The Acts of Peter.

        The rise of the sects in the second century led the churches to return to the apostles as the true exponents of genuine Christian truth and had led to the organization of Catholic Christianity against the sects-Marcionite, Gnostic, and Montanist-about A.D. 175. We have seen that this increased regard for the apostles had found expression in such apostolic novels as the Acts of Paul and Acts of John.

        The name of Peter had long been connected with the early history of the Church of Rome, as we have seen. II Peter, probably written after his death, alludes to a prediction of his martyrdom contained in the epilogue of the Gospel of John, 21:18, 19: “When you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will put a girdle on you and take you where you have no wish to go” (II Pet. 1:14).

        A considerable body of apocryphal literature had already gathered about the name of Peter, and legend had been busy with it too. The rise of the Acts of Paul and of John made it inevitable that someone should write the Acts of Peter, especially in Rome, where he had suffered martyrdom and where his memory was therefore especially cherished. The Acts of the Apostles brought Paul to Rome, but not Peter. How did Peter come to visit Rome and how was their work there related? This was a question that would attract a Christian novelist.

        Irenaeus of Lyons says in his treatise Against Heresies (iii. 3. 2, 3), ca. A.D. 185, that the Church of Rome had inherited her tradition from the apostles and had been founded and established by the glorious apostles Peter and Paul. The Gospel of Matthew contained a strong commendation of Peter from the lips of Jesus himself, who named him Cephas, or, in Greek, Peter-the Rock. “Your name is Peter, a rock, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not subdue it! I will give you [singular] the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you forbid on earth will be held in heaven to be forbidden, and whatever you permit on earth will be held in heaven to be permitted” (16:18, 19). The Roman bishop Calixtus (A.D. 217-22) ruled that persons who had been expelled from the church for grievous sins, even for murder, might, after due penance, be reinstated under these powers of the keys, as they were called, granted to Peter and, it was assumed, to his successors.

        It was natural enough, then, for some Christian writer early in the third century (A.D. 200-220) to compose the Acts of Peter. Legend had already gathered thickly about the figure of the most picturesque and spirited of the Twelve. The writer had also a considerable library of Christian books. He shows knowledge of the Four Gospels and the letters of Paul, the Acts of the Apostles, the Acts of Paul, the Acts of John (in chap. 21), the Preaching of Peter, the Apology of Justin, II Peter, and probably the Gospel of the Egyptians (in chap. 38).

        His purpose was to entertain and edify his Christian readers with tales of the words and wonders of the great apostle, upon whom Roman Christianity was more and more looking as its great founder and sponsor. He would also indorse asceticism and encourage women to separate from their husbands.

        No complete text of these Acts has been found, but about twothirds of it can be recovered from various sources-Greek, Latin, and Coptic. The Nicephorus list gives its length as 2,750 lines, or about that of the Acts of the Apostles.

        From one source comes the story of Peter's daughter. Peter has a daughter who is stolen by a rich admirer; Peter prays God to protect her, and she is paralyzed. This story is preserved only in Coptic, but Augustine mentions it,[30] as well as the story of the gardener's daughter who fell dead at Peter's prayer for her. This story is told in the apocryphal Letter of Titus. The gardener wished her raised to life again, and when Peter complied, the girl was outraged by a slave and disappeared.

        But the main part of the Acts is found in a Latin manuscript at Vercelli. It tells how Paul was released from his Roman imprisonment and set out for Spain. Simon Magus comes to Rome, and the church, left without a leader, is reduced to seven members. Peter, at Jerusalem, is warned in a vision that he is needed in Rome to resist his old enemy Simon (Acts 8:9-24). As the twelve years Jesus had told the apostles to remain in Jerusalem were over,[31] Peter sets out for Rome. The ship is becalmed, the crew is drunk, and the captain is converted. Peter goes down by a rope and baptizes him in the sea. They finally land at Puteoh and proceed to Rome. Peter rallies the believers. He knocks at Simon's door, but the porter pretends Simon is out. Peter sends his message in by the watchdog, which is suddenly endowed with speech. Seeing a dried herring in a shop, Peter puts it in water and brings it to life. He makes a seven-month-old baby speak. Peter tells how in Judea a woman had been robbed by Simon and his confederates, and how he had been enabled by a vision to uncover the crime and get back the stolen property.

        A woman of bad character brings Peter a large sum of money. He is warned against accepting it, in view of her character; it was a case of tainted money. Peter laughs and says that in reality the money was a debt owed to Christ (chap. 30).

