Revisiting the Date of the Acts of Peter: Engaging with Potential New Evidence from the History of Simon Cephas

Abstract

Abstract:

Previous scholarly consensus held that the text preserved in the Latin Actus Vercellenses was a relatively faithful translation of a second-century Greek Acts of Peter. In partial support of this date was the posited intertextual relationship with the Acts of Paul, with particular attention given to the so-called "quo vadis" scenes related in both apocryphal acts. More recent scholarship has cast doubt on this, thus removing the terminus ad quem of a late second-century date that this posited relationship provided. Taking this as his starting point, Matthew Baldwin's work constitutes a formidable challenge to previous consensus of both the date and the faithfulness of the Latin translation. He argues that the Vercelli Acts should be understood as a fourth-century product in its own right and of no value for recovering an earlier Acts of Peter. While some brief counterarguments to this have been offered, to the best of my knowledge none have yet incorporated the fourth-century Syriac History of Simon Cephas, Chief of the Apostles, which has extensive parallels with the Vercelli Acts. Doing so lends additional evidence to the priority of the Acts of Peter, as well as potentially verifies scholarly argument regarding a redactional history of the Acts of Peter in the second century. As a fourth-century composition itself that includes material reflecting this date, it is also useful in comparison with details preserved in the Vercelli Acts that scholars have suggested attest to the preservation of earlier material. Taken together, these three avenues of discussion can potentially reinstate the consensus regarding the existence of a second-century Acts of Peter that is more or less faithfully preserved in the Vercelli Acts.