OUTI LEHTIPUU
ESCHATOLOGY, teaching about ‘last things’ (τὰ ἔσχατα), is a word that, according to one dictionary entry, refers to ‘Jewish, Christian, and Muslim beliefs about the end of history, the resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgement, the Messianic era, and the problem of theodicy (the vindication of God’s justice)’ (Oxford English Dictionary). The word was coined in the nineteenth century for the purposes of Christian theology (Petersen 1992: 576; Aune 1992: 594). If the term is taken to imply a systematic teaching about the topic, there is no such thing as ‘eschatology’ in Early Christian Apocrypha, or any other ancient texts. On the other hand, the word eschatos, ‘last’ or ‘final’, occurs frequently in these texts, and different kinds of visions of the coming of the Messianic age, a new heaven and a new earth, and descriptions of the afterlife, the bliss of the saved and the punishment of the condemned, abound.
When the word eschatos is used in a temporal sense, it often refers to ‘the last day’ and implies a time when a profound, cosmic change will take place, the present order will end, and an entirely new one will begin. In early Christian parlance, the eschaton is indicated by evil signs and evil people (2 Tim. 3.1; Jas. 5.3; 2 Pet. 3.3). Nevertheless, it is something to be welcomed, for it means the coming of Christ and the salvation of his own people (1 Pet. 1.5, 7). Several New Testament texts indicate that the ‘last days’ are already present (Acts 2.17; 1 John 2.18).
Even though the scope of most eschatological texts is cosmic and communal, in some texts the focus is on the question of what happens to individuals after their death. In such individual eschatological scenarios the end is not the end of the present world associated with a particular point in history but the individual’s end at the moment of that person’s physical death. In Early Christian Apocrypha, the fate of individuals after death dominates. There is less emphasis on the end of this world and events leading to it, while the focus is usually on the ultimate fate of righteous and wicked people, usually revealed in apocalyptic visions. The recipient of revelatory teaching in these texts is typically a visionary figure, such as one or several of the apostles and the vision is mediated by Christ or an interpreting angel (angelus interpres).
Alongside with cosmic and individual strands of eschatology, it is customary to speak about ‘present’ or ‘realized’ eschatology. This expression is strictly speaking a contradiction in terms since its emphasis is on the present life and not on the anticipation of the end. The basis for this view is the conviction that what seems to be the eschaton (physical death or the end of the world) has no added significance; the saved already enjoy the bliss of the divine life and the condemned are already spiritually dead. Even though the present circumstances might seem to contain only perils and scorn for the righteous while the godless seem to prosper, this is an illusion, for salvation and resurrection are present realities. All these different forms of eschatological teaching occur in the texts that were to be included in the New Testament canon, often side by side within one text (Lehtipuu 2007). In this respect, it is little wonder to find a similar variety within Christian apocryphal texts.
If ‘eschatology’ is difficult to define unequivocally, the term ‘Early Christian Apocrypha’ is no less complex (see the Introduction to this volume). In a broad sense, the name refers to non-canonical early Christian writings that form a vast and amorphous body of texts. This kind of definition, however, is too inclusive, but at the same time too exclusive. It is too inclusive because early Christian writings also contain texts that are conventionally not counted among ‘apocryphal’ texts, such as the so-called apostolic fathers and all of the patristic texts; and it is too exclusive because a few texts normally considered apocryphal belong to the NT canon for some Christians, such as Paul’s third letter to the Corinthians which appears in the Armenian Bible. Canonicity is also a problematic criterion since the formation of the New Testament canon does not offer any temporal limit for the production of the so-called Apocrypha: some of them were created before any concept of canon had emerged, others centuries later, in medieval times. The Nag Hammadi text corpus is not always treated along with other Early Christian Apocrypha. The same holds true with the numerous early Christian martyrologies. This is mainly due to the established scholarly tradition that has kept them apart even though there are no real reasons for this.
Yet another difficulty with determining what texts belong to Early Christian Apocrypha is that, especially as far as apocalypses go, there are no clear borderlines between early Christian and early Jewish texts (Bauckham 1998: 82, 171). Many of the so-called Old Testament pseudepigrapha may have originated in Jewish circles but they have been transmitted and preserved by Christians. Sometimes they may have been reworked by Christians and the possibility that they actually are penned by Christians cannot always be excluded (Davila 2005). In this article, I only treat texts that are named after or linked to a New Testament figure such as an apostle or a group of apostles. Such linking implies that there is an explicit relation between the apocryphal writing and a New Testament text or tradition. Even with this criterion, there are borderline cases. For example, the Epistle of Pseudo-Titus includes a portion of an older (either Jewish or Christian) apocalypse that is ascribed to ‘the prophet Elias’ (but not known from a Coptic text that bears the name of the Apocalypse of Elijah). Using the definition proposed above, this article includes the Epistle but excludes the Apocalypse and the vision of hell that seems originally to have been included in the latter is treated as part of the former.
Another methodological point to be noted is the fact that most of the so-called Apocrypha are only attested in relatively late medieval manuscripts and in languages other than their original language. Very little is known about their textual history. They represent what scholars call ‘living texts’ (Hilhorst 2007: 6); in other words, these texts were not only copied but often ‘improved’. Thus it is often impossible to know how faithfully a version that we have preserves ancient readings, and creating theories about how these texts evolved can be precarious. Moreover, some texts appear in several versions, often in several languages, that may differ considerably from one another.
The aim of this chapter is to give examples of central themes that are characteristic of different eschatological teachings found in early Christian apocryphal texts. These include descriptions of the events preceding the end, tours in heaven or hell that reveal the punishments of the sinners and the bliss of the righteous, and different understandings of resurrection and salvation. It is not possible to treat the important questions of the provenance and textual history of the texts referred to here. An interested reader may consult other articles of this volume. (On apocalypses, see especially Chapter 6 by Richard Bauckham.)
