Loading...In a previous post I discussed the Apocalypse of Peter that was considered by a number of early Christians to be an inspired book of Scripture. There is another early Christian book with the same name, which is differentiated from the “proto-orthodox” one I’ve already discussed by being normally referred to as the “Coptic Apocalypse of Peter.” It is intriguing both because it has a view of Christ completely different from what became the orthodox view (here the man Jesus and the divine Christ are actually different beings who are temporarily united up to the point of Jesus’ death), and because it claims those with a different view (e.g., the view that “Christ died for the sins of the world”) are the heretics!
Here is how I discuss it in my book Lost Christianities:
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Among the gnostic attacks on the superficiality of proto-orthodox views, none is more riveting than the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter discovered at Nag Hammadi. This is not to be confused with the proto-orthodox Apocalypse of Peter in which Peter is given a guided tour of heaven and hell. The Nag Hammadi “apocalypse” or “revelation” portrays the true nature of Christ and castigates the ignorance of the simple minded (= the proto-orthodox) who do not recognize it.
The book begins with the teachings of “The Savior,” who informs Peter that there are many false teachers who are “blind and deaf,” who blaspheme the truth, and teach what is evil. Peter, on the other hand, will be given secret knowledge (Apoc. Pet. 73). Jesus goes on to tell Peter that his opponents are “without perception.” Why? Because “they hold fast to the name of a dead man.” In other words, they think that it is Jesus’ death that matters for salvation. That, of course, had been the proto-orthodox view from the beginning. But for this author, those who maintain such a thing “blaspheme the truth and proclaim evil teaching” (Apoc. Pet. 74).
Indeed, those who confess a dead man cling to death, not to immortal life. These souls are dead and were created for death.
Not every soul comes from the truth nor from immortality. For every soul of these ages has death assigned to it. Consequently it is always a slave. It is created for its desires and their eternal destruction, for which they exist and in which they exist. They (the souls) love the material creatures which came forth with them. But the immortal souls are not like these, O Peter. But indeed as long as the hour has not yet come, she (the immortal soul) will indeed resemble a mortal one (Apoc. Pet. 75).
Gnostics in the world may appear to be like other people; but they are different, not clinging to material things or living according to their desires. Their souls are immortal, even though this is not widely known: “Others do not understand mysteries, although they speak of these things which they do not understand. Nevertheless they will boast that the mystery of the truth is theirs alone” (Apoc. Pet. 76). Who are these who fail to understand, who do not teach the truth? “And there will be others of those who are outside our number who name themselves ‘bishop’ and also ‘deacons,’ as if they have received their authority from God…. These people are dry canals” (Apoc. Pet. 79). This is scarcely complimentary to the leaders of the Christian churches: they are not fountains of knowledge and wisdom but dried-up river beds.
But what is this knowledge that is accessible to the immortal souls that are not riveted to material things? It is knowledge about the true nature of Christ himself and his crucifixion, which is only mistakenly thought (by the proto-orthodox) to refer to the death of Christ for sins. In fact the true Christ cannot be touched by pain, suffering, and death but is well beyond them all. What was crucified was not the divine Christ, but simply his physical shell.
In a captivating scene, Peter is said to witness the crucifixion, and admits to being confused by what he sees: When he had said those things, I saw him apparently being seized by them. And I said, “What am I seeing, O Lord? Is it you yourself whom they take? … Who is this one above the cross, who is glad and laughing? And is it another person whose feet and hands they are hammering?”
Jesus then gives the stunning reply, which shows the true meaning of the crucifixion: The Savior said to me, “He whom you see above the cross, glad and laughing, is the living Jesus. But he into whose hands and feet they are driving the nails is his physical part, which is the substitute. They are putting to shame that which is in his likeness. But look at him and me.” (Apoc. Pet. 81)
Not Christ himself, but only his physical likeness, is put to death. The living Christ transcends death — literally transcends the cross. For there he is, above it, laughing at those who think they can hurt him, at those who think the divine spirit within him can suffer and die. But the spirit of Christ is beyond pain and death, as are the spirits of those who understand who he really is, who know the truth of who they really are — spirits embodied in a physical likeness, but who cannot suffer or die. The vision then continues:
And I saw someone about to approach us who looked like him, even him who was laughing above the cross, and he was filled with a pure spirit, and he was the Savior…. And he said to me, “Be strong! For you are the one to whom these mysteries have been given, to know through revelation that he whom they crucified is the first-born, and the home of demons, and the clay vessel in which they dwell, belonging to Elohim [i.e., the God of this world], and belonging to the cross that is under the law. But he who stands near him is the living Savior, the primal part in him whom they seized. And he has been released. He stands joyfully looking at those who persecuted him…. Therefore he laughs at their lack of perception. Indeed, therefore, the suffering one must remain, since the body is the substitute. But that which was released was my incorporeal body” (Apoc. Pet., 82)
The body is just a shell, belonging to the creator of this world [= Elohim, the Hebrew word for God in the Old Testament]. The true self is within, and cannot be touched by physical pain. Those without this true knowledge think they can kill Jesus. But the living Jesus rises above it all and laughs them to scorn. And who is really the object of his derision? The proto-orthodox, who think that the death of Jesus is the key to salvation. For this author, this is a laughable view. Salvation does not come in the body; it comes by escaping the body. It is not the dead Jesus who saves but the living Jesus. So-called believers who don’t understand are not the beneficiaries of Jesus’ death; they are mocked by it.
