Nowhere in the primary evidence is such a cosmic event clearly described. The Ascension of Isaiah is rife with problems. Paul spends little ink on this aspect of his Christ.
I’ve previously discussed my working premise that the earliest believers in the Christ found their story by means of allegorical interpretations, by finding previously hidden meanings in the scriptures --- and that Paul learned the details about this scriptural discovery from Cephas (Peter).
What I believe to be an early Peter tradition is explicit about this discovery --- in little discussed passages from Clement of Alexandria. Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150 to 215 CE), now a lesser-known Church Father, served in the prestigious position as head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. He was a prolific writer and is recognized as providing over 8,000 citations from ancient documents.
Most scholars of early Christianity place Clement's passages from the Preaching of Peter in the second-century CE. But Clement's modus operandi, his standard practice in the long and rambling Stromata, was to cite material from the Jewish scriptures, from books now found in the New Testament, and from a wide variety of classical, Greco-Roman and other material --- and to weave the citations into his own running commentary. By separating Clement's running commentary from the direct quotations from the Preaching, the problematic second-century terminology is found to be that of Clement, not the Peter tradition.
For the topic at hand, here’s the pertinent passage from Clement's Stromata, including what Clement presents as direct quotations from the Preaching of Peter. The portions of the passage that I believe to be direct quotations from the Preaching, I’ve highlighted in red, leaving Clement's running commentary in regular font. Other investigators have engaged in a similar exercise.
In the Gospel mythologies, Peter was the most prominent companion of an earthly Jesus, a witness to a great many miracles performed by Jesus, and in some, a witness to the resurrected Christ. However, in this tradition, Peter and his companions know about the Christ only by means of fresh interpretations of the Jewish scriptures, from discovering riddles and hidden meanings --- “without the scripture we say nothing.”"Peter, in the Preaching, speaking of the apostles, says: 'But having unrolled the books of the prophets which we had, found, sometimes expressed by parables, sometimes by riddles, and sometimes directly and in so many words naming Jesus Christ, found his coming and his death and the cross and all the other torments which the Jews inflicted on him, and his resurrection and assumption to heaven before Jerusalem was founded, all these things as they had been written --- what he must suffer and what shall be after him. Therefore, when we took knowledge of these things, we believed in God through that which had been written of him.' And a little after he adds that the prophecies came by Divine providence, in these terms: 'For we know that God commanded them in very deed, and without the Scripture we say nothing'." (Stromata, Book 6, chapter 15).
This tradition is consistent with the Pauline claims that the death and resurrection were known “according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4), and that the mysteries of the Christ were revealed and made known by the scriptures (Romans 16:25-26). (beware of apologetic translations)
In the Preaching, the events of Jesus took place at the hands of ancient Jews sometime in the distant past, “before Jerusalem was founded” (again, beware of apologetic translations).
In this tradition, the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Christ is lost in a time between legend and what may be history --- between the founding of the people of Israel with Abraham, and the founding of Jerusalem as a Jewish city. In a mystical place and time known to the people of Israel only from their sacred scriptures.
I believe this tradition of Peter tips the scales, at least for this mythicist, in favor of a tradition among the earliest believers that the suffering and death of the Christ took place at the hands of ancient Jews as found in the scriptural past --- rather than as a cosmic event in a heavenly realm.
I’ve conducted a similar exercise on all the passages of the Preaching of Peter cited by Clement by identifying the direct quotations from the Preaching, as in the previous example, by Clement’s introductions with some direct form of "Peter said". By this means, Clement’s running commentary and his paraphrasing can be separated. What emerges is an interesting combination of doctrines similar to those of Paul, in addition to evidence of Jewish sectarianism.
None of the direct quotations from the Preaching represent or expose second-century tradition. By reading Clement's wider context surrounding the citations from the Preaching of Peter --- and when the paraphrases and running commentary of Clement are separated from the direct quotations --- two distinct layers seem to emerge:
Alexandrian, second-century church tradition --- and an earlier tradition.
robert j.
