13. The Letter of Peter to Philip
I he Letter of Peter to Philip is a short text that relates traditions
I about the Christian messengers (or apostles) and incorporates
JL. other revelatory materials in order to proclaim a message of gnos-
tic wisdom. In the text, as in other Christian traditions, Peter is the leader of
the messengers, and his letter to Philip underscores his authority. Here Philip
is portrayed with features both of Philip the student in the New Testament
gospels and of Philip the evangelist in the Acts of the Apostles.
The Letter of Peter to Philip calls to mind the New Testament Acts of the
Apostles and the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. In the present text, too, Peter
and the other messengers are eating, talking, praying, going to temple, and
teaching and healing together in the period following the suffering and death
of Jesus. At the end of the present text, they disperse to preach and, perhaps, to
write the four gospels.
As they gather together, Jesus appears as light and voice, and he answers
their questions with enlightened knowledge. The revelation about the defi-
ciency of the aeons, though abbreviated, summarizes the story of the fall of
the mother as told in dramatic detail in the Secret Book of John. In the ab-
breviated story in the Letter of Peter to Philip the names are not given, and
the anonymity of the characters in the drama is maintained. The revelation
about the fullness of the divine rehearses themes much like those in the
hymn to the word in the Gospel of John: the savior is the incarnate deity who