Dzheremi,
For
Question 1 (
About the identity and reliability of the Preaching of Peter and the difference from the Kerygmata Petrou), answer must be that:
(A) The "Preaching or Peter" is the title of a lost text that Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and a few other early Church writers cite. Clement of Alexandria refers to it repeatedly in such statements as:
"And in the preaching of Peter you may find the Lord referred to as law and word." (Miscellanies 1.29) Origen referred to it, saying: "It is too much to set forth now the quotations of Heracleon taken from the book entitled
The Preaching of Peter and dwell on them, inquiring about the book whether genuine or spurious or compounded of both elements..." (Origen, On John 13.17) Since Heracleon quoted it in c. 175 AD, the
Preaching of Peter must be from that time or earlier. Some scholars think that Aristides based one of the passages in his Apology (120-130 AD) on the
Preaching's passage about how the Jews served the angels and months. Certainly it appears that the two passages are closely related, with one being based on the other (although it could have been the other way around). Clement of Alexandria appeared to respect it, but Origen makes it sound quite unreliable. (He said that if someone wants to use the book called in Latin the "
Teaching of Peter", then "it must first be responded to that person that this book is not held among the ecclesiastical books, and [then] demonstrated that it was written neither by Peter nor by any other one who was inspired by the spirit of God.") But since it isn't certain that the
Teaching of Peter and
Preaching of Peter are the same book, and since Origen did not go ahead and demonstrate that neither Peter nor another inspired writer created it, I feel that the case is not closed on the question.
(B) The "Kerygmata Petrou" is a title that modern scholars appear to use for a
theorized text from about the third century that they propose was a foundation for the 4th century
Clementine Recognitions and
Clementine Homilies. The theorized document is incompletely reconstructed based on quotations from the Clementines such as, "
Then Peter: 'As to the mixture of truth with falsehood, I remember that on one occasion He, finding fault with the Sadducees, said....' (Homilies III 48-52)
For
Question 2 (
Whether the 12 years' stay in Israel by the apostles after Jesus rose sounds correct), it seems that if Peter went to Rome about 12 years later in c. 42 AD, but had already founded Antioch as a major Christian center, then he probably had already been evangelizing in Antioch. Paul had certainly already been doing mission work in those 12 years, but he wasn't one of the 12 disciples, so Paul apparently doesn't count.
The relevant passage is taken from Clement of Alexandria's Stromata:
Therefore asserts Peter that the Lord said to the Apostles: 'If any one of Israel should repent and by my name believe in God, his sins shall be forgiven him. After twelve years go forth into the world, that no one may say: 'We have not heard.'
Clement of Alexandria, Stromata VI, 5, 43.
To answer your question about the chrism oil, in English it is called
"Myrrh", but I know what you mean, because it is called "Miro" in Russian. The Russians call oil anointing "miro pomazanie." The Greek term is "Miron", meaning aromatic oil.
If Peter went to Rome about 12 years after the resurrection and St. Mark was with Peter in Rome, and then St. Mark went on to write or preach his Gospel in Alexandria, it makes sense that Mark would be in Egypt at least 12 years after the Resurrection. As for St Mark preaching in his homeland Libya before going to Alexandria, this possibility would agree with Acts 11's reference to Christians from "Cyrene" (Libya) traveling the Eastern Mediterranean to preach. In that case, St. Mark first preached in Libya (probably during the first 12 years of the apostles' preaching), and then came to Antioch, and then went on to Rome and Alexandria. But since St Mark wasn't one of the 12 disciples, his early preaching in his homeland of Libya wouldn't disprove the "12 year Israel-only" preaching theory about the disciples.
For
Question 3 (
what does it mean about the Jews "serving angels" and "serving the month and the moon"?), it's worth noting that another early writing,
The Apology of Aristides, says something similar about the Jews: "whereas by their mode of observance it is to the angels and not to God that their service is rendered:--as when they celebrate sabbaths and the beginning of the months, and feasts of unleavened bread, and a great fast; and fasting and circumcision and the purification of meats, which things, however, they do not observe perfectly." (
Apology, Section XIV)
Rev. Herbert Lucas comments:
This charge against the Jews of serving angels rather than God, suggests such passages as Col. ii. 16,18, where Jewish observances are mentioned in connection with a 'religion of angels;' and again, Heb. ii.5: 'For God hath not subjected to angels the world to come,' ie the world under the New Dispensation. The fundamental idea underlying the Apostle's words seems to be that the Old Dispensation having been communicated to men by the ministry of angels [Gal 3:19], to adhere to the old ordinances after the ministry of angels, to adhere to the old ordinances after the establishment of the New Covenant is in a manner to prefer angels to God Himself.
