Michael Kaler - The Letter of Peter to Philip and Its Message of Gnostic Revelation and Christian...

7/18/2019 Michael Kaler - The Letter of Peter to Philip and Its Message of Gnostic Revelation and Christian Unity

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© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/157007208X377247

Vigiliae Christianae 63 (2009) 264-295 brill.nl/vc

VigiliaeChristianae

Te Letter of Peter to Philip and its Message ofGnostic Revelation and Christian Unity 1

Michael KalerBurnfield Ave., oronto, Ontario, Canada, M6G 1Y4

[email protected]

Abstract In this article I discuss the Letter of Peter to Philip, one of the gnostic documents foundin the Nag Hammadi collection, as well as in the recently published Codex chacos.In prior work on the Letter , questions have been raised with regard to its overall coher-ence, the precise nature of its relationship to the canonical book of Acts, and the rea-sons for including it in Nag Hammadi Codex VIII in late antiquity. In my response tothese questions, I demonstrate that it is a coherent work; that it is solidly grounded ina specific (albeit somewhat fictional) historical context, namely that of Acts 7-8; and

that its presence in codex VIII makes good sense given the codex’s underlying logic.Te Letter has also been treated in the past as a Petrine document; I demonstrate thatin fact it is extremely indebted to a Pauline view of revelation and enlightenment,drawing specifically on the account of Paul’s revelation in Acts 9.

Tus in contrast to older views that saw the Letter as an incoherent, Petrine workmaking scattershot use of Lukan references and placed in codex VIII as “filler,” I dem-onstrate that it is a quite coherent, Pauline work that operates within a precise contextin the Actsian historical plan, and that its presence in Codex VIII illuminates the logicunderlying that codex’s arrangement. In all of this, my emphasis is firmly on the nar-rative aspects of the frame story part of the Letter , rather than privileging the content

of the esoteric revelation delivered by Jesus, as has been done in the past.

KeywordsGnosticism, Nag Hammadi, Petrine, Pauline, Acts, Revelation Dialogue, Codicology

Introduction

Te Letter of Peter to Philip (hereafter Letter ) is an ancient gnostic text, extantin two versions. A very damaged version is found among the writings

1) Support while this paper was written was provided by a Social Sciences and HumanitiesResearch Council of Canada postdoctoral fellowship.



Te Letter of Peter and its Message 265

contained in the recently published Codex chacos; another, considerablymore complete version is found at the end of Nag Hammadi Codex VIII.

We will be working with this latter version in what follows, except whereotherwise noted. Although there are significant differences between thetwo versions, they do not affect the issues that we will be addressing here(at least, insofar as the chacos version is extant), with the exception of thevery end of the Letter , discussed below, page 286.

Tere was a flurry of interest in the Letter in the mid to late 1970s, whenit first became widely accessible, with articles and studies published bysuch scholars as Hans-Gebhard Bethge, Klaus Koschorke, Jacques Ménard,Gerard Luttikhuizen, and Marvin Meyer (see the bibliography for details).Tese studies established the broad lines that research on the Letter —suchas the later work of Bethge and Meyer, and the work of Judith Hartenstein, Antti Marjanen, among others—would generally follow. Te Letter ’s use ofLuke/Acts and its composite nature have been topics of abiding interest,and its author’s irenic vision of a unified church that could include bothgnostics and non-gnostics has often been noted. In what follows I willaddress these issues, and hopefully further illuminate this fascinating pieceof gnostic literature. Finally, I will move from the Letter itself to one of its

two known contexts of use, namely Nag Hammadi Codex VIII. Priorresearch has tended to understate the significance of its presence in thiscodex: I will attempt to provide a more nuanced discussion.

Summary of the Plot

Te Letter begins, as its name suggests, with a letter from Peter to Philip,inviting Philip to come and join up with the rest of the apostles so thatthey can complete their preparations for teaching and spreading the word.

Philip comes, rejoicing, and then he and the rest of the apostles go to theMount of Olives. Tere they fall to their knees and pray for help andpower “for they seek to kill us,” or “we are being sought after in order to bekilled” (third person plural subject pronouns in Coptic can function asdummy subjects to signal passive voice).

A great light appears, and out of it speaks the voice of Jesus Christ. Inanswer to the questions posed by the apostles, he reveals to them the(extremely gnostic and mythological) details of the origin of the universe,the powers that rule it, and his own salvific activity. Te apostles are

instructed that they will have to fight the “archons” and the “powers,” andthe revelation ends.



266 M. Kaler / Vigiliae Christianae 63 (2009) 264-295

On the road back to Jerusalem, they discuss suffering, and a voice, pre-sumably that of Jesus, reminds them of its inevitability. Having arrived in

Jerusalem, they perform healings in the temple. Peter makes a confessionof faith to his disciples, and prays for a spirit of understanding, which theyreceive. Ten all the apostles perform healings. Jesus appears and gives thema benediction, and they go their separate ways to preach the word.

1. Te Coherence of the Letter

Te first issue that I will address is that of the Letter ’s coherence. In par-

ticular, there are three aspects of the Letter that have appeared to be inco-herent in prior work on it. First, there is the issue of the relationship ofChrist’s revelation (134.9-138.7) to the rest of the narrative. Te secondaspect is the relationship of Peter’s brief introductory letter to the story thatfollows. Both of these issues have to do with the redactional history of thework, and there has been a tendency to see the transitions between thevarious parts of the Letter (introduction, frame story, revelation) as beingawkward, betraying unskilful editing.

A third issue, related to the second, has to do with borrowings from

Luke/Acts. Although the Letter is clearly indebted to this literary source,prior research has made it appear that the Letter ’s author assimilates hersources in a scattershot or general way, rather than according to any strictlogic.

In what follows, I will address these issues and demonstrate that in factthe Letter is a coherent, well-planned and subtly organized document,whose parts work together harmoniously when properly understood, andwhose narrative is anchored securely in a definite context within the overallLuke/Acts historical framework.

a) Revelation Content

In his grand revelation to the disciples, Jesus teaches them of the “defi-ciency of the aeons,” namely the disobedience and foolishness of theMother, which pave the way for the coming of the Arrogant One, whoimprisons a part of the Mother that she left behind and sets powers andauthorities to rule over it. Christ is sent from the Pleroma to rescue thisseed. He speaks with those who are his and enables them to receive their

true inheritance and to fight against the powers. Broadly speaking, thisrevelation is a relatively clear and apparently pro forma presentation of




gnostic myth, and on first sight appears only tenuously linked to the framestory that introduces it, and which also continues on after the revelation.

Let us begin by noting that it is common in revelation dialogues forthere to be some degree of disjunction between the content of the revela-tion imparted by the Saviour, and the frame story surrounding it. Tis sortof disjunction, of course, has long been noted, and is one of the sources forthe modern view of these works as being produced by supplying originallyindependent discourses or treatises with apostolic frame stories.

Now, based on the number of works of this genre that have survived, itseems safe to say that ancient readers cannot have felt this disjunction tobe as serious an aesthetic problem as modern scholars often seem to do. Soeven if such a disjunction did exist in the Letter , it would not necessarily bean argument against the coherence of the work as a whole from the pointof view of the author and her2 audience, but merely evidence that its authoris working within the conventions of her chosen genre, rather than accord-ing to our modern expectations.

But in fact, on closer examination we find that—especially by revelationdialogue standards—the revelation is well integrated into the text as awhole. We note first of all the use of clichéd Pauline terminology, gnosti-

cized in context, including references to “powers (Ϭⲟⲙ

),” “powers of theworld (ⲛⲓϬⲟⲙ ⲧⲉ ⲡⲕⲟⲥⲙⲟⲥ),” and “authorities (ⲉⲝⲟⲩⲥⲓⲁ),” who are saidto “fight against us,” much of it plausibly borrowed from Ephesians 6:12,a favourite of gnostic Paulinists—cf. for example the very similar “name-checking” of that verse in the introduction to the Hypostasis of the Archons :“On account of the hypostasis of the authorities . . . the great apostle, refer-ring to the authorities of the darkness told us that ‘our contest is not againstflesh and blood . . .’.” Te use of this language establishes a Pauline literarycontext for the revelation’s contents, a context which—as we shall see in

detail in section two of this paper—is abundantly supported by aspects ofthe frame story that the Letter provides for it.Speaking thematically, it is generally true that throughout the Letter

revelation is linked to persecution. Te revelation begins after the apostlespray about persecution (134.3-9); it ends with Jesus’ warning with regardto future persecution (137.21-138.3); Jesus speaks to them on the roadin order to warn them of the need for suffering (138.21-139.4); and a

2) In this paper I will use the feminine when the gender of the person in question isunknown. Tis is done purely for the sake of avoiding awkward phrasing (“he/she”).




spirit of understanding is granted to them only after Peter acknowledgesthe centrality of suffering to Jesus’ career (139.15-140.7).

