A specific feature of the Gospel of Peter is the description of the life and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus does not suffer on the cross; the only phrase he uttered was "My strength, my strength, you have left me!" After this exclamation, he "ascended" (died). In the New Testament Gospels, Jesus' last words are translated in different ways: in the Gospel of Luke, he says: "Father, forgive them! Into Thy hands I commend my spirit" (23:46), in the Gospel of John, Jesus, after talking to the disciple to whom he entrusted his mother, says: "I thirst" (the Evangelist adds: "That the Scripture may be fulfilled") – and then pronounces the last word: "It is finished" (19:28-30). The Gospels of Mark and Matthew quote in Aramaic a quotation from an Old Testament psalm, which Jesus pronounced before his death: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27. 46; Mk. 15:34), is a dramatic episode that probably dates back to the oldest Aramaic tradition about the execution of Jesus. The fragment of the Gospel of Peter gives a peculiar paraphrase, dating back to the early tradition reflected in Mark and Matthew; the author of the Gospel of Peter replaced God with "power," which, like quite different versions of Jesus' last words in Luke and John, was a consequence of the sacralization of his image.

So, according to the Gospel of Peter, as long as Jesus had some power, he did not suffer, but as soon as it left him, he died. This exclamation does not have the bitter meaning that an appeal to God who left him (i.e., as if he had forgotten about him) could have: the divine power leaves the body, and he ceases to live earthly life. The concept of divine power existed in Gnostic teachings (see, for example, the Apocrypha of John, which speaks of the power of the invisible spirit that it gives to the zones). On this basis, however, the "power" of the Gospel of Peter is hardly to be identified with the Gnostic concept. Clement of Alexandria wrote of the power that entered into Christ at baptism (Excerpta ex Thedot. Opera. 61), which was in accordance with the teaching of the Judeo-Christians that the spirit entered the preacher of Jesus at baptism. In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter says that God anointed Jesus "with the Holy Spirit and power" (10:38). It is possible that the words about power were put into Peter's mouth by the author of the Acts of the Apostles for a reason, since such a sermon was associated in the Christian tradition (perhaps already written down) with his name.

Nor does the text of the fragment suggest a direct influence of the Docetists, who, according to Serapion, revered the Gospel, although they did not write it. The Docetists, like a number of Gnostic authors, considered Jesus' sojourn on earth to be apparent (in the Gnostic Gospel of Truth about Christ it is said that he came in "the likeness of a body"); But the absence of suffering did not mean an apparent bodily existence, but only the presence in the body of the divine power, which delivered from these sufferings. The reality of the body is emphasized in the Gospel of Peter at least by the fact that when it was taken down from the cross and laid on the ground, the earth shook. It is also characteristic that the author continues to apply the word "Lord" to the deceased Jesus ("And then they pulled the nails out of the hands of the Lord and laid him on the ground." – 6:21).

The description of the resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of Peter looks completely fantastic. In the New Testament gospels, the very moment of resurrection takes place in secret: the disciples see an empty tomb, angels (angels) announcing the resurrection, and then the already resurrected Jesus appears to them. Peter describes all the details of the resurrection, and it takes place before the eyes of many witnesses: first the heavens opened, and two angels (men) descended from there, who entered the tomb and brought out a third, but not in the former, human, but in a fantastic form (his head was "higher than heaven"). Behind them walks the cross, and from the cross comes the answer to the question that sounded from heaven: "Did you preach to the departed?" The description of the resurrection has no parallels in the other Gospels known to us (it is possible that some similar story was included in other apocrypha that have not come down to us). But the very idea of the resurrection of the body in a transfigured form was not alien to Christian groups. In the Apocalypse of John, the work of the New Testament closest to Judeo-Christianity, Christ also has a fantastic appearance. He appears in the form of a lamb "as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes" (5:6), which symbolized the seven spirits of God, i.e. the resurrected Christ could appear in any form, which did not so much reveal as hint at his true, incomprehensible essence. In the Gnostic Gospel of Philip, the bodily resurrection is interpreted in a special way: "Neither flesh nor blood can inherit the kingdom of God." According to this saying, Jesus' flesh is the Logos and his blood is the Holy Spirit (23).

