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Abortion, Infanticide, and the Social Rhetoric of the Apocalypse of Peter
- Journal of Early Christian Studies
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 9, Number 3, Fall 2001
- pp. 313-337
- 10.1353/earl.2001.0042
- Article
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The apocryphal Apocalypse of Peter is the earliest Christian description of hell. Among its Dantesque images there appears in chapter eight a brief but gruesome depiction of those guilty of infanticide and abortion. By virtue of the author's participation in the linguistic, social, and ideological worlds of second-century Christianity, the text is a complex one, just as contemporary debates about abortion are complex. Apoc. Pet. 8 is not simply "about" abortion or hell. This essay employs the insights of sociorhetorical criticism as a heuristic device for sorting out the various threads of discourse about abortion and infanticide in this early Christian text. Focus upon the scene's inner argumentative texture, intertexture, and social-cultural texture reveals a dynamic interplay between this text and the Greco-Roman milieu of which it is a part.