going into much more detail onmany aspects of the eschatological events. The whole of Jesus'discourse, which continues to chapter 14, is intended to developwhat is undeveloped and to add what is lacking in the Mattheaneschatological discourse. The way in which this is done, of course,is by resort to Jewish apocalyptic traditions.

    Just as the eschatological discourse of Jesus in chapters 1-14 isnot a version of the Matthean eschatological discourse, butanother post-resurrection eschatological discourse, intended tosupplement the first, so the narrative of chapters 15-17, which ismodelled on the Matthean account of the transfiguration ofJesus should not be mistaken for a version of the transfigurationnarrative 16. It gives no support to the idea that the transfigurationwas originally a post-resurrection tradition, transferred in ourSynoptic Gospels into the ministry of Jesus. Chapters 15-17 ofthe Apocalypse of Peter actually do not describe a transfigura-tion of Jesus at all. It is the glorious appearance of Moses andElijah which is featured, not the glory of Jesus. The point is thatthe author is simply using material from the transfigurationnarrative in order to develop a new account of an apocalypticrevelation of the glorious destiny of the elect. He saw inthe Matthean transfiguration narrative hints which could bedeveloped further in a post-resurrection setting. Again he drawson Jewish apocalyptic traditions in order to develop them.

    In summary we can say that the Apocalypse of Peter is a revel-ation by the risen Christ to Peter and the disciples, set withina post-resurrection Gospel narrative framework. It borrowsmaterials from the Gospel traditions which were especially sus-ceptible to development in an apocalyptic direction. It developsthem by means of Jewish apocalyptic traditions, which form thegreater part of its content.

    16. Ct. ibid., p. 4735-4736.

  • 23APOCALYPfSE OF PETER

    Apocalypse of Peter 1-2 Matthew 24

    3 When he was sitting on theMount of Olives,the disciples came to him,

    privately, saying, Tell us,when will this be, and whatwill be the sign of yourcoming and of the end of theage?

    4 Jesus answered them, Bewarethat noone leads you astray.

    5 For many will come in myname, saying, "1 am theMessiah !" (...)23,26(...) do not believe it (...)

    1 1 As he was sitting on theMount of Olives,his own approached him. Webowed down and begged himprivately 2 and asked him,saying, Tell us, what will bethe signs of your coming andof the end of the world? -so that we may know andunderstand the time of yourcoming, and instruct thosewho will come after us,3 those to whom we shallpreach the word of yourGospel and whom we shallput in charge of your church,so that they too may hearand apply themselves tounderstand the time of yourcoming . 4 Our Lord answer-ed us, saying to us, Be care-ful not to be led into error,not to become doubtful andnot to worship other gods.5 Many will come in myname, saying that they arethe Messiah.Do not believe them, and donot approach them, 6 becau-se, as for the coming of theSon of God, it will [not] berecognized, but like a bolt oflightning which is visiblefrom the east to the west, soshall I comeon a cloud of heaven, withgreat power in my glory, withmy cross going before me.7 I shall come in my glory,shining seven times morebrightly than the sun. I shallcome in my glory with all myholy angels, when my Father

    27 For as the lightning comesfrom the east and flashes asfar as the west, so will be thecoming of the Son of man.30b (...) and they will see theSon of man comingon the clouds of heaven withpower and great glory.30a Then the sign of the Sonof man will appear in heaven(...)[16 27 For the Son of man isto come with his angels inthe glory of his Father,

  • 24

    R.

    BAUCKHAM

    and then he will repay every-one for what has been done.]

    sets a crown on my head, sothat I may judge the livingand the dead, 8 and so that Imay repay everyone accor-ding to his deeds.21 As for you, learn from thefig tree its parable. As soonas its shoots have sproutedand its twigs have becometender, at that time will bethe end of the world.

    32 From the fig tree learn itslesson: as soon as its branchbecomes tender and putsforth its leaves,you know that summer isnear.

    24 For false messiahs andfalse prophets will appear(...) 5 saying, "I am theMessiah !"(...)

    7 (...) Indeed, I have said toyou, "when its twigs havebecoI;ne tender", [meaningthat] in the last time falseMessiahs will come, 8 andthey will promise, "I am theMessiah, who have come intothe world".(...)11 (...) Many will die andthere will be martyrs, 12because Enoch and Elijahwill be sent to make themunderstand that he is theimpostor who is to come intothe world and who will per-form signs and wonders inorder to deceive.

    24 (...) and produce greatsigns and omens, to leadastray, if possible, even theelect.

    2. Historical Context

    It is unusual to be able to give a precise date and place of ori-gin for an ancient apocalypse, but I think that in the case of theApocalypse of Peter we can do so with considerable confidence.In this section I shall argue that the Apocalypse of Peter can bedated during the Bar Kokhba war, i.e. during the years 132-135C.E., and that it was written in Palestine, deriving from theJewish Christian churches. If this is correct, it makes theApocalypse of Peter a very significant document for the historyof Palestinian Jewish Christianity. It is perhaps the only work of

  • APOCALYPSE OF PETER 25

    second-century Palestinian Jewish Christianity which survives inits complete and original form.

    The argument for the date and place of the Apocalypseconcerns especially the first two chapters and the last two chaptersof the work 17. In chapters 1-2 the author has adapted andexpanded parts of the Synoptic apocalyptic discourse as found inMatthew 24. The wording of the Apocalypse of Peter in thesechapters is in several places very close to the specificallyMatthean redaction of the Synoptic apocalyptic discourse, andso we can be sure that the author knew the text of Matthew 24itself. But he has used Matthew 24 very selectively: he has in factdrawn on only eight verses of that chapter -or, to put it an-other way, he has used only two sections of Matthew 24: v. 3-5and v. 24-32. To these borrowings from Matthew 24 he has addedadditional traditional material from other sources in order todevelop those themes in Matthew 24 in which he was interested.So by observing his selection and expansion of material fromMatthew 24 we can see how his apocalyptic expectations werefocussed. As we shall see, they are focussed, in these first twochapters of the Apocalypse, on just two themes.