The entire description of the resurrection of Jesus is close to apocalyptic literature. The living cross in this story is not just a fantastic detail. The cross accompanies Jesus to heaven and in the Apocalypse of Peter, thereby acquiring the meaning of a sacred symbol [126]. The shameful instrument of execution, so often used in reality, is also transformed, becomes the "tree" of eternal life [127].

At the very end of the fragment, the story begins about the appearance of the resurrected Jesus to his disciples (or only to Peter). The appearance on the Tiberias Sea (lake) is described in the Gospel of John (21:1), but it is not the first there. Luke describes in detail the appearance of Jesus to the disciples on the road to the village of Emmaus (24:13-15; cf. Mk. 16:12), but when these disciples returned and told the others, they in turn said that "the Lord has truly risen and appeared to Simon" (24:34). In this case, the Gospel of Luke, as well as the account of the trial of Jesus, seems to have combined the tradition that goes back to the earliest of the Synoptic Gospels (Mark) with the tradition used in the Gospel of Peter.

Thus, an analysis of the content of the extant fragment of the Gospel of Peter indicates that it was based on the ancient Christian tradition used in the New Testament; however, we can also talk about the existence of a special tradition that was associated with the Apostle Peter and which is reflected in the canonical writings only in isolated mentions. The author of the Gospel of Peter may have been familiar with the New Testament writings, but he may have used some other sources, such as the author of the unknown Gospel that has come down in fragments on papyrus (see above). However, this ancient tradition was reworked in the Gospel of Peter for certain doctrinal purposes.

If we do not try to break down the passage that has come down to us into its component parts and do not find out which phrase reflects which tradition, then it gives the impression of a complete story that develops two main themes: the theme of the manifestation of the miracle, the manifestation of the divinity of Christ, and the theme of the guilt of those who gave him over to torture and did not recognize him, despite this manifestation. The surviving text does not contain the theme of salvation and redemption, which are so important in other Christian books; nor are there any references to the prophecies that are fulfilled in the fate of Jesus; The only Old Testament reference, and even then not entirely accurate, refers to the prescription of the Jewish law, which the Jews must observe. Divinity

Jesus is revealed through signs and wonders, not through the fulfillment of prophecies, which fundamentally distinguishes the Gospel of Peter, with all the similarity of the factual details used, from the works of the New Testament. Thus, in the Gospel of Mark, after the words that Jesus was crucified among the thieves, an explanation is given: "And the word of the Scripture was fulfilled: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors'" (15. 28); in the Gospel of John, both the division of Jesus' garments by lot and his words "thirst" are connected with the fulfillment of the Scriptures (19:24, 29). And in the Acts of the Apostles, Peter, speaking of Jesus, emphasizes that "of him all the prophets bear witness, that whosoever believeth in him shall receive forgiveness of sins in his name" (10:43). The "authenticity" of the miracles in the Gospel of Peter is also emphasized by the fact that the narration is conducted in the first person, which is not characteristic of the authors of the canonical gospels [128]. Characteristically, throughout the extant text, the author nowhere uses the name of Jesus, but only "Lord," and even the dead body is the body of the "Lord"; in this way, the text is sacralized, those who read and listen to this text should have realized that no matter what torments and humiliations Jesus was subjected to, he was Lord all the time; and juxtaposing the description of the bullying of the crowd and the guards with the insistently repeated word "Lord" creates a sense of tension and impending retribution. The same purpose is served by the fact that the first day of the week, the day of the resurrection, is called "the day of the Lord," as Christians later began to call it, even before the story of the resurrection. The villain who believes in Jesus calls him the savior of men, even though the act of salvation—Christ's atoning death—has not yet taken place.129 But true believers have come to know this by their faith, while those responsible for his death are unwilling to believe, even when the resurrection itself takes place before their eyes.