Tus it is quite appropriate that the ultimate purpose of the informationthat Christ imparts in this revelation is precisely to explain the mythologi-cal underpinnings of the persecution faced by the apostles, as well asthe grounds for the hope of liberation from this persecution. Te contrastbetween the this-worldly persecution that is the focus of the rest of the textand the technical and mythological nature of the revelation may be sur-prising at first, but from the point of view of the text there is no need tomake either/or decisions or to see a contradiction: rather, the very point ofthe revelation is to show that persecution extends in a continuum from thematerial to the cosmic level, and to show its ultimate origins.

Tis is brought out by Christ’s own instructions on fighting the powers.Not only must the apostles strip themselves of that which is corruptible(ⲉⲧⲉⲧⲛⲁⲕⲁⲕ ⲧⲏⲛⲉ ⲕⲁϩⲏⲩ ⲡⲁⲓ ⲉⲧⲧⲁⲕⲏⲟⲩⲧ), standard enough advice for agnostic text, but when they have done so they will become illuminators inthe midst of people who are dying (ϩⲉⲛⲫⲱⲥⲧⲏⲣ ϩ ⲧⲙⲏⲧⲉ ϩⲉⲛⲣⲱⲙⲉ

ⲉⲩⲙⲟⲟⲩⲧ) (137.6-9). Te this-worldly, missionary note is struck again,and very strongly, at the end of the revelation, where Christ says that “You

shall fight against them [the powers] in this way: Come together (ⲁⲙⲏⲉⲓⲧⲛ

ⲉⲩⲙⲁ) and teach in the world (ϯ ⲥⲃⲱ ϩ ⲡⲕⲟⲥⲙⲟⲥ)” (137.22-24).Te command to “come together” refers the reader back to Peter’s men-

tion of the need to come together at the start of the Letter (132.19-20),and forward to the later renewed gathering (ⲥⲱⲟⲩϩ) of the apostles andtheir fellows (140.13-14), thus anchoring the revelation in the narrativecontext of the Letter as a whole.

In terms of the revelation’s context within the Letter , we see that the textopens with Peter’s statement of the need on the apostles’ part to learn how

to orient (ⲧⲱϣ) themselves so that they can “preach in the salvation thatwas promised to us by our lord Jesus,” and so that they can “tell the goodnews” (132.19-133.1). Te revelation that they receive, then, is what ori-ents them, explaining the esoteric, underlying meaning behind their situ-ation in the world.

It is important to note that Peter’s letter does not state that the revelationis to form the content of their teaching. Preaching missions are quite dif-ferent from apostolic gatherings, working by different rules and requiringdifferent responses—just as the information, for instance, that we might

receive in a teacher training seminar is of a different order and differentnature than the information that we impart when we are actually teaching




a class. Having received the information appropriate to this private, onemight say pedagogical, setting of an apostolic gathering, the apostles are

now prepared to go out and preach the historical, this-worldly aspect ofthe good news. And in fact this is what we see them doing as the Letterends: “Ten the apostles parted from each other with four messages(ⲡⲓϥⲧⲟⲟⲩ ϣⲁϫⲉ—see page 286 below), so that they might teach.” Whilethe apostles need to be gathered together to be oriented, they are perfectlycapable of teaching others on their own once this has been accomplished.

o summarize, we can say that the revelation that the risen Christ deliv-ers is perfectly coherent with the concerns, themes, and overall spirit of therest of the Letter . Its use of mythological language may appear surprising,but this language serves to describe the underlying origins of the issues thatconfront the apostles in the main stream of the rest of the narrative. Whilethe revelation may derive from a different source than the letter, it is notawkward in its present context—in fact, its discussion of the importanceof apostolic unity ties to both the introduction and the end of the Letter .In short, it fits in.

b) Te Introduction: Epistle and Philip

Te other major feature of the Letter that has led some to doubt its overallnarrative coherence has to do with the introduction, in its use of an epistlefrom Peter to introduce the story and in its references to Philip. Peter’s let-ter is addressed to Philip, and to judge by the introduction to the text itwould seem that Philip is being set up to become a major character in thestory that follows, yet as soon as he joins with the other apostles he disap-pears from view, subsumed into the general group of “the apostles” underPeter’s leadership.

Te “Historical” Context of the Frame Story: Acts 8 Let us examine the introduction a little more closely. In the fictitiousletter that opens the account, Peter writes to Philip, reminding him thatthe Saviour had commanded the apostles to come together in order toorient themselves and learn how to preach the good news. At first, Peterwrites, Philip was hesitant to join them, and so now Peter is asking again.Tis time, we are told, Philip accedes to the request and joins his fellowapostles.

Peter’s introductory letter helps to establish the following allegedly his-torical context in which the activities of the Letter take place: Jesus has




gone, leaving behind him a dedicated apostolic circle, in which Peter playsa major role. Tey are keeping the faith alive, but persecution is becoming

an issue, as we will see later, when they pray for help against an unnamed“they” who seek to kill them (134.8-9). Philip, for some unexplained rea-son, is absent as the Letter opens, but there is communication—carried onby letter—between the apostles, and a willingness on the disciples’ part togo where they are needed, as we see by Peter’s summons and Philip’s eagerresponse—he comes “rejoicing” (133.9-11). After his arrival, the apostlestake part in a group prayer that ultimately results in a gift of the spiritbeing granted to them.

Tis narrative background fits perfectly with the situation presented in Acts 7-8.3 Acts 7 describes the beginning of the persecution of Christiansthrough the martyrdom of Stephen. Te death of Stephen inaugurates a“severe persecution” (8:1) against the disciples, which could certainly pro-vide the template for the Christian “suffering” described by the author ofthe Letter . Acts 8 deals with Philip’s wanderings away from Jerusalem; he isone of the apostles who had been “scattered” (8:4). But despite his wander-ing, Acts informs us that he keeps in contact, presumably by letter, withthe Jerusalem circle, in which Peter is a significant figure. At one point

(8:14), Peter and John are sent to aid Philip in Samaria, and their tripresults in the invocation of the Holy Spirit onto the Samarians.Te beginning of persecution, the circle of apostles with Peter as a major

figure, the absence of Philip, the abundant communication between theapostles, the act of summoning disciples to wherever they may be needed,and the connection of the Spirit with the gatherings and prayers of thesemobile disciples: all of these features link the frame story of the Letter to Acts—and not just to Acts in a general sense, but more specifically to thesituation portrayed in Acts 7-8.

It must be admitted that this view is contrary to the general tendency inprior research to see either a general influence of Acts on the Letter , or—ifspecific contextualization is advanced—the influence of the first few chap-ters of Acts.

With regard to the first option, Meyer may have best expressed theimplicit scholarly consensus (Meyer 1981, p. 191): “Tus we do best to

3) Our discussion here is focused on the situation as presented in Acts, rather than onreconstructions of historical reality, and thus we set to one side questions as to Peter’s realstatus in the early apostolic circle, especially vis-à-vis James. Also, regardless of his relativestatus, it is clear in Acts that he is the more dynamic and active of the two figures.




conclude that the author of the Ep. Pet. Phil. is not consciously using aspecific Lucan text at all, but is familiar with themes and motifs in the

Lucan tradition.” Many—including Meyer himself—have seen that theinfluence of Acts 8 can explain aspects of the Letter ’s setting, but it hasbeen regarded as no more than one of a number of equally significant evo-cations of Acts to be found in the Letter . But as we have seen, the authorof the Letter has taken considerable care to quickly and subtly establishspecific details of the context in which her story is set. Her work doesnot float indistinctly in (Lukan) history; rather, it is anchored to a specifictime, a specific context.

