The Acts of Peter is one of the earliest of the

apocrypha Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...

Acts of the Apostles The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its messag ...

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

, dating to the late 2nd century AD. The majority of the text has survived only in the Latin translation of the Codex Vercellensis, under the title ("Act of Peter with Simon"). It is notable for a description of a miracle contest between

Saint Peter ) (Simeon, Simon) , birth_date = , birth_place = Bethsaida, Gaulanitis, Syria, Roman Empire , death_date = Between AD 64–68 , death_place = probably Vatican Hill, Rome, Italia, Roman Empire , parents = John (or Jonah; Jona) , occupat ...

and

Simon Magus Simon Magus (Greek Σίμων ὁ μάγος, Latin: Simon Magus), also known as Simon the Sorcerer or Simon the Magician, was a religious figure whose confrontation with Peter is recorded in Acts . The act of simony, or paying for position, is ...

, the first record of the tradition that Saint Peter was crucified head-down, and as the origin of the saying " Quo vadis?".

Dating and history

The Acts of Peter were originally composed in

Koine Greek Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...

during the second half of the 2nd century, probably in

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

. The style of the Acts' writing is quite similar to that of four other apocryphal Acts –

Acts of Andrew The Acts of Andrew (), is the earliest testimony of the acts and miracles of the Apostle Andrew. The surviving version is alluded to in a 3rd-century work, the Coptic ''Manichaean Psalter'', providing a , according to its editors, M. R. James ...

Acts of John The ''Acts of John'' refers to a collection of stories about John the Apostle that began circulating in written form as early as the 2nd-century AD. Translations of the ''Acts of John'' in modern languages have been reconstructed by scholars from ...

Acts of Paul The Acts of Paul is one of the major works and earliest pseudepigraphal series from the New Testament apocrypha also known as Apocryphal Acts. This work is part of a body of literature either about or purporting to be written by Paul the Apost ...

, and

Acts of Thomas ''Acts of Thomas'' is an early 3rd-century text, one of the New Testament apocrypha within the Acts of the Apostles subgenre. References to the work by Epiphanius of Salamis show that it was in circulation in the 4th century. The complete ve ...

. For this reason, all five of these works were traditionally attributed to a single author; Photios I () identified this author as

Leucius Charinus Leucius, called Leucius Charinus by Photios I of Constantinople in the ninth century, is the name applied to a cycle of what M. R. James termed " Apostolic romances" that seems to have had wide currency long before a selection was read aloud at th ...

. Epiphanius () had earlier identified Leucius as a companion of

John the Apostle John the Apostle ( grc, Ἰωάννης; la, Ioannes ; Ge'ez: ዮሐንስ;) or Saint John the Beloved was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament. Generally listed as the youngest apostle, he was the son of Zebede ...

. The

Manicheans Manichaeism (; in New Persian ; ) is a former major religionR. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 founded in the 3rd century AD by the Parthian prophet Mani ( ...

are believed to have collected these five apocryphals Acts into a single corpus by the end of the 4th century. The current consensus is that the five works are interrelated, but were written by five separate authors, none of whom include Leucius. Despite this, the works are still frequently referred to as the "Manichean Acts of Leucius Charinus", or simply the "Leucian Acts". The earliest extant manuscript of the Acts of Peter is a

Late Latin Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in t ...

translation contained in the Codex Vercellensis, which is believed to be the earliest manuscript of the . This codex is preserved in the Capitulary Library of the

Vercelli Cathedral Vercelli Cathedral ( it, Duomo di Vercelli, ''Cattedrale di Sant'Eusebio'') is the principal church of the city of Vercelli in Piedmont, Italy, and the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Vercelli. It is dedicated to Saint Eusebius of Vercelli, the ...

. The chapters describing Peter's crucifixion (XXXIII–XLI) are preserved separately as 'Martyrdom of the Holy Apostle Peter' in various manuscripts in Latin,

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Coptic Coptic may refer to: Afro-Asia * Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya * Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century * Coptic alphabet ...

