A number of passages have been pointed out in the Didascalia and Apostolical Constitutions, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Dionysius of Alexandria, and other ancient writers, showing the use of this Gospel according to Peter;(19) but into these later testimonies it is not necessary for us at present to go. That the work long continued to exercise considerable influence can scarcely be doubted. It is to the earlier history of the Gospel and its use in the second century that we must rather turn our attention.
A probable reference to the Gospel of Peter in Polycarp’s “Epistle to the Corinthians” has been pointed out by Mr. F. C. Conybeare.(20) The writer speaks of “the testimony of the cross” (τὸ μαρτύριον τοῦ σταυροῦ), an expression which has puzzled critics a good deal. No passage in our Gospels has hitherto explained it, but if it be referred to the answer made by the cross, in our fragment, to the question from Heaven: “Hast thou preached to them that are sleeping? And an answer came from the cross, ‘Yea,’ ” it becomes at once intelligible. Mr. Taylor(21) suggests the question whether “the word of the cross” (ὁ λόγος τοῦ σταυροῦ) in 1 Cor. i. 18 is not also connected with the same tradition of the speaking cross and, as Mr. Conybeare points out, the context favours the idea, although he himself is not inclined to admit the interpretation. The words of Paul are worth quoting:
For the word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness; but unto us which are being saved it is the power of God. 19. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent will I reject;”
and so on. But although he cannot agree in the suggestion that Paul refers to this tradition, because, he says, “Such a view seems to me to be too bold and innovating in its character,” Mr. Conybeare goes on to suggest that the incident in Peter, with this reply to the voice from heaven, may be
one of the “three mysteries of crying” referred to by Ignatius, _ad Eph._ xix. “Ritschl and Lipsius,” says Lightfoot, _ad locum_ “agree that two of the three were, (1) the voice at the baptism, (2) the voice at the transfiguration. For the third ... Ritschl supposes that Ignatius used some other Gospel containing a third proclamation similar to the two others.” The Peter Gospel seems here to supply just what is wanted.(22)