Tis is certainly not to say that other passages from Acts are not evokedin the work, and scholars have been correct to see that the atmosphere ofthe Pentecost period is often strong, just as references to non-Acts sources,particularly Pauline and Johannine literature, are to be found. But thesereferences are secondary evocations set within a specific historical context,and that specific context fits in with Acts 7-8, making it the primary anddetermining source.

erence Smith provides the most sustained and convincing argument infavour of the author drawing her inspiration from Luke 24-Acts 2 instead

(Smith 1985, p. 122-125), but in his discussion he focuses mainly onPeter’s long speech (139.9-140.7), rather than the Letter as a whole. Evenwith regard solely to this issue, Smith himself points out numerous aspectsof the Letter that clash with Acts 2. He notes that in his speech of Acts 2Peter publicly addresses the non-Christian Jews (“the men of Judea and allwho dwell in Jerusalem”), whereas in the Letter he addresses his fellowapostles (139.9-10). Also, in Acts 2, the holy spirit is bestowed before thespeech; here, the fullness of the Spirit is granted afterwards. Furthermore,in the Letter Peter is filled with the spirit even before giving his speech, and

then the others receive the spirit afterwards, whereas the early verses of Acts 2 emphasize that the apostles all received the spirit together. I wouldalso add that in Acts, unlike in the Letter , all of the apostles are said tospeak (2:3-4), with Peter only becoming the spokesperson to rebut themockery of the crowd (2:13 and following).

All of this is not to deny that there are similarities to, or reminiscencesof, the very early chapters of Acts, especially Acts 2, in the Letter . But evenwhere these similarities are strongest, namely in Peter’s speech, notable dif-ferences between the speech and Acts 2 remain, and we are still obliged to

bring in a reference to Acts 8 to account for the absence of Philip at thebeginning of the Letter .




Is this evidence that we are seeing a scattershot use of various Lukanpassages without consistency or internal coherence? Not necessarily. We

can account for both the resemblances, and the differences, if we look at Acts 2 as an influence on Peter’s speech, and not as a dominant influenceover the construction of the Letter as a whole.

In other words, these resemblances can be explained by arguing that ourauthor is not relying solely on her own imagination for the speech thatshe creates for Peter in the Letter . Rather, she is using the Acts speech asa model for creating her new speech. Hence the resemblance. But thisuse of this account as a guide for how to construct a proper Petrine speechdoes not alter the fact that the frame story within which Peter’s speechis set owes more to Acts 7-8 than to Acts 1, with the absence of Philipbeing the determining factor. We can see this as the general context for theLetter as a whole, whereas Acts 2 evidently provided a specific guide toPeter’s speech.

Furthermore, there is the issue of the background of the brief letter fromPeter to Philip that opens the Letter . It has been seen, source critically, as“an independent unit from the material that follows” (as noted in Mat-thews 2002, p. 147, although the view is shared by others). In other words,

he would see something of a discontinuity between the letter and the restof the text, which would make the Letter as a whole appear awkward andinelegantly constructed.

Must we view it in this way? I do not believe so. Te introductory lettercan also be seen as an evocation of the Actsian atmosphere, establishingthat the separated missionaries keep in touch with the Jerusalem circlethrough the medium of letters and that these letters are used to pass alonginstructions and requests (no letter is explicitly mentioned in Acts 8, butsee for example Acts 15:22-29). In that case, the awkwardness vanishes,

along with the necessity of assuming an obvious and inelegant graft.Instead, the introductory letter becomes a charming and sophisticated wayof setting the scene for the tale that follows. Tis view is supported by theway in which the contents of the letter harmonize with the revelation thatthe apostles receive, as discussed above (p. 267).

Tere is thus nothing to rule out, and much to argue in favour of, thehypothesis that the author of the Letter intended her frame story to beunderstood as taking place around the time depicted in this section of Acts. Te Letter quite definitely anchors us in a particular moment of

church history, even as it tells us a story that is not recorded in Acts, butthat takes place in the same fictional universe and chronology.




Tis is not a case of the stereotypical gnostic “rewritten bible,” wherestories from the canonical scriptures are told with different interpretations

or emphases. Rather, we have to do here with what we might call an“expanded bible,” such as seems to have motivated (for example) theauthors of the apocryphal Acts of the apostles, or the authors of both of the Apocalypses of Paul . In effect, the Letter can be seen as a fictional expansionof the Acts account, adding new episodes to it and filling in the story. AndPeter’s introductory letter, both by its content and by the mere fact of itbeing a letter, the medium used to link far-flung disciples, is an ingeniousand effective way of establishing and reinforcing this narrative context. (Asimilar method is used in the Apocryphon of James , which is also set in thepost-resurrectional apostolic period.)

Our understanding of the precise context in which the Letter is setenables us to rebut the assumption that one might derive from readingother discussions of the Letter , namely that the author of the Letter makesgeneral, unsystematic use of Luke/Acts. In fact, as we have seen, she anchorsher text securely in a very definite context. While the Letter does containevocations of other sections of Luke/Acts, particularly Peter’s Pentecostspeech (as noted by Smith and others), these evocations are used to supple-

ment the overall Actsian atmosphere of the work, and not weaken its spe-cific contextual setting.

Te Disappearance of PhilipHowever, one puzzling feature remains, namely the way that Philip as anindividual disappears from the story immediately after he rejoins the otherapostles. Te Letter begins with a letter, written by Peter and addressed toPhilip, urging Philip to rejoin the rest of the apostles. Philip does so—infact, he comes “rejoicing.” Once he arrives, Peter gathers all the apostles,

and we never hear about Philip as an individual again. We have seen the utility, even the attractiveness, of using a letter fromPeter to introduce the story and establish its narrative context. But why isthis letter addressed to Philip, and why does Philip then disappear fromthe story?

First of all, we must identify whom we are talking about here. On theone hand, this figure is apparently modelled on the Philip of Acts 8, one ofthe seven deacons chosen in Acts 6:2-5. On the other hand, in the Letter Peter describes him as “our fellow apostle (ⲡⲉⲛϣⲃⲏⲣⲁⲡⲟⲥⲧⲟⲗⲟⲥ, 132.14),”

which would seem to link him to Philip the apostle, mentioned at Acts 1:13.In antiquity the two figures were often confused or combined, however,




and it is quite possible that this is what we see happening here, as arguedby Meyer (1981, p. 94) and Bethge (1997, p. 60).

We should note as an alternative explanation that it is also possible thatthe author of the Letter has a wider definition of “apostle” than does theauthor of Acts, and sees no problem with applying the title to the Philip of Acts 6 and 8—who is, after all, an important figure in the history of theearliest church, and whose activity fulfils the literal meaning of the title“apostle.” Whichever of these explanations may be the case, the unex-plained absence of Philip at the start of the Letter argues strongly that he isto be identified with the Philip of Acts 6 and 8, whether or not he is linkedto the Philip of Acts 1 as well.

In one of the early studies of the Letter , Bethge proposed that the Letter as we have it might be only the beginning of a longer Acts of Philip (Bethge1978, and in his subsequent work on the Letter ). He suggested that in thislonger work, the section that is now the end of the Letter —which featuresthe disciples going their separate ways to spread the gospel—might havebeen followed by a specific focus on Philip: “As for Philip, he went . . .”(Bethge 1978 p. 162; he maintains this theory in Bethge 1997). He feltthis would explain why Philip is a prominent figure at the start, the

addressee of Peter’s letter, and then disappears for the rest of the Letter .However, this hypothesis accentuates rather than resolves the questionof Philip’s disappearance from the text. Especially in an Acts of Philip, wewould not expect Philip first to be mentioned as only the subject of Peter’sletter, and then to perform precisely one action (rejoining the apostles),after which he fades into the undifferentiated group of apostles, only toemerge from this group later on, if then. In the Letter as we have it, thisappears to be at least partly justified by the text’s focus on Peter; in an Actsof Philip, we would expect Philip to be in the forefront throughout.

We should note as well that Bethge explains the abridgement of these Acts of Philip into the Letter by describing the Letter as an attempt to sim-ply produce “filler [Buchfüller]” (Bethge 1978, p. 162), an excerpt intendedto fill up the last few pages in Nag Hammadi Codex VIII after the extremelylong work Zostrianos . Whether or not this assumption satisfactorily explainsthe situation with regard to Nag Hammadi Codex VIII is questionable initself, but it certainly does not explain why a version of the Letter that isvery similar to the Nag Hammadi version should be found in Codexchacos as well, where the “filler” argument does not apply. Tis new evi-

dence makes it clear that the Letter as we have it circulated independentlyand was considered to be worth copying and preserving by at least twopeople or groups of people. It should be noted that not only are there two




versions of the Letter , but these two versions also have almost exactly thesame title: ⲧⲉⲡⲓⲥⲧⲟⲗⲏ ⲡⲉⲧⲣⲟⲥ ⲉⲧⲁϥϫⲟⲟⲩⲥ ⲫⲓⲗⲓⲡⲡⲟⲥ (NHC VIII:

“Te letter of Peter that he sent to Philip”); ⲧⲉⲡⲓⲥⲧⲟⲗⲏ ⲡⲉⲧⲣⲟⲥ ϣⲁ ⲫⲓⲗⲓⲡⲡⲟⲥ (chacos: “Te letter of Peter to Philip”). Te similarity, and alsothe fact that the title is found at the end of the chacos version, argues thatthe title is meant to apply to the treatise as a whole, rather than just to theletter that opens it—which also supports the thesis of this text’s indepen-dence from any hypothetical Acts of Philip.

