Abstract

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.

pdf

Share