Mit heteronomen Texten arbeiten

The following article discusses, using different examples, the possibilities and difficulties that arise when working with Christian apocrypha (or parabiblical traditions), understood as heteronomous texts. After a definition of the term »parabiblical traditions,« examples are discussed that are on different levels: passages from the Gospel of Peter and the Pseudoclementines can be understood as »re-enactments« of older Jesus narratives. Using examples from the apocryphal Martyrdom of Mark and the Greek/Ethiopian Revelation of Peter, the article demonstrates which fundamental problems arise when apocryphal writings are handed down in fluid form. Finally, it is shown, again using the example of Martyrdom of Mark, that even texts read as autonomous have a form of heteronomy that we no longer reckon with today. This, however, is not on the level of intertextuality but of intermediality. Knowledge of the city of Alexandria as it existed at the time the text was written would make the reading of the text many times richer. Such knowledge, however, is only rudimentary and no longer directly possible today.