PETER, GOSPEL OF

pseudepigraphal (noncanonical and unauthentic) Christian writing of the mid-2nd century AD, the extant portion of which covers the condemnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus. Because the work reflects the view that Christ's body had only the appearance of reality, Serapion, bishop of Antioch c. AD 190, believed it was written by a member of the heretical Docetist sect. Modern scholars are more inclined to attribute it to a Syrian Christian Gnostic because the Gospel does not view the Crucifixion as an act of atonement. But it lacks the mythological or cosmological speculations characteristic of most Gnostic sects. Possibly to convince non-Christians of the truth of the Resurrection, the Gospel of Peter goes beyond the canonical Gospels in claiming that Roman soldiers and Jewish officials witnessed the event.