L'Apocalisse di Pietro. Tra esperienze di contatto in prima persona con l'oltre-mondo e scrittura

This essay aims at reconsidering the various preserved forms of the Apocalypse of Peter as mirrors of longue durée processes of transmission. According to such a perspective, it is quite difficult to explain the Greek version of the Akhmim Fragment as a “secondary”, manipulated and/or ideologically oriented version, especially when it is compared to the supposed original Ethiopic text. All the transmitted forms of the Apocalypse of Peter, the Greek and the Ethiopic ones, appear as individual appropriations of previous visionary accounts, which are based on contextual and rewritten practices of personal contact with the other-world. Visionary narratives are disseminated and transmitted thanks to various communication modes, among which writing emerges as just one of many that have been in place for a long time.