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.
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.