IV
We may now consider whether Justin Martyr was acquainted with it, and here again it may be well to remind the reader that we have only a small fragment of the Gospel according to Peter to compare with the allusions to be found in writings of the Fathers. In these early works, few quotations are made with any direct mention of the source from which they were taken, and as only those parts of Patristic writings which deal with the trial, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus can be expected to present analogies with our fragment, it will readily be seen how limited the range of testimony must naturally be. Justin Martyr is usually supposed to have died about a.d. 163-165,[23] and his first “Apology” may be dated a.d. 147, and the “Dialogue with Trypho” somewhat later. In these writings, Justin very frequently refers to facts, and to sayings of Jesus, making, indeed, some hundred and fifty quotations of this kind from certain “Memoirs of the Apostles” (ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων), all of which differ more or less from our present canonical Gospels. He never mentions the name of any author of these Memoirs, if indeed he was acquainted with one, unless it be upon one occasion, which is of peculiar interest in connection with our fragment. The instance to which we refer is the following. Justin says: “The statement also that [pg 021] he [Jesus] changed the name of Peter, one of the Apostles, and that this is written in his [Peter's] Memoirs as having been done, together with the fact that he also changed the name of other two brothers, who were sons of Zebedee, to Boanerges—that is, sons of thunder,” &c.[24] It was, of course, argued that the αὐτοῦ here does not refer to Peter but to Jesus; or that the word should be amended to αὐτῶν and applied to the Apostles; but the majority of critics naturally decided against such royal ways of removing difficulties, and were forced to admit a reference to “Memoirs of Peter.” Hitherto, the apologetic explanation has been that the allusion of Justin must have been to the second Synoptic, generally referred to Mark, who was held by many of the Fathers to be the mere mouthpiece and “interpreter of Peter,” and that this reference is supported by the fact that the Gospel according to Mark is the only one of the four canonical works which narrates these changes of name. This argument, however, is disposed of by the fact that our second Synoptic cannot possibly be considered the work referred to in the tradition of Papias.[25] Returning to Justin, we find that he designates the source of his quotations ten times as “Memoirs of the Apostles;” five times he calls it simply “Memoirs,” and upon one occasion only explains that they were written “by his Apostles and their followers.” He never speaks indefinitely of “Memoirs of Apostles,” but always of the collective Apostles, except in the one instance which has been quoted above. In a single passage there occurs an expression which must be quoted. [pg 022] Justin says: “For the Apostles in the Memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels,” &c.[26] The ἂ καλεῖται εὐαγγέλια has very much the appearance of a gloss in the margin of some MS., which has afterwards been transferred to the text by a scribe, as scholars have before now suggested; but in any case it makes little difference in the argument.
It is obvious that the name “Memoirs” cannot with any degree of propriety be applied to our canonical Gospels; but the discovery of this fragment, which is distinctly written as a personal narrative, throws fresh light upon the subject, and the title “Memoirs of Peter,” would exactly describe the form in which the Gospel is written. It may further be suggested whether it does not give us reason for conjecturing that the earlier documents, from which our Gospels were composed, were similarly personal narratives or memoirs of those who took part in early Christian development. The tradition preserved to us by Papias distinctly points in this direction:
This also the Presbyter said: Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote accurately whatever he remembered, though he did not arrange in order the things which were either said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord, nor followed him; but afterwards, as I said, accompanied Peter, who adapted his teaching to the occasion, and not as making a consecutive record of the Lord's oracles.[27]
There can be very little doubt that the first teaching of Apostles and early catechists must have taken the form of personal recollections of various episodes of Christian history and reports of discourses and parables, with an account of the circumstances under which they were delivered. This familiar and less impressive mode of tracing Christian history must gradually have been [pg 023] eliminated from successive forms of the story drawn up for the use of the growing Church, until, in the Gospels adopted into the Canon, it had entirely disappeared. In the fourth Gospel, a slight trace of it remains in the reference in the third person to the writer, and it is present in parts of the Apocalypse; but a more marked instance is to be found in the “Acts of the Apostles;” not so much in the prologue—which, of course, is not really part of the book—where the author distinctly speaks in the first person, as in the narrative after the call to Macedonia (xvi. 10-17), where the writer falls into the use of the first person plural (ἡμεῖς), resumes it after a break (xx. 5-15), and abandons it again, till it is recommenced in xxi. 1-18, xxvii. 1, xxviii. 16. As the author doubtless made use of written sources of information, like the writers of our Gospels, it is most probable that, in these portions of the Acts, he simply inserted portions of personal written narratives which had come into his possession. The Gospel according to Peter, which escaped the successive revisals of the canonical Gospels, probably presents the more original form of such histories. We are, of course, unable to say whether the change of names referred to by Justin was recorded in earlier portions of this Gospel which have not been recovered, but the use of the double name, “I, Simon Peter,” favours the supposition that it was.
