Framing the Reading Experience of an Apocryphal Text: The Case of the 1 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John’s Titles

1 Introduction

Paratexts are vaguely defined as features accompanying the main text in a manuscript, thereby being typographically and semantically subordinate to the main text.^[1] These include, as Gerard Genette writes, “a title, a subtitle, intertitles; prefaces, postfaces, notices, forewords, etc.; marginal, infrapaginal, terminal notes; epigraphs; illustrations; blurbs, book covers, dust jackets, and many other kinds of secondary signals, whether allographic or autographic.”^[2] Paratexts play a crucial role by complementing the main text so that it can become a book, surrounding and extending it in order to, as Genette said, “present it.”^[3] Although their place may be liminal, as their name suggests, paratexts perform a primary role in interpretation, mediating the main text of the book to its readers by instructing them how to read and receive the named text. Hence, paratexts may be conceptualized as a commentary – whether authorial or not – aiming to guide readers toward a specific interpretation of the text. As Genette states, “Indeed, this fringe, always the conveyor of a commentary… constitutes a zone… a privileged place of a pragmatics and a strategy, of an influence on the public, an influence that – whether well or poorly understood and achieved – is at the service of a better reception for the text and a more pertinent reading of it.”^[4]

Moreover, paratexts create thresholds that readers must traverse to comprehend a text thoroughly. They provide clues to guide readers in the process of negotiating meaning with the book. They afford a particular way of reading.^[5] Paratexts create spaces where readers and the book converge, negotiating meaning.^[6] However, the meaning construed is not neutral; rather, the information conveyed by the paratexts controls this process. In summary, paratexts frame the reading experience of individuals engaging the book where they are attached.^[7] Paratexts function analogically to the descriptions next to paintings in a museum, giving visitors the information needed to properly understand artwork by describing its author, its historical context, and usually its nontransparent meaning.^[8] As such, when you see artwork after reading the description next to it, you experience it through the frame – or threshold – mediated by the paratext.^[9]

Although Gérard Genette, whose work has been foundational for the surge of studies on paratexts, mostly describes and studies paratexts in modern works, his insights are applicable to pre-modern texts and books.^[10] Greek or Latin manuscripts from antiquity rarely present the main text without the presence of features classified as paratexts by Genette.^[11] Titles, table of contents, prefaces, marginalia, glossae, ekthesis, and other features in antiquity function similarly to their modern counterparts, framing the readers’ experience and guiding the text’s interpretation.^[12]

One of the most interesting paratexts in ancient textual technologies is the book title (inscriptions and subscriptions).^[13] Titles could simply function to distinguish works bounded in a codex. However, they also convey information about the author of the work, its genre, contents, place of composition, and other details.^[14] Therefore, titles impact the reading experience of a given text by informing readers about its author, thereby enabling them to grant or withhold authority to the text based on the identity of the author.^[15] Titles equip readers to make textual connections between the author’s literary corpus and to project a historical setting for the composition of the book.^[16] Furthermore, readers can anticipate the book contents through its title as it mentions the genre or subject matter.^[17] In other words, if a book title informs readers that the genre of the work is poetry, they would not read the book as if were a medical handbook. Thus, when readers approach a text, they do not do it out of thin air in a neutral environment; rather, readers come to texts with frames in their mind – mediated through titles – within which they will negotiate meaning with the text.^[18] Thus, readers engage with texts as they are guided by their titles to do.

Moreover, titles and paratexts serve as artifacts of reception of the previous readers.^[19] In antiquity, paratexts are allographic and stem from the engagement of scribal reading communities who appended them to the manuscripts, reflecting communal insights on the author, genre, or subject matter of the work.^[20] Titles display how tradition influenced communal perceptions. For instance, the titular tradition of Revelation betrays influence of the commentaries by Oecumenius and Andrew.^[21] Thus, titles not only create tradition, but they are themselves the product of tradition. This is of utmost importance since titles offer windows on how scribes and readers perceived the books they were engaging with.^[22] Titles are, therefore, both artifacts of reception and features to control the interpretation of a text.^[23] This is not an either/or situation, but they are two sides of the same coin. When we study titles, we are studying how ancient readers understood a text and how they wanted others to navigate it.

