Acts of Peter

Written in Greek, probably by a resident of Asia Minor, not later than AD 200. The author has read the Acts of John very carefully and modeled his language on them. One of the earliest of the apocryphal acts of the apostles, the Acts of Peter reports a contest between Simon Magus and the apostle Peter in Rome and concludes with Peter’s martyrdom. The version here is from Latin, the most expansive extant manuscript. The Acts of Peter is undoubtedly pseudepigraphal, as evidenced by the language and style of Paul (Ch. 2), unlike any of his canonical epistles or recorded words in the Acts of the Apostles. This apocryphal work also promotes a sort of sinless perfectionism disparate from the genuine Pauline teaching of sola fide.