The
Apocalypse of Paul is a 4th century text of the
New Testament apocryphaThe New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. These writings often have links with those books which are regarded as "canonical"...
. There is an Ethiopic version of the
ApocalypseApocalypse is a term applied to the disclosure to certain privileged persons of something hidden from the majority of humankind. Today the term is often used to refer to the end of the world, which may be a shortening of the phrase apokalupsis eschaton which literally means "revelation at the end...
which features the Virgin Mary in the place of Paul the Apostle, as the receiver of the vision, known as the
Apocalypse of the Virgin. The text is not to be confused with the gnostic
Apocalypse of PaulThe Coptic Apocalypse of Paul is one of the texts of the New Testament apocrypha found amongst the Nag Hammadi library. The text is not to be confused with the Apocalypse of Paul, which is unlikely to be related....
, which is unlikely to be related.
The text appears to be an elaborate expansion and rearrangement of the
Apocalypse of PeterThe recovered Apocalypse of Peter or Revelation of Peter is an example of a simple, popular early Christian text of the second century; it is an example of Apocalyptic literature with Hellenistic overtones. The text is extant in two incomplete versions of a lost Greek original, one Koine Greek, and...
, and is essentially a description of a vision of
HeavenHeaven may refer to the physical heavens, the sky or the seemingly endless expanse of the universe beyond. This is the traditional literal meaning of the term in English...
, and then of
HellIn many religious traditions, Hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife, often in the underworld. Religions with a linear divine history often depict Hell as endless...
- although it also contains a prologue describing all creation appealing to God against the sin of man, which is not present in Peter's
Apocalypse. At the end of the text, Paul/Mary manages to persuade God to give everyone in Hell a day off every Sunday.
The text extends Peter's
Apocalypse by framing the reasons for the visits to heaven and hell as the witnessing of the death and judgement of one wicked man, and one who is righteous. The text is heavily moralistic, and adds, to the
Apocalypse of Peter, features such as:
- Pride is the root of all evil
Root of all evil is a figure of speech denoting something that causes all wickedness or suffering. By extension, it may be applied to any cause of serious problems. The phrase derives from a saying attributed to Jesus in the Apostle Paul's First Epistle to Timothy in the New Testament: "The love of...
- Heaven is the land of milk and honey
- Hell has rivers of fire and of ice (for the cold hearted)
- Some angels are evil, the dark angel
In most Christian denominations, a fallen angel is an angel who has been exiled or banished from Heaven.Often such banishment is a punishment for disobeying or rebelling against God . The best-known fallen angel is Lucifer. Lucifer is a name frequently given to Satan in Christian belief...
s of hell, including TemeluchusTemeluchus is one of the tartaruchi, the chief angel of torment , according to the extracanonical Apocalypse of Paul...
, the tartaruchiTartaruchi are the keepers of Tartarus , according to the non-canonical Apocalypse of Paul. The author describes them as using one hand to choke damned souls, and the other using an "iron of three hooks"...
.
Plan of the book
- 1, 2. Discovery of the revelation.
- 3-6. Appeal of creation to God against man
- 7-10. The report of the angels to God about men.
- 11-18. Deaths and judgements of the righteous and the wicked.
- 19-30. First vision of Paradise, including lake Acherusa
Acherusa is a lake that lies near the city of Christ, according to chapters 22 – 23 of the extracanonical Apocalypse of Paul:Acherusa is also mentioned in the older, fragmentary work The Apocalypse of Peter, though in Peter it is a field, rather than a lake:The name appears to be derived from...
.
- 31-44. Hell. Paul obtains rest on Sunday for the lost.
- 45-51. Second vision of Paradise.
Versions
Greek copies of the texts are rare; those existing containing many omissions. Of the Eastern versions -Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic- the Syriac are considered to be the most reliable. There are also several abridged Latin texts, from which many current versions were translated from, into most European languages.
Whole episodes are repeated hinting of unskilled compilation.
James also sees its influence in the
Dante's InfernoThe Divine Comedy , written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321, is widely considered the central epic poem of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative and allegorical vision of the Christian afterlife is a...
(ii. 28), when Dante mentions the visit of the 'Chosen Vessel' to Hell.
External links
- M.R. James' translation and commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924.