    The first three verses of the Apocalypse of Peter are thedisciples' question, to which the rest of the first two chapters areJesus' response:

    As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, his own approached him. We bowed down and begged him privately and asked him, saying, "Tell us, what will be the signs of your coming and of the end of the world? -so that we may know and understand the time of your coming, and instruct thosewho will come after us, those to whom we shall preach theword of your Gospel and whom we shall put in charge of your church, so that they too may hear and apply themselvesto understand the time of your coming" (ApPet 1:1-3).The setting and question follow closely Matthew 24:3, except

    that in the Apocalypse the disciples ask about the time of theparousia, not simply so that they themselves should understandit, but also so that their successors should understand it. Clearlythe author writes in a post-apostolic period: the generation ofthe apostles has passed and it is now a subsequent generation

    17. Most of the following argument so far as it concerns chapters 1-2was presented in more detail in R. BAUCKHAM, The Two Fig TreeParables in the Apocalypse of Peter , Journal of Biblical Literature 104(1985), p. 269-287.

  • 26 R. BAUCKHAM

    which needs to be able to recognize the signs that the parousia isimminent. Moreover, whereas Matthew refers to the time of thbdestruction of Jerusalem and the temple, as well as to the time ofthe parousia, in the Apocalypse of Peter it is only the time of theparousia that is of interest. Evidently the author lives afterC.E. 70, and he is not interested in providing post eventumprophecies of events, such as the fall of Jerusalem, which lay bet-ween the time of Jesus, the supposed date of the prophecy, and hisown time. He is interested only in his readers' immediate situationand the events which he believes to lie in their immediate futur~.

    The rest of the material he derives from Matthew 24 readilyfalls into three categories:

    a) There is the warning about false Messiahs, This subje toccurs twice in the apocalyptic discourse in Matthew 24:3-(where it is the opening subject of the discourse) and 24:23-2(where the subject recurs immediately before the description fthe parousia itself). The author of the Apocalypse of Peter hdrawn on both these passages and ignored everything that comin between them in Matthew, He has therefore rightly identifiea major theme of the Matthean discourse, and he has also, as weshall see, rightly understood the way this theme of false Messiahsis connected in Matthew 24 with the parousia. But as far asMatthew's account of the events that will precede the parousia isconcerned, he has selected only this one theme, It must havebeen the prominence of this theme in Matthew 24 which drewhim to this chapter and led him to make it the basis of the open-ing of his Apocalypse. The theme of the false Messiahs and thewarning against being led astray by these imposters who makdeceptive claims is one of his main interests.

    But there are two further, very important points about thway he uses this material from Matthew 24, which we can see 'fwe look closely at the texts in the Apocalypse of Peter, Thwords of Jesus in the Apocalypse of Peter, as in Matthew 2 ,begin with this theme:

    Our Lord answered us, saying to us, "Be careful not to bled into error, not to become doubtful and not to worshi other gods. Many will come in my name, saying that they arthe Messiah. Do not believe them, and do not approacthem" (ApPet 1:4-5).But he then returns to the theme in 2:7-8:

    (...) false Messiahs will come, and they will promise, "~am the Messiah, who have come into the world" (...) I

  • APOCALYPSE OF PETER 27

    And again towards the end of chapter 2 :

    Enoch and Elijah will be sent to make them understandthat he is the impostor who is to come into the world andwho will perform signs and wonders in order to deceive.(ApPet 2:12: the reference to the deceptive signs andwonders there is taken from Matthew 24:24.)In those passages the false messianic claim and the false

    Messiah's potential to deceive, of which Christians must beware,derive from Matthew 24. But we should notice, first, thatwhereas Matthew 24:24 speaks of false Messiahs and falseprophets ('i'Eu86XP1CJ'tOl Kat 'i'Eu80npo

  • 28 R. BAUCKHAM

    Elijah to expose him as a deceiver (2:12) was probably alsoalready a traditional apocalyptic feature 18. May not the authorsimply be putting together Matthew 24's predictions of the falseMessiahs and other traditional material in which a singleAntichrist was expected? No doubt, he is doing this. But we stillneed to explain why his interest in the events preceding theparousia is so selective, so overwhelmingly focussed on thefigure of the false Messiah. That this is because an actual messian-ic claimant threatened the church of his time and place willbecome clearer as we proceed.

    b) The second of the three categories of material that ourauthor has drawn from Matthew 24 is the prediction of themanner of the parousia:

    As for the coming of the Son of God, it will not be re- cognized, but like a bolt of lightning which is visible from the east to the west, so shall I come on a cloud of heaven, withgreat power in my glory, with my cross going before me. Ishall come in my glory, shining seven times more brightly than the sun. I shall come in my glory with all my holy angels,when my Father sets a crown on my head, so that I mayjudge the living and the dead (ApPet 1:6-7).Here the author depends on Matthew 24:27,30, and perhaps

    also on Matthew 16:27, but he has both selected from theMatthean depiction of the parousia and expanded it with othertraditional material. The elements here which do not come fromMatthew can all be shown to be very probably already tradi-tional in Christian depiction of the parousia. Nothing here is ori-ginal19, but the author has both selected from Matthew andadded from other apocalyptic tradition in order to make veryemphatically two points about the parousia. One is that Christwill come with divine authority to exercise judgment: Whenmy Father sets a crown on my head, so that I may judge theliving and the dead, stet so that I may repay everyone accordingto his deeds (1:7b-8). This is the point at which the author

    18. See R. BAUCKHAM, The Martyrdom of Enoch and Elijah: Jewishor Christian? , Journal of Biblical Literature 95 (1976), p. 447-458;K. BERGER, Die Auferstehung des Propheten und die Erhohung desMenschensohnes (SUNT 13; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,1976) Part 1.19. For the parallels, see R. BAUCKHAM, The Two Fig Tree Parables ,op. cit., p. 273-275; R. BAUCKHAM, Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in theEarly Church (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1990), p. 101-102.