Tus, Bethge’s explanation leaves out the fact that it is the Letter as wehave it that was read and copied by the users of Nag Hammadi codex VIIIand Codex chacos, and not these hypothetical Acts of Philip. As an oper-ating hypothesis, we should certainly assume that the Letter as they readand copied it was coherent and complete to them—else why copy it? Andas I will show, it is perfectly possible to account for Philip’s disappearancewithout invoking the hypothesis of an unattested continuation of the storythat would bring him back into focus. (For a different but also criticalapproach to Bethge’s theory, see Meyer 1981, p. 97-8; Matthews 2002,pp. 144-149.)

Te Importance of Unity: Te Lost SheepTe clue to resolving this issue comes when we note that Philip is men-tioned individually only while he is absent from the other apostles. In fact,his absence is the major theme of Peter’s letter. As we learn from the letter,the lack of a unified apostolic circle in fact prevents them from moving onto the next stage in their instruction. Peter tells Philip that the Saviourspecifically ordered that they should come together in one place in orderfor this to happen. Philip’s absence prevents it from taking place: thus theneed for Peter’s letter.

Now, it is quite common in revelation dialogues for Christ to take oneor a few apostles aside and provide them with privileged information,as happens in the Book of Tomas , the Apocryphon of James , the Gospel ofTomas , and elsewhere. We tend to interpret these portrayals as indicatingthat the secret teachings contained in the revelations are meant only for aselect group within the church.

But here in the Letter , as Peter’s epistle informs us, we have exactlythe opposite situation, in that the revelation is being withheld until theapostles are all gathered together as a group. It seems that the author of

the Letter wants to make it clear to her readers that there is to be no ques-tion of divisive, secret knowledge belonging to a restricted group of Chris-tians, or to only one strand of the apostolic tradition. In her telling, the




knowledge is imparted not to Tomas alone, or to James and Peter, butto all the apostles at once—in fact, as is shown by Peter’s introductory

letter, the knowledge cannot be imparted unless all the apostles are together.Te apostolic circle cannot move forward to the next phase while it isincomplete.

aking what we have discussed up to now into account, we can see thatPhilip fills two roles in the overall structure of the Letter . As an individual,he is important because his initial absence links the Letter ’s setting to Acts 8.But he is also important in a negative manner, as a symbol of the initiallack of apostolic unity, a lack that—we are told—is contrary to Christ’sinstructions. From this latter point of view, Philip is individually signifi-cant only so long as he is absent, only so long as he is the one who ismissing—just as there is nothing individually significant about the lostsheep in the parable, except the fact that it is lost.

Once Philip arrives, and the apostolic circle is complete, his uniqueness—which was based on his absence—vanishes and he merges with his fellowapostles. As the Letter puts it, upon receipt of Peter’s letter, Philip “went toPeter, rejoicing with gladness. Ten Peter gathered the others also. Tey wentupon the mountain . . .” (133.10-14). Philip arrives as an individual, separate

from his fellow apostles; the “others” are gathered by Peter; and then Philipand the apostles, unified, merge into a final “they,” with no distinctions made. We could even read Peter’s reference to Philip’s unwillingness to join

the other apostles, followed by the description of Philip’s rejoicing after hechanges his mind and comes to them, as the author’s comment on lackof unity within the church, and the happiness that reconciliation brings. After all, this “rejoicing” is in fact Philip’s only individual action in theLetter , which makes it especially significant.

Bethge argues instead that the joy is caused by his anticipation of the

Christophany (Bethge 1997, p. 63). Tis is also possible, but unlikely. Tephrasing of the passage clearly associates his rejoicing with his activity ofcoming to join the other apostles: ⲁϥⲃⲱⲕ ⲉⲣⲁⲧϥ ̅ ⲡⲉⲧⲣⲟⲥ ϩ ⲟⲩⲣⲁϣⲉ.Te rejoicing is an adverbial modifier of the main verb, “to go,” ⲃⲱⲕ. Inthe absence of any authorial contraindications, it behoves us to adopt thestraightforward reading of the passage, especially given that this reading isquite plausible on narrative grounds as well. It makes perfect sense thatPhilip would be happy to rejoin his fellows and re-establish apostolicunity—and let us keep in mind that at this point in the narrative Philip

does not know about the Christophany that is to come.In the balance, then, it is more likely that Philip’s rejoicing has to do

simply with his joy at rejoining his fellow apostles. And by depicting Phil-




ip’s happiness, the author of the Letter gives a powerful appeal to otherswho may have caused division within Christianity to “bury the hatchet”

and come together again.It is possible as well that our author is making intertextual reference to

the three parables in Luke 15—the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and theProdigal Son. All three of these parables deal with a group that loses one ofits components, and then regains it. Te hundredth sheep is brought backto the herd; the tenth coin is found; the prodigal son returns. All three ofthese parables also emphasize the rejoicing that accompanies the restora-tion of unity (15:6, 9, 32), and in all three cases the Greek χαίρω is ren-dered by Coptic ⲣⲁϣⲉ,4 the verb used in the Letter as well, albeit in itsnominal form to suit the extremely common ϩ ⲟⲩⲻ construction. And inall of these cases, the rejoicing has to do simply with the return of the lostelement, rather than any anticipated future event. (Note as well that inthese cases, the lost element is significant for the fact that it is lost, not forany reason intrinsic to it. Tis too fits with the situation in the Letter , andthe disappearance of Philip from the narrative after his return.)

Now, Judith Hartenstein has argued that the reference to Philip’s absencecould suggest that the author is thinking of a separated group of Christians

identified with Philip in her own historical context (Hartenstein 2000,p. 168-9; this hypothesis is also supported in Matthews 2002, pp. 150-1). Butwhile this is a possible reading, it is not necessary to adopt her hypothesis,as the Acts 7-8 influence on its own provides a perfectly reasonable explana-tion for why Philip should be the missing apostle. Tis clear intertextualityrelieves us of the obligation to make risky sociological arguments on the basisof literary devices in the narrative. We need not think of Philip as represent-ing contemporary “Philipites” or “Philippians”; we can see him instead as themissing piece, the one who is needed to restore apostolic unity.

Tis is a powerful, and irenic, message, which goes along with such uni-fied gestures as referring to Christ as the saviour of the cosmos (132.18-19), rather than denigrating the world; the linking through prayer of gnosticspiritual enlightenment with somatic healing (140.2-11); and Christ’s stressthat the cosmic powers are to be fought through worldly activity (137.20-25). Given these aspects of the work, Luttikhuizen’s hypothesis with regardto its origin appears quite possible: “In our text a Christian who has beenconverted to the gnostic doctrine of salvation is speaking. When he chooseshis own words, he still uses the vocabulary of catholic Christianity . . . He

was convinced that in the gnostic teachings the deeper and fuller message

4) All Coptic citations of New estament material from Horner 1910.




of Jesus was revealed. He saw no substantial conflict between the catholicand the gnostic doctrine and therefore did not need to abandon his former

views” (Luttikhuizen 1979, p. 102).

Te Separation at the End It is true that at the end of the Letter the apostles split up again, but it isalso noteworthy that this time no separate names are given. Te text reads,“Ten the apostles separated themselves into the four messages so that theymight preach” (140.23-26). Teir act is a collective one. As a group theydivide themselves, having been “oriented (ⲧⲱϣ)” collectively through therevelation that they all received. Tough they go their separate ways, thereis no lack of unity here. Rather, this is the completion of the purpose oftheir coming together, as announced at the start of the Letter (132.16-133.8). Having received a common revelation, having become harmo-nized, they can now function independently.

c) Conclusion: Te Letter is both Coherent, and Well-Crafted

Tus we can conclude that the Letter is coherent even when considered onits own and not as an excerpt from a longer document. Its setting in the

Actsian historical universe is clear; its revelation is well-integrated into therest of the text; and it makes effi cient and symbolic use of Philip. In fact,rather than being scattered or vague, it is well and subtly crafted, present-ing a message of unity and reconciliation.

