The Nekuia is one of the brilliant achievements of 19th-century German literature. Based on a thorough investigation of Greek and Latin literature, from the Homeric epics to the writings of late antiquity, Albrecht Diderich put forward the view that early Christian eschatology was not based on Jewish tradition but on Orphic and Pythagorean doctrines.

As a guide, he utilized the Revelation of Peter, which had just been discovered in Upper Egypt. This work, lost since the end of Byzantium, was popular among the early Christian world, exerting a significant influence on Christian perceptions of heaven and hell.

Although it was not included in the canon of the New Testament, it was read as inspired scripture for centuries and inspired Byzantine iconographers and hymnographers. Diderich's claims regarding the origins of Christian eschatology triggered intense discussions and reactions from the very beginning, but some recent findings confirm him in a way that even he could not have predicted.