The Acts of Peter

Preface

Written, probably by a resident in Asia Minor (he does not know much about Rome), not later than A.D. 200, in Greek. The author has read the Acts of John very carefully, and modelled his language upon them. However, he was not so unorthodox as Leucius, though his language about the Person of our Lord (ch. xx) has rather suspicious resemblances to that of the Acts of John.

The length of the book as given by the Stichometry of Nicephorus was 2,750 lines — fifty lines less than the canonical Acts. The portions we have may be about the length of St. Mark’s Gospel; and about 1,000 lines may be wanting. Such is Zaha’s estimate.

We have:

1. A short episode in Coptic.

2. A large portion in Latin preserved in a single manuscript of the seventh century at Vercelli: often called the Vercelli Acts. It includes the martyrdom.

3. The martyrdom, preserved separately, in two good Greek copies, in Latin, and in many versions — Coptic, Slavonic, Syriac, Armenian, Arabic, Ethiopic.

Also:

One or two important quotations from lost portions; a small fragment of the original in a papyrus; certain passages — speeches of Peter — transferred by an unscrupulous writer to the Life of St. Abercius of Hierapolis.[1]

A Latin paraphrase of the martyrdom, attributed to Linus, Peter’s successor in the bishopric of Rome, was made from the Greek, and is occasionally useful.