2. What about Paul?

Despite all of this focus on unity, however, there is one apostle who is con-

spicuously absent from the Letter , namely Paul. What are we to make ofthis? Are there any clues here as to the author’s attitude towards Paul? Tisis particularly significant given that the Letter has in the past been consid-ered to be a Petrine writing, based on Peter’s role as the clear leader of theapostles.

Paul’s Presence Would Be Anachronistic . . .

Te first, easy answer to this question is that Paul is absent simply because

of the Letter ’s historical setting. At this point in the Acts narrative, theapostles had not met Paul, who indeed was just having his Damascus road




experience. In leaving Paul out of the Letter , our author is simply avoidinganachronism.

But His eachings Are the Same . . .

However, although Paul himself never appears in the Letter , his influencecertainly does. As we saw above, Pauline language, reminiscent of Eph. 6:12,is used to describe the oppressive cosmic powers, in very much the samemanner as in the introduction to the Hypostasis of the Archons and in othergnostic texts. Tis suggests that for the author of the Letter , the apostolicrevelation can be harmonized with the esoteric teachings revealed through

a gnostically enlightened reading of Paul’s letters. For this author, Paul’sletters, when properly understood, speak of the same things as are revealedto the disciples, thus uniting the apostle to the Gentiles and the Jerusalemcircle—or, more precisely, aligning the Jerusalem circle with gnosticPaulinism.

And His Revelation Is the Same

Let us furthermore remember that Paul’s “gospel,” and his apostolic status,

were based not on acquaintance with Jesus during his earthly career, butrather linked to Paul’s own revelation of the risen Christ, recounted inGal. 1:13-17. Now, this revelation is also described in Acts 9,5 and thustakes place immediately after the events that—as we have seen—lead up tothe Letter ’s frame story. In other words, the apostles in the Letter are havingtheir revelation—which is unrecorded in Acts—at approximately the sameperiod in the Acts historical framework as Paul is having his revelation. Foranyone familiar with this framework, it is diffi cult to avoid thinking ofPaul’s Damascus road experience in context with Philip’s absence or the

period of persecution following Stephen’s martyrdom.Given this, it is not surprising to find that Actsian Pauline influence inthe Letter extends far beyond the use of Pauline language mentioned above.Indeed, the whole setting and structure of the apostolic revelation betrays

5) Te revelation is also described elsewhere in Acts, of course, but for the purposes of thispaper I will focus on the Acts 9 account, as it is physically proximate to the section of the Acts that inspired the setting of the Letter and thus the obvious choice for the Letter ’s authorto draw on. Furthermore, it is also the only one of the three accounts that is told from the

narrator’s perspective, and this, in addition to its early occurrence in Acts, gives it theappearance of being the most objective and reliable account of “what really happened.”




the profound influence of the Acts 9 account of Paul’s revelation on theroad. I am far from the first to note this aspect of the Letter —it has been

mentioned by almost everyone who works with the Letter —but to date ithas not been discussed in detail.

Te Revelation and Acts 9

Te persecutions and the other events recounted in Acts 7-8 lead up to andunderlie the revelation received by Paul in Acts 9. Paul’s role in the perse-cutions is made clear at Acts 8:1, 8:4, 9:1-2, and 9:5, thus linking persecu-tion and revelation, a link made stronger by the fact that Paul’s revelation

has the effect of turning him from persecutor to persecuted, as is affi rmedat 9:16. In the Letter , too, the environment of increasing persecution setsthe stage for and underlies the revelation received by the disciples, as isshown by the disciples’ prayer immediately before the revelation: “Give uspower, for they seek to kill us!”

Clearly, then, there is a thematic link between Paul’s revelation in Actsand the disciples’ revelation in the Letter , in that both are tied to an atmo-sphere of persecution. But the similarities between the two revelations gomuch farther than this. Tey are so pronounced that it seems likely that in

her account of the revelation, the author of the Letter has used Paul’s rev-elation as a template for the construction of the disciples’ revelation, just asshe has used the Acts 7-8 situation as the basis for her frame story.

urning to the revelation itself, we note the following similarities:

Te Setting Te setting of the revelation does not correspond to Paul’s vision on theroad, of course, but it does cohere with the disciples’ residence in Jerusalemat the time of Paul’s revelation, as specified in Acts 8:14, and of course italso coheres with the vision granted to the apostles earlier in the Acts his-torical universe, which took place on the Mount of Olives. It thus fits intothe overall Actsian context.

Light but no VisionIn both the Letter and Acts 9, there is an emphasis on light, but noton vision—in fact, the light is accompanied by a loss of vision. In the Acts account, we are told that both Paul and those who are with him

hear a voice, but do not see any person, while there is a great light that




shines. Furthermore, Paul himself is blinded after the vision, only regain-ing his sight after the Lord’s prediction of his election and his suffering

(9:15-16).In the Letter , too, we have the presence of a great light, with no-one to

be seen. Jesus is not seen until much later in the text (as was the case with Acts), and his opening words in the Letter ’s revelation have to do preciselywith listening: “Hear my words (ϫⲓ ⲥⲙⲏ ⲉⲛⲁϣⲁϫⲉ).” Tus in both cases wesee a joined emphasis on light, sound, and the invisibility of the speakerand/or a lack of sight.

Te Saviour’s Question

Te Saviour’s question in the Letter , “Why are you asking me?” corre-sponds formally to the question that he asks Paul in Acts 9:4, namely,“Why do you persecute me?”; the difference in content is accounted for bythe different backgrounds and settings of Paul and the disciples, but inboth cases we have a demand for a justification of the activities of therecipients of the revelation. In both cases, too, the question is rhetorical,more a grand gesture than a real request for information; no answer isexpected or given in either account.

I AM Statement Ten the I AM statement following this question (“I am Jesus the Christ,the one who is with you to eternity [ⲁⲛⲟⲕ ⲡⲉ ⲓⲥ̅ ⲡⲉⲭⲥ̅̄ ⲉⲧϣ[ⲟ]ⲟⲡ ⲙⲛ̄̄ ̅ ⲧⲏⲩⲧⲛ̄ ̅

ϣⲁ ⲉⲛⲉϩ]”) also conforms to the Acts account formally and contextually(“I am Jesus, the one who you persecute [ⲁⲛⲟⲕ ⲡⲉ ⲓⲥ̅ ⲡⲉⲧⲕⲡⲏⲧ ⲛⲥϥ]”),albeit again it differs in terms of its specific content so as to fit the differentcontexts of the different addressees. But in both cases, it consists of the I AM declaration, followed by one or two titles, followed by Jesus’ statement

of his relationship to the recipient(s).

Pauline Content

Te specific gnostic content of the revelation does not correspond to the Acts account of Paul’s revelation. But its Pauline resonances, which havebeen discussed above, must be taken into consideration along with themore frequently discussed Johannine content of the revelation (Koschorke1979). It seems that the presentation of the disciples’ revelation is at least

partly inspired by a gnostic reading of Paul.




Te After-Effects: Vision, Suffering, and the Spirit

Te after-effects of the revelations in theLetter

and Acts are also linkedthrough the mingled themes of vision, suffering, and the infusion of thespirit. In Acts, Paul’s lack of vision is rectified only after the Lord’s predic-tion that he (the Lord) will reveal to Paul what sufferings he (Paul) mustendure, and it is to predict this that the Lord appears to Ananias in adream. Ten Paul is filled with the Holy Spirit, and regains his sight.

In the Letter , Peter refers to the need for suffering (138.16-20; 139.21-23), followed by a prayer for a spirit to be granted to the apostles. Ten itis stated that the apostles saw (ⲧⲟⲧⲉ ⲁⲡⲉⲧ[ⲣⲟⲥ] ⲙⲛ̄̄ ̅ ⲛⲓⲕⲉⲁⲡⲟⲥⲧⲟⲗⲟⲥ ⲁⲩⲛⲁⲩ

ⲉ[ⲃⲟⲗ]) and they are filled with a spirit of understanding. I agree here witherence Smith, who notes that “the giving of the spirit to the apostles isregarded as dependent in some way upon the content of the speech utteredby Peter, a conclusion reinforced by the further observation that the speechends with the specific request that they be given ‘a spirit of understanding’”(Smith 1985, p. 134). Te parallel with Paul helps us to see that the givingof the spirit is linked to, and dependent on, the affi rmation of the need forpersecution.