, Slavonic,

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

, Ethiopic,

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

, and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

. It has been proposed that the martyrdom account was an earlier, separate text to which the preceding chapters were affixed.

Content

In the text, Peter performs many miracles, such as healing a crippled beggar. Peter preaches that Simon Magus is performing magic in order to convert followers through deception. Outraged, Peter challenges Simon to a contest, in order to prove whose works are from a divine source and whose are merely trickery. In the contest, Simon takes flight, and in retaliation, Peter strikes him down with the power of God, praying that Simon not be killed but badly injured. Simon is then taken to Terracina to one Castor "And there he was sorely cut (Lat. by two physicians), and so Simon the angel of Satan came to his end." Peter's confrontation with Simon Magus has some resemblance to the Prophet

Elijah Elijah ( ; he, אֵלִיָּהוּ, ʾĒlīyyāhū, meaning "My El (deity), God is Yahweh/YHWH"; Greek form: Elias, ''Elías''; syr, ܐܸܠܝܼܵܐ, ''Elyāe''; Arabic language, Arabic: إلياس or إليا, ''Ilyās'' or ''Ilyā''. ) w ...

's confrontation with the Priests of Baal, as depicted in the Old Testament's Book of Kings – a text with which the writer of the Acts of Peter was likely familiar. Following this incident, Peter plans to flee the city; however, he sees an apparition of

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

, and takes it as a message that he must stay and be crucified to see Jesus again in Heaven (see Quo vadis?). Peter preaches to Agrippa's concubines that they should practice abstinence and chastity. The enraged Agrippa orders Peter to be crucified; Peter requests to be crucified upside-down.

The inverted crucifixion of Peter

No canonical text refers to the death of Saint Peter. Apart from the Acts of Peter, the earliest attestation that Saint Peter was executed by crucifixion is found in , a treatise composed by

Tertullian Tertullian (; la, Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus; 155 AD – 220 AD) was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of L ...

in the first decade of the 3rd century. Sometime in the middle of the 3rd century,

Origen of Alexandria Origen of Alexandria, ''Ōrigénēs''; Origen's Greek name ''Ōrigénēs'' () probably means "child of Horus" (from , "Horus", and , "born"). ( 185 – 253), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and theo ...

popularized the tradition that Peter requested to be crucified upside-down. At the end of the 4th century,

Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is co ...

wrote in his ("On Illustrious Men") that the reason for this request was that Peter felt he was unworthy to die in the same manner as Jesus. However, in the Acts of Peter, the author writes that Peter's request to be crucified upside-down was to make a point: that the values of those crucifying him were inverted themselves, emphasising the need to look beyond these values and adopt those of Jesus.

References

Sources

Richard Adelbert Lipsius Richard Adelbert Lipsius (14 February 1830 in Gera, Thuringia – 19 August 1892 in Jena, Thuringia) was a German Protestant theologian. Biography Richard Adelbert Lipsius was the son of K. H. A. Lipsius (d. 1861), who was rector of the school ...

, Maximilian Bonnet

pars prior, Hermann Mendelsohn, Leipzig 1891. *

Elias Avery Lowe Elias Avery Lowe (15 October 1879 – 8 August 1969), originally surnamed Loew, and known in print as E. A. Lowe, was a Lithuanian-American palaeography, palaeographer at the University of Oxford and Princeton University. He was a lecturer, and t ...

: '': a palaeographical guide to Latin manuscripts prior to the ninth century.'' Ed. under the auspices of the Union Académique Internationale for the American Council of Learned Societies and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Vol. 4. Clarendon, Oxford 1947, Reprint Zeller, Osnabrück 1988. Description of codex vercelli 158.

External links

Early Christian Writings: Acts of Peter (English translation)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Acts Of Peter 2nd-century Christian texts Christian anti-Gnosticism