This need not be further pursued, however, though the principle applies
quite as much to the other Gospels. Only one passage may be quoted from
the last chapter of the third Synoptic. Jesus, when he appears to the
disciples, after the episode of the fish to prove that he is not a spirit,
but himself with flesh and bones (xxiv. 36 f.), is represented as saying:
These are my words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with
you, how that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are
written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms,
concerning me. Then opened he their mind, that they might
understand the Scriptures; and he said unto them, Thus it is
written that the Christ should suffer, and rise again from the
dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins
should be preached in his name unto all the nations.
This is a direct justification of the gnosis, and it is no wonder that we
find St. Sylvia, some centuries later, recording the concrete principle
upon which Gospel history is written: “Nothing took place which had not
been previously foretold, and nothing had been foretold which had not
obtained its fulfilment.”
In so far as the Gospel according to Peter is concerned, the impartial
verdict must be: It is neither better nor worse than the more fortunate
works which have found a safe resting-place within the Canon of the
Church. It is almost impossible now to judge of these works as we judge
the fragment. Centuries of reverence, and individual habit of hearing
their contents with docility and with bated criticism, have rendered most
of us incapable of judging the effect which a good part of their contents
would make upon us if, like the fragment of Akhmîm, they had been freshly
discovered yesterday. There is no canonical glamour to veil its
shortcomings, and it must not be forgotten that, in this short fragment,
we have none of those parts of the Gospel, such as the Sermon on the Mount
and some of the parables, which contain so much noble teaching and render
the literature so precious. Then, as we have before pointed out, the
canonical Gospels, in their greater circulation and in the process of
reception by the Church, secured a gradual revision which might have
smoothed away any roughness from the Gospel of Peter had it been equally
fortunate. The three Synoptic Gospels are so closely dependent on each
other, or on the same sources, as to be practically one work; and although
this renders all the more remarkable certain indications of selection,
some of which we have pointed out, it nevertheless limits our acquaintance
with early belief. It is the merit of the fragment that it presents
considerable variation in the original sources, and shows us the fluidity
of the early reports of that which was supposed to take place during the
period which it embraces. We have in it a primitive and less crystallised
form of the Christian tradition.