1Paul raises Nero's cupbearer Patroclus, who confesses Christ the King of the ages before Nero, and Nero orders all soldiers of Christ to be put to death.
3Paul, brought bound before Nero, declares that Christ enlists soldiers from the whole world and will judge it by fire.
4Nero orders the prisoners burned and Paul beheaded, but Paul goes on preaching to the prefect Longus.
5Nero's slaughter of Christians is checked by the Romans' protest; Paul preaches judgement to Longus and Cestus, refuses their offer of escape, and calls Nero's messengers to faith.
6After his death Paul appears to Nero and foretells his punishment, and Nero releases the prisoners.
7At Paul's tomb Longus and Cestus see Paul praying with Titus and Luke, who then give them the seal of baptism.
About this work
Author
Anonymous
Attribution
pseudonymous · Anonymous; the closing part of the Acts of Paul (the Martyrdom of Paul), which Tertullian (On Baptism 17) attributes to a presbyter in Asia; the Acts of Paul as a whole are generally dated to the later second century (ca. 150-200; confidence: approximate). It is not part of the 66-book canon. The Greek text survives chiefly in a Hamburg papyrus and later manuscripts; the form printed by Lipsius is the medieval Greek Martyrdom.
Standing
Not honoured as a saint or in a church calendar by the Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant traditions. Anonymous or pseudonymous work read and used in the church of its time.
Date
ca. 150–200 (approximate) · The Acts of Paul to which the Martyrdom belonged are generally dated to the later second century.
Written at
unknown, Asia Minor (probably) (disputed)
Language
Greek
Genre
other
Reference system
chapter, following Lipsius's numbering; 0 = title. Chapter numerals the OCR could not read are not separate refs: their text lies inside the preceding ref.
SBL abbreviation
Mart. PaulNot yet checked
Text from
Richard Adelbert Lipsius, ed., Martyrium Pauli, in Acta apostolorum apocrypha, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1891), 104-117 (Printed edition in the public domain; OCR text layer of a public-domain scan (Internet Archive))