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The Church Fathers · c. 200; survives in a fragment
Letter on the Gospel of Peter
Serapion of Antioch · d. c. 211
Read elsewhere
What it is
A bishop who had allowed a congregation at Rhossus to read the Gospel of Peter without looking at it first writes back, having now read it, to withdraw permission — receiving Peter and the other apostles as Christ, but rejecting what falsely bears their names.
Why it lasted
The clearest picture we have of how the canon was actually policed: not by council but by a bishop reading a book, changing his mind, and writing a letter.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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