The Gospel According to Peter: A Study

by Walter Richard Cassels

VI

We do not propose to enter here upon an inquiry whether there is any evidence within our short fragment that the Gospel according to Peter was used by other early writers. The slight traces which alone we could hope to find, and which several able critics do find,[57] cannot be decisive of anything, and whilst there may be a faint literary interest in pursuing such researches, they need not detain us here. A short consideration may, however, be given to Tatian. Some critics, impressed apparently with the idea that no early Gospels can possibly be otherwise than dependent on our canonical works, yet having to explain the continuous divergence from the canonical narratives, advance the suggestion, that the writer of the Gospel according to Peter may have derived all the points which the fragment contains, in common with one or more of the canonical Gospels, from a Harmony of our Gospels. Now, the only Harmony of the second century which, they think, has survived is the so-called “Diatessaron” of Tatian. Of course, they find that the “Diatessaron” “might have furnished the writer of the fragment with all the incidents which he shares with any of the Four Gospels.” Dr. Swete continues: “The order in Peter is not always the same as it seems to have been [pg 036] in Tatian, but differences of order may be disregarded in our inquiry, since they are equally embarrassing if we assume that the writer had recourse to the Gospels as separate books.”[58]

Not content with the conclusion that the Gospels, narrating the very same history, might have furnished the incidents which they have in common, Dr. Swete proceeds “to compare the ‘Diatessaron’ with our fragment, with the view of ascertaining whether Tatian would have provided the Petrine writer with the words which he seems to have adopted from the Four Gospels.”[59]

This is not the place to discuss again the identity of the supposed “Diatessaron,” but it will be sufficient to point out that we have it only in an Arabic version, published and translated by Ciasca, and a translation of the supposed Armenian version of the Commentary upon it, ascribed to Ephraem, which again Moesinger, who edited the Latin version published in 1876, declares to be itself translated from the Syriac. In these varied transformations of the text, anything like verbal accuracy must be regarded as totally lost. The object in making the versions was not, of course, critical fidelity, and variations from canonical texts would, no doubt, often or always be regarded as accidental and to be corrected. Such translations can never, in textual criticism, be accepted as sufficient representations of the original. The process, however, by which Dr. Swete proceeds to ascertain whether the author of the fragment derives from Tatian the words which he seems to have adopted from the Four Gospels, is to place side by side with the Petrine narrative, in certain crucial passages, the corresponding portions of the “Diatessaron,” approximately represented in Greek, and [pg 037] he selects the accounts of the mockery, the three hours, the burial, and the visit of the women to the tomb. He thus explains his system: “The plan adopted has been to substitute for Ciasca's translation of the Arabic Tatian the corresponding portions of the canonical Gospels. The text has been determined by a comparison of Ciasca's Latin with Moesinger's Evangelii Concordantis Expositio, and the Curetonian Syriac of Luke xxiii., xxiv. It claims, of course, only to be an approximate and provisional representation of the text of the original work.”[60] However impartial Dr. Swete may have tried to be—and without doubt he did endeavour to be so—such a test is vitiated and rendered useless by the antecedent manipulation of the texts. The result at which he arrives is: “This comparison does not justify the conclusion that the writer of our fragment was limited to the use of the ‘Diatessaron’ ”—the exact contents of which, in its original shape, be it noted, Dr. Swete, a few lines further on, admits that we do not know, “so that it would be unsafe to draw any negative inference” from certain exceptions.

On the whole we may perhaps claim to have established a strong presumption that the Petrine writer employed a Harmony which, in its general selection of extracts, and in some of its minuter arrangements, very nearly resembled the Harmony of Tatian. This is not equivalent to saying that he used Tatian, because there is some reason to think that there may have been a Harmony or Harmonies earlier than Tatian.... Thus the relation of the Petrine writer to Tatian remains for the present an open question; but enough has been said to render such a relation probable, if further inquiries should lead us to place the Gospel of Peter after the publication of the “Diatessaron.”[61]

It must frankly be asserted that the whole of this comparison with Tatian, and the views so curiously expressed regarding the result, are the outcome of a [pg 038] preconceived idea that the Petrine author compiled his Gospel mainly from the canonical. The divergencies being so great, however, and the actual contradictions so strong, it becomes necessary to account for them in some way, and the theory of the use of a Harmony is advanced to see whether it may not overcome some of the difficulties. It would have been more to the purpose to have inquired whether the so-called “Diatessaron” did not make use of the Gospel according to Peter, amongst others.