In many New Testament texts, eschatological expectations focus on the second coming of Christ and the final judgement. All three Synoptic Gospels report Jesus’ apocalyptic discourse revealing events that precede the end (Matt. 24; Mark 13; Luke 17, 21). Some apocryphal texts elaborate these discourses. As examples of texts that anticipate a general judgement in the future and describe its circumstances, I discuss the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistula Apostolorum, and the Apocalypse of Thomas. My fourth example is the Apocalypse of Paul which briefly mentions the coming ‘great day of judgement’ without elaborating the idea further. Instead, this text invests in the description of the Messianic reign of a thousand years in the book of Revelation (Rev. 20.4–6) and depicts what happens to the dead immediately after death.
The Apocalypse of Peter is known in two somewhat different versions, one in Greek (the so-called Akhmîm version) and one in Ge’ez (Ethiopic). The text reports a dialogue between the risen Lord and his disciples on the Mount of Olives. According to the beginning of the text (preserved only in Ge’ez), the book is about ‘the second coming of Christ and resurrection of the dead which Christ revealed through Peter’. The bulk of the text, however, consists of a vision of the punishments of sinners after the judgement (on these, see further the section Fate of the Sinners: Punishments in Hell). On the request of his disciples to ‘declare the signs of your coming and of the end of the world’, Jesus warns about false Christs and then describes his coming: ‘As the lightning that shines from the east and the west, so will I come upon the clouds of heaven with a great host in my majesty. With my cross going before my face will I come in my majesty. Shining seven times brighter than the sun will I come in my majesty with all my saints, my angels’ (Apocalypse of Peter 1.6–8; cf. 6.1–2). The description combines and expands the gospels’ imagery of the Son of Man’s coming as the flash of a lightning (Matt. 24.27; cf. Luke 17.24), on the clouds of heaven with power and glory (Matt. 24.30; Luke 21.27), surrounded by angels (Matt. 16.27; Luke 9.26). The idea of the cross preceding the Lord resembles the resurrection narrative in the Gospel of Peter where the cross follows the resurrected Jesus and gives a testimony (Gos. Pet. 10.39–42). Another sign that the end is near is given by a fig tree, an image that also combines different gospel traditions (Ap. Pet. 2; cf. Mark 11.12–14; Matt. 21.18–22; Luke 13.6–9). According to the Apocalypse of Peter, the fig tree is a symbol of the house of Israel. Even though it seems to sprout and flourish, this is the work of a deceiver whose actions will only cause martyrdom. It has been suggested that this description reveals the historical context of the text. The reasoning goes that the passage was written in polemic against the millenarian expectations raised by Bar Kochba in 132 CE (Buchholz 1988: 408–12; Bauckham 1998: 176–94), but this remains speculative.
Judgement follows immediately. There is no place for an earthly golden age of Christ’s thousand-year reign. Judgement also requires the resurrection of the dead. All living people are gathered before God, and the land of the dead will give up all that it holds. The wild beasts and the fowls will restore all the flesh they have devoured (Ap. Pet. 4; similar ideas occur in the Jewish apocalypses 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch). On the last day darkness and obscurity veil the whole creation and cataracts of fire fall down and burn everything in a cosmic conflagration. Waters turn into fire, stars and the firmaments of heaven melt, and the whole creation dissolves (Ap. Pet. 5). Evil-doers try to find an escape but are not able to as the fire overtakes them and they will experience great affliction which causes them to gnash their teeth.
Fire is a deeply traditional Jewish image of God’s anger and divine judgement (e.g. Ps. 18.8–9, 97.3; Mal. 3.19) and it also became the major element of Gehenna (Mark 9.43–7; Matt. 5.22, 29; James 3.6). In the Apocalypse of Peter, fire does not only function as an instrument of punishment but all people must enter into the river of fire while their works will be shown to them. The righteous ones will pass the fire unharmed but ‘the unrighteous, the sinners, and the hypocrites’ will have to stay in the darkness and in the fire and will be eternally punished, ‘every one according to his transgression’ (Ap. Pet. 6).
The Epistula Apostolorum (‘The Letter of the Apostles’) which is preserved in a Coptic and a Ge’ez version (together with some Latin fragments) shares several common features with the description in the Apocalypse of Peter. Notwithstanding its name, the text is not a letter but an apocalypse comprised of revelations of the risen Lord in the form of a dialogue with his disciples. When the disciples ask ‘in what kind of power and form are you about to come?’, the Lord answers, ‘Truly I say to you, I will come as the sun which bursts forth; thus will I, shining seven times brighter than it in glory while I am carried on the wings of the clouds in splendour with my cross going on before me, come to the earth to judge the living and the dead’ (Ep. Apost. 16). The second coming will take place ‘when the hundred and fiftieth year is completed, between Pentecost and Passover’ (Ep. Apost. 17). Similar to the Apocalypse of Peter, Christ’s return is directly linked with the resurrection of the dead and the judgement, with no intermediate Messianic age. The resurrection pertains to the flesh that will be judged together with the soul and spirit (Ep. Apost. 26). The last days will be filled with disasters and agony: there will be constant thunder and lightning, fiery hail, earthquakes, drought, plague, wars, and persecution causing ‘extensive and quick death’ (Ep. Apost. 34). Everything is pure hatred and jealousy but even worse things await those who have not listened to God’s commandments. Their end will be destruction and punishment. The righteous whom they have reviled, tormented, and persecuted will be blessed in heaven (Ep. Apost. 37–8).