Although the study of paratextual features, especially titles, is a booming area of research in biblical studies, the study of these features in apocryphal literature is only in its dawn.^[24] This research gap offers a unique opportunity for the field of apocryphal studies.^[25] Common assumptions about the reading practices and authority of apocryphal texts in antiquity stem from negative value judgments by orthodox writers. However, most of these value judgments do not correspond to the reading experience of the actual users of the manuscripts that transmitted these texts. Thus, studying titles in apocryphal works can unveil how ancient readers – scribes – engaged with these texts, broadening the evidence historians use to describe the history of transmission and perceptions of apocryphal writings.^[26] This enables modern readers to apprehend and appreciate this corpus of literature in a better way. Moreover, studying titles can contribute to understanding titling practices in apocryphal literature vis-à-vis canonical literature. Accordingly, studying titles in apocryphal literature sheds light on titling practices in ancient literature in general. What Garrick Allen wrote about titles in New Testament papyri applies equally to apocryphal literature. In short, this “offers a platform for considering broader trends in the labelling of ancient works in the broader Roman world.”^[27]

This article, then, examines the titular tradition of a late antique apocryphon commonly known as The Apocalypse of John the Theologian or 1 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John. ^[28] This apocryphon features the apostle John, standing alone on Mount Tabor, questioning a heavenly intermediary, presumably Jesus, about the end of times. The conversation spins around the antichrist, the resurrection, the second coming, and the judgment of sinners and righteous. The examination of the Greek titular tradition aims to answer the following questions: How did the titles of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John guide the readers of this work to understand this apocalypse? How did the titles shape the reading experience of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John? In which ways did the titles of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John control how readers engaged with this text? Which particular way of reading did the paratexts of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John afford? And, since paratexts are also witness the reception of the text by its readers, the aforementioned question could also be expressed as what we can learn about the reception of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John from the information conveyed by its titles? In other words, what we are trying to reconstruct is how a person might have read 1 Apocr. Apoc. John based on how the title(s) would have directed such reader to do it. As Hoff has eloquently written “the potential of paratextual elements to direct and navigate the reader is crucial when trying to grasp how a book might have been read.”^[29] This rings true when the paratextual elements are titles.

The importance of recovering the reading practices of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John’s users lie in its wide circulation in Late Antiquity, not only in Greek but also in translations to Arabic, Armenian, and Slavonic.^[30] Thus, we can safely presume that this text exerted a great degree of influence in the shaping of the eschatological expectations of eastern Christians. Furthermore, 1 Apoc. Apocr. John is not mentioned frequently in contemporary sources, neither canon lists nor catalogues by church fathers mentioning heresies and the bibliographic sources whence they emerge. This means that we remain in ignorance as to what kind of reception this apocryphon had in Late Antiquity. Therefore, understanding the reception of this text through its titles enhances our comprehension of its transmission history and how readers interacted with it, reflecting communal perceptions of its value and authority.

As such, this article posits that the main three ways in which the titles of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John influenced its readers were (1) by leading them to believe that they were reading a text belonging to the genre of apocalypse, creating boundaries within which they will have to negotiate meaning according to the expectations embodied in this genre; (2) by construing the author of this apocryphon as John, the son of Zebedee, thereby legitimizing the contents of this work as apostolic, authoritative, and true; (3) by guiding readers to expect from this text new knowledge about eschatological topics such as the antichrist, the resurrection, the second coming, among others; and (4) by directing readers to connect 1 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John to canonical Revelation and other apocalypses attributed to John known to them. These areas constitute the main parts of this paper, after which some concluding remarks will follow.

