An Apostolic Gospel

Abstract

RESURRECTION AND ESCHATOLOGIESEpAp's collection of miracle stories does not lead directly to a summary account of Jesus' death and resurrection, as the precedent of the canonical gospels might lead us to expect. Surprisingly, the miracle sequence is rounded off with what looks very like an epistolary conclusion: And these things our Lord and Saviour revealed to us and showed us, as we likewise do to you, so that you may be partakers in the grace of the Lord and in our ministry and our praise, as you think of eternal life. Be strong and do not waver in the knowledge and certainty of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he will be merciful and gracious and save constantly, to the end of the age.(EpAp 6.1-3)Here the miracles that have just been narrated are viewed as a series of revelations granted to the disciples and, through them, also to their addressees. With their faith strengthened by the apostolic recollections of Jesus' mighty works, readers will be 'partakers in the grace of the Lord' (Gk perhaps ἵνα ἦτε κοινωνοί ἐν τῇ χάριτι τοῦ κυρίου), along with the apostles themselves. The thought here is close to that of 1 John 1.3: 'What we have seen and heard we also proclaim to you, so that you too may have fellowship [κοινωνία] with us.' A retrospective reference to Jesus' 'signs' as the basis for faith and the hope of eternal life also occurs in the original ending of GJohn, where the importance of the disciples' eyewitness testimony is again emphasized ('. . . in the presence of his disciples', GJn 20.30) and where its ultimate purpose is again introduced with a ἵνα-clause: ἵνα πιστεύοντες ζωὴν ἔχητε. . . (GJn 20.31b), ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς κοινωνίαν ἔχητε. . . (1Jn 1.3), ἵνα ἦτε κοινωνοί. . . (EpAp 6.2). The Johannine reference to Jesus' signs is positioned after the evangelist's Easter narrative, rather than before (as in the case of EpAp). Yet Jesus' resurrection does not belong to the sequence of Johannine signs,