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.

One might think that the tradition that goes back to the Gospel of Peter was known to the fierce critic of Christianity, Celsus. According to Origen, who polemicized with him, Celsus said that, according to Christians, "the Jews, having executed Jesus and drunk him with gall (italics ours. — Ed.), incurred the wrath of God" [133]. Such an interpretation is absent in the canonical gospels, only in Matthew it is said that Jesus was given vinegar mixed with gall to drink (27:34), in the other three gospels Jesus is given vinegar (Jn. 19. 29; Lux. 23. 16; Mk. 15. 30. Cf. Matt. 27. 48, where only vinegar is also mentioned). In Peter, gall is placed in the first place: it was by giving Jesus gall with vinegar that "they" completed their sins (the word "gall" in Greek also means poison). Thus, Peter's version was so popular among Christians that it was included in the work of their opponent. All this circumstantial evidence suggests that the original version of the Gospel was written at about the same time as the canonical Gospels (perhaps Luke used this text), after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD among the Judeo-Christians of Asia Minor, where they used this Gospel until the turn of the second and third centuries, or in neighboring Syria. The peculiarities of this Gospel, which so acutely posed the problem of guilt and retribution, made it possible to revise it after 134 AD (the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt), when for the Christians of the empire the question of breaking with Judaism became a question not only of doctrine, but also of self-preservation. The sacralization and spiritualization of the image of Jesus, characteristic of the apocrypha, the absence of suffering on the cross, the resurrection in a fantastic form, could attract the attention of the Docetists, who interpreted it in the spirit of their teaching (and perhaps not only interpreted, but also reworked in copying). The idea of a possible revision is also suggested by Serapion's reaction. It is characteristic that Serapion, condemning this Gospel, wrote about the addition of certain commandments. Subsequently, the Gospel of Peter was found to be false. Eusebius calls him among the spurious ones (NE. III. 25).

The Gospel of Peter is of interest to historians of Christianity, because it was created at a time when, according to A. Harnack, the Gospel material was still in an unformed form, the canon did not exist, and this material was freely altered [134]. The very disputes around the orientation of this Gospel, which were conducted by scholars of modern times, indicate that we have before us not a theological treatise, but a work that reflected the Christian teaching in its contradictory development and formation, on the one hand, preserving the most revered ancient tradition about Jesus, and, on the other hand, meeting the needs of believers of the time when it was created — the need for a miracle, for just retribution to those responsible for the death of Jesus. The need to convince the unbelieving pagans of the manifestation of the divine nature of their Savior with the help of stories no less fantastic than those contained in numerous works of literature of the first and second centuries, devoted to miraculous signs, soothsayers, sorcerers, mysterious transformations, etc. for example, Herod's participation in the trial of Jesus). The Gospel of Peter seems to be located between the Judeo-Christian and New Testament traditions, on the one hand, and the Gnostic teachings (which will be discussed later) on the other. Perhaps this is why it was not recognized by the Church: the image of Christ who did not experience suffering was associated with the condemned Gnostic teaching, the direct opposition of the Jewish people to the priesthood and elders connected it with the Judeo-Christian writings that were also condemned, and the fantastic details differed from those described in the recognized sacred books. But, as the find in Akhmim shows, this Gospel (at least fragments of it) continued to be copied and venerated among certain groups of Eastern Christians [135].

The Gospel of Peter [136]

1. 1. … But none of the Jews washed his hands, neither Herod nor any of His judges. And when no one wanted to wash, Pilate arose. 2. Then Herod the king commands the Lord to be taken, saying to them, "What I have commanded you to do with him, do it" [138].

2. 3. Joseph, a friend of Pilate and the Lord, was there, and seeing that they were about to crucify him, he went to Pilate and asked for the body of the Lord for burial. 4. And Pilate sent to Herod to ask for a body. 5. And Herod said, "Brother Pilate [140], even if no one asked, we would bury him, for the Sabbath is coming,[141] for it is written in the Law, 'The sun shall not set on the slain,'" and delivered him to the crowd before the first day of the feast of unleavened bread.

3. 6. And they took Him, and chased Him, and fled, pushing Him, and said, "We persecute the Son of God, having received power over Him." 7. And they clothed him in purple and seated him in the judgment seat, saying, "Judge righteously, O king of Israel" [143]. 8. And one of them brought a crown of thorns and placed it on the head of the Lord. 9. And some standing (nearby) spat in His eyes, others struck Him on the cheeks, some poked at Him with a reed stick, and some scourged Him, saying, "This is the honor with which we shall honor the Son of God."

4. 10. And they brought the two evildoers, and crucified the Lord between them in the middle: but he was silent, as if he were in no pain. 11. And when they lifted up the cross, they wrote (on it), "This is the king of Israel." 12. And having laid His garments before Him, they divided them and cast lots among themselves [144]. 13. But one of the evildoers rebuked them, saying, "Because of the evil we have done, we suffer so much, but He, who is the Savior of men, what evil has He done to you?" 14. And being indignant with him, they gave orders not to break his legs, so that he would die in torment.