An even more elaborate description of the End appears in the Latin Apocalypse of Thomas. The longer version of the text starts with a listing of the signs that predict the End. These include famine, wars and earthquakes, snow, ice and droughts, blasphemy, iniquity, envy, villainy, indolence, pride, and intemperance. ‘The house of the Lord’ and its altars shall be desolate ‘so that spiders weave their webs therein’. The priesthood will be corrupted and wicked kings will arise. (Similar indicators of the End are mentioned in the Gospel of Judas 38–40.) The signs of the End turn into cosmic catastrophes: waters turn into blood, ‘the heavens shall be moved, the stars shall fall upon the earth, the sun shall be cut in half like the moon, and the moon shall not give her light’. Then Antichrist will appear. A new list of seven signs is given that correspond to seven days of judgement, presumably meant as a reversal of the seven days of creation, even though this is not mentioned explicitly. A seven-day period that turns the creation back into a primordial chaos also occurs in the description of the end of the world in 4 Ezra (7.30–1). The text of the longer version ends abruptly in the middle of the sixth day but the shorter version continues by narrating how a perpetual fire will consume the whole earth and all its elements on the sixth day and how resurrection will take place. On the seventh day, angels descend and seek the elect ones and save them from the destruction of the world. These are presumably those who are still alive when the judgement takes place. After the seven days have passed, on the eighth day, there will be rejoicing in heaven for ‘the destruction of this world has come’. There is no explicit mention of the fate of the wicked. Perhaps the supposition is that they perish together with the world.
The Apocalypse of Paul also refers to the great day of judgement that will take place in the future (Ap. Paul 16) but the ultimate judgement is overshadowed by the preliminary division of the souls immediately after death and the rewards and punishments in the intermediate period. After death, angels carry the soul in front of a heavenly court where God acts as the judge (Bernstein 1993: 293–5). In the case of a righteous person, the soul is handed to the angel Michael who leads it to the Paradise of Joy. The soul will dwell there until it will be reunited with the body at the resurrection when it will ‘receive the things promised to all the just’ (Ap. Paul 14). In like manner, when a wicked person dies, evil angels meet the soul and escort it to hear God’s verdict. It will be handed to the angel Tartaruchos and cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Ap. Paul 15–16). In a case where the outcome is not obvious, the soul is taken to see the places of punishment for seven days after which it has the chance to confess its sins. In the reported case, however, the soul claims it has not committed any sins. When the angel brings forth a list of the soul’s sins, and the souls of its victims appear as witnesses, the soul is handed to Tartarus and led down to hell into the lower prison where it will experience torments (Ap. Paul 17–18). This, however, is not the final state for the wicked souls will also be reunited with their bodies at the resurrection to ‘receive what is the due for the sins and impieties’ (Ap. Paul 15). There is no indication that the punishments experienced in Tartarus would have a curative function and that the resurrection and the final judgement would change the preliminary verdict.
Another difference between the Apocalypse of Paul and the other texts discussed in this section is the reference to the thousand-year reign of Christ in the former. In his otherworldly tour, Paul sees the ‘land of promise’. This is not situated in the heavens but on earth; it is the earth which the meek will inherit (cf. Matt. 5.5). For the time being, it is hidden but ‘when Christ, whom you preach, shall come to reign, then, by the sentence of God, the first earth will be dissolved and this land of promise will then be revealed’ (Ap. Paul 21). The idea of a thousand-year Messianic age was popular among several early Christian teachers, such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, but appears less often in the apocryphal texts (see, however, the History of Joseph the Carpenter 26).
The Apocalypse of Paul is clearly inspired by 2 Cor. 12.2–4 where the apostle Paul tells of his mystical experience of visiting paradise and the third heaven. His report of having heard things ‘which no mortal is permitted to repeat’ sparked the imagination of several Christian writers. Another text known by the same name is found in the Nag Hammadi Library (NHC V, 2). It narrates how souls are judged and punished as they ascend through heavens. Whether this is a description of the soul’s ascent after death or of its spiritual development remains unclear (Pesthy 2007: 206–7), and these two alternatives are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
The Nag Hammadi apocalypse describes Paul’s ascent through the heavens, starting from the third heaven. In the fourth heaven he sees a scene of judgement which has affinities with the vision of judgement in the Greek Apocalypse of Paul, referred to above. Angels that resemble gods bring souls out of the ‘land of the dead’ (which probably refers to the world, not to Hades), whipping them. They place the souls at the gate of the heaven where a toll-collector refuses to let sinners in. When the sinner protests, his sins are brought in as witnesses. Three witnesses arrive and when the soul cannot defend itself, it is cast down and forced into a body prepared for it (20.5–21.22). This apparently means reincarnation and a new cycle of life on earth. The description has close parallels with the Jewish Testament of Abraham, particularly with the Coptic version of the short recension of the text (MacRae and Murdock 1990: 256–7). A similar scene with angels herding souls to be judged appears at the gate of the fifth heaven but no details are revealed as Paul and the Holy Spirit who is guiding him are allowed to move forward. Toll-collectors or other powers examining incoming souls also appear in other early Christian texts, such as the first Apocalypse of James (NHC V, 3), the Gospel of Mary (BG 8502,1), and the Vision of Isaiah.
A prominent feature in many apocryphal apocalypses is an otherworldly tour where a seer, often accompanied by an angel or other intermediary figure, visits heaven and hell. This is a widespread and ancient topos known in several cultural traditions, including the Mesopotamian, Graeco-Roman and Jewish worlds (Bauckham 1998: 9–48). Sometimes, the torment or rest of the dead is revealed in a vision describing the future after the judgement but more commonly the punishments and rewards are envisioned as taking place simultaneously while life continues on earth. As we saw in the case of the Apocalypse of Paul, the idea that the dead experience their otherworldly fate directly after death does not have to exclude the belief that something will still take place in the future. In such a case, however, the final judgement will not change anything: the immediate punishments or rewards anticipate the ultimate fate. Even though this makes the judgement somewhat superfluous, such scenarios belong to several Jewish and Christian texts (most prominently in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch).
