The Double Encounter Between Peter and Paul in the Acts of Peter
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KOREA PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY Vol. 49 No. 3 The Double Encounter between Peter and Paul in the Acts of Peter LEE SeungHyun Simon, Th.D. Associate Professor, New Testament Hoseo University, the Divinity School, South Korea I. Introduction II. Text III. Peter’s Three Sermons in the Context of APt IV. The double encounter between Peter and Paul in APt V. Conclusion Korea Presbyterian Journal of Theology Vol. 49 No. 3 (2017. 9), 65-88 DOI: 10.15757/kpjt.2017.49.3.003 66 KOREA PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY Vol. 49 No. 3 Abstract This article examines the encounter between Peter and Paul in the Acts of Peter (APt), a late second century Christian apocryphal writing. First, there is a physical encounter between the two major apostles in APt. APt starts its narration of Peter’s apostolic activity in Rome by mentioning Paul’s activity there in a complementary way. Of course, both of them are known to have been martyred by the same person, Nero. Their encounter goes all the way back to Luke, who started the ideology of Peter and Paul as the two pillars of the first churches. Second, there is a theological encounter between them. The analysis of Peter’s three sermons in APt demonstrates that APt appropriates not only the Adam story in Genesis 1-3, but also its Pauline interpretive tradition. Like Paul and his later interpreters, APt argues that Jesus appeared on earth as a human being/Adam in order to reverse the curse of the “first man” Adam on humanity. This makes Jesus APt’s new Adam. When Jesus was crucified, according to APt’s Peter, he restored a right order to the whole cosmos which had been set in a wrong order due to Adam’s Fall. This point is emphasized in detail in Peter’s last sermon, when he is crucified with his head downwards. Both APt’s knowledge of the two apostles’ ministry in Rome and its use of the Pauline interpretive tradition may function as another early evidence of the ideology of the Roman church–both Paul and Peter as their protecting apostles. Keywords The Adamic Motif, the First Man, Polymorphy, Metamorphosis, the Mystery of the Cross The Double Encounter between Peter and Paul in the Acts of Peter DOI: 10.15757/kpjt.2017.49.3.003 67 I. INTRODUCTION François Bovon, a prominent scholar of the New Testament and Apocrypha, often claimed that we must read “both the canonical and noncanonical texts in order to gain greater access to the beginnings of Christianity.”1 Bovon showed a good example of his own claim through numerous publications and lectures on the noncanonical texts.2 His claim seems to be legitimate, especially because the apocryphal writings often contain the various early Christian interpretations of their authoritative traditions, including the scriptures. Of course, the apocryphal writings did not become a part of the Christian canon; but some of them were cherished as part of the pious Christian heritage. This is well shown by the fact that they have not ceased feeding the imagination, piety, and faith of later Christians. One good example is found in the influence that the Revelation of Peter and the Apocalypse of Paul exerted on Dante’s Divine Comedy. In this article, I hope to show how the Acts of Peter (APt), one of the earliest apocryphal acts dating to the late second century CE, makes use of an interpretive tradition of Jesus’ incarnation and crucifixion on the basis of the story of Adam. For this purpose I will analyze the overall narrative schema of APt and Peter’s three major sermons in it.3 Since it is especially Paul who used this Adamic motif in the presentation of Jesus as the Second Adam or New Adam, it will be interesting to 1 François Bovon, “Canonical and Apocryphal Acts of Apostles,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 11-2 (2003), 194. 2 François Bovon and Eric Junod, “Reading the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles,” Semeia 38 (1986), 161-71; François Bovon, “The Synoptic Gospels and the Noncanonical Acts of the Apostles,” Harvard Theological Review 81-1 (1988); François Bovon and Pierre Geoltrain, Écrits Apocryphes Chrétiens, vol. 2, Bibliothèque De La Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1997); François Bovon, Ann Graham Brock, and Christopher R. Matthews, The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: Harvard Divinity School Studies (Boston; Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univ Press, 1999); François Bovon, “Canonical and Apocryphal Acts of Apostles,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 11-2 (2003): 165-94; and François Bovon and Glenn E. Snyder, New Testament and Christian Apocrypha, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament (Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2009). 