  • APOCALYPSE OF PETER 29

    introduces the central theme of the Apocalypse of Peter, whichwill be expounded at length in chapters 3-14. But of moreimmediate interest to us is the second point about the parousia :that it will be unmistakably the parousia of Jesus Christ. This ishow the depiction of the parousia in v. 6 connects with the warn-ing against false Messiahs in v. 5. The coming of the trueMessiah will be evident to all people. The disciples should not bedeceived by the claims of the false Messiahs, because the comingof the true Messiah will be unmistakable. This point the authorhas taken from Matthew, who also places the saying about thelightning immediately after the misleading claims about the falseMessiahs in order to make the point that the parousia, like thelightning which flashes across the sky from east to west, will beevident to all (24:27). Matthew contrasts this with the misleadingclaim that the Messiah is out in the desert or is in the innerrooms (24:26): the Apocalypse of Peter drops this point.Evidently the false Messiah who concerns this author is notgathering his followers in the desert (like some of the messianicclaimants before 70 C.E.) or hiding in secret in houses. But hisappearance can be easily distinguished from the unmistakablecharacter of the parousia of Jesus Christ, as expected inChristian tradition.

    As well as the simile of the lightning, the Apocalypse of Peterlabours the unmistakableness of the parousia by emphasizing theglory of the coming Christ, of course a well-established tradition-al aspect of the parousia. Three times Jesus says I shall come inmy glory (1:6-7), and this is reinforced, the first time, with ona cloud of heaven, with great power; the second time, with shining seven times more brightly than the sun ; the third time,with with all my holy angels . These details make the parousiaan unmistakably supernatural, transcendent occurrence. But onefurther detail makes it unmistakably the parousia of Jesus Christ:my cross going before me (1:6). This appearance of the crossat the parousia -perhaps an interpretation of Matthew's signof the Son of man (24:30), certainly a stock feature of earlyChristian expectation (EpApp 16; ApElijah 3:2; SibOr 6:26-28;Hippolytus, In Matt. 24:30; cf. Did 16:6) -serves here to make itclear that, by contrast to any other messianic claim, the onlyappearance of the Messiah which Christians can expect is un-mistakably the coming of Jesus, the crucified, in glory. So we cansee that the author's depiction of the manner of the parousia isvery closely connected with his interest in the figure of the falseMessiah. It is designed to counter the false Messiah's potential todeceive those of the Apocalypse's readers who were evidentlytempted to accept his claim to messianic status.

  • 30 R. BAUCKHAM

    c) The third and final category of material which the author hastaken from Matthew 24 is the parable of the fig tree, which 2:1borrows from Matthew 24:32 :

    As for you, learn from the fig tree its parable. As soon as its shoots have sprouted and its twigs have become tender, at that time will be the end of the world. It is in this parable that the author of the Apocalypse of

    Peter finds the real answer to the disciples' question about thetime of the parousia. The end of the world will come when thefig tree sprouts. But what is the meaning of the sprouting of thefig tree? Peter is understandably puzzled and has to ask for aninterpretation (v. 2-3).

    Peter's request for an interpretation shows that for the authorof the Apocalypse of Peter the meaning of the parable of thebudding fig tree is not to be found within Matthew 24 itself. Hedoes not accept the indication in Matthew 24:33 that by thesprouting of the fig tree is meant simply all these things -allthe events which Matthew 24 has depicted as preceding theparousia. The author of the Apocalypse of Peter requires a morespecific interpretation. The sprouting of the fig tree must besome specific sign of the end. So he seeks the interpretationelsewhere and finds it in another Gospel parable about a fig tree,which he reproduces in 2:5-6. This is the parable of the barrenfig tree, elsewhere found only in Luke's Gospel (13:6-9). I haveargued elsewhere tliat the author has drawn this parable notfrom Luke, but from some independent tradition of theparable 2. The important point, however, is that the author isdoing what other early Christian interpreters of the parablesalso sometimes did: he is assuming that the imagery common tothe two parables must have a common meaning. Therefore oneparable can be used to interpret the other.

    The second parable, the barren fig tree, tells how for manyyears the fig tree failed to produce fruit. The owner proposes thatit be rooted out, but the gardener persuades him to allow it onemore chance of fruiting. This fruiting of the fig tree is treated byour author as equivalent to the sprouting or budding of the figtree in the parable of Matthew 24. He correctly perceives that inthe parable of the barren fig-tree the fig tree represents Israel, andthe contribution which this parable makes to the interpretation ofthe other is that it establishes that the fig tree is Israel. Jesus'

    20. R. BAUCKHAM, The Two Fig Tree Parables op. cit., p. 280-283.

  • APOCALYPSE OF PETER 31

    interpretation of the parable begins: Do you not know that thefig tree is the house of Israel? (2:4). Then after quoting theparable of the barren fig tree, he repeats: Did you not under-stand that the trunk of the fig tree is the house of Israel? (2:7).So it is the house of Israel which must sprout as the final sign ofthe end. But we still do not know what the sprouting or fruitingof the fig tree is. To explain this the author returns to the themeof the false Messiah, who (we are now told) will put to deaththose who refuse to accept his claim to messiahship. The sprout-ing of the fig tree represents the many martyrs of the house ofIsrael who will die at the hands of the false Messiah.