Te statement that the apostles “saw” is an interesting one for our pur-

poses. Now, due to the lacunous state of the Nag Hammadi manuscript,there is some ambiguity here (the corresponding section in the Codexchacos version has been lost). Te verb ⲛⲁⲩ (to see) is preserved, followedby what is probably an epsilon. Tere would have been space for roughlythree more letters in the line, but these letters are lost. Te two suggestionsthat have been advanced for reconstructions are ⲁⲩⲛⲁⲩ ⲉⲣⲟϥ (they sawhim/it) or ⲁⲩⲛⲁⲩ ⲉⲃⲟⲗ (they saw, with the connotation of regaining sightor of sight as opposed to blindness—Crum 234a).

If the former solution is adopted, as in Meyer’s work on the Letter , thequestion arises: who or what did they see? Given the immediate context,the two masculine singular possibilities are Jesus, to whom Peter has beenreferring, or the spirit for which he is praying. Neither of these fit in thecontext. It is clearly stated several lines later (140.14-15) that Jesus appearsto them, hence it is unlikely that they see him here. And as for the spirit,it is stated in the next line that “they were filled with a holy spirit.” On theone hand this fulfils Peter’s request; and on the other, if the spirit wasreferred to with a pronoun before (ⲛⲁⲩ ⲉⲣⲟϥ), it is diffi cult to see how

it would then subsequently become indefinite (“a holy spirit,” ⲟⲩⲡ̄ⲛⲁ̅ ̅ⲉϥⲟⲩⲁⲁⲃ). Tus a reading of ⲁⲩⲛⲁⲩ ⲉⲃⲟⲗ (they saw, or they regained their




sight) is to be preferred (see on this as well Bethge 1997 pp. 144; contra Meyer 1981 pp. 158-159).

According to this reconstruction, the apostles are not said to have seenanything, but simply to have seen, as if they had been blind previously,although no such blindness is mentioned in the text. Considered solelyfrom the point of view of the Letter , it seems as though that the author hassome sort of spiritual seeing in mind—one is tempted, for example, toread this as a comment that previously they were blind to higher realities,but now they can perceive, that is, “see,” them. But things become muchmore precise when we read this phrase intertextually, as containing an allu-sion to Paul’s revelation in Acts 9, in which the Coptic verb used is alsoⲛⲁⲩ ⲉⲃⲟⲗ. As is the case there, so too here a reference to regained sight islinked, thematically and temporally, to predictions of suffering, revelationand the reception of the spirit.

Louis Painchaud has established three criteria for identifying allusions,namely that 1) the possible allusion must in some way be perceived asstanding out from, or foreign to, its context, 2) the allusion, if present,must cast new light on its context, 3) and the possibility of a given passagebeing allusive is increased by the presence of other references in the work

to the source from which the allusion is drawn.6

All three of these criteriaare satisfied here, making it very likely that this passage is alluding to Paul’srevelation in Acts 9. As we have seen, the reference to seeing stands outfrom its context; treating it as evidence for an allusion to Paul’s revelationcertainly does cast new light on the whole scenario; and of course the Let-ter ’s use of Acts generally is clear.

Harmonization with Paul

o sum up, we have here a description of the apostles undergoing a reve-lation whose form is modelled on Paul’s own revelation as described in Acts 9, and whose content, while fundamentally gnostic and Johannine, is justified and supported by Pauline references. Te author of the Letter ,then, is engaged in creating a parallelism between the Jerusalem circle andPaul. Tey are linked not just by the fact that they all have revelations, butby the facts that their revelations take place at roughly the same time (afterthe events described in Acts 8), and in similar contexts and with similarthemes and contents. Te author of the Letter is on the one hand applying

6) Painchaud 1996.




the Acts-inspired Pauline standards for revelation to the apostles, that is,giving the apostles the sort of revelatory context that Acts gives to Paul;

and on the other hand, she is giving their revelation a gnostic, Paulineappearance. In other words, the apostles are being conformed to Paulinestandards.

Paul and Peter

Now, this period in the Acts account has very important ramifications forsubsequent Christian history. Te theme of persecution comes to the forehere, and it is linked intimately with the theme of the expansion of the

mission (as presented via the description of Philip’s activities in Acts 8) andwith the development of the mission through revelation. Te figure of Paulis crucial for all three of these themes, in that he is a) a persecutor who willbe the subject of much persecution, b) he is the figurehead for the expan-sion of the mission to the Gentiles, and c) his Christian career is based onrevelation. From the point of view of Acts, Paul will also take over fromPeter as the central figure in second half of the work. Te ways in which hisand Peter’s figures are constructed and interrelate are of pivotal importancefor this view of Christian history—a view which, as we have seen, has pro-

foundly influenced the author of the Letter .It is well known that one of the irenic concerns of the book of Acts is to

smooth away the acrimonious divisions and disputes that occurred betweenPaul and the “Jerusalem circle,” the Christian establishment under Peter’sleadership. Tat concern is especially significant here in the Acts historicalaccount, as it is at this point that begins the passing of the torch of Chris-tian leadership (at least as far as the Acts account is concerned) from Peterto Paul.

In order to make this transition as smooth as possible, the author of Actsharmonizes Paul with Peter, at least on the surface. So, for example, what-ever the historical Peter may have thought about food laws and Paul’s abro-gation of them, in Acts it is Peter who has the vision that legitimates this(10:9-16). Peter’s vision paves the way for, and renders inoffensive, Paul’srefusal to impose food restrictions on his gentile converts—and, indeed,the very idea that gentiles can be baptized and receive the Spirit withoutdiscrimination (10:41-11:1). Tus from the point of view of Acts, Peterand Paul are linked by having Paul carry on in Peter’s footsteps. Teir

differences are annulled through the assimilation of Paul to precedentsalready established by Peter and the Jerusalem circle.




Te Letter and Christian Unity

In theLetter

, we see the same concern at work, namely the desire to createa rapprochement between Paul and the apostolic circle, but this need issatisfied in the opposite manner. Rather than Paul being assimilated toPeter, here Peter is assimilated to Paul, in that the pivotal revelation that heand the other apostles share is in fact modelled formally on Paul’s, and itscontent references Pauline writings.

Te author of the Letter , like the author of Acts, is concerned to presenta unified, harmonious vision of the early church, but she does this byexpanding the Acts account so as to include a scene that identifies the

apostles with a gnostically-interpreted Paul. o judge by her literary activ-ity, her vision of the church is one where enlightened people (such as her-self, presumably) would be integrated into the Christian community as awhole.

Persecution is sure to come, and the “powers” and “archons” may dobattle against Christians, but here there is no inner-Christian polemic, norailing against bishops and deacons who “do business” in Christ’s nameand are “dry canals,” such as we find in the Apocalypse of Peter or the esti-mony of ruth.7 Furthermore, although the revelation that the Letter

describes takes place after Christ’s death, the author of the Letter points outunambiguously that the contents of the revelation were taught to the apos-tles during his life on earth (135.4-6; 138.1-3; 139.9-13). Tey are nopost-resurrectional novelty, but rather they are fundamental elements ofChrist’s teaching all along.

As Hartenstein has argued, it could be the case that the absence of Philipat the start of the text points to an authorial context in which there is somedivision among Christian groups—although, as we saw, his absence canalso be explained by the context of the frame story and the author’s desireto emphasize the joys of unity.

Even if the former understanding is adopted, it is significant that theauthor’s approach to this situation is to use the carrot rather than the stick:she emphasizes Philip’s joy and the spiritual blessings that accompany hisreturn, rather than being critical or threatening. It is also extremely impor-tant to note that the authorial position is identified with, and sympatheticto, that of the majority of the apostles, under Peter’s leadership, and not

7)

Bethge notes that “Es finden sich keine Anzeichen, die in bezug auf das Leiden und dieVerfolgung auf eine innerchristliche Konfrontation hinweisen” (Bethge 2001, p. 669).




with Philip. Ultimately, the Letter can be read as a story about the wonder-ful benefits to the church that come from Christian unity.

Sitz im Leben

Te fact that this eulogy of church unity is combined with a definitelygnostic understanding of Christianity argues in favour of an early dating ofthe Letter , to a period when a gnostic could reasonably hope for a peaceful,“two circles” coexistence of gnostic and non-gnostic Christians within thesame broad institution.

Te Letter ’s stress on the necessary presence of external persecution and

the link between persecution and revelation may suggest that it was writ-ten in a situation where the church was under attack by external forces:the author is calling for Christians to band together, both to increase theflow of revelatory knowledge and to resist outside oppression. On the otherhand, it may argue that the author sees persecution as a general rule, ratherthan a specific situation.