In connection with this it may be well to refer to some remarkable observations of Professor J. Rendel Harris regarding the relation of the Gospel according to Peter and Tatian's Harmony. When the fragment was first discovered, he was naturally struck by its great importance. “The Gospel of Peter, even in the imperfect form in which it has come down to us, is the breaking of a new seal, the opening of a fresh door,” he said, “to those who are engaged in the problems presented by Biblical and Patristic criticism,”[62] and he very rightly proceeded to try to find out “whether Peter has used Tatian, or Tatian Peter, or whether both of them are working upon common sources.”[63] He first refers to “a curious addition to the story of the Crucifixion, which can be shown, with a very high probability, to have once stood in the Harmony of Tatian.” The most interesting and instructive part of the reference is that Mr. Harris had made and published, some years before the discovery of the fragment before us, certain notes on the Harmony of Tatian, in which he had employed “the method of combination of passages in different writers who were known to have used the Harmony, or different texts which were suspected of having borrowed [pg 039] from it, to show that in the account of the Crucifixion there stood a passage something like the following:

“They beat their breasts and said, Woe unto us, for the things which are done to-day for our sins; for the desolation of Jerusalem hath drawn nigh.”[64]

It is unnecessary here to quote the way Mr. Harris arrived at this passage, which he frankly states, but at once go on to compare it with our fragment. He sums up:

Now the reader will be interested to see that the missing sentence which I restored to Tatian's text has turned up in the Gospel of Peter, for we read that: “The Jews and the elders and the priests, when they saw what an evil deed they had done to themselves, began to beat their breasts and to say, Woe to our sins, for the judgment and the end of Jerusalem is at hand.” Did the false Peter take this from Tatian, or was it the other way? or did both of them use some uncanonical writing or tradition?[65]

“There is nothing in what follows in the Arabic Harmony,” Mr. Harris points out, “which suggests an allusion to the desolation of the city, or an imprecation upon, or lamentation over, themselves.”[66]

Very few will feel any doubt that this is taken from our Gospel according to Peter, or possibly—for of course there is no absolute proof—from the tradition which the writer of that Gospel also used, and not by the writer from the Harmony; and it may be suggested that the omission of this and similar passages from versions [pg 040] of the Harmony may have been influenced by the fact that, not forming part of our Gospels, and not agreeing with the preconceived theory of a Harmony of our four Gospels, such passages were excluded as interpolations.

Another instance given by Mr. Harris is the statement in the fragment: “Then the sun shone out, and it was found to be the ninth hour,” which he compares with the language of “Tatian's” commentator: “Three hours the sun was darkened, and afterwards it shone out again.”[67] And further:

Another case of parallelism is in the speech of the angel to Mary: “He is not here, for he is risen, and has gone away to the place from whence he was sent.” At first sight this looks like a wilful expansion on the part of the writer of the Gospel; but on a reference to the Persian father Aphrahat, who is more than suspected of having used the text of Tatian, we find the words, “And the angels said to Mary, He is risen, and gone away to him that sent him,” which is very nearly in coincidence with the text of the false Peter.[68]

Neither of these passages is found in the actual text of “Tatian.” Finally, we may quote the other instance pointed out by Mr. Harris:

The Docetic quotation from the Psalm “My Power, my Power, hast thou forsaken me?” is peculiar in this respect, that the second possessive pronoun is wanting, so that we ought to translate it “Power, my Power ...” Now, it is curious that Tatian's text had a similar peculiarity, for Ephrem gives it as “God, my God,” and the Arabic Harmony as Yaiil, Yaiili, where the added suffix belongs to the possessive pronoun. This is a remarkable coincidence, and makes one suspect that Tatian had “Power, my Power” in his text, and that it has been corrected away. And it is significant that Ephrem in commenting on the passage, says: “The divinity did not so far depart from the humanity as to be cut off from it, but only [pg 041]as regards the power of the divinity, which was hidden both from the Slain and the slayers.” This looks very suspicious that Ephrem found something in his text of Tatian differing from the words “God, my God.”[69]

Mr. Harris reserves his final judgment on this relation between Tatian and the Gospel according to Peter; but as in a later article[70] he is not unwilling to allow the date of a.d. 130 to be assigned to the fragment, it is scarcely to be decided as Peter quoting Tatian. Mr. Harris throughout these passages, however, states the case in a most impartial manner, and the reader must form his own opinion.

We may, before leaving “Tatian,” point out another instance of agreement to which Mr. Harris does not allude. In the Commentary there is the following passage: “Et dederunt ei bibere acetum et fel. Acetum ei porrexerunt, pro felle autem magna ejus miseratio amaritudinem gentium dulcem fecit.”[71] It will be remembered that this agrees with the representation of the fragment that they gave Jesus “vinegar and gall” to drink.

All these instances may, indeed, throw a new light upon the Diapente in the text of Victor, which has so exercised apologists, and lead to the opinion that Tatian's Harmony was not composed out of four Gospels, but out of five. If it be agreed, as it is by a majority of critics, that Justin made use of the Gospel of Peter, the probability that his pupil Tatian likewise possessed the same work, and used it for his Harmony, is immensely increased.

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