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When did church leaders and writers (eg, apologists) first start to become people who were not converts but were born and raised Christian and who were a few of the notable figures? I assume all were “gentiles.” Does it seem to make any difference in their ideas that they were born Christian?
Probably by the 40s ce there were “born Christians” — presumably Christain converts had babies! BUt as to church leaders, it’s hard to say, since our evidence is so scant. But I would assume we start seeing head of churches who had been born Christian by the 60s.
I looked at an online translation and I noticed one reference in the text to the Parousia though to me it seems rather obscure. How would the thinkers behind this text have conceptualized the Resurrection and the Parousia given their view of the Crucifixion?
Thanks
They either didn’t believe in a resurrection or they thought that the Christ raised the man Jesus from the dead. THe Parousia would not have been an issue for these groups.
In your “The New Testament” you say that one of the (minor) ways that “Paul…portrays Christ’s death [is] as a sacrifice that, like [Jewish] sacrifices of animals,…was designed to bring atonement with God. This…embodies the ancient view that the blood of a sacrifice ‘covers over’ the sins of the people: … [ie] expiation.”
What does “cover over” mean? To cleanse or wipe away or cover up? Why is blood needed to do this-rather than, say, water?
Is the animal thought to also be receiving some kind of punishment in the place of the sinner?
THe idea appears to be that the blood on an altar covers over ones sins (imagined as a physical entity placed there before God) so that God doesn’t see them any more.
Do you think these Gnostic teachings were in any way connected to or derived from the teachings of the early Jewish Christians, who may have put more emphasis on the teachings of Jesus than the atonement theology? One common theme: in Mark 4:11, 12 Jesus explains that only a select few will “get” his teachings and thus be saved. When Jesus is on the cross he cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” because the spiritual entity has left the physical body. I understand some scholars think there may have been a connection between the Ebionites and the Gnostics. Or maybe it’s just that some of their beliefs overlapped, with no real connection?
Ah, scholars over the years have come up with all sorts of views about how the various Jewish groups related to other groups, including Gnostics. The Gnostics, as we now define them, are a second-century phenomenon; they sometimes used earlier materials also used by proto-orthodox groups, so some of them would have found Mark 4:11-12 completely palatable and the Valentinian Gospel of Philip quotes the cry of dereliction as *evidence* that hte divine being left Jesus at this point. But it’s not clear how much Sethians, Valentinians, or other Gnostic groups were made up of Jewish Christians (not much if at all, in my guess) even if some of the earlier Jewish Christian views (e.g., extreme dualism in some apocalyptic systems) would have appealed to them. Ebionites as normally understood were decidedly not Gnostic, though some church fathers do associate them.
The text doesn’t seem outlandish IF you believe that Jesus was God. The body died. Jesus wasn’t the body. Jesus never died. Worship the body, the man, or the being who transcends that body? The Trinity doctrine seems to make it difficult to differentiate. In the martyrdom stories, the attitudes of the martyrs seem to duplicate the attitude of Jesus in this Coptic Apocalypse, don’t they? The mortal body is gladly shed, and the immortal soul within is freed from its earthly prison. Christian thinking, again, comes across as incoherent and inconsistent. Or am I missing some subtle point?
One person’s outlandish ceiling is another one’s sensible floor! (Of course at this time there wasn’t a doctrine of the trinity; and in this account there are *literally* three, four, or more Christs, depending on whom you count; and for proto-orthodox theologians, to say Christ himself did not die is hugely problematic for understanding how salvation worked)
Dr. Ehrman, unrelated question here, I’m reading your book “Heaven and Hell” for a second time. Was Goliath descended from the Nepilim? Or just a really big guy? -Thanks~!
The Nephilim were wiped out by the flood, so I think he was just a monster of a man.
This chain touches upon the doctrine that Jesus died for humankind’s sins, and that this human sacrifice now substitutes for the animal sacrifices.
Here is what I don’t understand: every Jew in the Land of Israel in Jesus’ time for whom Torah was read on Yom Kippur knew that the freed goat – from whom the word scapegoat derives-who was sent to some accursed place ( Azazel) , carried on its back the sins of Israel, once, and collectively.
As for Temple sacrifices, only those living close by could make such personal use of these. Would the first Jewish Christians have believed that anyone had to die for THEIR sins? Their religion and two unfortunate goats already took care of that.
Secondly, Judaism emphasized, as it does today, personal responsibility for one’s sins. Could any Jew believe in the expiatory death of Jesus? Perhaps only pagan gentiles could agree.
Lastly, the reinstitution of human sacrifice would have been an abomination to Jews. Since Abraham, at least in theory, God no longer required human sacrifices. The human sacrifice of Jesus would have signified a huge step back. So then, how could Jews relate at all to these aspects of the dogma?
My sense is that there were various views among Jews — no single orthodoxy at the time. There were certainly a wide range of views of the efficacy of sacrifice, the validity of the temple cult, the role of priests, and so on. I’d say that some Jews *could* believe in a human expiatory sacrifice since the followrs of Jesus were Jews and some of them certainly did. (The Akedah is especially interesting, because in some Christian theology it became the standard explanation; God stopped Abraham — but didn’t condemn the idea — and then fulfilled himself what Abraham was going to do by Himself sacrificing His Own Son…)
The laughing Jesus would make a good comedian!
One that some hearers didn’t think was very funny!