PETER, APOCALYPSE OF

also called Revelation To Peter, pseudepigraphal (noncanonical and unauthentic) Christian writing dating from the first half of the 2nd century AD. The unknown author, who claimed to be Peter the Apostle, relied on the canonical Gospels and on Revelation to John to construct a conversation between himself and Jesus regarding events at the end of the world. Unlike Revelation to John, however, the Apocalypse of Peter dwells on eternal rewards and punishments. The graphic account of the torments to be borne by sinful men was apparently borrowed from Orphic and Pythagorean religious texts, thereby introducing pagan ideas of heaven and hell into Christian literature. The most complete extant version (in Ethiopic) was discovered in 1910.