I Never Knew the Man

The Act of Peter, Papyrus Berolinensis 8502.4 was discovered in Egypt some years before the end of the 19th century and subsequently published in 1903 by Carl Schmidt. Since Schmidt's study, much of the overall debate has centered on this text's relationship with the apocryphal Acts of Peter (preserved in the Latin manuscript, Actus Vercellenses). Schmidt viewed the Act of Peter as part of the long-lost first third of the Acts of Peter, a position which has since attained general acceptance. Molinari contends that scholars have been hasty in their acceptance of Schmidt's position, which under scrutiny reveals itself to be built on assumptions that are tenuous at best. Molinari makes his argument in two parts. The first part refutes Schmidt's theory that the Act of Peter was originally part of the Acts of Peter. The second part discusses the issue of genre and origins.