Where is the abode of the dead situated? The location and the geographical information vary from text to text and must often be inferred from occasional comments. Typically, the souls ascend to heaven where the righteous souls are allowed to enter but the unrighteous are cast down to an underworld pit. Even though paradise and hell seem logically to be far away from each other, in several texts the condemned and the blessed are within sight of each other—in the same manner as they are in the Gospel story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16.19–31). For example, victims of murder or aborted children can see, or even participate in, the punishing of their killers (Ap. Peter 7–8; Ap. Paul 40). In some depictions, salvation and damnation are linked to specific directions: east is the way to salvation (Book of Thomas the Contender 143.2–8), the west is where the entrance of hell is situated (the Greek Apocalypse of the Virgin 3; the Ethiopic Liber Requiei 90). In some texts, most notably in the Apocalypse of Paul, both the places of punishment and the places for the blessed are neither within the heavens nor under the earth but at the ultimate limits of the world, outside both space and time. Both domains lie beyond the river Ocean that serves as a boundary between paradise and hell, the world of the living and the world of the dead as well as the earth and the heaven (Copeland 2007: 78).
The idea that the world of the dead lies in the furthest extremities of the earth by the river Ocean is as old as the Homeric epics (cf. Odyssey 11). Greek influence on early Christian descriptions of the places of the dead can also be detected in the borrowing of Greek mythological names. The abode of the dead is frequently called Hades which sometimes corresponds to the place where all the souls of the dead go but more frequently to the place of punishment. The names abyss (ἄβυσσος) and Tartarus (Τάρταρος) also abound (see, e.g., Ap. Paul 11; Acts of Philip 2.23; Book of Thomas the Contender 141.33; 144.34–7). Sometimes Hades is personified, together with Death or with Satan (Gospel of Nicodemus; Questions of Bartholomew), and Tartarus has lent its name to the punishing angel Tartarouchus (Ap. Peter 13; Ap. Paul 16; Book of Thomas the Contender 142.41; cf. Rosenstiehl 1986). Similarly the Acherusian Lake and Elysium belong to some descriptions of the place of the blessed. For example, in the Apocalypse of Paul the Acherusian Lake is the place where those who have repented their sins are baptized by the archangel Michael (Ap. Paul 22).
One subcategory in the early Christian apocryphal discussions of the hereafter is the portrayal of Christ harrowing hell. Accounts of Christ’s visit to the world of the dead serve two purposes (Bernstein 1993: 272–82). First, they satisfy the curiosity concerning what happened to Christ between his burial and his resurrection. If he died in the same manner as all human beings, he must have gone to Hades where all people go. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, they solve a theological dilemma concerning the salvation of people who lived and died before Jesus (Ehrman and Pleše 2011: 465–6). If no one (apart from the exceptional cases of Enoch and Elijah: see just below) was able to enter paradise before the death of Jesus—as is made explicit, for example, in the Questions of Bartholomew—where were all the Old Testament saints and other righteous people of the past? How could they receive salvation?
The widespread harrowing of hell tradition tells how Christ descends to Hades, picks up the righteous dead, and leads them to paradise with him. According to an apocryphal report ascribed to Thaddeus and preserved by Eusebius, Christ ‘descended alone but ascended with a great multitude to his Father’ (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 1.13.20; cf. Acts of Thomas 10). The best-known and most influential version is that in the Gospel of Nicodemus (also known as the Acts of Pilate), a composite text preserved in several variations both in Greek and Latin. Christ’s actions in Hades are reported by Karinus and Leucius, the sons of old Simeon (cf. Luke 2.25–35) who were deceased but resurrected at the death of Jesus (cf. Matt. 27.52–3) to give their testimony. After this they were brought to paradise. According to their report, Christ appeared as a bright light in the midst of the obscure darkness of Hades. He conquers death by defeating Satan and by casting him down to the everlasting fire of Tartarus. Then he takes the Old Testament saints and all those who believe in him with him. Figures such as Adam, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and John the Baptist are mentioned by name. They ascend together with Christ to paradise where Enoch and Elijah and the repentant criminal (cf. Luke 23.39–43) wait for them. Enoch and Elijah were considered special cases that did not face death but were directly translated to heaven (cf. Gen. 5.24; 2 Kgs 2.1–18). They appear frequently in apocryphal eschatological descriptions, especially in the portrayals of paradise (Apocalypse of Peter 2; Apocalypse of Paul 20–1; History of Joseph the Carpenter 30; Syriac Transitus Mariae 5). In the Latin version B of the Gospel of Nicodemus, the repentant criminal comes to Hades as Christ’s herald and ascends together with him to be ‘today with me in paradise’.
The account of Christ’s descent tells primarily of exceptional individuals and their salvation, not about the fate of the ordinary dead. Most versions leave open what will happen to all those who have died or will die after Jesus’ resurrection. Will they first descend to Hades to wait for the future judgement or will they immediately experience punishments or bliss? The Latin B text has an answer: after having smitten Hades, Christ makes a division among the inhabitants of Hades and ‘immediately threw some down into Tartarus and led others with him to the world above’ (Gospel of Nicodemus 25.2). This implies that after Christ’s victory over death, Hades ceases to exist (cf. Rev. 20.14) and the dead meet their fate immediately at death.
Hell is characterized by fire and darkness, sometimes also by filth and stench or smoke and sulphur. These are based on biblical imagery. Sheol, the traditional world of the dead, is a gloomy dark place (Job 10.21–2), and sulphur and fire are the means by which God destroys his enemies (Gen. 19.24). Similarly in the New Testament writings, sinners will be cast out into the outer darkness (Matt. 8.12, 22.13, 25.30) and their destination is an eternal fire (Matt. 13.42, 25.41) or a fiery lake that burns with sulphur (Rev. 19.20, 20.10, 21.8). Other New Testament images also abound: the punished sinners weep and gnash their teeth (Matt. 8.12, 24.51) and are chastised by a worm that never rests (Mark 9.44–8; cf. Isa. 66.24). According to the Apocalypse of Paul, one part of the place of punishments has ‘nothing else but cold and snow’ (Ap. Paul 42)—a characteristic that inspired later imagination (cf. Dante, Inferno 34).