This contrast brings us to the second theme, closely intertwined with the first, the theme of guilt. Perhaps the refusal to refer to Scripture is determined not only by a reluctance to connect Christian teaching with Jewish teaching, as those who see an anti-Jewish orientation in the passage believe, but primarily by a desire to bring to the fore the idea of guilt and punishment. "They have completed their sins" is the main leitmotif of the description of the actions directed against Jesus. In fact, the problem of guilt did not confront the first supporters of Christian teaching. For them, his death and resurrection were a sign of redemption and salvation: they awaited the Second Coming, the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth and the destruction not so much of his personal enemies as of all the bearers of evil; as it is said in the Apocalypse of John, all those who have not repented of worshipping idols, "of their murders, nor of their sorcery, nor of their fornication, nor of their theft" (9:20-21) will receive retribution. But then, after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem as a result of the defeat of the First Jewish Revolt, and even more so after the suppression of the Second Jewish Revolt (131-134) under the leadership of Bar Kokhba, which aroused hopes for the imminent end of the world, the question arose of the causes of these disasters, of guilt and retribution. Echoes of the destruction of Jerusalem are found in the Gospel of Luke, which, as already indicated, uses a tradition common to the Gospel of Peter: during the Way of the Cross, Jesus says to the weeping women: "Daughters of Jerusalem! Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children, for the days are coming in which they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not begotten, and the breasts that have not nourished!'" (23. 28–29). But Luke does not have such a pronounced emphasis on guilt and retribution for that guilt as in the apocrypha in question. The guilt of the Jewish elders is especially terrible, because they were witnesses of the resurrection, realized that they had sent the Messiah to death, but out of cowardice they went to deception, persuading Pilate not to tell anything about the resurrection.

The acuteness of the question of guilt can be attributed not only to the desire to provide a religious explanation for the disasters that befell Judea, but also to the attitude of Palestinian Christians during the two anti-Roman uprisings. According to Christian tradition, the Ebionites seem to have first joined the first revolt, but then withdrew from it and migrated across the Jordan. The participation of Christians in the Bar Kokhba revolt is not excluded, but they could not recognize Bar Kokhba as the messiah; their cooperation with the insurgents could hardly last long [130].

After the tragic outcome of the Second Jewish Revolt, when the Roman colony of Aelia Kapitalina was founded on the site of Jerusalem, and Emperor Hadrian (117-138) forbade Jews to perform their rites throughout the empire, dissociation from Judaism became a problem for Christians to survive. Perhaps it was after the defeat of the Bar Kokhba revolt that a phrase appeared in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians containing a sharp condemnation of the Jews, "who killed both the Lord Jesus and His prophets, and expelled us, and do not please God, and resist all men" (2:15). This phrase does not fit into the general context of Paul's epistles that are considered authentic; although Paul opposed the observance of the requirement of the Law, he exhorted believers to be true Jews, i.e., Jews in spirit, as it is explicitly stated in the Epistle to the Romans: "But the Jew who is inwardly so, and the circumcision that is in the heart, is in the spirit, and not in the letter..." (2. 28–29). The curses against the Jews in 1 Thessalonians were apparently unknown to Marcion, who processed Paul's epistles and took a sharply anti-Jewish position. Later, this sharply negative attitude towards the Jews in general became characteristic of most works of early Christian literature. For example, Jerome, commenting on biblical prophecies, associated many of them with the defeat of the Bar Kokhba revolt (in one of the commentaries Jerusalem was called a "bloody city" and a "city of unrighteousness") [131]. However, the Gospel of Peter differs from these statements only by the condemnation of the top of the Jews – Herod Antipas, priests, scribes, elders. They are united together with the Roman soldiers in one group of those responsible for the crucifixion.

In this regard, the question arises: in what environment and when could the Gospel of Peter have been created? The author of the extant account was not a Jew, as indicated by the fact that "the law prescribes them" (i.e., the Jews) and by his desire to prove Jesus' supernaturalness, not by reference to prophecy, but by stories of miracles performed before witnesses. At the same time, as we have tried to show in all the preceding analysis of the text, it traces an ancient tradition, in many respects in common with the tradition underlying the canonical gospels, as well as the Judeo-Christian writings. It seems most likely, therefore, that the extant passage was part of a revised Judeo-Christian gospel,[132] possibly also called the Gospel of Peter—it is natural that the name of the apostle who was called to preach among the Jews was intended to sanctify the Judeo-Christian version of Jesus' preaching, death, and resurrection. This first version of the Gospel, in all likelihood, was meant by Theodoret.

The Gospel of Peter was well known to Christian writers of the second century, and Justin knew it: in describing the mockery of Jesus, he says that Jesus was placed in the judgment seat (bemu), and phraseologically this passage echoes the corresponding passage from the Gospel of Peter (Apologia. I. 35). Justin does not refer to the Gospel, but speaks of the "memoirs of the apostles," a title that is most appropriate for the Gospel of Peter, since it is written in the first person.