Serapion, Bishop of Antioch, in 190, on entering his see, learned that there was a Gospel attributed to St. Peter read in the sacred services of the church of Rhosus, in Cilicia. Taking it for granted, as he says, that all in his diocese held the same faith, without perusing this Gospel, he sanctioned its use, saying, “If this be the only thing that creates difference among you, let it be read.”

But he was speedily made aware that this Gospel was not orthodox in its tendency. It favoured the opinions of the Docetae. It was whispered that if it had an apostolic parentage, it had heretical sponsors. Serapion thereupon borrowed the Gospel, read it, and found it was even as had been reported. “Peter,” said he, “we receive with the other apostles as Christ himself,” but this Gospel was, if not apocryphal as to its facts, at all events heretical as to its teaching.

Thereupon Serapion, regretting his precipitation in sanctioning the use of the Gospel, wrote a book upon it, “in refutation of its false assertions.”374

This book unfortunately has been lost, so that we are not able to learn much more about the Gospel. What was its origin? Was it a forgery from beginning to end? This is by no means probable.

The Gospel of St. Mark, as we have seen, was due to St. Peter, and by some went by the name of the Gospel [pg 220] of St. Peter. It was a Gospel greatly affected by the Docetae and Elkesaites. “Those who distinguish Jesus from Christ, and who say that Christ was impassible, but that Jesus endured the sufferings of his passion, prefer the Gospel of Mark,” says Irenaeus.375

It was likely that they should prefer it, for it began at the baptism, and this event it stated, or was thought to state, was the beginning of the Gospel; to Docetic minds an admission, an assertion rather, that all that preceded was of no importance; Jesus was but a man as are other men, till the plenitude of the Spirit descended on him. The early history might be matter of curiosity, but not of edification.

That matter is evil is a doctrine which in the East has proved the fertile mother of heresies. Those infected with this idea—and it is an idea, like Predestinarianism, which, when once accepted and assimilated, pervades the whole tissue of belief and determines its form and complexion—could not acknowledge frankly and with conviction the dogma of the Incarnation. That God should have part with matter, was as opposed to their notions as a concord of light with darkness. Carried by the current setting strongly that way, they found themselves landed in Christianity. They set to work at once to mould Christianity in accordance with their theory of the inherent evil in matter. Christ, an emanation from the Pleroma, the highest, purest wave that swept from the inexhaustible fountain of Deity, might overshadow, but could not coalesce with, the human Jesus. The nativity and the death of our Lord were repugnant to their consciences. They evaded these facts by considering that he was born and died as man, but that the [pg 221] bright overshadowing cloud of the Divinity, of the Christ, reposed on him for a brief period only; it descended at the baptism, it withdrew before the passion.

Such were the party—they were scarcely yet a sect—who used the Gospel of St. Peter. Was this Gospel a corrupted edition of St. Mark? Probably not. We have not much ground on which to base an opinion, but there is just sufficient to make it likely that such was not the case.

To the Docetae, the nativity of our Lord was purely indifferent; it was not in their Gospel; that it was miraculous they would not allow. To admit that Christ was the Son of God when born of Mary, was to abandon their peculiar tenets. It was immaterial to them whether Jesus had brothers and sisters, or whether James and Jude were only his cousins. The Canonical Gospels speak of the brothers and sisters of Christ, and we are not told that they were not the children of Mary.376 When the Memorabilia were committed to writing, there was no necessity for doing so. The relationship was known to every one. Catholics, maintaining the perpetual virginity of the mother of Jesus, asserted that they were children of Joseph by a former wife, or cousins. The Gospel of St. Peter declared them to be the children of Joseph by an earlier marriage. Origen says, “There are persons who assure us that the brothers of Jesus were the sons whom Joseph had by his first wife, before he married Mary. They base their opinion on either the Gospel entitled the Gospel of Peter, or on the Book of James (the Protevangelium).”377

Such a statement would not have been intruded into the Gospel by the Docetae, as it favoured no doctrine of [pg 222] theirs. It must therefore have existed in the Gospel before it came into their hands.

We know how St. Mark's Gospel was formed. After the death of his master, the evangelist compiled all the fragmentary “Recollections” of St. Peter concerning our Lord. But these recollections had before this circulated throughout the Church. We have evidence of this in the incorporation of some of them into the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke. Others, besides St. Mark, may have strung these fragments together. One such tissue would be the Gospel of St. Peter. It did not, perhaps, contain as many articles as that of St. Mark, but it was less select. Like those of St. Matthew and St. Luke, on the thread were probably strung memorabilia of other apostles and disciples, but also, perhaps, some of questionable authority.

This collection was in use at Rhosus. It may have been in use there since apostolic days; perhaps it was compiled by some president of the church there. But it had not been suffered to remain without interpolations which gave it a Docetic character.

Its statement of the relationship borne by the “brothers and sisters” to our Lord is most valuable, as it is wholly unprejudiced and of great antiquity. The Gospel, held in reverence as sacred in the second century at Rhosus, was probably brought thither when that church was founded, not perhaps in a consecutive history, but in paragraphs. The church was a daughter of the church of Antioch, and therefore probably founded by a disciple of St. Peter.