2 Genre^[31]

The first way in which titles shaped the reading experience of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John was by telling the users of the manuscripts to which genre the work belongs, creating boundaries readers must navigate to find meaning in the text. Many Greek manuscripts associated 1 Apocr. Apoc. John with the apocalypse genre. Seventeen out of 26 collated Greek manuscripts of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John place the word ἀποκάλυψις at the beginning of the title, inviting subsequent readers to engage with this work as such.^[32]

A close study of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John’s contents reveals a deliberate choice by late antique readers to designate the work as an apocalypse, underscoring the divine origin of the contents of the work over strict adherence to its formal literary features, given that this text does not fit the genre of apocalypse properly but rather mixes the erotapokriseis genre with apocalypse genre.^[33] 1 Apocr. Apoc. John does not completely resemble Eusebius’ Questions and Answers on the Gospels neither Theodoret’s Questions and Answers on the Octateuch but neither looks alike the Apocalypse of Peter or the Apocalypse of Paul with their otherworldly journeys; this apocryphon rather sits at the intersection of these two genres.^[34]

In 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, John asks several questions to Jesus about eschatological topics and Christ answers them not by taking him to an otherworldly journey but through dialogue, instructing John as clearly as possible on the eschatological scenario of the end.^[35] Here, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John resembles Eusebius’ Questions in the sense that a question is posed to someone who can answer it. Yet in Eusebius’ Questions, and most of the books belonging to the erotapokriseis genre, the identity of who ask the question remains veiled, whereas in 1 Apoc. Apocr. John, the human interlocutor is clearly identified.^[36] Furthermore, in Eusebius’ Questions, the answer given to the questions do not claim to have a divine origin, while in 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, the content of the answers given to John belongs – in the world of the text – exclusively to God. Hence, the idea that 1 Apocr. Apoc. John is an apocalypse. In addition, Eusebius’ Questions lacks a narrative setting for the exchange between questions and answer, while the beginning of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John sets up the scenario for the exchange between Jesus and John.^[37] 1 Apocr. Apoc. John truly represents a blend of genres, evincing the porousness of genres in antiquity – the text is not just an apocalypse employing erotapokriseis as a literary pattern, the text participates in both genres.^[38] Nonetheless, the way late antique readers received and framed the reading experience of composite-genre texts like this depended on which aspects they decided to emphasize.^[39] Therefore, while one manuscript foregrounds the medium through which the revelation takes place by designating the work as an ἐρώτησις,^[40] most readers of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John decided to highlight the apocalyptic aspect of the text, neglecting the formal aspect of the erotapokriseis genre in which the dialogue between the heavenly revealer and John is embedded.

To understand the implications of reading 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as an apocalypse, it is crucial to acknowledge the role of genre expectations in communication.^[41] Each genre brings distinct conventions, shaping readers’ expectations because “there can be no understanding without at least an implicit notion of genre.”^[42] Given that some late antique readers were inviting others to engage with 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as an apocalypse – by using the word ἀποκάλυψις in the titles of the manuscripts – what should these readers expect to find in this apocryphon? What is one supposed to find in an apocalypse in antiquity? ^[43]

Although etic, the following definition comprises what the genre of the apocalypse entailed for most late antique people, that is “a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.”^[44] This definition fits perfectly with 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as Adela Yarbro Collins has argued.^[45]

Framing 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as an apocalypse directed readers to perceive the text as a divine revelation of previously undisclosed knowledge.^[46] Questions posed by John about the antichrist, the resurrection, the judgment, the second coming, the destruction of the wicked, and the reward of the righteous received answers construed as divine revelation – highlighting that this knowledge is only accessible through the apocryphon because God decided to communicate undisclosed secrets to John.^[47] By framing 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as an apocalypse, late antique readers directed others to see the text as an authoritative divine revelation of the future, providing them with assurance and guidance to make it to the end of times.^[48]

Despite the prevalent reading of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as an apocalypse, a subset of readers approached the text with alternative perspectives. Two manuscripts of this apocryphon framed the reading experience of their users by mediating this work as a λόγος, a term with diverse meanings in Greek.^[49] In antiquity, λόγος referred to books of many kinds of genre, denoting the general idea of a treatise.^[50] Thus, when a reader engaged with 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as a treatise, the text shed its divine aura, becoming one among many human compositions. Moreover, λόγος could also refer to a homily or sermon, thereby suggesting a liturgical setting for the consumption of this text in Late Antiquity. This is clarified by a manuscript that framed the reading experience of this apocalypse explicitly as a homily, also suggesting a liturgical setting for this work.^[51] Reading 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as a treatise or a homily diminished its perceive divine origin and authority, allowing for a critical interpretation, as one possibility of the end-time born out of human imagination and wit, not as the definitive end-time scenario that reading this text as an apocalypse would require. In summary, the titles of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John played a pivotal role in shaping the reading experience of many in Late Antiquity, steering readers toward distinct expectations and interpretations of its genre.