I am inclined to read the reference at the end of the Letter to the spreadof Christianity (“then the apostles parted from each other in the four wordsin order to preach,” 140.23-24) as evidence that the author is thinking in

terms of a global (from her perspective) church.Now, there has been a good deal of debate over this apparent reference

to “the four words (ⲡⲓϥⲧⲟⲟⲩ ϣⲁϫⲉ).” Te codex chacos version of theLetter differs from the Nag Hammadi version, but unfortunately casts nolight on the problem, as there is a lacuna at precisely this point: ⲛⲁⲡⲟⲥⲧⲟⲗⲟⲥ

ⲁⲩⲡⲱⲣ [approx. nine letters missing then ⲧ|ⲟⲟⲩⲥⲟⲩ ⲉⲧ|ϣⲉ ⲟⲉⲓϣ|:“the apostles separated . . . [se]nt them to pr[each]” (9.9-11). But whetherone ascribes this phrase it to some corruption in the text, with ⲕⲗⲓⲙⲁ or ⲥⲁ being the original word,8 or whether one sees the “four words” as the fourcardinal directions,9 or whether one sees in “the four words” a reference tothe four canonical gospels,10 the overall point for our purposes remainsthe same.

Under any of these interpretations, this section shows the apostles goingout into the world to preach and spread the good news. Despite the factthat they are going in four different directions, or preaching four differentgospels, they are nonetheless unified, having been made so by their revela-

8)

Discussed Meyer 1981, p. 160; Bethge 1978, p. 169, note 54; Wisse 1991, p. 250. 9) Bethge 1997, p. 149; Bethge 2001, p. 676 note 75.10) My own view, in which I follow Ménard (1977, p. 47) and Meyer (1991, p. 251), whorefers to Irenaeus’ Adv. Haer. III.11.8, four gospels for the τέσσαρα κλίματα τοῦ κόσμου.




tion. Tus, from her point of view the link between persecution and Chris-tian mission would have been established as a rule in the paradigmatic

period marking the start of widespread missionary activity.If so, one is lead to believe that she sees persecution as simply a funda-

mental fact of Christian life, without necessarily having a specific situationin mind. Te way in which persecution is linked to the very history of thecosmos and the underlying cosmic forces as well as to the paradigmaticcareer of the Saviour favours this assessment alternative.

Is the Letter a Petrine Document?

Given the prominence of Peter in the narrative, it is logical to argue thatthe Letter is a Petrine document. However, as we have seen above, the situ-ation is more complicated than this.

It is true that Peter is quite definitely the leader of the apostolic circle,both in a this-worldly and in a spiritual sense—note, for instance, hisreception of the Spirit before the rest of the apostles (139.14). But thequestion then arises: Is Peter’s prominence due to the author’s own sympa-thies in the matter, or is it caused by her faithful reflection of the situationas presented in this section of her source-text, namely Acts?

Te way in which the author harmonizes the apostolic revelation withPauline influences strongly suggests the latter explanation. Peter is theleader at this point in history, true, but his revelation is being set in a dis-tinctly Pauline mould, in form as in content. Te author’s own preferenceis clearly for a unified, harmonious Christian church; but to judge by theaccount that she has left us, her conceptions of several fundamental ele-ments of that church followed (gnostic) Pauline lines.

Tis conclusion nuances, but need not contradict, the assessment oference Smith in his work on early Christian Petrine controversies. Speak-ing of the Letter , Smith ascribes its esteem for Peter to its use of Acts: it is“direct result of the author’s use of the early chapters of Acts as a model”(Smith 1985 p. 197). I would merely extend this observation by notingthat the author’s development of her Actsian heritage implicitly under-mines its Petrine focus. Paradoxically, the fact that Paul is never mentionedor explicitly referred to in the Letter does not prevent it from being a pow-erfully Pauline document.

ConclusionOverall, then, I hope to have shown thus far that the Letter is a unified andcoherent work, in which we see a gnostic author working with consider-




able skill and nuance, exploiting several different literary genres in animaginative and creative fashion. Her story is precisely set historically in

the context of the events described in Acts 7-9, and she is creating a newstory within this fictional universe.

Te purpose of this new story is first of all to validate gnostic beliefs byshowing that the apostles themselves were the recipients of gnostic revela-tions; second, to argue for the essential unity of the Christian message bylinking these gnostic revelations to Christ’s teaching prior to his crucifix-ion; third, to argue for the essential unity of the Christian church by show-ing how revelation is hindered by apostolic divisiveness, and how gnosticrevelation harmonizes with and in fact requires active this-worldly mis-sionary efforts and persecution; and, fourth and finally, to show that theapostolic revelation coheres with Paul’s revelation on the road to Damas-cus, thus completing the apostolic circle.

Tus the Letter can ultimately be seen as an irenic work, conciliatoryon any number of levels. Christ’s post-resurrectional teachings are recon-ciled with his earthly career; Philip is reconciled with the other apostles;the Jerusalem circle is reconciled with Paul; and it provides as well a justification for the reconciliation of gnostic Christians with non-gnostic

Christians.

3. Te Letter and Nag Hammadi Codex VIII

In the preceding discussion of the Letter on its own terms, I hope to haveclarified some of the problematic issues that have surrounded this workover the past generation. But of course the Letter has not come down to uson its own. Rather, it is found in definite contexts, namely Codex chacos

and Nag Hammadi Codex VIII. In this paper we have been working withthe Nag Hammadi version of the Letter , and our focus will remain on NagHammadi even as we shift outward from the specific text to the codex thatcontains it, in order to address one more problematic issue related to theLetter , namely its codicological context. (For discussion of the logic under-lying codex chacos, see Brankaer/Bethge 2007.)

Scholarly interest in codicological organization has been growing over thepast decade, and with good reason. It is hard to imagine that the codices inwhich gnostic texts are found were assembled randomly. Teir contents

must have been chosen, although we cannot say how large a selection thecompilers had to draw from, and ordered.




In some cases this choice and ordering may have been casual, or super-ficial. In many cases, however, it is clear that considerable thought has been

put into the selection and arrangement of the various writings. Such is thecase, for example, in Nag Hammadi codex V, the so-called “apocalypticcodex,” or in the three-volume collection of Nag Hammadi codices I, XI,and VII (see on this Painchaud/Kaler 2007). Let us remember, too, thatthese codices are the only non-hypothetical contexts of use that we havefor the vast majority of the gnostic writings: they are thus crucially impor-tant for our understanding of how these works were received, used, andread by their owners.

But does this apply to the codex containing the Nag Hammadi versionof the Letter ? Some, following in Bethge’s footsteps (Bethge 1978, p. 162),have argued that the Letter was included in Nag Hammadi Codex VIIIsimply because of its length: it was short enough to fit into a codex afterthe extremely long work Zostrianos . As Birger Pearson recently put it, “theNag Hammadi version [of the Letter ] . . . was probably chosen for inclusionin Codex VIII because it is short enough to fit on the remaining pagesof the codex, after the tractate Zostrianos . . . Te two tractates are not inany way related to one another in terms of their content” (Pearson 2007,

p. 244). But there is more to be said on the matter than this. In fact, theLetter ’s presence gives evidence of careful planning on the part of thosewho organized the codex.

Before exposing my own views, I should note that Michael Williams hasalso argued for the presence of a coherent design underlying codex VIIIindividually as well as the pair of codices IV-VIII (Williams 1996, pp. 251-252). While our understandings of the codicological logic overlap at seve-ral points, and while his arguments have definitely influenced my ownunderstanding, we also have quite considerable differences. For the

moment, I will summarize his views, but the reader is urged to consult Williams’ work directly.In his view, the organizational principles underlying codices IV-VIII are

the same as those underlying codex III. In both of these cases, the collec-tion begins with the Apocryphon of John, which tells of “primordial origins”and can be seen as a rewritten Genesis. Following this, we get in both casesthe Egyptian Gospel , which presents us with “the divine Seth’s autobiogra-phy” as well as continuing the theme of “primordial origins.” After this, thetwo collections diverge: in codex III, we get Eugnostos , whereas Zostrianos

is the next work in the IV-VIII collection. Both of these, Williams argues,present “ancient testimony” dealing with the nature of the transcendent




realm. Finally, codex III contains the Sophia of Jesus Christ and the Dialo- gue of the Savior , while in codex VIII we have the Letter . Williams argues

that these works present “Christ’s revelation to his disciples.” Tus in Williams’ view both codices share a three-stage progression, movingforward temporally from primordial origins, to the testimony of an ancientfigure about the heavenly realms, to Christ’s contemporary revelation.

