Revelation of Peter

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Manuscript of the Revelation of Peter, Coptic Museum , Cairo

The Revelation of Peter or Peter's Apocalypse is an early Christian apocryphal work that was probably written around 135 in Egypt . It represents a literary forgery ( pseudepigraphy ) that pretends to be written by the Apostle Peter .

Time and place of writing

Since the Peter apocalypse probably uses 4th Ezra and 2nd Peter , it was probably written after around 100 AD. It is mentioned in the Muratori canon and used by Theophilus of Antioch and Clement of Alexandria , so it had already found widespread use around 180 AD, so it was probably written a few decades before that at the latest. The attempt to date it more precisely to around 135 or shortly thereafter refers to the fig tree parable in Chap. 2 on the Jew Bar Kochba . This “ revelation ” was probably written down in Alexandria, probably by a Jewish Christian who drew from Jewish and Greek eschatological sources.

Dissemination and recognition

A Greek and an Ethiopian version have survived. The Revelation of Peter was widespread from around 150 AD, especially in the Greek-speaking East, and was valued by some church fathers , but overall it was always controversial. In the Muratori Canon , the Revelation of Peter was recognized, but described as controversial. It was never translated into Latin , which is why it was hardly read in the Latin West from around AD 200, as knowledge of Greek decreased significantly there. It was valued in the East: Clement of Alexandria wrote a comment about it, and it is mentioned at the end of the canons of the Codex Claromontanus . On the other hand, it is not included in Origen's canon , and Eusebius of Caesarea made it one of the bogus books. It still had a strong effect in the Middle Ages .

Scope and content

The Revelation of Peter is a rather small book; it is about half the size of Epistle to Hebrews . The text offers a very detailed description of the future hell and its punishments brought about by Ezrael , which have fed the Christian imagination up to Dante's “Inferno” of the Divine Comedy .

Like many other detailed depictions of the punishments of hell in the High Middle Ages , the depiction of the Last Judgment on a mosaic by Torcello (early 12th century) goes back to the Apocalypse of Peter.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. See also the parable of the fig tree without fruit , the parable of the fig tree, and the curse of the fig tree .
  2. Eusebius: Church history . III, 25, 4. In the same book, Eusebius also quotes Origen's canon in V, 25.
  3. Compared to Franz Stuhlhofer : The Use of the Bible from Jesus to Euseb. A statistical study of the history of the canons (= Theologische Verlagsgemeinschaft [Ed.]: Monographs and Study Books . Volume 335). Preface by Rainer Riesner . R. Brockhaus, Wuppertal 1988, ISBN 3-417-29335-9 , p. 38 f.