3 Author

Another significant influence of the titles of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John on its readers pertains to the construction of the author of this apocryphon. The Greek manuscript tradition consistently ascribes the authorship of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John to John the theologian.^[52] This attribution is rooted in the deliberate effort of the author to emulate John, the canonical author of Revelation, who was also recognized in the titular tradition as the Theologian.^[53] John the theologian was, by the time 1 Apocr. Apoc. John was written, a generic designation for John, the son of Zebedee, who was an apostle and eyewitness of Jesus Christ.^[54]

The recension β of a narrative expansion of the life of John which relate the imprisonment, the trial of the apostle before Domitian, and his subsequent exile to Patmos, called The Acts of John in Rome, has a penchant for assigning the title “Theologian” to John, the main character of the narrative.^[55] Moreover, this recension explicitly identifies John the theologian with John the Galilean, the disciple of Jesus.^[56] A similar phenomenon occurs in The Acts of Timothy, where John the Theologian is recognized as the beloved disciple who rested upon the breast of Jesus.^[57] Although John 13,23-25 never clarify the identity of the disciple who reclined upon the breast of Jesus, the early Church associated John the son of Zebedee with the beloved disciple.^[58] Accordingly, The Acts of John in Rome and The Acts of Timothy evince the early Christian tendency of equating John the Theologian with John the apostle of the Lord, a norm that solidified very early in early Christian memory.^[59]

Although the title theologian could be given to various Christian authors, it seems that only John the son of Zebedee, among the original companions of Christ, was deemed worthy of this designation.^[60] The logic underlying John’s designation as a theologian seems to run the following course: (1) as the beloved disciple, John must be the fourth evangelist,^[61] (2) the fourth gospel presents the most direct and explicit presentation of Jesus as God,^[62] (3) given that theologians discourse about gods and since the fourth gospel is the clearest discourse about the divinity of Jesus,^[63] and (4) consequently, John must be a theologian.^[64] Procopius of Caesarea, describing a church dedicated to John, rightly argued “this apostle has been named ‘the Theologian’ because the nature of God was described by him in a manner beyond the unaided power of man.”^[65] In a nutshell, John the Theologian, in antiquity, referred specifically to John the son of Zebedee, transformed by the early church into an evangelist.

As seen earlier, late antique readers of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John were directed to read this text as the work of John the Theologian, i.e., John the son of Zebedee. Nonetheless, some scribes went above and beyond, explicitly stating that John the Theologian, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, was one of the 12 apostles and the author of the fourth gospel. Eight of 22 manuscripts include ἀπόστολος as a qualifier of John, while 7 of 22 manuscripts pair ἀπόστολος with εὐαγγελιστής.^[66]

The designation of John as ἀπόστολος aimed at distinguish him from other Johns in early Christianity, such as John the Baptist or John the Elder, particularly because some early Christian writers attributed canonical writings to the latter John.^[67] However, only John the son of Zebedee received the honorific ἀπόστολος because he was the only John to be a part of the 12 closest companions to Jesus.^[68] That explains why Eusebius of Caesarea deployed ἀπόστολος to differentiate between John the son of Zebedee and John the Elder, clarifying that John the apostle referred specifically to the son of Zebedee.^[69] Thus, appending ἀπόστολος to John the Theologian guided readers to conclude that 1 Apocr. Apoc. John was the work of no other John but the close companion of Jesus.