    So finally we see that the author's third principal interest in thesechapters -along with the false Messiah and the unmistakablemanner of the coming of the true Messiah -is martyrdom. Thisis the theme which dominates the second half of chapter 2,where we are repeatedly told of the many martyrs who will dieat the hands of the false Messiah. Like the other two themes,this theme of the martyrs of the last days is anchored inMatthew 24, by means of the author's interpretation of theparable of the fig tree. By means of skilful selection of materialfrom Matthew 24 and expansion of this material from other tra-ditional sources, the author has found dominical authority for avery clearly focussed apocalyptic expectation. He depicts a situa-tion in which a false Messiah puts to death those who are notdeceived by his claims because they know that the true Messiah,Jesus Christ, will come in unmistakable glory. The deaths ofmany martyrs of the house of Israel at the hands of the falseMessiah will be the last sign that the end of the world and theparousia of Jesus Christ as judge of the world are imminent.

    We could reduce the dominant concerns of these first twochapters of the Apocalypse of Peter to two closely connectedconcerns: a) the question of the true and false Messiahs, andb) martyrdom. The two concerns are closely connected becausethose who are not deceived by the claims of the false Messiah areto be put to death by him. This means, of course, that those whoheed the warning against believing and following false Messiahswith which Jesus' words begin (1:4-5) are going to incur martyr-dom. By contrast with Matthew 24, where martyrdom is mention-ed (24:9) but is not a major theme and is not connected with thefalse Messiahs, in the Apocalypse of Peter martyrdom at thehands of the false Messiah completely dominates the expectationof what must happen before the parousia. We have to concludethat the author envisaged his readers having to discern and resistthe claims of a false Messiah and facing martyrdom as a result.The question arises: Are the readers already in this situation ~

  • 32 R. BAUCKHAM

    has the false Messiah appeared, is he already persecutingChristians -or is his appearance and persecution still future?This is the familiar problem of identifying the point at which anapocalyptic prediction moves from the present into the futQre.

    The writer's exclusive concern with the false Messiah and thepersecution he carries out must indicate that this persecution isalready under way. If these were simply features of a traditionalapocalyptic scenario which the author reproduces as expecta-tion for the future, the exclusion of all other features of suchtraditional apocalyptic scenarios would be inexplicable. Thefalse Messiah must be already a threat; the Apocalypse'sreaders must be already tempted to believe his claim; some ofthose who, out of loyalty to the Messiah Jesus, refuse to followhim must have already been put to death. This impression givenus by the first two chapters is confirmed by the evidence whichthe rest of the Apocalypse of Peter provides that it was writtenin a situation of persecution. There are two main pieces ofevidence of this kind:

    a) In the account of the punishments in hell after the lastjudgment. As we shall see later (in our section 1I.7, below), theApocalypse of Peter, in the long account of the many catego-ries of sinners and the specific punishments each receives inhell (chapters 7-12), is certainly taking over traditional apoca-lyptic material. We have many other similar accounts of thepunishments in hell, which derive from common streams ofapocalyptic tradition. The literary relationships among theseso-called tours of hell are debatable and complex, but therecan be no doubt that, here as elsewhere, the Apocalypse ofPeter takes over traditional material. The other tours of hellshow us the kind of material which was the Apocalypse ofPeter's source for 7-12. By this means we can be confident thatmost of the categories of sinners which the Apocalypse of Peterdepicts in hell were traditional. By and large, the author didnot decide which sins to mention in his account of hell: hetook them over from apocalyptic tradition. But there are threecategories of sinners in hell in the Apocalypse of Peter whichcannot be paralleled in other tours of hell and which occur insuccession as a group of three in 9:1-4. The first group arethose who persecuted and betrayed my righteous ones -i.e. those who put the martyrs to death. The second group arethose who blasphemed and perverted my righteousness -probably those who apostatized in order to escape martyrdom.The third group are those who caused death by their falsewitness -presumably those who informed on the martyrs.

  • APOCALYPS~ OF PETER 33

    The unique 21 inclusion of these three categories of sinners in anaccount of the punishments in hell must indicate a situation ofpersecution and martyrdom as the Sitz im Leben of theApoca.lypse of Peter.

    b) In chapter 16, when the disciples are given a vision of para-dise, Peter is told by Jesus that this is the honour and glory ofthose who are persecuted for my righteousness (16:5). Thismakes it clear that the concern with paradise in the latter part ofthe Apocalypse of Peter is primarily a concern for the rewardthat awaits the martyrs in the next life.

    If chapter 2 therefore refers to a persecution by a falseMessiah which has already begun, we may note two furtherpoints about the martyrs. In the first place, they are Jews, as2:11 insists < It is at that time that the twigs of the fig tree, whichalone is the house of Israel, will have become tender. There willbe martyrs at his hand). Secondly, the persecution can onlyhave begun. Presumably v. 12 refers to an event still in the future: Enoch and Elijah will be sent to make them understand that heis the impostor who is to come into the world... Unless wesuppose that the author identified two of his contemporaries asEnoch and Elijah, of which he gives no hint, we must supposethat the enlightenment as to the falsity of the false Messiah'sclaim which Enoch and Elijah will bring to many of those whoare to be martyred still lies in the future. Probably, a few of theauthor's fellow Jewish Christians have already been martyred:they are those who, because of their faith in Jesus as Messiah,already recognize the deception of the false Messiah. But theauthor expects many more Jews -those who are not yet believersin Jesus -to reject the false Messiah when Enoch and Elijahexpose him. These will be the majority of the martyrs and theirmartyrdom lies still in the immediate future. Thus 2:13 explains:This is why [i.e. because Enoch and Elijah have demonstratedthat the false Messiah is the deceiver] those who [then] die at hishand will be martyrs, and will be numbered with the good andrighteous martyrs who have pleased the Lord with their lives[that is, with those who have already died as martyrs] . Thismeans that the currently unbelieving Jews who, enlightened by

    21. The only parallel I know is in one of the medieval Hebrew apoca-lypses translated by M. GASTER, Hebrew Visions of Hell andParadise , reprinted from Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1893),p. 571-611, in M. GASTER, Studies and Texts, vol. 1 (London: Maggs,1928), p. 136 (Revelation of Moses A, 43): they have delivered uptheir brother Israelite to the Gentile .

