V
We may now consider whether there is any indication of the use of this Gospel according to Peter by the author of the “Epistle of Barnabas.” The Epistle is variously dated between a.d. 70-132, apologists leaning towards the earlier date. The shortness of the fragment recovered, of course, diminishes greatly the probability of finding any trace of its use in so comparatively brief a work as this Epistle, but some indications may be pointed out. The fragment states that, being anxious lest the sun should set whilst he was still living and the law regarding one put to death be transgressed, “one of them said: ‘Give him to drink gall with vinegar,’ and having mixed they gave him to drink (Ποτίσατε αὐτὸν χολὴν μετὰ ὄξους; καὶ κεράσαντες ἐπότισαν).[52] ... Over all these things, however, we were fasting (ἐπὶ δὲ τούτοις πᾶσιν ἐνηστεύομεν)[53] ... the whole people ... beat their breasts (ὁ λαὸς ἅπας ... κόπτεται τὰ στήθη).”[54] This representation not only differs from the canonical Gospels in “gall with vinegar” being given to drink, but in the view that it was not given to relieve thirst, but as a potion to hasten death,[55] and there follow various statements regarding fasting [pg 033] and mourning. Now in Barnabas precisely the same representation is made. The Epistle says:
But also when crucified, he had vinegar and gall given him to drink (ἀλλὰ καὶ σταυρωθεὶς ἐποτίζετο ὄξει καὶ χολῇ). Hear how, on this matter, the priests of the temple have revealed. Seeing that there is a commandment in Scripture: “Whosoever shall not observe the fast shall surely die,” the Lord commanded, because he was in his own person about to offer the vessel of his spirit for our sins ... “Since ye are to give me, who am to offer my flesh for the sins of my new people, gall with vinegar to drink, eat ye alone, while the people fasts and wails.... (μέλλετε ποτίζειν χολὴν μετὰ ὄξους ... τοῦ λαοῦ νηστεύοντος καὶ κοπτομένου).”[56]
There are three suppositions as the possible explanation of this similarity: (1) that the author of the Epistle derived his statement from the Gospel; (2) that the author of the Gospel derived it from the Epistle, or (3) that both drew it from a third and earlier source. Assigning as we do the later date to the Epistle of Barnabas, the first of these hypotheses seems to us the most natural and the correct one, although, of course, it is impossible to prove that both did not derive it from another source. The second explanation we must definitely reject, both because we consider that priority of date lies with the fragment, and because it does not seem probable that the representation originated in the Epistle. To admit this would be to suppose that the author first fabricated the statement that Jesus was [pg 034] given gall and vinegar to hasten death, and then proceeded immediately to explain the circumstance by means of the elaborate gnosis with which the Epistle is filled. It is quite undeniable that the whole narrative of the Gospels grew out of the suggestions of supposed prophetic passages in the Old Testament, but the author of the Epistle introduces the statement upon which his explanation is based, with a simplicity which seems to exclude the idea of its being his own fabrication: “But also, when crucified, he had vinegar and gall given him to drink.” There is not the ring here of a statement advanced for the first time, but if we suppose that the author had read it in such a work as the Gospel according to Peter, it would be quite natural. It is not to be understood that we doubt that the account in the fragment, or in our Gospels, was suggested by passages in the Old Testament, but simply that we do not believe that the representation originated in this Epistle, in immediate connection with the elaborate explanation given. A tradition, gradually influenced by such prophetic and other considerations, may have been embodied by the author of the Gospel in his narrative, and then the writer of the Epistle may have seized upon it and enlarged upon its typical signification, but it is not probable that he originated it himself.