Further, manuscripts also identify John the theologian and apostle as an εὐαγγελιστής. There were three primary ways in which John could have been an evangelist in early Christianity. First, he penned the gospel himself in Ephesus after his exile to Patmos in order to supplement the synoptic gospels with those miracles and speeches of Jesus that were not registered in them.^[70] Second, John not only issued his gospel but also published the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke after having edited the first drafts of these documents. In this case, evangelist amounts to redactor, editor, corrector, organizer, and writer.^[71] Third, John is only the medium through which God reveals the content of the fourth gospel, which is actually written by Prochorus.^[72] Although the manuscripts of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John do not exactly state in which capacity John was considered an evangelist, they would agree with Foucault’s description of an author as the source or originator of a discourse.^[73] That is, the common thread among different strands of tradition described above is that John was perceived as the source behind the document known as the fourth gospel. As early Christians attributed the authorship of the fourth gospel to John the son of Zebedee, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John was likewise regarded as the same individual.^[74]

By now it should be clear that late antique users of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John consciously identified the author as John the son of Zebedee, inviting others to engage with the text as an authentic apostolic work. Yet, some scribes went further by incorporating descriptors in the titles that were inextricably associated with John the son of Zebedee. Some manuscripts refer to John the Theologian a παρθένος.^[75] In early Christian memory, John the son of Zebedee remained chaste.^[76] Although παρθένος could be a generic descriptor given to anyone in antiquity, it becomes a distinctive trait of John the son of Zebedee.^[77] This designation, when combined with other Johannine descriptors like theologian, apostle, and evangelist, reinforces the understanding that the author of this apocryphon is indeed John, the son of Zebedee.

Finally, some scribes also employed the word ἐπιστήθιος to characterize the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as John the son of Zebedee.^[78] ἐπιστήθιος means “over the chest” and derives from John 13,25 (ἐκεῖνος οὕτως ἐπὶ τὸ στῆθος τοῦ I̓ησοῦ) where the beloved disciple reclines on the chest of Jesus. In the Christian tradition, ἐπιστήθιος becomes a shorthand for the beloved disciple, identified as John the son of Zebedee.^[79] The infrequent use of this word in Greek literature suggests that it was coined in a Christian environment, with John as its primary referent.^[80] Thus, in addition to the other descriptors, ἐπιστήθιος unequivocally gestures toward the identification of the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John with John, the son of Zebedee.

So far, we have established that scribes directed readers to think of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as being written by John the apostle, the son of Zebedee. But what did it mean for late antique readers to engage with this apocryphon as the true work of John the apostle?

First, if 1 Apocr. Apoc. John was intended to be read as a genuine work of John the apostle, then it would logically have the same authoritative status as other works penned by John, such as his gospel or his catholic letter. Regardless of what modern readers think about the authorship of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John – 1 Apocr. Apoc. John is clearly pseudepigraphic – late antique readers believed it was written by John the apostle. This perception was not confined to the scribes copying the text, but they intentionally propagated it to influence others. Thus, the experience of a reader encountering 1 Apocr. Apoc. John would have mirrored that of a reader engaging with 1 John, particularly in how the scribes of both texts construed the authors through their titles (Table 2).^[81] Late antique readers of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John did not interpret the name John as a literary device meant to enhance the tradition associated with him or to assert the authority of the text.^[82] Instead, they believed that John had authored the work before them. Notably, the titles of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John did not offer any indication to readers that they were reading a spurious and nonauthoritative text. Consequently, readers of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John did not experience this text as a fake or apocryphal.^[83] In other words, late antique readers of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John were directed to read this text genuine and authoritative, even if not “canonical” in the sense of a belonging to a closed collection of authoritative writings.^[84]

In contrast to the perspective of late antique readers, modern renditions of the text under study in this article refer to it as 1 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John. The term “first” serves to distinguish it from others Johannine apocalypses, and its designation as apocryphal implies its purported falseness and lack of authority, especially in contrast to the now canonical Apocalypse of John.^[85] Authority, in this context, is tied to whether John the apostle genuinely authored the apocryphal text. Whereas, in modern discussions, we categorize and divide texts as “orthodox” and “heterodox,” “authoritative” and “nonauthoritative,” these distinctions are theoretical, made from a position of power, and may not encapsulate how late antique readers approached these texts, neither reflect how “canonical” the lives of the “apocryphal” texts might have been during their transmission.^[86]