        The senator Marcellus, who had entertained Simon, is shown his error by Peter and, after sprinkling his house with holy water, he offers it for use as a church or convent; the old women and widows are to come and pray, receiving a piece of gold for the service. Peter finds the gospel being read in the dining-hall and preaches there. He relates the Transfiguration, and in a vision his hearers see Christ, who appears to some as an old man, to others as a young one, or, to some, even as a child (chap. 21; this rather docetic passage is taken from the Acts of John, chap. 87).

        Platforms are erected in the forum, and great numbers of persons each pay a piece of gold to witness the contest between Peter and Simon. The prefect tells Simon to show his power by killing one of his pages; Simon obeys. Peter is then called upon to restore the boy to life, and other resurrections follow.

        The rest of the Acts is preserved in Greek as well as in Latin. Simon, who has already amazed the Romans by flying over the city, announces that he will do it again. Peter prays that he may fall and break his leg in three places. He does so, disappears from Rome, and dies at Terracina.

        Peter's success in prevailing upon wives to leave their husbands arouses leading Romans against him. He is warned and leaves the city but meets Jesus entering it. Peter asks, “Lord, where are you going?” (the famous “Domme quo vadis?”). Jesus replies that he is going into Rome to be crucified again. Peter accepts the rebuke and turns back into the city where he is crucified, at his request, with his head downward. This noble story of Peter's martyrdom goes far to redeem the trivial and even pagan elem that form so much of the book.

        Origen says that the Acts of Paul contained the saying of Jesus, “I am going to be crucified again,” and the newly discovered Greek Acts of Paul, as we have seen, contains those words. Evi

dently the Acts of Paul was used by the author of the Acts of Peter.

        Peter's last words to his wife as she was being led out to martyrdom are recorded by Clement of Alexandria (Miscellanies vii. 11) and repeated by Eusebius (Church History iii. 30. 2)” “They say that when the blessed Peter saw his own wife led out to die, he rejoiced because of her summons and her return home, and called to her very encouragingly and comfortingly, addressing her by name, and saying, 'O thou, remember the Lord.'“ Clement does not refer this to the Acts of Peter, but it may later have formed part of them.

        The idea that the apostles were told by Jesus to remain for twelve years in Jerusalem and then go forth into the world is drawn from the Preaching of Peter and was widely held in the early centuries. That there was in Rome a statue in honor of Simon Magus, with the inscription “Simoni deo Sancto” (chap. 10) probably comes from Justin, who in his Apology, about A.D. 150 or soon after, mentions it (Apology xxvi. 2). In fact, Justin is the first writer to suggest that Simon Magus visited Rome. The inscription was doubtless one in honor of Semo Sancus, an old Sabine deity; indeed in 1574 the base of a statue of him with such an inscription as Justin and the Acts of Peter describe (“Semoni Sanco deo fidio,” etc). was found at the spot Justin describes-”in the river Tiber [on the island] between the two bridges.”

        Eusebius quotes from the third book of Origen's lost Commentary on Genesis a few lines about the apostolic labors of Thomas, Andrew, John, Peter, and Paul that may imply that Origen knew Acts of all five of them (Church History iii. 1). The Genesis commentary was written in A.D. 220-30, so that the Acts of Peter would naturally fall between A.D. 200 and 220. Eusebius himself says the Acts of Peter was not accepted by the church (Church History iii. 3. 2), but it does not seem to have been definitely disapproved until sects like the Manicheans made so much of the ascetic elements in it. It is Peter's ascetic influence in relation to marriaga especially that leads in the Acts to his execution. The groups of pious widows and virgins in the Roman church and the support given by the Christian Marcellus to the Christian poor, as described m the Acts of Peter, shows that the church is on the way to the state of things described by the bishop Cornelius (d. 253) when there were fifteen hundred in the Roman church in need of aid.

        The earliest list of the heads of the Roman church that has come down to us is reflected in Irenaeus (Against Heresies iii. 3. 3) and names Linus as the first bishop. The Roman claim of primacy among the bishops for its head was made explicit under Victor (d. 198), progressed under Calixtus, who claimed the “power of the keys,” and reached a peak under Stephen (A.D. 254-57), who professed to occupy the “chair of St. Peter.”

        The Liberian Catalogue of Roman bishops from Peter to Liberius dates from A.D. 354, and its earlier portions, from Peter to Pontianus, A.D. 231-35, have been shown to be derived from the Chronicle written about that time by Hippolytus. So by the time of Pontianus Roman writers were thinking of Peter as first bishop of Rome.

        The Acts of Peter does not go so far as to call Peter the first bishop of Rome, and thus make him head a line of popes. It clearly contributes to the movement which was under way in the first half of the third century, however, and was probably written under Zephyrinus or Calixtus-that is, between A.D. 198 and 222.