  • 34 R. BAUCKHAM

    Enoch and Elijah, will die at the hands of the false Messiah inthe future, are going to be numbered with the Jewish Christianmartyrs who have already suffered death at his hands.

    Who then is the false Messiah who is already persecutingJewish Christians and who can be expected to turn against otherJews if they too reject his messiahship? The historical situationof the early church and other early Christian literature suggestsonly two possibilities: a Roman emperor or a Jewish messianicpretender. Against the first possibility, we may note that theauthor's quite explicit limitation of horizon to Jewish Christiansand Jews would be very surprising if a Roman persecution ofChristians were in view. But more decisively, when earlyChristian apocalyptic associates the persecuting Antichrist figurewith the Roman imperial power there is always allusion to theRoman imperial cult. The Antichrist is then said to claim divinityand to require worship. The false Messiah of the Apocalypse ofPeter merely claims to be the Messiah, and all the emphasis isput specifically on the issue of who is the true Messiah (1:5;2:7-10). This points to an inner-Jewish context: a debate bet-ween the Christian claim that Jesus is Messiah and the claims ofa Jewish messianic claimant..

    If then, the false Messiah of the Apocalypse of Peter is aJewish messianic pretender of the period after 70 C.E. (since theApocalypse of Peter must be dated later than 70), there are onlytwo possible identifications:

    In the first place, we cannot neglect the possibility that the falseMessiah is the leader of the Jewish revolt in Egypt and Cyrenaicain the years 115-117 in the reign of Trajan 22. Though we knowvery little about it, it is clear that this revolt was on a considerablescale. Of its leader we know (from Eusebius) only his nameLucuas and the fact that Eusebius calls him their king (Hist.Eccl. 4.2.4). A major Jewish revolt against Rome at this periodmust have had a messianic character, and a leader of such a revoltdescribed as king must have been seen as a messianic figure. Ourmeagre sources tell us nothing of any persecution of Christiansduring this revolt, and we may note that Eusebius, had he knownof such persecution, would certainly have mentioned it. But onthe other hand, we know that the rebellious Jews massacred

    22. On this revolt and its messianic character, see especiallyM. HENGEL, Messianische Hoffnung und politischer "Radikalismus"in der "judisch-hellenistischen Diaspora" , in D. HELLHOLM ed.,Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East(Tubingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1983), p. 655-686 (with references to otherliterature ).

  • 35APOCALYP~E OF PETER

    Gentiles in large numbers. It is likely enough that JewishChristians who refused to join the Tevolt would also have suffered.

    One feature of the Apocalypse of Peter could support a sug-gestion that it originated among Jewish Christians in Egyptduring the revolt of 115-117. In 10:5, one category of the sinnersin hell are the manufacturers of idols. The idols they made aredescribed as the idols made by human hands, the images whichresemble cats, lions and reptiles, the images of wild animals .This has often been taken to refer specifically to Egyptian religionand therefore to point to an origin for the Apocalypse of Peter inEgypt. Images of gods in the form of animals were of courseespecially characteristic of ancifnt Egypt, and of the specificanimals mentioned the first, dats, would infallibly suggestEgyptian religion. Other Jewish texts which certainly or prob-ably originated in Egypt have similar references to animalimages (Wisd 12:24; 15:18; SibOr5 :278-280; Philo, Decal. 76-80;De vita con temp. 8; Leg. 139; 163), often specifying cats andreptiles (LetAris 138; SibOr 3:30-p1; SibOr Frag 3:22,27-30).

    Since the Apocalypse of Peter qtost probably reached Ethiopiavia Egypt, it is possible that the rfference to idols in the form ofanimals is a later gloss introduced I into the text of the Apocalypseof Peter in Egypt. The reference is missing in the parallel passageof the Akhmim text. On the other hand, there are few otherpoints in the Ethiopic version of the Apocalypse of Peter wherethere is any very good reason to suspect a gloss, so that we shouldbe very cautious about resorting to this explanation. In fact, thereis no Teal difficulty in supposing that this description of idolscould have been written by a P~lestinian Jew (cf. TMos 2:7;LAB 44:5, for references to anim~l idols in a Palestinian context).Paul in Romans 1:23 refers to idol~ as images resembling mortalman or birds or animals or reptiles , and Justin refers to the wor-ship of animals in a general discussion of idolatry, evidently usingspecifically Egyptian forms of idolatry as an instance of idolatryin general (Apol. 1.24). A Jewish Christian opponent of idolatrymight well have considered the worship of animal forms the mostdegrading form of idolatry (as lat;er Christian writers did) 23 andsingled it out for mention for this teason. At this period Egyptiancults were practised outside Egypt, and the Egyptian venerationof cats must have been very well known 24,

    23. E.g. Aristides, Apol. 12.1; Theophilus, Ad Auto/. 1.10; Tertullian,Ad Nat.2.8; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. 6.10.24. For the general reputation of Egypt for animal worship, see K. A.D. SMELIK and E. A. HEMELRIJK, "Who knows not what monstersdemented Egypt worships ?" : Opinions on Egyptian animal worship in