That is not to say that late antique thinkers did not distinguish between canonical and apocryphal texts, and between authoritative and non-authoritative texts. In fact, early Christian figures like Eusebius, Athanasius, or Augustine made efforts to identify which writings should be placed within canonical boundaries and which ones should be left outside.^[87] Further, others acknowledged the extra-canonical status of many writings and read them as such anyway.^[88] Nevertheless, that a text might not be found in Athanasius’ festal letter does not mean that it could not be considered Scripture and authoritative for other writers and vice versa.^[89] As Shoemaker rightly wrote “the anti-apocryphal rhetoric of certain church fathers did not always correspond with the real status of apocrypha in Christian churches.”^[90] For instance, Athanasius excluded 2 Baruch as Scripture/authoritative, while Syriac writers consider it as such. Furthermore, Athanasius considered Revelation as canonical, but it was not universally accepted.^[91] Therefore, the designation of a text as “apocryphal/non-authoritative” does not necessarily correspond with the perceptions of readers.^[92]

As we stated briefly in the introduction, one of our best guides to understand the late antique reception of an “apocryphal” book by its readers is to examine the paratexts of the manuscripts, particularly the titles.^[93] This method allows us to discern what readers actually thought about these texts.^[94] This method also enables a more nuance understanding of “apocryphal” texts because it looks at them through the eyes of the actual users and not only through canon lists enforcing an artificial division when it comes to the materiality of texts’ transmission.^[95] As Lied has argued,

This focus on paratexts, such as titles and introductory addresses, has provided new insight into the cultural conceptions of the communities that produced and engaged with the manuscripts. Titles and introductory addresses are intriguing precisely because they serve as windows into the literary imagination of the communities that preserved copies of a text, showing how the manuscript producers identified, represented, and communicated that text to their readers.^[96]

Consider the so-called Protevangelium of James as an example. Grouped under the subtitle “Gospel-related material” and considered “apocryphal (i.e., as non-canonical, false, and fictional)” in many modern translations of Christian apocrypha, this text exemplifies how the value statements made by modern readers do not correlate with the reading experience of its late antique users.^[97] The titles of almost 150 Greek manuscripts that preserve this text reveal that late antique and medieval readers did not consider Protevangelium of James a gospel but rather a history (ἱστορία), a treatise or discourse (λόγος), or a historical account (λόγος ἱστορικός).^[98] These designations point out that scribes of this work led late antique readers to think of the Protevangelium of James not as a fictional/fake account of the nativity of Mary but as a true account of her conception and birth.^[99] Moreover, most manuscripts consider James as the author of the Protevangelium.^[100] Then, many scribes directed their readers to believe that this text was written by James, thereby the Protevangelium would have enjoyed the same authority that canonical texts like the Epistles of James had, given that the paratexts of both works presented the same James as their author (Table 3).^[101] That is, in virtue of apostolic origin, both texts would have been considered authoritative.

Therefore, readers of Protevangelium did not consider the text to be fake, false, fictional, or even pseudonymous. Instead, they viewed the Protoevangelium of James as a true historical account of the nativity of Mary written by James the brother of Jesus, thereby an authoritative text.^[102] The authoritative character of the Protoevangelium for its late antique readers explains why the text was so influential, popular, and central for imagining and depicting the early life of the virgin Mary.^[103] Calling the Protoevangelium an apocryphal text – in the sense of having no historical value nor authority – bespeaks more about modern anxieties caused by canon-fueled power structures than about the actual reading experiences of the users of this text.

Similarly, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John follows a similar pattern. Although modern readers and some late antique readers labeled it “apocryphal,”^[104] the scribes intentionally framed readers, through titles, to believe it was an authoritative work by John the son of Zebedee. Thus, paratexts challenge the separation between canonical and non-canonical texts since traditional classifications of these texts do not reflect the experience of many antique readers. Titles correct this short-sighted approach. In the case of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, the apocryphal colonized the terrain of the canonical. That is, titles, through similar constructions of authorship, directed readers to approach both 1 John and 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as authoritative works by John the apostle.^[105] Therefore, while we can theorize today about texts being “authoritative,” “apocryphal,” “orthodox,” etc., the actual experiences of readers sometimes blurred or obliterated such distinctions, as exemplified by 1 Apocr. Apoc. John.

