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In the Apocalypse of Peter Jesus shows Peter the children who blind with lightning the women that destroyed them. Clement of Alexandria quotes that sentence as Peter's, and calls the teaching around it about exposed children scripture.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Apocalypse of Peter 1:28
Revelation of Peter
Early Christian
27 The murderers and those who have made common cause with them will be cast into the fire, in a place full of venomous beasts; and they will be tormented without rest, feeling their pains, and their worms will be as many in number as a dark cloud. And the angel Ezrael will bring forth the souls of those who have been slain, and they will see the torment of those who slew them, and say to one another: The judgment of God is righteousness and justice. We heard, but we did not believe, that we would come into this place of eternal judgment. 28 Near this flame is a pit, great and very deep, and into it flows from above every kind of torment, foulness, and discharge. Women are swallowed up in it to their necks and tormented with great pain. These are those who have caused their children to be born prematurely, and have corrupted the work of God that created them. Across from them is another place where their children sit alive, and they cry out to God. Flashes of lightning go forth from those children and pierce the eyes of those who, for the sake of sexual immorality, caused their destruction. 29 Other men and women will stand above them, naked; and their children stand across from them in a place of delight, sighing and crying out to God because of their parents, saying: These are the ones who have despised and cursed and transgressed your commandments and delivered us to death. They cursed the angel that formed us, hung us up, and begrudged us the light which you have given to all creatures. The milk of their mothers flowing from their breasts will congeal, and from it will come flesh-devouring beasts, which will come forth and turn and torment them forever with their husbands, because they forsook the commandments of God and slew their children. As for their children, they will be delivered to the angel Temlakos. And those who slew them will be tormented eternally, for God wills it so.
Apocalypse of Peter 2:1
Revelation of Peter
Early Christian
1 From Clement of Alexandria's so-called Prophetical Extracts, a series of detached sentences excerpted from some larger work, generally thought to be his Hypotyposes or Outlines: a. The Scripture says that the children who have been exposed by their parents are delivered to a care-taking angel, by whom they are educated and made to grow up; and they will be, it says, like the faithful of a hundred years old in this life. b. Therefore Peter also says in the Apocalypse: A flash of fire leaping from those children and striking the eyes of the women.
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Notes and References
“... Clement—as well as Origen and Porphyry—knew the Apocalypse of Peter and regarded it as inspired. This is why he commented on it in his Hypotyposeis (Eus. HE 6,14,1). In Ecl. Proph. 48 he quotes a passage from this Apocalypse ascribing it to Peter himself, and ibid. 41 he even quotes another section attributing it to “Scripture.” Besides finding there the earliest description of the torments of hell, often characterised by “mirror punishments,” what did Clement—and other ancient readers—find in what he regarded as such an authoritative text, in relation to the doctrine of apokatastasis? ...”
Ramelli, Ilaria L. E.
The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena
(p. 68) Brill, 2013
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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