Fragments of the
Apocalypse of Peter.
1.
Clemens Alexandrinus
,
Eclog.
48. For instance, Peter in the Apocalypse says that
the children who are born out of due time shall be of the better
part: and that these are delivered over to a care-taking angel
that they may attain a share of knowledge and gain the better abode
[after suffering what they would have suffered if they had been in the
body: but the others shall merely obtain salvation as injured
beings to whom mercy is shown, and remain without punishment, receiving
this as a reward].
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2.
Clem. Alex.
Eclog.
49. But the milk of the women running down from
their breasts and congealing shall engender small flesh-
eating beasts: and these run up upon them
and devour them.
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3.
Macarius Magnes
,
Apocritica
iv., 6 cf. 16. The earth, it (sc. the Apoc. of
Peter) says, “shall present all men before God at the day of
judgment, being itself also to be judged, with the heaven also which
encompasses it.”
4.
Clem. Alex.
Eclog.
41. The scripture says that infants that have been
exposed are delivered to a care-taking angel, by whom they are educated
and so grow up, and they will be, it says, as the faithful of a hundred
years old are here.
5.
Methodius
,
Conviv.
ii., 6. Whence also we have received in
divinely-inspired scriptures that untimely births are delivered to
care-taking angels, even if they are the offspring of
adultery.
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The part of the
quotation between square brackets is assigned by Harnack to Clement
himself and not to the Apocalypse.
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Cf. Esdras,
Ante-Nicene Lib., vol. xvi., p. 473.