One of the earliest, detailed accounts of hell, called simply the ‘place of punishment’ (τόπος κολ[ά]σεως) can be found in the Apocalypse of Peter (7–12 in the Ge’ez version, 21–34 in the Akhmîm text). It describes the place as very rough (αὐχμηρότατον) and both the punished people and their punishing angels as having ‘dark raiment in accordance with the air of the place’. Peter sees different groups of sinners who suffer from different punishments, some of which directly correspond to their sins (measure-for-measure punishments). Many of these are so-called hanging punishments; people are hung by the body part that has caused them to sin: the blasphemers by the tongue, seducers of men by the neck and the plaited hair, men who slept with these women by the loins (thus the Ge’ez) or feet (thus the Greek), a euphemism for genitals. All these sinners are placed over an unquenchable fire. Other groups of sinners mentioned in the text include deniers of righteousness, murderers and their associates, women who have procured abortion, committers of infanticide, persecutors and betrayers of the righteous, slanderers and false witnesses, rich who have neglected widows and orphans, usurers, idol worshippers (described as men laying with men and women laying with women), makers of idols, and those who have forsaken the way of God. The Ge’ez version adds to the list those who have not honoured and obeyed their parents, girls who have not kept their virginity, disobedient servants, hypocrites, and sorcerers. Each group has a particular punishment assigned for it comprising of eternally flaming fire, flesh-devouring worms and beasts, chastising angels, etc. (Buchholz 1988: 206–338; Bauckham 1998: 205–21; Bremmer 2010: 309–18).
An even longer and more elaborate description of the fate of the dead appears in the Apocalypse of Paul which proved to be immensely popular, inspiring several later such descriptions. The Apocalypse of Paul is often assumed to have been influenced by the Apocalypse of Peter (Bernstein 1993: 293) but the closer relationship of the texts is not easy to infer, not least due to the fact that the bulk of the texts are preserved in different languages—the Apocalypse of Peter in Ge’ez and Greek, the Apocalypse of Paul in Latin, Syriac, and Coptic. Moreover, similar traditions of otherworldly punishments also appear in other texts. Perhaps the oldest occurrence of the so-called hanging punishments is in the Apocryphon of Elijah, presumably a Jewish work but preserved in an early Christian apocryphon, the Epistle of Titus (Bauckham 1998: 89). The author of this text quotes the ‘prophet Elias’ who in a vision saw a deep valley burning with sulphur and describes the different punishments of the souls of sinners he saw there.
The place of punishment in the Apocalypse of Paul is a place where ‘there was no light, but darkness and sorrow and sadness’ (Ap. Paul 31). There is a river of boiling fire and men and women immersed in it, some up to their knees, some up to their navels, some up to their lips, some up to their hair. Deep pits are filled with the souls of those ‘who did not hope in the Lord’, one on top of the other. Paul wonders whether the pits are deep enough to hold all the souls of the next thirty to forty generations but the angel assures him: ‘The Abyss has no measure’ (Ap. Paul 32). Unlike the Apocalypse of Peter, however, where the categories of sinners are distinguished mainly on moral grounds, the sins punished in the Apocalypse of Paul are first and foremost ecclesiastical and doctrinal (Czachesz 2007: 130–4). The emphasis is on distinguishing between true and false Christians and punishments—some again measure for measure and depicted as hanging punishments—are distributed, e.g., to those who have occupied themselves in idle disputes after church, committed sins after having taken part in the Eucharist, slandered each other at church gatherings, or planned evil against their neighbours. Church officers who have acted improperly or failed to act according to strict moral standards, such as presbyters, bishops, deacons, and readers, are listed separately, as well as usurers, magicians, adulterers (explicitly both men and women), and those who have harmed orphans, widows, and the poor, etc. (Ap. Paul 32–40).
The worst punishments, however, are reserved for those who err on doctrinal grounds. Those who ‘do not confess that Christ has come in the flesh and that the Virgin Mary brought him forth, and those who say that the bread and cup of the Eucharist of blessing are not the body and blood of Christ’ are placed in a well in the north that is sealed with seven seals. When Paul opens the cover, an evil stench comes out and he sees ‘fiery masses glowing on all sides’ (Ap. Paul 41). Those ‘who say that Christ did not rise from the dead and that this flesh will not rise again’ are in a cold and snow, gnashing their teeth while a worm that never rests devours them (Ap. Paul 42).
Similar lists of otherworldly torments also occur in some apocryphal acts of apostles. In the Acts of Thomas, the apostle restores the life of a young woman who was murdered by her former lover (Acts of Thomas 51–61). She recounts in detail what horrible punishments she saw while dead. An ugly-looking man in filthy clothing comes to receive her soul and takes her to a ‘fearful and grievous place’ with many chasms and a heavy stench. She sees souls hung upon fiery wheels, crying and lamenting, and others wallowing in mud full of worms, gnashing their teeth, yet others hung by the tongue, by the hair, by the hands or by the feet head-downward—each according to the sin committed. Some of the souls are fully consumed by these punishments, the rest are imprisoned in a dark cavern. Thomas confirms her testimony: ‘There are not only these punishments but also others worse than these.’
