Epistula Apostolorum as a secondary

Francis Watson in "A Gospel of the Eleven", co-ed. Sarah Parkhouse, Connecting Gospels: Beyond the Canonical/non-canonical Divide, brings another witness to the Resurrection and what happened next: the Epistle of the Apostles. Let's evaluate that.

The EA is, unlike Mark, known to be late. The EA knows at least three of our gospels. (Luke is the least-used, per Watson 205-6. Watson thinks the EA treats Luke as secondary but, like for Papias, I'd not rule out the independent "L" tradition.) Given the intertext, this allows that the EA is running a harmony like Tatian and/or the commentary-tradition leading to Justin. If Mark wasn't aware of John's spottiness, and if EA accepted Mark too; EA would take Mark as pretext to drop this doubt.

The EA's Post-Resurrection parallels that in John 20 and Luke 24. Here Jesus appears, to the women at the very tomb no less (take that, Mark!). The risen Lord aims to deny that he is now a ghost, an "asomatic daemon" as (deutero?-)Ignatius would put it. Jesus then meets the former disciples daring them to touch him and find out. Canonically, only Thomas will take him up on that, earning him the title "Doubter".

But if we're to believe Ignatius, the Christians in Smyrna assumed that at least "those with Peter" could vouch for Jesus' corporeality as well. Ignatius even brings a written Gospel in support - albeit, as Jerome pointed out, one uncanonical later.

The EA was a west Anatolian document (pdf), and - depending on its date - may have been Smyrna's scripture for the Resurrection.

The EA, as it happens, has Peter (himself!) touching Jesus' nail marks (p. 202). The nails represent a shared Ignatian / Johannine detail; Peter touching their trace is not such a detail (and John 20 won't even place Peter there).

As to why the EA brings Peter to join in Thomas' skepticism: this presents a medium for the Fisherman between Matthew's exaltation and John 20's excommunication. All the disciples are equal, now. What I don't necessarily see is space for Luke, who'd omitted the nails and the touching. Luke in the latter sports a gap like John's: people think Jesus is with Peter, then Jesus meets with "the disciples" except, presumably, Judas and omits Peter by name too.

Instead I suspect that the Epistula Apostolorum resorted to that Syriac Gospel also in use at Smyrna, which had both nails and touching, in association with Peter. The EA's main gospels were Matthew and John. (As noted above Mark is had only through Matthew.) What applies to Luke also applies to the Syriac Gospel: I concede the EA knew them, but it held them equally - in third place, to supply additional detail. If Smyrna had the EA, Ignatius did them one better by quoting one of its sources.