Second, an interesting phenomenon arises when comparing the titles of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John with those of the canonical Revelation in their Greek manuscripts. This comparison reveals a striking resemblance between both titular traditions. Both works share the following titles “’Iωάννου τοῦ θεολόγου ἀποκάλυψις,” “ἀποκάλυψις τοῦ ἁγίου’Iωάννου τοῦ θεολόγου,” “ἀποκάλυψις τοῦ ἁγίου καὶ πανεφήμου ἀποστόλου καὶ εὐαγγεληστοῦ’Iωάννου τοῦ θεολόγου,” “ἀποκάλυψις τοῦ ἁγίου ἀποστόλου καὶ εὐαγγελιστοῦ’Iωάννου τοῦ θεολόγου,” and “ἀποκάλυψις τοῦ ἁγίου ἀποστόλου καὶ εὐαγγελιστοῦ παρθένου’Iωάννου τοῦ θεολόγου,” along with shared significant terminology and structure in others (Table 4). This phenomenon suggests that some late antique readers of these texts had the same reading experience irrespective of whether they were reading 1 Apocr. Apoc. John or the canonical Revelation.

In this context, individuals encountering 1 Apocr. Apoc. John with the title “ἀποκάλυψις τοῦ ἁγίου’Iωάννου τοῦ θεολόγου” or those approaching canonical Revelation with the same title would both believe they were reading the “Revelation of Saint John the Theologian,” given that the scribes of both works mediated different texts through the same title.^[106] Since titles create thresholds through which people negotiate the pre-conditions necessary to engage with a text, readers of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John and canonical Revelation were led to meet under the same threshold and negotiate the same pre-requisites to read two different works. Consequently, these groups of readers, guided by the scribes who presented both works as the Apocalypse of John, had analogous reading experiences despite engaging two different texts. This evidence problematizes the notion that late antique readers consistently differentiated between “apocryphal” and “canonical” texts in a clear-cut manner.

Moreover, some clarifications are necessary. First, those readers of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John unfamiliar with canonical Revelation would have read 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as if it were canonical given the widespread knowledge that John the apostle had written an apocalypse.^[107] The titles of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, framing the work as a Johannine apocalypse, likely led readers to consider it the true/canonical and only Apocalypse of John, especially if they lacked familiarity with canonical Revelation.^[108] In this context, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John would have replaced canonical Revelation.^[109] However, readers of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John who were acquainted with canonical Revelation, encountering two texts with identical titles, might have viewed 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as a complement or expansion of canonical Revelation.^[110]

Third, the insistence of late antique scribes insisted on attributing authorship of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John to John the son of Zebedee implies that the “apocryphon” should be read as part of the Johannine corpus, alongside the Gospel of John, 1-3 John, and the Apocalypse of John – all believed to be written by the same author.^[111] Reading a work within a corpus, as opposed to reading it on its own, suggests an expectation that it will complement the other components of the literary group, providing clues into ambiguous declarations or filling gaps left in other places of the corpus. If 1 Apocr. Apoc. John was considered a genuine work of John the son of Zebedee, then readers were encouraged to interpret it as an expansion, as a complement, as a clarification, or a means of filling gaps in other Johannine writings since the works of the same author should share a structural unity on several issues.^[112] However, a close comparison between 1 Apocr. Apoc. John and the Johannine corpus reveals limited affinity, except for the book of Revelation. Therefore, by telling readers to engage with 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as a part of the Johannine corpus, particularly in relation to the book of Revelation, the scribes influenced them to read both texts interrelatedly, treating 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as an interpretative guide to Revelation, elucidating the meaning of its confusing symbols.^[113]

4 Subject Matter

The last way in which titles helped readers in navigating the contents of 1 Apoc. Apocr. John was by delineating the scope of its subject matter. Regarding the subject matter of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, the Greek manuscripts vary in conceptualizing the main topic of this apocalypse. Some scribes chose to emphasize the antichrist as the main subject of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John. ^[114] However, the antichrist is not the primary concern of this apocalypse, as a more considerable portion of the text is dedicated to the themes of resurrection, the second coming, and the judgment than to the antichrist. Thus, the fact that some scribes decided to foreground the antichrist as the subject matter of the apocalypse may signify an intention to prompt readers to focus on the unique contribution that 1 Apocr. Apoc. John made to the antichrist discourse prevalent in Christian sources of Late Antiquity.^[115]