Without attaching undue importance to it, it may be well to point out—in connection with Origen's statement that, in the Gospel according to Peter, the brethren of Jesus are represented as being of a previous marriage—that the only genealogy of Jesus which is recognised by Justin is traced through the Virgin Mary, and excludes Joseph.[28] She it is who is descended from [pg 024] Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and from the house of David. The genealogy of Jesus in the canonical Gospels, on the contrary, is traced solely through Joseph, who alone is stated to be of the lineage of David. The genealogies of the first and third Synoptics, though differing in several important particulars, at least agree in excluding Mary. In the third Gospel Joseph goes to Judæa “unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David.”[29] Justin simply states that Joseph went “to Bethlehem ... for his descent was from the tribe of Judah, which inhabited that region.”[30] Justin could not, therefore, derive his genealogies from the canonical Gospels; and his Memoirs, from which he learns the Davidic descent through Mary only, to which he refers no less than eleven times, differed from them distinctly on this point. The Gospel according to Peter, which, according to Origen, contained a statement which separated Jesus from his brethren in the flesh, in all probability must have traced the Davidic descent through Mary. The Gospel of James, commonly called the “Protevangelium,” to a form of which, at least, Origen refers at the same time as the Gospel according to Peter, states that Mary was of the lineage of David.[31] There are other peculiarities in Justin's account of the angelic announcement to Mary differing distinctly from our canonical Gospels,[32] regarding some of which Tischendorf was of opinion that they were derived from the “Protevangelium;” but there are reasons for supposing that they may have come from a still older work, and if it should seem that Justin made use of the Gospel according to Peter, these may also have been taken from it. [pg 025] In the absence of the rest of the Gospel, however, all this must be left for the present as mere conjecture.
The fragment begins with a broken sentence presenting an obviously different story of the trial of Jesus from that of the canonical Gospels. “... but of the Jews no man (τῶν δὲ Ἰουδαίων οὐδεὶς) washed his hands, neither Herod (οὐδὲ Ἡρῴδης) nor any of his judges.... Pilate rose up (ἀνέστη Πειλᾶτος). And then Herod the King (Ἡρῴδης ὁ βασιλεὺς) commandeth the Lord to be taken,” &c. Justin in one place[33] refers to this trial as foretold by the prophetic spirit, and speaks of what was done against the Christ “by Herod the King of the Jews, and the Jews themselves, and Pilate who was your governor among them, and his soldiers” (Ἡρώδου τοῦ βασιλέως Ἰουδαίων καὶ αὐτῶν Ἰουδαίων καὶ Πιλάτου τοῦ ὑμετέρου παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς γενομένου ἐπιτρόπου σὺν τοῖς αὐτοῦ στρατιώταις). This combination agrees with the representation of the fragment, and of course differs from that of the Gospels. In Dial. ciii. Justin repeats this to some extent, adding that he sent Jesus “bound” (δεδεμένον). This representation does not exist in Luke, but neither is it found in what we have of the Gospel according to Peter, though it may have occurred in the commencement of the scene to which we are so abruptly introduced.
Justin says in another place: “For as the prophet said, worrying him[34] (διασύροντες αὐτὸν), they set him (ἐκάθισαν) upon a judgment seat (ἐπὶ βήματος), and said, ‘Judge for us’ (Κρῖνον ἡμῖν).”[35] In the Gospel [pg 026] according to Peter we have: “They said, ‘Let us drag along (σύρωμεν) the Son of God’ ... and they set Him (ἐκάθισαν αὐτὸν) upon a seat of judgment (καθέδραν κρίσεως), saying, ‘Judge justly (Δικαίως κρῖνε), King of Israel.’ ”[36] This representation is different from any in our Gospels, and it has some singular points of agreement with our fragment. It has frequently been suggested that Justin, in this passage, makes use of our canonical Gospels with a combination of the Septuagint version of Isaiah lviii. 2, 3, and that this is supported by the expression “as said the prophet.” This does not sufficiently explain the passage, however. The Septuagint version of the part of Isaiah lviii. 2 referred to reads: αἰτοῦσίν με νῦν κρίσιν δικαίαν—“They ask me now for just judgment.”