Resurrection in Acts of Peter

(avg. read time: 3–7 mins.)

This account is most famous for its ending, since it is the earliest explicit attestation to Peter being crucified upside down. Unfortunately, that story provides little of interest to our focus in this series. As with other examples of apostolic Acts, most of the pertinent material concerns temporary resurrections. While the Martyrdom is extant in Greek and other languages, and there is one pertinent Coptic fragment, the most extensive extant text exists in Latin.¹

Explicit References

One story related to Peter that is extant in Coptic, but which is referenced in various other places, refers to Peter’s action for a “gardener’s daughter.” He asks Peter to pray for her, his only virgin daughter, and Peter prays for her, saying that the Lord would give her the most expedient grace for her soul, at which she falls dead. But the man begs Peter to raise her from the dead, which he does. A few days later, a man posing as a believer stays with the man, seduces the girl, and disappears with her, never to be seen again. The implication of the story is that the temporary resurrection was given begrudgingly and was misused as an opportunity to sin later.

The other pertinent stories come from the “Vercelli Acts” in Codex Vercellensis. The story begins with Paul departing Rome for Spain. While he is away, Simon Magus comes to Rome and troubles the believers. He claims to be the great power of God (cf. Acts 8:10). However, they affirm that they believe in the one Paul preached and that through him they have seen the dead raised (suscitatos; 4). To combat this deceiver, Christ sends Peter to Rome.

When Peter arrives in Rome, he first calls the believers to repentance and to return to whom they first declared their allegiance. He thus reiterates the message and finishes with a summary of the major gospel events, as Christ Jesus alone was crucified, died, “and on the third day rose again [in tertio die resurgentem]” (7). Like the Acts of Paul, this work reiterates the importance of Jesus’s resurrection to the proclamation of the gospel. It is one of the identifying markers of the gospel and of the true Lord and Savior proclaimed therein, in contrast to deceivers like Simon Magus. And in remembrance of that Gospel, as well as a particular statement Jesus made in John 11, Peter reminds the people that Jesus is, among other things, “the life [uitam], the resurrection [resurrectionem]” (20).

One of the signs Peter does as a demonstration of power for the crowd is making a smoked fish live. He prays to Jesus Christ, places the fish in the water, and commands it to live (uiue) and swim. Thus, it lives (uixit) and swims.

A prefect ultimately sets up a trial between Simon Magus and Peter. He calls forth a slave and challenges Simon to kill him and Peter to revive (resuscita) him. He thus puts it to the crowd to determine who is favored by God, the one who kills or the one who revives (uiuificat). Simon does indeed cause the slave to die, but during the trial a widow asks for Peter to help her now that her only son has died. Peter tells her to bring her son so that others may believe when he is raised (surrexit), and young men later assure her that if she believes in the God of Peter, he will revive (suscitans) him (25).

While the young men are in the process of bringing the widow’s son, the scene shifts back to the trial. Peter calls upon God to revive (suscita) through his voice (26). Peter then tells the prefect to take the dead lad’s hand and he will have him back alive (uiuum). The prefect does as Peter commands and the lad is raised (suscita). At this, the crowd shouts that Peter’s God is the only God.

When the widow’s son is brought, Peter directly invokes Luke 7:14 (with the verb surge used) in his command to the son after he calls upon God to revive (suscita) him (27). When the young man stands, the crowd again praises the God of Peter. They also wonder that God has empowered a man in this way.

Then, in 28, another mother comes to appeal on behalf of her son. Peter asks whether she believes in his God through whom her son shall rise (resurrecturus). He also reminds her that he does not do what he does by his own power, but only by the power of Jesus Christ, upon whom he calls to raise the dead (suscitare). He then tells her to bring her son here and have him raised (resurgere). When he is brought, Peter delays action to allow Simon the chance to raise the dead as Peter has done to this point. Simon makes it seem as if he raised the young man simply by having it look as if he raised his arm, but when Peter challenges him further to let the dead man rise and speak, it becomes quickly apparent that Simon is incapable. The crowd threatens to kill him, since he had tried to persuade them to kill Peter, but Peter tells the crowd not to give into their bloodlust, lest the deceased should not rise at all. The rest of the narrative then refers to the young man’s temporary resurrection in various ways (suscitaret, surrexisse, resurrecturus, surge, surgens, resuscitantur, resurgentes; cf. in 29: surrexerat, resurrexit [a mortuis], resuscitatus). After the resurrection is performed, Peter calls upon the crowd to repent and receive the communion of Christ in faith to obtain everlasting life.

While there is not a direct link between Jesus’s resurrection and eschatological resurrection here, this last text does point to something like it. The difference is that, as in other Acts literature, the focus is on the deeds of temporary resurrection because of their function as signs. They point beyond themselves to the one who has power to give life from the dead not only temporarily but everlastingly. That is one reason why Peter refers to him as “the life, the resurrection” in 20. There is no explicit reference to eschatological resurrection, but it is implicit in this promise of life that utterly conquers death.

We should also notice the terminological diversity in this book. We have seen this elsewhere, such as in the other Latin text we have focused on thus far: Acts of Andrew. It is simply made more diverse here. This highlights what we have seen in Hebrew (as well as Aramaic) and Greek in how various terms for resurrection could be used interchangeably. This further undermines the strict distinction I have often criticized in using “resuscitation” for temporary resurrection and “resurrection” for Jesus’s resurrection or the eschatological resurrection. If Latin texts themselves do not uphold this distinction, and we derive the terms in question from Latin, is there really any sense in holding onto it?

Implicit Links

The Acts of Peter includes three kinds of implicit links with resurrection as well. First, in a Coptic fragment, as well as in 29 and 30 of the Acts proper, we see reference to “the Lord’s day.” This is an element we have noted multiple times in this series because it derives its significance from Jesus’s resurrection on the first day of the week, hence its becoming an occasion for weekly worship.

Second, Peter refers to God as the judge of the living and the dead (17). This is another phrase that we have seen many times in this series (as noted previously). For God to judge both the living and the dead at the eschaton, the dead will require resurrection to face that judgment.

Third, the lady Eubola is said to receive her rest/sleep (17). As mentioned in the previous entry, and noted many times over in this series, the description of death in terms of sleep corresponds with the description of resurrection in terms of language for waking up/getting up from sleep. It is also resurrection that gives death its temporary character to be described as sleep.

1. See here.