Source: The Month, Vol. 72.
Galatians 3:19 says that the Law "was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator."
Colossians 2:16-18 goes:
16. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
17. Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
18. Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind
Graham Stanton comments in his essay "Worship: Pliny and the Kerygma Petrou" that the reference in the Preaching of Peter (which he calls the Kerygma Petrou)
to the shining of the moon as a pre-requisite for the celebration of the first Sabbath, the new moon, and the three great annual festivals is elucidated by the Mishnaic tractate, Roch ha-Shanah 1.1-3.1. At the time the Kerygma Petrou was written, and probably until the first half of the fourth century AD, the duration of each month (and hence the date of the festivals) was not fixed in advance; it had to be determined by observation of the new moon's appearance by trustworthy witnesses. If the sky was covered by clouds, then the new moon could not be hallowed. Following formal declaration of observation of the new moon, messengers were sent to the diaspora. According to rabbinic traditions which are difficult to date, if the messengers did not reach the diaspora in time for Passover, Tabernaces or the Day of Atonement, an additional festival day could be observed in order to provide for doubts.
The author of the Kerygma Petrou would not have bothered to comment in detail and to pour scorn on these practices unless he and his readers knew about them at first hand. We do in fact have evidence which confirms that it was the general practice in synagogues of the diaspora to celebrate new moons and the annual festivals, as well as the Sabbath.
Stanton notes that in Galatians 4, Paul complained about the Galatians' past service of non-deities and their turning to "observance" of months:
8. Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
9. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
10. Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
In Romans 14:5, Paul noted that, "One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." So Paul didn't consider special observances in honor of certain days to be an important issue. This goes back to Colossians 2:16 ("Let no man therefore judge you... in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days".)
Stanton writes that the polemic against observance of sabbaths and months goes back to Isaiah1:
13. Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
14. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
In
The Antenicene Pascha: A Rhetorical History, Karl Gerlach writes:
Beyond the seven-day rhythm of the sabbath, the basic unit of the Hebrew calendar was the month, whose inaugural day, the sighting of the new crescent, was accomplished by ritual acts unique in the ancient world. With the conservatism that marks virtually all ritual practice, these rites would remain stable even as calendrical knowledge might have been absorbed from Babylon or Egypt, especially as they involved community participation in dighting the elusive new crescent. Thus while the weekly and yearly cycles of Hebrew timekeeping were modified as they were adopted into Christianity, the monthly cycle with its 'moongazing' could become an easy object of anti-Judaic polemic. The Talmud records a hallowing ritual for first century Palestine. Witnesses, for whom banquets were prepared to insure their eager attendance, gathered for the hallowing of the new moon in a large courtyard in Jerusalem called Beth Yazeq, and R. Gamaliel the Elder ordered that they be permitted to walk within two thousand cubits on the Sabbath. There was a brief liturgy: the chief of the court would say, 'It is hallowed,' which was repeated twice by the people.
Scholars seem to have different opinions on whether and how frequently veneration of angels was a Jewish practice in the First Century, to which the Preaching of Peter could be referring. (See eg.
Angel Veneration and Christology, by Loren T. Stuckenbruck. pp. 140-147.)
It looks like Colossians 2:18 is the most relevant, because it warns against people who criticize others for failing to worship angels. Lopuhin comments about this verse:
In what exactly this service to angels consisted of is unknown, but, obviously, the false teachers performed in their honor some kinds of rituals (this is indicated by the meaning of 'service' with the term thriskia). This service was rooted in some regions of Asia Minor so much that in the year 365, the fathers of the Laodicean Council threatened an anathema for adhering to it.
For
Question 4 (
Are you familiar with the Greek writers to whom Clement of Alexandria is referring?), Clement is referring to two Hellenic writings in particular, the Sibylline oracles and the writings of Hystaspes, when Clement writes that Paul
"distinguished the most excellent of the Greeks from the common herd, saying: Take also the Hellenic books, read the Sibyl, how it is shown that God is one, and how the future is indicated. And, taking Hystaspes, read and you will find much more luminously and distinctly the son of God described".
Out of these writings, I've read the surviving Christian volumes of the Sibylline Oracles, but am not particularly familiar with the 6th century BC governor Hystaspes, also known as "Vishtaspa", whom Wikipedia notes "was a Persian satrap of Bactria and Persis. He was the father of Darius I, king of the Achaemenid Empire, and Artabanus, who was a trusted advisor to both his brother Darius as well as Darius's son and successor, Xerxes I."
The sibyls were Greek and Roman prophetesses living in Greece, Italy, and Asia Minor, and their "oracles" were written down. But the full volumes that have been handed down to us are apparently Christian versions that probably included materials from the earlier pagan sibylline oracles.