A similar episode is told in the opening scene of the Acts of Philip (1.5–13). The apostle meets a widow who is burying her only son. Philip raises the son up and he reports what he has seen in hell. In one of the two extant versions (manuscript V), the son only says: ‘I saw there tortures and punishments that the human tongue cannot tell.’ The other version (manuscript A) gives a detailed description of the scenes. For example, a man who in his life tyrannized others and slandered bishops and presbyters is thrown into an infernal pit (λάκκος ταρταροῦχος), where he gnashes his teeth and an angel with a fiery sword tortures him. A young man who did not respect his parents or a presbyter and who insulted a virgin by calling her a prostitute lies on a bed of ember with his ribs jutting out. The flames turn into fiery snakes that spring up and devour him. A man and a woman are tied to the gate of Hades with chains of fire and a three-headed dog Cerberus devours them, holding their livers in its paws. The archangel Michael, who is guiding the dead man, explains that they will be tortured by the beast until the great day of judgement because they have slandered and spoken against the just, that is, against virgins and eunuchs who live in purity and against different church office holders (bishops and both male and female presbyters and deacons are mentioned).
The son and his mother, who are explicitly described as worshippers of pagan gods, repent and become Christians and many others convert with them (Acts of Philip 1.18). A similar outcome is reported in the Acts of Thomas (58–9). The vivid accounts of the afterlife guide the audience—first and foremost the audience of the acts—to repent by giving them a warning as to what will happen if they fail to do so (Copeland 2007: 85).
Repentance is not possible after death. In several scenes of punishments the sinners lament and cry for mercy, but at the same time they acknowledge that they are rightfully punished (Ap. Peter 13; Acts of Philip 1.6). Often the seer is moved to compassion, protests that it would have been better for the sinners not to have been born, and pleads for mercy for the damned, invoking God’s goodwill towards his creation (Ap. Peter 3; Ap. Paul 42–4). Sometimes angels, such as the archangel Michael (Ap. Paul 43–4), virgins and eunuchs (Acts of Philip 1.7–8), or other saints are mentioned as praying for the sinners. The living can also pray for the dead, like the apostles (Ep. Apost. 40) and Thecla (Acts of Paul and Thecla 28–9) do. Sometimes God hears the prayers of the righteous and grants a temporary rest from the torments—be that for the whole of the Lord’s day (Ap. Paul 44) or three days starting on Sunday (Ethiopic Liber Requiei 100; or nine hours on Sundays according to some manuscripts), or a week (the Ethiopic Apocalypse of the Virgin) or fifty days (the Greek Apocalypse of the Virgin 29; some manuscripts define this as the period between Easter and Pentecost). These, however, are mere concessions; they do not change the fate of the damned.
The most common characteristics of the abode of the blessed include light, glory, beauty, and brightness, often depicted as surpassing the brightness of the sun. The fate of the righteous dead is frequently described as rest. Death is not death but eternal life: ‘perpetual rest that will endure for ever’ (History of Joseph the Carpenter 24). However, compared to the vivid and detailed descriptions of the punishments of sinners in hell, most texts have much less to say about the fate of the blessed. Portrayals of hell excited the early Christian imagination more than those of paradise, judging from the fact that the most detailed account of the fate of the blessed in the Apocalypse of Paul—where originally a description of hell was sandwiched between two accounts of paradise—was excluded from several later copies that only included the description of the punishments (Elliott 1993: 616).
In the Apocalypse of Peter, the description of paradise is closely connected to the transfiguration scene (cf. Matt. 17.1–8 and parallels). When Jesus takes his disciples to a mountain to pray with him they see two men with a shining glorious appearance whiter than snow and redder than rose. The Ge’ez text identifies them as Moses and Elijah, while the Greek version speaks only of ‘your righteous brothers’. The vision motivates Peter to ask where all the righteous are. Jesus shows him a region outside of this world. It is a garden with wonderful trees of blessed fruit and pleasant fragrance. According to the Greek text, it is ‘exceedingly bright with light and the air of that place is illuminated with the rays of the sun … And the inhabitants in that place were clad with the raiment of shining angels, and their raiment was like their land. And angels ran round about them there. And the glory of those who dwelt there was equal, and with one voice they praised the Lord God, rejoicing in that place’ (Ap. Peter 15–20).
The Ge’ez version of the Apocalypse of Peter situates this paradise in heaven and treats it as the final destination of the righteous. In the Apocalypse of Thomas, on the other hand, paradise is where the righteous spirits and souls dwell between death and the day of judgement. At judgement they will come out of paradise and be reunited with the body. The righteous will then be overshadowed by a cloud which will change their bodies ‘into the image and likeness and the honour of the holy angels and into the power of the image of my holy Father’ and be lifted up to heaven where they will ‘remain in the light and honour of my Father’. The Apocalypse of Paul links paradise closely with the expectation of the Messianic age. Paradise is the ‘land of promise’ where Christ will dwell with his saints and reign over them for a thousand years (Ap. Paul 22–3). This earthly paradise is the primordial paradise from which humankind has been excluded ever since the fall and which is reserved for the righteous dead. Four rivers flow there, a river of milk, of honey, of wine, and of oil. These rivers are identified with those in paradise (Pison, Euphrates, Gion, and Tigris; cf. Gen. 2.10–14).
The land of promise is full of trees and vines that yield an abundant harvest. Such imagery was widely disseminated in early Jewish and Christian traditions and is also attested by an independent, apocryphal saying of Jesus, preserved by Irenaeus who says he is quoting from a writing of Papias. According to this so-called agraphon, ‘the Lord used to teach in regard to these times and say: The days will come, in which vines shall grow, each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in each one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give five and twenty metretes of wine’ (Irenaeus, Haer. 5.33.3–4; cf. 2 Bar. 29).