Moreover, other scribes perceived that the antichrist was not the exclusive focus of the apocalypse, choosing to include the second coming alongside the antichrist as thematic descriptors of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John.^[116] This dual description could reflect an attempt by these scribes to organize the contents of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John into two axes. Admittedly, the first half, encompassing chapters 3-5 and 9-12, could be organized around the antichrist, delineating the conditions preceding his appearance and ensuing consequences, namely, the death and resurrection of all mankind. The second half, comprising chapters 13-16 and 20-28, may be organized around the second coming, elucidating the necessary conditions for the Lord’s Parousia and the subsequent judgment and rewards.

However, some scribes opted to group all the topics present in 1 Apocr. Apoc. John under the heading of the second coming, suggesting that, for them, the antichrist, the resurrection, and the cleansing of the earth are mere preludes to the Lord’s return.^[117] For this group of scribes, the events of the end-times centered on the second coming to the extent that it could encompass the entire eschaton through synecdoche.

Furthermore, some scribes explicitly conveyed the idea that the second coming could encompass all eschatological events by framing the subject matter of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as dealing with both the second coming and the end of the world.^[118] Conversely, others preferred to encapsulate the subject matter of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John under the term συντελεια, presenting all the aforementioned topics as stages leading to the final consummation.^[119]

Regardless of the version of the subject matter of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John encountered by readers, all the scribes of this apocalypse influenced them to perceive it as eschatological. Whether the reader construed 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as concerning the antichrist, the second coming, or the end of the world, these topics represented classical eschatological topoi. As such, all readers of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John comprehended the contents of the book as relating to the end of the world. In doing so, the scribes managed readers’ expectations about 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, delimiting the content of the new revelation implied by the apocalyptic genre to classical topoi of cosmic eschatology in Late Antiquity. Consequently, the scribes of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John created reading experiences similar akin to those of readers of texts such as Pseudo-Hippolytus’ de consummatione mundi or Pseudo-Ephrem’s Sermo in aduentum domini, et de consummatione saeculi, et in aduentum antichristi.^[120] A key difference lies in that readers of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John attributed apostolic authority and truthfulness to the depiction of the end in this apocalypse. Nevertheless, aside from this distinction, the scribes of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John guided readers to locate the eschatological discourse of this text in the same register of many other eschatological treatises that dealt with the same topics, maybe even guiding them to read 1 Apocr. Apoc. John alongside them.

5 Conclusion

Upon careful examination of the evidence and analysis presented earlier, it can be concluded that paratexts, particularly titles, exerted significant influence over 1 Apocr. Apoc. John’s readers in Late Antiquity. The titles served as guiding markers, directing readers to interpret this text as an apocalypse – a disclosing of unknown information belonging exclusively to God, pertaining to cosmic eschatology. Despite the possibility of scribes conceptualizing the text as erotapokriseis, highlighting the formal literary feature of the dialogue between Jesus and John, they decided to emphasize the apocalyptic nature of the document. This choice influenced readers to approach the text as possessing a divine origin.

Furthermore, the titles of this apocalypse construed John as its author, ensuring that readers engaged with the text as an authentic and authoritative work grounded on apostolic authority. This framing discouraged readers from perceiving 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as an apocryphon – deemed spurious and non-authoritative – prompting them to regard it as a true work of John the apostle. There exists even the possibility that some readers might have read 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as if it were the canonical Revelation of John.

Finally, the titles of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John shaped the reading experience by delimiting the subject matter of the treatise as eschatological. Thus, as readers approached this text, the titles mediated a revelation about classical eschatological topoi such as the antichrist, the second coming, the resurrection, among others. Examining the titles of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as paratexts evinces their profound impact on text interpretation. They convey information that impact how others read the text, creating spaces where authors and readers converge to negotiate meaning. Moreover, a study of these titles proves instrumental in recovering the reading experience of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John. Thus, this investigation proves the usefulness of scrutinizing the paratexts of the so-called apocryphal literature, as the reading experience preserved in manuscripts often differs from the one construed by its opponents. This article aspires to motivate further exploration of paratexts in apocryphal literature, thereby enriching our understanding of this distinctive imaginative literary corpus.