  • 36 R. BAUCKHAM

    That the Apocalypse of Peter originated in Egypt during theJewish revolt under Trajan is a possibility which perhaps cannot beentirely excluded. However, there are stronger grounds for identi-fying the false Messiah of the Apocalypse of Peter with the leaderof the Jewish revolt in Palestine in the years 132-135 C.E., theleader whose real name we now know to have been Shim'on barKosiva, but who is still generally known by his messianic nicknameBar Kokhba. The arguments for seeing a reference to Bar Kokhbain the Apocalypse of Peter and therefore for the origin of the workin Palestine during the Bar Kokhba revolt, are as follows:

    a) First, it is necessary to defend the view that Bar Kokhbawas seen by many of his supporters as the Messiah, since thisview has been contested by some recent writers 25. For ourpurposes we do not need to know whether Bar Kokhba himselfmade a messianic claim, only that such a claim was made on hisbehalf by his supporters 260 In favour of this, there is, first, therabbinic evidence, most importantly the well-known tradition(yo Ta'ano 68d) 27 that Rabbi Aqiva declared Bar Kokhba to bethe King Messiah, and connected his name with the prophecy ofthe star (kokhav) that will come forth from Jacob (Num 24:17),a favourite messianic text of the period. Whether this view ofBar Kokhba is correctly attributed to Aqiva is unimportant forour purpose. What is significant is that such a view ofBar Kokhba could certainly not have originated afterBar Kokhba's defeat and death. The tradition must preserve anidentification of Bar Kokhba as the Messiah and the star of

    Antiquity as part of the ancient conception of Egypt , in Aufstieg undNiedergang der romischen Welt, 2.17/4, ed. W. HAASE (Berlin/NewYork: de Gruyter, 1984), p. 1852-2000.25. L. MILDENBERG, The Coinage of the Bar Kokhba Revolt(Aarau/Frankfurt am Main/ Salzburg: Sauerliinder, 1984), p. 75-76; andcf. B. ISAAC and A. OPPENHEIMER, The Revolt of Bar Kokhba:Ideology and Modern Scholarship , Journal of Jewish Studies 36(1985), p. 57; A. RHEINHARTZ, Rabbinic Perceptions of Simeon barKosiba , Journal for theStudy of Judaism 20 (1989), p. 173-174, forreferences to others who deny that Bar Kokhba was seen in messianicterms.26. A. RHEINHARTZ, Rabbinic Perceptions , op. cit., argues that theclaim was made during the war, as an explanation of Bar Kokhba's suc-cess, by some of his supporters, though not by all.27. On this tradition, see P. SCHAFER, Der Bar-Kokhba-Aufstand(TSAJ 1; Tubingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1981), p. 55-57; P. LENHART andP. VON DEN OSTEN-SACKEN, Rabbi Akiva (ANTZ 1; Berlin: InstitutKirche und Judentum.1987). D. 307-317.

  • 37APOCALYPfE OF PETER

    Jacob which was made during the revolt 28. Second, fromChristian sources, beginning with Justin, who was writing onlytwenty years after the revolt, we know that Bar Kosiva musthave been quite widely known as Bar Kokhba < son of thestar ) 29. This pun on his real name is explicable only as an iden-tification of him as the messianic star of Jacob (Num 24:17) andthus corroborates the rabbinic tradition attached to the name ofAqiva. Thirdly, rabbinic traditions which explicitly deny thatBar Kokhba was the Messiah and Christian sources which depicthim as a false messianic pretender indirectly confirm that duringthe revolt he was regarded by many as the Messiah. If it is un-likely that Christian writers would represent as a false Messiah aJewish leader for whom messianic claims had never beenmade, it is even less likely that. rabbinic traditions hostile toBar Kokhba would have invented a messianic claim for him inorder to deny it 30. Fourthly, the fact that in the recently discoveredBar Kokhba documents he is treated as a purely human militaryand political leader is not, as some have supposed, in contradictionto the claim that he was regarded as Messiah. Messianic expecta-tions of the time certainly included the purely human figure whowould restore Jewish national sovereignty by force of arms.

    b) Turning to more detailed correlations between what weknow of Bar Kokhba and the Apocalypse of Peter, we knowfrom Justin (1 Apol. 31.6) that Bar Kokhba ordered thatChristians who would not deny Jesus as the Messiah should bepunished severely. This is very early evidence of persecution ofJewish Christians by Bar Kokhba and there is no reason at all todoubt it. The Bar Kokhba letters show that the rebel governmenttook strong action against Jews who failed to support the revolt,and it is therefore intrinsically likely that Jewish Christians, whocould not acknowledge Bar Kokhba's political authority withoutaccepting his messiahship, would suffer. It is true that there isnot much evidence that the revolt extended to Galilee 31, whereprobably the majority of Jewish Christians who lived west of theJordan at this time were to be found. But there is no difficulty insupposing that there were also Jewish Christians in Judrea, whileour interpretation of the Apocalypse of Peter does not require

    28. So A. RHEINHARTZ, Rabbinic P~rceptions , op. cit., p.176-177.29. The treatment of this evidence liy MILDENBERG, Coinage, op. cit.,p. 79-80, is irresponsible.30. A. RHEINHAR1Z, Rabbinic Perceptions , op. cit., p.177.31. P. SCHAFER, Der Bar-Kokhba-Aufstand, op, cit., p.102-134; B. ISAACand A. OPPENHEIMER, The Revolt of Bar Kokhba , op. cit., p. 53-54.

