Apocryphal fragment from the Passion of Christ
While poking around in some of the darker corners of Pinakes (the database of Greek manuscripts), I came across an untitled text listed only under the umbrella category of “Apocrypha Noui Testamenti.” It is a brief pericope found in the margin of a Vatican manuscript (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. gr. 875, fol. 286r; 13th cent.) at the end of the lexicon of John Zonaras, a twelfth-century chronicler and theologian from Constantinople. The Pinakes description is somewhat bare, but it is a little more detailed than the catalog of the collection by G. Cardinali: Inventari di manoscritti greci della Biblioteca Vaticana sotto il pontificato di Giulo II (1503–1513) (Studi e testi 491; Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolic Vaticana, 2015), p. 152. So there is little information about the pericope beyond what is found in the manuscript, as presented below.
A preliminary translation, based on the emendations above, is as follows:
The crowds <were> holding Christ in their midst. A certain youth came in secret behind Jesus and struck him. Then the others testing, asked him, “Tell us, then, who of the people secretly hit you since you do not know. Prophesy and say and show us from the crowd the one who hit you and we will know that you are a prophet and you know everything.
The pericope is a retelling of the following episode from the Synoptic Gospels:
The pericope is closer in form to the versions in Matthew and Luke, in which the crowds ask Jesus “Who is it that struck you?” There is also some language at the end that recalls John 4:19 (“we will know that you are a prophet”).
While it is always a thrill to come across an apocryphon, even a fragmentary one, I’m not really sure what to do with this. It is not much more than an expansion of a well-known canonical episode, likely recalled from memory by the copyist of the manuscript. But if this was found in an early scrap of papyrus, the text would be interpreted far differently—it would be hailed as a dramatic new discovery of an early gospel text, perhaps even a portion of the Gospel of Peter, or evidence for a gospel from a time before the division of Johannine and Synoptic traditions. But when found in a late Byzantine manuscript, the discovery is far less exciting. Should this be added to the repertoire of Christian apocrypha (we could call it the Gospel of the Swarming of Jesus!) or should it be tucked away as a mere curiosity of New Testament gospel transmission?
What to do? Save it for Easter and do a National Geographic or History Channel special on it, of course.
If one followed Royse’s new rule-of-thumb for NT textual criticism, that is, the longest is probably the most original (vs lectio brevior potior), then one might note that this passage preserves most of the unique narrative elements present in each of the three shorter gospel fragments. This long passage in the margin, thus, arguably may preserve the original from which each of the three gospel writers “copied.”
But how does this rule-of-thumb account for harmonized readings, which can be present in a range of texts (e.g., Epiphanius’s fragments of Gospel of the Ebionites, Justin’s harmonized gospel readings, Tatian, etc.)?
From the fragment:
“we will know that you are a prophet and you know everything.”
From John 4:
“I can see that you are a prophet.”
“see a man who told me everything I ever did”
“Those of the Queen’s princes, who were important in the eyes of all Israel, went with them. They formed a circle of 70 Elders around Yeshuh. They took 70 rods, one from the pomegranate tree, another from the olive tree, yet another from the fig tree, and all the others from every species of tree.
One started to hit him with a rod of pomegranate wood, and after having struck his face quizzed him, “Who hit you? ” Translated from the Vienna Manuscript of the Toldoth Jesu, in S Krauss,”Das Leben Jesu nach jüdischen Quellen”, 1903.
Great blog Tony, I agree with every factor that you have pointed out. Thank you for sharing your beautiful thoughts on this.
This presentation brings greater clarity as to the depth of the agony of our Lord’s sorrowful Passion, which he voluntarily took on for love of us. Check this out The Passion of Christ In Light of the Holy Shroud of Turin
Thanks,
Rev. Francis