PETER, PASSION OF. A Lat. paraphrase and expansion of the Martyrdom from the Acts of Peter, attributed to Linus, Peter’s successor at the see of Rome, but actually dating from perhaps the 6th cent. The additions include such details as the names of Peter’s jailers—Processus and Martinian—and a vision seen by the bystanders at Peter’s crucifixion: “angels standing with crowns of flowers of roses and lilies, and upon the top of the upright cross Peter standing and receiving a book from Christ, and reading from it the words which he was speaking.” Read on the saint’s day, the martyrdoms circulated independently of the Acts to which they belonged, and in the process often were much elaborated.

Bibliography Text in Lipsius, Acta apostolorum apocrypha I, 1-22; see also NTAp, II, 572.