Author: chandler yergin
Date: 15:31:27 05/01/03
There are many, many early Christian writings, which are worthy of study. Just because some of them were not accepted by the Church; does not mean they should not be read. They provide great insight into the minds of the Writers, and Translators; and you can see where portions were selected by the Church; those that agreed with what they were trying to promote as "inspired". "Müller writes (New Testament Apocrphya, vol. 2, p. 625): "The significance of the Apocalypse of Peter as an important witness of the Petrine literature is not to be underestimated. Peter is the decisive witness of the resurrection event. Hence he is also deemed worthy of further revelations, which he hands on (in revelation documents) with authority. Revelatio and traditio, receiving and handing on, the chain of transmitters, are the central ideas of this understanding of revelation (Berger). Peter's disciple Clement (2 Clem. 5) plays the decisive role here, as witnessed by the Ethiopic version of the Apocalypse, which belongs in the framework of the Clement literature in which Peter hands on the secret revelation to Clement (on Peter as a recipient of revelation cf. Berger, 379ff.). As compared with the Canon, the eschatological functions of Peter are new (Berger, 325). In its description of heaven and hell the Apocalypse draws on the abundance of ideas from the East which has also left its deposit in the writings of late Jewish Apocalyptic and the mystery religions. The motif of the river of fire, which is one of the pregnant eschatological ideas among the Egyptian Christians, certainly goes back to ancient Egypt. In view of the abundance of traditions in Egypt and the prestige of the Petrine tradition there (veneration of Peter's disciple Mark), an origin in Egypt is probable. The Apocalypse of Peter brings together divergent traditions, for which it has not yet been possible to discover any uniform source." http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/apocalypsepeter.html
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