My own view puts more weight on the frame stories of the variousworks, and their relative degrees of explicit Christian affi liation. In NagHammadi Codex VIII, the Letter is preceded by a not-explicitly-Christianwork entitled Zostrianos . Tis extremely long and poorly preserved workwas the only other writing contained in the codex. Te overwhelmingmajority of Zostrianos seems to have dealt with the revelatory experiencesundergone by its protagonist, but it also includes a frame story that hasstrong resemblances to the Letter ’s frame story.

Te introductory section of Zostrianos presents us with a narrator whohas been partially enlightened. He separates himself from the others aroundhim because of his “holiness” and “sinlessness,” and seems to have beensustained in his quest for knowledge by visions of “the perfect child.” Butalthough he searches for knowledge in his ancestral traditions, he does not

find satisfactory answers. His suffering over the lack of knowledge almostdrives him to suicide, but he is saved by an angel of knowledge, who raiseshim into the heavens and reveals the mysteries of existence to him. On hisreturn, he becomes a preacher of salvation, inviting others to learn fromhim and flee death, despite the fact that they will be “reproved” and treatedbadly by the archontic rulers of the world.

As was the case in the Letter , here too we see a state of initial sufferingleading to revelation, which then will be inevitably accompanied by perse-cution. Te initial suffering here seems to be self-inflicted rather that

arising from persecution as in the Letter , but the narrator of Zostrianos also evidently has problems with his relationship to those around him(whom he rejects in stinging terms) and his ancestral traditions (whichhe castigates as being insuffi cient to satisfy him). Following his revelation,he takes up a career as a missionary. His message is based on the esotericknowledge that he received in his revelation, and he warns his listeners thatthose adhering to his message must expect persecution from the rulers ofthe world.

Although the revelations that the Letter and Zostrianos describe differ

greatly, the two works are very similar in terms of the patterns of their framestories, their cautionary insistence on the inevitable links between revelation,




suffering and persecution. Tis narrative and thematic similarity betweenthe two works helps to explain their presence together in codex VIII.

It is also significant to note the fact that Zostrianos , a work with noexplicitly Christian features, is followed by the very explicitly ChristianLetter . Te Letter could well have served to reassure readers of the codex ofthe compatibility of the sort of revelation experienced by the protagonistof Zostrianos with Christianity, by showing Peter and the apostles undergo-ing their own, similar, revelation. Let us note as well that the expressionsin Zostrianos of its protagonist’s dissatisfaction with his ancestral traditionsand “the god of my fathers” (3.16-17) could be used by the Christianreader as a justification for linking the setting of Zostrianos to the contextof diffi culty between the apostles and the non-Christian Jewish commu-nity that we see in the Letter .

Zostrianos , read by itself, does not appear to be Christian; when read inconjunction with the Letter , as the codex’s compilers seem to have intended,it becomes far more amenable to Christian interpretation: it is “codico-logically Christianized” through its numerous parallels with the Letter . AsMichael Williams has noted, “the temptation has been to think of [theLetter ] as an afterthought to the volume’s real purpose, a short piece that

happened to fit in the available space. But in fact it may have been pre-cisely [the Letter ] that gave Zost. its Christian ‘point’ in the mind of thescribe” (Williams 1996, p. 252).

Tis suggestion becomes even more interesting when we take Nag Ham-madi Codex IV into account as well. It has been linked, in terms of its con-struction and handwriting, to codex VIII (Williams 1992), and it is possiblethat the two codices were intended as a two volume set (Williams 1996). Ifthis is the case, the set might have begun in codex IV with the Apocryphon of John—a tale of revelation whose unambiguously Christian frame story is

formally very similar to those of Zostrianos and the Letter —followed by theGospel of the Egyptians a.k.a. the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit , a notexplicitly Christian work, and then continued in codex VIII with Zostrianos ,again not explicitly Christian but similar in form to the Apocryphon of John and the Letter , and then finally ending up with the Letter.

Te two not explicitly Christian texts are in the middle of the collection,bookended by clearly Christian works11 whose frame stories link them to

11) Whatever the alleged origins of the Apocryphon of John, the work as we have it in the NagHammadi collection and the Berlin codex is clearly intended to be Christian, as shown byits frame story.




the apostolic period and to revelations of the risen Christ. Te Christianreader of the collection would be reassured both at the start and the end of

her reading as to the essential Christianity of the collection as a whole. And not just Christianity in general, either: the stories told in the Apoc-

ryphon of John and the Letter are set in similar circumstances in the earlyyears of Christianity (the beginnings of worldly persecution leading to rev-elation), and as we saw above some aspects of Zostrianos could lead the readerto imagine that it involved a similar context. Tese works come together,then, to tell of the awesome revelations mediated by Christ, delivered to thefirst generation of Christian leaders as they struggle with opposition.

Tus we see that the position and presence of the Letter in Nag Ham-madi Codex VIII makes perfect sense. Rather than being an afterthought,it provides a Christian model of the sort of revelatory experience presentedin Zostrianos when considered in the light of codex VIII alone. When con-sidered in the light of codices IV and VIII, it is even more evocative andappropriate, ending the two-volume collection as it began, with an explic-itly Christian tale of revelation set in the apostolic period. It cannot bedismissed as mere “Buchfüller.”

Appendix: Revelation Dialogues

In this paper I have discussed the coherence and contents of the Letter ’sframe story, rather than the gnostic revelation itself. Tis being the case, Iwould like to conclude with a brief look at the reception that revelationdialogue frame stories have tended to receive in scholarly discussion. Infact, there has been a tendency in prior work on the literary genre of therevelation dialogues—a genre to which the Letter belongs—to denigratethe importance of the frame story.

Te description of the revelation dialogue as a literary genre has beenparticularly associated with two scholars, namely Kurt Rudolph, whosefoundational article was published in 1968, and Pheme Perkins, whosebook on the revelation dialogues was published in 1980.12

Rudolph associated these works quite strongly with erotapokriseis lit-erature, the catechetical and extremely formulaic collections of “questionsand answers” that were a popular means of discussing issues related to

12) Te reader seeking a much more complete discussion of the history of research isdirected to the first section of Hartenstein 2000.




high-status literature. In Rudolph’s opinion, revelation dialogues were not“real” dialogues such as those found in philosophical writings; the sole

purpose of their frame stories and the interaction between characters (whoare cardboard figures, “without flesh and blood”) was to provide an excusefor the presentation of their doctrinal content.

In the wake of the late 1970s enthusiasm for morphological analysis ofearly Christian and Jewish writings, Pheme Perkins undertook to describethe genre following the example of Collins et al. in their work on apoca-lyptic literature. In her section on the narrative setting of these dialogues,she discusses typical geographical and temporal settings, the recipients,their initial mental state, the appearance of the Redeemer, his initialaddress, questions directed to him by the disciples, the Redeemer’s com-missioning of the disciples, his ascension, and any narrative finale elementsthat may be present.

Although she does deal with the frame stories in considerable depth,bringing out their strong associations with the New estament gospelaccounts, nonetheless for Perkins as for Rudolph these frame stories, andthus also the characters and their interactions in works of this sort, are takenas being very standard and clichéd. In her book, the real focus of these

works is taken to be the transmission of esoteric information; the framestory (including the activities, opinions and states of mind of the disciples)is merely the means by which this transmission is accomplished.

Tese assumptions have coloured much of the subsequent scholarshipon the various revelation dialogues. I have argued elsewhere at some lengththat they are in need of re-examination and will not repeat my argumentshere. However, I do wish to point out that the nuanced, sophisticated usethat the author of the Letter has made of Acts 7-9 certainly cautions usagainst applying clichéd conclusions about the “formulaic” nature of these

frame stories to this work. Here we have what at first looks like an utterlygeneric and stereotypical frame story (the setting on a mountain, the voicefrom heaven in response to anguished prayers, etc.) and yet it turns out onexamination to be the product of a considerable amount of thought andcreativity on the part of the author, as well as being specifically located andcarefully integrated into sacred history. In addition to this, it meticulouslydevelops the historical tradition: its presentation of a previously unattestedincident in the early days of the church is carefully presented so as toadvance sophisticated theological point.

Tus I would hope that in addition to demonstrating the coherence andsubtlety of this specific work, the present investigation might serve as a




contribution towards rethinking some of the old, pejorative stereotypesabout the frame stories of revelation dialogues.

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