The text is commonly dated to the 2nd century, perhaps towards the middle of it. CE Hill dates the Epistle to "just before 120, or in the 140s" and places "... the Epistula in Asia Minor in the first half of the second century." The text was used regularly by the relatively isolated Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and was evidently not considered heretical. The work was lost to the West until 1895 when major portions of it were discovered in the Coptic language and a complete version translated into Ethiopic was discovered and published in the early 20th century. The fragmentary Coptic manuscript of the 5th or 4th century, is believed to be translated directly from the original Greek. One leaf of a Latinpalimpsest, dating to the 5th century has also been identified as deriving from the same text.
Format
The text is framed as a letter from the 11 apostles to the worldwide church, as a report from Jesus involving a dialogue between them and Jesus, which occurs between Jesus's resurrection and ascension. The first 20% begins by describing the nativity, resurrection, and miracles of Jesus, this framing is only done extremely superficially.The remainder of the text recounts a vision and dialogue between Jesus and the apostles, consisting of about sixty questions, and 41 short chapters. The text is by far the largest epistle in either the New Testament or Apocrypha.
The whole text seems to have been intended as a refutation of the teachings of Cerinthus, although "Simon" is also mentioned. The content heavily criticises Gnosticism, although it does so not so much as a polemic against it, as an attempt to shore up the faith of non-Gnostics against conversion to Gnosticism. In particular the text uses the style of a discourse and series of questions with a vision of Jesus that was popular among Gnostic groups, so as to appeal to the same readers. However, the text is at pains to point out that it is not a secret teaching, that the content applies universally rather than to one group, and that everyone can easily come to learn its content, strongly differing with the esoteric mysteries inherent in Gnosticism.
Parable of the foolish virgins
One of the most important parts in this respect is the parable of foolish virgins:
The Resurrection
Other polemical features include emphasising the physical nature of the resurrection, to counter docetism, by having the apostles place their fingers in the print of the nails, in the spear wound in his side, and checking for footprints. Fully 20% of the text is devoted to confirming the doctrine of resurrection of the flesh, in direct conflict with the Gospel of Truth's criticism of this stance; it states that the resurrection of the flesh happens before death, which is to be understood esoterically. When Jesus is questioned further on this point, he becomes quite angry, suggesting that the pseudonymous author of the epistle found the Gnostics' stance both offensive and infuriating.
Allusions to Paul
Since the text is ostensibly written in name of the apostles from the period immediately after Jesus' resurrection, it necessarily excludes Paul of Tarsus from the category "apostle". However, given the importance of Paul and his writings to the mainstream church, it is not surprising that the author of the text chose to put in a prediction of Paul's future coming. The description of the healing of Paul's blindness in Acts by Ananias is changed to healing by the hands of one of the apostles, so that Paul is thus subordinate to them.
Prophecies
The work quotes an ancient prophecy about a new Jerusalem arising from Syria and the old Jerusalem being captured and destroyed. This latter prophecy is likely to have been invented, as it is unknown in any previous texts. One of the reasons that the text probably fell into disuse by the mainstream churches is that its claim that the Second Coming shall be 150 years after the time of the vision to the apostles obviously failed to occur. Whether the text was ever considered heretical by the Catholic churches is unknown, as there are no clear references to it in the extant ancient Christian literature. However, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church evidently accepted it as basic orthodoxy.