According to the description of the Apocalypse of Paul, this abundant paradise is reserved for the end of time. The souls of the righteous already see paradise but will be able to enjoy it when the thousand-year reign begins. The way to paradise goes through a golden door, above which there are two columns of gold full of golden letters. These are the names of the just; only ‘those who have goodness and purity of body’ may enter through the door. These are those who have been chaste in their marriage (‘who kept the chastity of their nuptials’), while virgins and ‘those who hunger and thirst after righteousness’ (cf. Matt. 5.6) will receive rewards seven times greater. This is the ‘City of Christ’, which can be reached by taking a golden ship on the Acherusian Lake. The City is all gold, with twelve walls and the four rivers of paradise encircling it (cf. Rev. 21.11–21). Old Testament prophets as well as the victims of Herod’s infanticide and ‘they who devoted themselves to God with their whole heart and had no pride in themselves’ dwell along these rivers ready to receive the blessed (Ap. Paul 23–8). In the heart of the city, inside the twelve walls that have twelve gates with twelve thrones, there is a great altar by which David sings psalms. This is the heavenly Jerusalem and David sings psalms whenever the oblation of the body and blood of Christ takes place: ‘as it is performed in heaven, so also on earth’ (Ap. Paul 29).
The influence of the Apocalypse of Paul can be detected in the several apocalypses associated with the Virgin Mary (Bauckham 1998: 332–62). The Syriac Transitus Mariae, an apocryphal text depicting the death of the Virgin, includes a description of the paradise of Eden where Mary is brought after her death. This is the place reserved for the righteous but evidently the more ordinary dead may only enter after ‘the day of resurrection’. It includes several departments, called ‘the mansions of the just’, ‘the tents of the sons of light’, and ‘the couches of the martyrs’. Mary is taken on a tour through three heavens up to the heaven of heavens to the heavenly Jerusalem which has twelve walls with twelve gates, each bearing the name of an apostle. At each gate stands an apostle accompanied by angels. Unlike the Apocalypse of Paul, however, where the City of Christ is situated at the edge of the world and not in heaven ready to receive righteous dead, this heavenly city is the dwelling place of God and the Virgin only sees the ‘tabernacles of the just’, as well as Gehenna, from there.
Another apocryphal text that includes the idea of multiple heavens is the Coptic Apocalypse of Paul from the Nag Hammadi Library (NHC V, 2). It describes Paul’s ascent from the third heaven up to the tenth heaven. After passing the places of judgement in the fifth and sixth heaven, Paul arrives at the seventh heaven where an old man sits on a throne that is seven times brighter than the sky. This is the creator God who lords over principalities and authorities and his dwelling place is not where Paul is headed to. Following the instruction of the Holy Spirit who is with him, Paul gives the old man the sign that he has, the man opens for Paul, and he ascends higher. In the Ogdoad, the eighth heaven, he meets the twelve apostles. Together they go up to the ninth heaven where Paul greets those who are there (whose identity is not revealed) and goes up to the tenth heaven where he greets his ‘fellow spirits’ who are there.
The future blessedness of the righteous is also emphasized in several apocryphal acts. One of the characteristics of the Acts of Thomas is to contrast the transient physical life and the everlasting spiritual life. The life to come is characterized by joy, rest, liberty, and immortality (Acts of Thomas 142). Two episodes give a glimpse of this other world. In the first one, Thomas and a merchant Abban promise a king to build him a palace. The king sends them huge riches for the project but they distribute the funds to the poor. When the king finds out about this and demands to see the palace, the apostle answers: ‘Now you cannot see it, but you shall see it when you depart this life.’ The king becomes angry, throws Thomas and Abban into prison and plans to have them killed. In the meantime, the brother of the king dies and angels take his soul to heaven and show him heavenly mansions and palaces, among them the one Thomas has built for the king. The brother is allowed to depart back to life. When he tells about what he has seen, both the king and his brother convert (Acts of Thomas 21–5).
The other episode is about a young man whom a huge serpent, the Devil himself, has killed out of jealousy because the man had sex with a beautiful woman. Thomas restores the man to life and the man converts because he had seen the beauty and radiance of the life to come (Acts of Thomas 30–8). Interestingly, in both episodes people who are not Christians but sinners are taken to see the future bliss, not the torments of hell.
In the eschatological scenarios in texts such as the Apocalypse of Peter, resurrection is needed for judgement: at the end of the world, the soul will be reunited with the raised body and judged together with it (Ap. Peter 4; cf. Ep. Apost. 21). Resurrection, however, is only the first step to eternal salvation. The ultimate goal of the righteous after the judgement will be a transformation: they will be clothed with ‘the raiment of the life that is above’ (Ap. Peter 13). Their bodies will correspond to the incorruptible heavenly life ‘where there is no eating and drinking and no mourning and singing and neither earthly garment nor perishing’ (Ep. Apost. 19). This, however, is not the only way of envisioning salvation in early Christian apocryphal texts. Several other texts discuss salvation using terms other than resurrection. Yet further texts speak about resurrection but understand it in a sense other than bodily resurrection following the tradition in the Gospel of John according to which Jesus promises that anyone who believes in him ‘has eternal life, and does not come under judgement but has passed from death to life’ (John 5.24).
The Gospel of Thomas (NHC II, 2) is an example of a text that does not anticipate any cosmic turn of history (Gathercole 2011). When the disciples ask Jesus when ‘the rest of the dead’ will take place and the new world will come, Jesus answers: ‘What you are looking forward to has come, but you do not know it’ (Gos. Thom. 51). The Kingdom of God is a present reality; the eschaton is not something that will happen in the future and the kingdom is not a place that is located somewhere and that might be entered (Gos. Thom. 3, 18, 113). The Kingdom is spread everywhere, ‘within you and outside you’ (Gos. Thom. 3). The goal for the followers of Jesus is to come to know themselves and to understand that they are children of the living Father. Those who understand it and who discover the true meaning of Jesus’ words, will never die (Gos. Thom. 1, 18, 19, 111).
