We shall not attempt to fix any even approximate date to the Gospel
according to Peter, although we shall presently have to consider its
relation to our canonical Gospels in a way which will at least assign it a
position in time relative to them. Harnack, in the preface to the second
edition of his article on the fragment, suspends his judgment on its
relation to our Gospels, and will not even undertake a sufficient
examination of this important question, so long as there remains a hope of
still recovering more of the Gospel. It is devoutly to be hoped that the
Cemetery of Akhmîm may still give us more of this and other important
early works; but there is no reason why we should not, even now, endeavour
to derive what information we can from this instalment, and the worst—or
the best—which can happen is that future acquisitions may enable us to
correct the errors—or confirm the conclusions—of the present. So long as
we confine ourselves to the legitimate inferences to be drawn from the
actual fragment before us, we cannot go far wrong.
It is frequently possible to assign well-defined limits within which early
works, whose authors are unknown, must have been composed, when a more
precise date cannot with certainty be fixed. Direct references to the
writing, or its use, by writers the period of whose literary work is
known, may enable us to affirm that it was written at least before their
time; and sometimes certain allusions or quotations in the work itself
may, on the other hand, show that it must have been composed after a
certain date; and thus limits, more or less narrow, become certain, within
which its production must lie. The Gospel according to Peter, as we might
expect, contains none of the allusions or quotations to which we refer,
and we are therefore reduced to the one indication of age—reference to, or
the use of it by, early writers, leaving the approximate date to which it
may be set back wholly to conjecture. As we have already remarked above,
the question whether it is dependent on, or independent of, our canonical
Gospels has yet to be considered; but there is too much difference of
opinion regarding the date of these Gospels themselves to render this more
than a relative indication. So far, the opinions of critics assign the
Gospel according to Peter to dates ranging from a period antecedent to our
Gospels, in their present form, to about the middle of the second
century.(72)
The indications of style and phraseology given by the fragment have of
course to be taken into account, and it may be well, before proceeding
further, to examine certain peculiarities which have been pointed out by
writers who assert that the composition is decidedly later than our
canonical Gospels.(73) The writer never speaks of “Jesus” simply, but
always as “the Lord” (ὁ κύριος). He likewise refers to him as the
“Saviour” (σωτήρ) in one place, and several times as “a Son of God” (υἱὸς
τοῦ θεοῦ). Now, with regard to these expressions, they are in constant use
throughout the New Testament writings, in the Gospels themselves, as well
as in the Epistles of Paul and the Epistles popularly ascribed to him. For
instance, ὁ κύριος: Matt. xxi. 3, xxviii. 6;(74) Mark xvi. 19;(75) Luke
vii. 13, x. 1, xi. 39, xii. 42, xiii. 15, xvii. 5, 6, xviii. 6, xix. 8,
31, 34, xxii. 61, xxiv. 3, 34; John vi. 23, xi. 2, xiii. 13, 14, xx. 2,
13, 18, 20, 28, xxi. 7, 12. It is unnecessary to point out passages in the
Acts and Epistles, for “the Lord,” “the Lord Jesus,” or “the Lord Jesus
Christ,” is everywhere used, and indeed no other form, it may be said, is
adopted. “A Son of God” (υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ) is constantly used in the Gospels
and Acts. A few instances may be given: Matt. viii. 29, xiv. 33, xvi. 16,
xxvi. 63, xxvii. 40, 43, 54; Mark i. 1, iii. 11, v. 7, xv. 39; Luke i. 35,
ix. 41, viii. 28, xxii. 70; John i. 34, 49, v. 25, x. 36, xi. 4, 27, xix.
7, xx. 31; Acts ix. 20. Of course, in the Epistles the expression is of
frequent occurrence, as for instance, Rom. i. 4, 9, v. 10; 1 Cor. i. 9; 2
Cor. i. 19; Gal. ii. 20, and elsewhere. It is not necessary to show that
“Saviour” is used, but the following may be pointed out: Luke ii. 11; John
iv. 42; Acts v. 31, xiii. 23; and it more frequently occurs in the
Epistles. All of these expressions are commonly employed in early
Christian literature, such as the “Didache,” Ignatian Epistles, Clement of
Rome, Polycarp, “Pastor” of Hermas, and the “Apology” of Aristides.
The principal phrase upon which weight is laid by those who assign to the
Gospel according to Peter, from this fragment, a later date than our
canonical works, is the use of ἡ κυριακή without ἡμέρα to designate “the
Lord’s day”—Sunday; Dr. Swete calls it “the most decisive indication of
the relatively late composition of our fragment.”(76) After giving some
instances of a similar expression, he states the case as follows:
The name was therefore familiar amongst Eastern Greek-speaking
Christians from the end of the first century. But Peter not only
uses it freely, but seems to be unconscious that he is guilty of
an anachronism when he imports this exclusively Christian term
into the Gospel history. Ἡ κυριακή has so completely supplanted Ἡ
μία τῶν σαββάτων, that it is twice used to describe the first
Easter Day, in a document which usually manifests precision in
such matters.(77)
It is not quite clear what Dr. Swete means when he says that Peter “uses
it freely,” but it would indeed be singular if he seemed to be conscious
that he was guilty of an anachronism in making use of this or any word.
The question, in fact, is whether it is an anachronism or not, and that it
is so is very far from proved by any arguments yet brought forward. In the
Apocalypse, i. 10, we have the use of the term “the Lord’s day” (ἡ κυριακὴ
ἡμέρα), A.D. 68-69. In the “Didache,” which Dr. Lightfoot assigns to the
first or the beginning of the second century, we meet with κυριακὴ κυρίου;
and in the Ignatian Epistles, which those who believe in them date “in the
early years of the second century,” there is in one place(78) κατὰ
κυριακήν. So far from its being surprising that there should not be more
authority for such an expression, however, it seems almost more remarkable
that we should have any parallels at all, when we remember how few early
writings are extant, and how few of these actually refer to the day thus
designated. The Epistles, for this reason, may be set aside in a body, for
they give no testimony either way, with the exception of 1 Cor. xvi. 2,
where “the first day of the week” is referred to. The three Synoptics,
following each other, and a common tradition, use ἡ μία τῶν σαββάτων each
once, and the fourth Gospel has the same phrase twice, and the Acts once;
but this use of another expression does not—in the face of the use of ἡ
κυριακή in this fragment, and of ἡ κυριακὴ ἡμέρα, in the Apocalypse—at all
show that, at the same period, the latter phrase was not also current,
though it may not have supplanted “the first day of the week.” The fact
that Melito of Sardis, “about the middle of the second century,” wrote a
treatise περὶ κυριακῆς shows how general that expression had become; and
even Dr. Swete, as we have seen above, recognises that it was “familiar
amongst Eastern Greek-speaking Christians from the end of the first
century.” There is nothing whatever to warrant the conclusion that its use
at the time when our Gospels were written would have been an anachronism,
but the fact that a different expression happened to be used in a few
writings. The author of the fragment employs the phrase twice only, and it
is thoroughly consistent with his impressive style throughout the episode,
that he should apply to the time when these astounding events are said to
have taken place the appropriate term, already suggested by the author of
the Apocalypse, of “the Lord’s day,” instead of “the first day of the
week.” There is nothing more difficult, as is proved every day in our
time, than to fix the precise date at which words or expressions first
came into use, and especially—in the absence of voluminous literature
opposing the presumption—the denial of antiquity to a work, on the ground
of its employing an expression supposed only to have come into general use
a few years later than its otherwise probable date, is both rash and
unjustifiable.