3 I have analyzed the three sermons in more detail in “The Mystery of the Cross and the First Man,” Korean Journal of Christian Studies 105 (2017), 73-94. 68 KOREA PRESBYTERIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY Vol. 49 No. 3 compare Paul and APt. It will become clear that in its presentation of Jesus as the antitype of the first man, APt takes advantage of the Pauline interpretative tradition of the Adamic motif. In fact, APt shows multiple contacts between Peter and Paul, both physical and theological. They include the two apostles’ common presence in Rome and the quo vadis story, let alone their use of the Adam story.4 As a conclusion, we can tell that the ancient author of APt and its community venerated the scriptures, including Paul, and their interpretative traditions regarding Jesus and Adam. This helps us observe that in the beginnings of early Christianity in the second century CE, the theological importance of Paul was significant even in the Petrine tradition. II. TEXT APt was originally written in Greek and two thirds of it has survived in a Latin manuscript, the Actus Vercellenses (Act. Verc.), a codex at Vercelli (Cod. Verc. CLVIII, 6th-7th century).5 The Latin 4 Scholars inquired the voyage of Peter and Paul to Rome and the quo vadis story regarding the textual relationship between the Acts of Peter, the Acts of John (AJn), and the Acts of Paul (APl). While Dennis R. MacDonald argues that APl was a literary source for APt and AJn, Robert F. Stoops, Jr., counter-argues that APl took the two stories from APt. See Dennis Ronald MacDonald, “The Acts of Paul and the Acts of Peter: Which Came First?,” Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 31 (1992), 214-24; idem., “The Acts of Paul and the Acts of John: Which Came First?,” Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 32 (1993), 500-10; idem., “The Acts of Peter and the Acts of John: Which Came First?,” Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 32 (1993), 623-26; and idem., “Which Came First? Intertextual Relationships among the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles,” Semeia 80 (1997): 11-41. Cf. Robert F. Stoops, Jr., “The Acts of Peter in Intertextual Context,” Semeia 80 (1997), 57-86. On the other hand, Christine M. Thomas argues for more dynamic and dialectical relationship among the apocryphal acts due to their contacts both orally and in written forms. See Christine M. Thomas, “Canon and Antitype: The Relationship between the Acts of Peter and the New Testament,” Semeia 80 (1997): 185-205; ideam., The Acts of Peter, Gospel Literature, and the Ancient Novel (New York: Oxford Univ Press, 2001); and ideam., “Stories without Texts and without Authors: The Problem of Fluidity in Ancient Novelistic Texts and Early Christian Literature,” in Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), 273-91. 5 For more on the text, see Lee, “The Transfiguration Remembered, Reinterpreted, The Double Encounter between Peter and Paul in the Acts of Peter 69 manuscript Act. Verc. is a copy of Rufinus’ translation of the Pseudo Clementine Recognition with APt as its appendix but without a title. Scholars consider this manuscript as a third or fourth century Latin translation of the original second century Greek text.6 The missing first third of the manuscript was suggested to contain stories of Peter and Paul in Jerusalem and their contests with Simon the magician (cf. APt ch.23).7 Peter’s martyrdom story survived in three Greek manuscripts: Cod. Patmiacus 48 (9th CE, =P), Cod. Athous Vatoped. 79 (10th-11th CE, =A) and Cod. Ochrid. Bibl. Mun. 44 (11th CE, =O). P. Oxy. 849 briefs refers to the Greek original of APt, which corresponds to story found in Act. Verc. 25-26. When we compare the Latin and Greek manuscripts with one another, we can safely say that the Act. Verc. is generally a reliable and faithful translation of the Greek original.8 This textual history confirms that since the apocryphal acts were sometimes considered too long, the last section of the martyrdom story was cut off and circulated independently. Since the accounts of the apostles’ martyrdom were often considered most valuable for their readers, and Re-Enacted in Acts of Peter 20-21,” in Jewish and Christian Scriptures: The Function of “Canonical” and “Non-Canonical” Religious Texts, ed. James H. Charlesworth and Lee Martin McDonald (London; New York: T & T Clark, 2010), 174. 6 Wilhelm Schneemelcher and R. McL Wilson, New Testament Apocrypha, Rev. ed., 2 vols. (Cambridge, England; Louisville: J. Clarke & Co.; Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), vol. 2, 277; J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation (Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 1993), 391; and Simon S. Lee, Jesus’ Transfiguration and the Believers’ Transformation: A Study of the Transfiguration and Its Development in Early Christian Writings (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 2 Reihe; Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), ch.