Salvation as something to obtain while still in the body appears in several other texts as well. In the Apocryphon of James (NHC I, 2), the risen Jesus speaks about the kingdom of heaven where he is going and from where he has come and advises his disciples to come with him. When the disciples consent, Jesus replies: ‘Verily I say unto you, no one will ever enter the kingdom of heaven at my bidding, but (only) because you yourselves are full. Leave James and Peter to me, that I may fill them’ (1.19–35). The text does not clarify what this filling might mean but it is clearly something that can be achieved during one’s lifetime. In a similar vein, the Apocryphon of John talks about ‘perfection’ which can be achieved by the aid of the Spirit of life that reveals knowledge of one’s true spiritual self. The perfect ones will not be distracted by passions such as anger, envy, jealousy, desire, or greed. Their only restraint is the flesh but when they will be freed from it (at death?) they will inherit eternal, imperishable life (Apocr. John [NHC II, 1] 25.23–26.6). The ultimate goal is to achieve final rest by defeating the worldly powers and the passions they occasion (King 2006: 141–2).
Salvation as obtainable in this life is also described in the Gospel of Philip (NHC II, 3). In a polemical fashion against those who imagine that the resurrection takes place only after death, the author declares: ‘Those who say they will die first and then rise are in error. If they do not first receive the resurrection while they live, when they die they will receive nothing.’ (Gos. Phil. 73.1–8). Even though the emphasis is on this life, something will also happen after death: ‘While we are in this world it is fitting for us to acquire the resurrection, so that when we strip off the flesh we may be found in rest and not walk in the middle’ (Gos. Phil. 66.16–20). The ‘middle’ represents death, the most evil place (Gos. Phil. 66.13–15). Resurrection seems to be linked with awakening from ignorance, for ‘ignorance is the mother of all evil. Ignorance will result in death, because those who come from ignorance neither were nor are nor shall be’ (Gos. Phil. 83.30–5).
Strikingly, the Gospel of Philip not only uses resurrection language in connection with salvation, it explicitly speaks of the resurrection of the flesh (σάρξ), even though at the same time it rejects the belief of the resurrection of the earthly body (Gos. Phil. 56.26–32, 57.9–19). It seems that the writer of the Gospel of Philip denounces those who think that the earthly flesh will rise but he does not reject the resurrection of all flesh. The spirit cannot rise alone, without a body, otherwise it would be naked; but the true clothing for it is the flesh and blood of Jesus. Resurrection is closely linked to the Eucharist (Schmid 2007: 171–8).
Similar views are expounded in yet another Nag Hammadi text, the Treatise on the Resurrection (NHC I, 4). As the name of the writing indicates, resurrection is its central theme and the author advises the recipients of the text never to doubt the reality of resurrection. The author is clearly elaborating Paul’s view on resurrection and the text is full of allusions to the letters of the apostle. Resurrection is called ‘a spiritual resurrection’ and described as an ascent of the soul to heaven at death, ‘not being restrained by anything’ (Treat. Res. 45.35–40). At death, the earthly body is left behind but this is only ‘the visible members which are dead’. The ‘living members which exist within them’ will arise. (Treat. Res. 47.31–48.3). In an obscure passage, the author also speaks of receiving flesh at ascension (Treat. Res. 47.1–16) which, however, cannot be the earthly flesh but seems to refer to the invisible, spiritual members that will rise (Lundhaug 2009).
Resurrection is understood as something achievable in this life also in the apocryphal acts of apostles. Several of them speak both about physical resurrection and spiritual resurrection. The former, however, does not bring about immortality; raising someone from the dead means bringing him or her back to (earthly) life (Acts of John 19–25, 30–6, 38–47, 48–54, 63–86; Acts of Thomas 30–3, 54, 75–81; Acts of Philip 1.4, 2.23–4, 6.19; Acts of Peter 26–8). Spiritual resurrection, on the other hand, is a metaphor for conversion. The dead are those who are spiritually dead and in need of repentance. The new life is manifest in a new, often ascetically inclined lifestyle. There is little speculation on life after physical death. In the Acts of John, the devout Drusiana begs God to ‘remove me to you at once’ (Acts of John 64) which sounds like an immediate ascent to heaven after death. Similarly, wicked people who are revived to get another chance tell about immediate torments in hell (Acts of Thomas 55–8; Acts of Philip 1.1–18).
Resurrection and an ascetic lifestyle are especially closely linked in the Acts of Paul and Thecla, which forms one part in the composite Acts of Paul. Paul’s preaching is summarized as ‘the word of God about abstinence and the resurrection’ (Acts of Paul and Thecla 5), and Paul’s adversaries claim that he teaches that ‘otherwise there is no resurrection for you, except you remain chaste and do not defile the flesh, but keep it pure’ (Acts of Paul and Thecla 12). However, converting to an ascetic life is not the resurrection, as in other apocryphal acts. Resurrection is something that will take place in the future (Acts of Paul and Thecla 14) and that event is linked to the day of judgement (Acts of Paul and Thecla 38). The Acts of Paul also includes an apocryphal letter of the apostle to Corinthians, the so-called 3 Corinthians. This letter advocates a literal resurrection of the flesh; in some manuscripts, it even bears the title ‘Concerning the Flesh’. The letter is not explicit about when the resurrection will take place but since it also anticipates the second coming of Christ, the resurrection is likely to happen together with Christ’s return. As to the fate of the unbelievers, the letter intriguingly states: ‘And those who say that there is no resurrection of the flesh shall have no resurrection, for they do not believe him who had thus risen’ (3 Cor. 3.24–5). These emphases remind, once more, that the apocryphal acts—and all early Christian apocryphal texts—must be treated individually, respecting their own literary genre and theological profile (Lehtipuu 2015: 173–85).
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