  • 38 R. BAUCKHAM

    there to have been very large numbers of Jewish Christianskilled by Bar Kokhba's troops. A small number of martyrswould sufficiently explain the expectation that many moremartyrdoms would soon follow.

    c) Apocalypse of Peter 2:12 calls the false Messiah the impos-ter who is to come into the world and who will perform signsand wonders in order to deceive . This is a traditional expecta-tion of the Antichrist, taken here from Matthew 24:24. Theauthor may have understood the signs and wonders as BarKokhba's military success which no doubt persuaded many toregard him as the Messiah. But it is also noteworthy that laterChristian tradition about Bar Kokhba attributed to him thedeceptive miracles expected of the Antichrist. Eusebius, in astatement that may well be based on Aristo of Pella and maytherefore preserve Palestinian Jewish Christian tradition, saysthat Bar Kokhba claimed to be a star which had come downfrom heaven to give light to the oppressed by working miracles (Rist. Eccl. 4.6.2). Jerome (Ad Rufin. 3.31) says that Bar Kokhbapretended to breathe fire by means of a lighted straw in hismouth. These statements cannot, of course, be taken as evidencethat Bar Kokhba really claimed to work miracles, but they doreveal a Christian tradition of identifying Bar Kokhba with thefalse Messiah who works miracles, a tradition which may well goback to the Apocalypse of Peter, written during the revolt itself.

    d) There seem to have been two punning variations on Shim'onbar Kosiva's name. One was the messianic nickname Bar Kokhba< son of the star). The other was a derogatory nickname,denying his messianic claim. This derogatory version is formedby spelling his name not with a samek but with a zayin: barKoziva < son of the lie [kozav]), that. is, liar . This spelling(Koziva) is consistently used in rabbinic literature. It has some-times recently been regarded as no more than an alternativespelling 32, but the Bar Kokhba letters consistently spell thename either with a samek Of, occasionally, with a sin, and so it islikely that the spelling with a zayin originated as a derogatorypun 33. The fact that rabbinic traditions use it even in positivestatements about Bar Kokhba, such as that attributed to Aqiva,merely indicates that it had become the only designation of

    32. E.g. A. RHEINHARTZ, Rabbinic Perceptions , op. cit., p. 191.33. P. SCHAFER, Der Bar-Kokhba-Aufstand, op. cit., p. 51-52; P; LENHARTand P. VON DEN OSTEN-SACKEN, Rabbi Akiva, 0]). cit., p. 312-313.

  • 39APOCALYP$E OF PETER

    Bar Kokhba in rabbinic tradition. From the rabbinic evidencewe cannot tell whether this derogatory pun on the leader's nameoriginated only after his defeat and the general discrediting ofhis messianic claim or whether it was already in use during therevolt by those Jews who refused to support him. But there isone statement in the Apocalypse of Peter which would gain par-ticular force if the derogatory pun Bar Koziva was already inuse. 2:10 declares: As for that liar, he is not the Messiah . Theword in the Ethiopic is different from imposter in 2:12, andpresumably translates the Greek \j/Eucr"tT1

  • 40 R. BAUCKHAM

    Matthew 16:23, this sharp rebuke of Peter for his proposal tobuild the three tents is rather surprising. Why is Peter's proposalevidence that his mind is veiled by Satan, who has conqueredhim with matters of this world? We shall see. But following therebuke, Peter is promised a revelation: specifically, a two-partrevelation consisting of a vision < your eyes will be opened)and of an audition < your ears will be opened ). The vision is ofthe one tent, not made with human hands, which God has madefor Jesus and his elect (16:9). The audition is the voice declaringJesus to be God's beloved son, whom the disciples must obey(17:1). By this double revelation -of the tent not made withhands and of Jesus as God's son -the veil Satan has cast overPeter's mind is removed and he is shown the truth.

    The importance of the audition (the words of the heavenlyvoice) is clearly that it makes clear the identity of the trueMessiah. Whereas in chapter 1 we were told only that theparousia of Jesus Christ will make his identity as the Messiahunequivocally clear, here at the climax of the whole book Jesus'messiahship is already declared by the divine voice. Clearly weare back in the same context of issues as chapters 1 and 2presuppose.

    Less obvious is the significance of the vision: the one tent, notmade with human hands, contrasted with the three tents Peterproposes to make. The tent not made with human hands (theGreek must have been O"lCllvli l1XEtpo7toill'tll) reminds us ofMark 14:58, where Jesus' prophecy of the destruction of thetemple contrasts the present temple, made with hands, and theeschatological temple, not made with hands. It also resemblesHebrews 9:11, which contrasts the earthly tent (the tabernacle),made with hands, and the heavenly sanctuary: the greater andperfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation .Our text is not dependent on either of these passages but movesin the same world of ideas. The tent not made with human handswhich the Father has made for Jesus and his elect is the heavenlytemple. It is God's heavenly dwelling-place in which he willdwell with his people in the eschatological age, when God'sdwelling -God's O1(llVll- will be with his people (Rev 21:3). InJewish and Jewish Christian Greek O"lCllVll was used as equiva-lent to mishkan because of the correspondence of the conso-nants of O"lCllVll with the Hebrew root shakan. So it really meant,not so much tent , as dwelling-place : the tabernacle or thetemple as the divine dwellingplace. (In Tobit 13:11 0"1C1lvf1 is usedfor the temple which is to be rebuilt in the eschatological age.)So the connexion is easily made between the three tents or dwel-lings which Peter proposes to build for Jesus, Moses and Elijah,

  • 41APOCALYPSE OF PETER

    and the heavenly temple which is to be the real eschatologicaldwelling-place of Jesus and his elect with God. Peter's error is topropose to build earthly tents himself, instead of the heavenlytemple, not made with human hands, which God has made.

    But why is Peter so severely rebuked for this error, and why isit corrected, not simply by the vision of the heavenly temple, butalso by the voice which makes clear the identity of the falseMessiah? Peter's proposal is taken to show that Satan has blindedhis mind both to the identity of the true Messiah and to thenature of the eschatological temple. The point must be that theproposal to build earthly tents, made with human hands, asso-ciates Peter with the false Messiah. The whole passage makesexcellent sense and connects with the concerns of the openingchapters if we assume that the messianic pretender whom theApocalypse of Peter opposes was intending to rebuild the templein Jerusalem. The author understands Peter's proposal to buildthe three tents as, so to speak, endorsing this project of the falseMessiah. By contrast, the temple in which God will dwell withthe true Messiah Jesus and his people is not an earthly temple,constructed by human hands, but the heavenly temple, made byGod himself. Thus the distinguishing of the true Messiah fromthe false is closely linked with understanding the kind of templethat each promises to his people. The climactic revelation of theApocalypse of Peter, by revealing both the true Temple and thetrue Messiah, counters the satanically inspired temptation tofollow the false Messiah in his proposal to build an earthly temple.

    This interpretation of the passage is further confirmed andreinforced when we notice the location of the scene. For this wemust go back to 15:1. The first fourteen chapters of theApocalypse of Peter were located, like Matthew's eschatologicaldiscourse, on the Mount of Olives. But in 15:1, there is a changeof location: Jesus says to Peter: Let us go to the holy moun-tain . The last three chapters of the apocalypse are thus locatedon the holy mountain. Which mountain is meant? It is true that2 Peter (1:18) locates the transfiguration on the holy mountain,and the author of the Apocalypse of Peter probably knew 2 Peter.But this does not mean that he would not have intended aspecific mountain. He would probably have understood, in2 Peter's reference to the transfiguration, the deliberate allusionsto Psalm 2, where God says: I have set my king on Zion, myholy mountain 34. Moreover, he would have known that the

    34. R. BAucKHAM, Jude, 2 Peter (Word Biblical Commentary 50; Waco,Texas: Word Books, 1983), p. 219-221.

  • 42

    R.

    BAUCKHAM

    only mountain which the Old Testament ever calls the holymountain is mount Zion, the temple mount. So in Apocalypseof Peter 15:1, Jesus is proposing that he and the disciples crossthe Kidron valley from the Mount of Olives to the Templemount. Thus the visions that follow are located where, forexample, in the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (13:1), Baruchreceives revelations from God about the eschatological future-revelations which answer Baruch's anguish and perplexityabout the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple (cf. also3 Baruch: introduction). Baruch received his revelations amidthe ruins of the Temple (cf. 2 Bar 8-9). The author of theApocalypse of Peter, of course, knew that at the fictional time atwhich his own work is set the second Temple was still standing,but he passes over it in silence. He thus allows the implicationthat it is actually on the site of the temple that Peter proposes toerect the three tents. In this climax of his work, our author isactually offering his own answer to the issue that preoccupiedthe Jewish apocalyptists of his time: in the divine purpose whatis to replace the second temple? Like some of them -for hisanswer is distinctively Christian only in making a connexion withthe messiahship of Jesus -he turned from all thought of ahuman attempt to rebuild the earthly temple in favour of atranscendent temple provided by God.

    This argument about the meaning of Apocalypse of Peter 16:7-17:1 really requires that the rebuilding of the temple inJerusalem was a central policy of the messianic movement theApocalypse opposes. From the coins of the Bar Kokhba revoltwe know that this was indeed the case with Bar Kokhba's cam-paign. There is no need for us to decide the debated question ofwhether the rebels succeeded in capturing Jerusalem 35. In anycase, the intention to liberate Jerusalem was undoubtedly thecentral proclaimed intention of the revolt. But this carried withit the intention to rebuild the temple 36. From the beginning ofthe revolt, a representation of the temple featured on all thetetradrachma coins of the regime. Various objects associatedwith the worship of the temple featured on other coins 37. Thetemple and its worship seem to have been one of, perhaps thecentral symbol of the revolt. Anyone asking the purpose of therevolt might well have been told: to liberate Jerusalem, to

    35. Cf. B. ISAAC and A. OPPENHEIMER, The Revolt of Bar Kokhbaop. cit., p. 54-55.36. Cf. ibid., p. 47-48.37. Cf. ibid., p. 49.

  • 43APOCALYPSE OF PETER

    rebuild the temple, to restore the temple worship. It was thiscentral religious as well as political purpose which united mostPalestinian Jews in support of Bar Kokhba 38 and presumablyencouraged them to see him as the Messiah anointed by God tofulfil this purpose.

    Understood against this background, the Apocalypse of Petervery interestingly reveals to us that the Jewish Christians ofPalestine -or, at least, those who took the same view as ourauthor -not only could not acknowledge Bar Kokhba asMessiah, but also that they had no sympathy for his central aimof rebuilding the temple. For them an earthly temple had nofurther place in the divine purpose. To any who were tempted tojoin their fellow-Jews in this aim of rebuilding the temple, theApocalypse of Peter says that Satan has veiled their minds. Itsapocalyptic revelation of the true Messiah and the true Templeis designed to open their eyes and uncover their ears, as it didPeter's.

    II. JUDGMENT

    The dominant theme in the Apocalypse of Peter is the escha-tological judgment. The concern with this theme of judgmentrelates to the situation which the Apocalypse of Peter addresses,as we considered it in the last chapter. It is a situation in which afalse Messiah is putting to death those who refuse to supporthim out of their loyalty to the true Messiah. The persecutors andapostates flourish, while those who follow the way of righteous-ness suffer persecution and martyrdom. It is the classic apocalyp-tic situation, which we can trace right back to the Book ofDaniel. It is the classic apocalyptit problem of theodicy. It is pre-cisely the context in which the cla$sic early Jewish expectation ofthe resurrection and judgment of the dead, the achievement ofjustice in the end by means of eschatological rewards andpunishments, had taken shape. Thus the author of theApocalypse of Peter was heir tb a long tradition which hadaddressed precisely such a situation as his and had developed ascenario of eschatological judgment which he was able to re-present by means of a series of highly traditional themes.Nothing in the Apocalypse of Peter's account of eschatological

    38. L. MILDENBERG, Coinage, op. cit.,p. 31-48.

  • 44 R. BAUCKHAM

    judgment is specifically Christian except the identification of thedivine judge as Jesus Christ in his parousia. The interest of theaccount lies in its exceptionally detailed and complete compilationof traditional apocalyptic themes on this subject.

    In this chapter we shall study the various themes connectedwith eschatological judgment in the first fourteen chapters of theApocalypse of Pete!: For the most part, we shall consider them in