Pseudo-Marcellus

Last updated

Pseudo-Marcellus is an anonymous writer of an early Christian document named Passio sanctorum Petri et Pauli . It is a reworking of apocryphal traditions concerning the martyrdom of Paul. [1] [2] In the text the emperor Nero's fury after the breakdown of the magician Simon is immediate cause for Peter's (and Paul's) martyrdom. [3] [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bible</span> Collection of religious texts

The Bible is a collection of religious texts or scriptures sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthology – a compilation of texts of a variety of forms – originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. These texts include instructions, stories, poetry, and prophecies, among other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, while understanding what that means and interpreting the text in various ways.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul the Apostle</span> Early Christian apostle and missionary

Paul, commonly known as Paul the Apostle and Saint Paul, was a Christian apostle who spread the teachings of Jesus in the first-century world. Generally regarded as one of the most important figures of the Apostolic Age, he founded several Christian communities in Asia Minor and Europe from the mid-40s to the mid-50s AD.

The question of the historicity of Jesus is part of the study of the historical Jesus as undertaken in the quest for the historical Jesus and the scholarly reconstructions of the life of Jesus. Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, although interpretations of a number of the events mentioned in the gospels vary and are a subject of debate. Standard historical criteria have aided in evaluating the historicity of the gospel narratives, and only two key events are subject to "almost universal assent", namely that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and crucified by order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pseudepigrapha</span> Falsely attributed works

Pseudepigrapha are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past.

Pseudo-Philo is the name commonly used for the unknown, anonymous author of Biblical Antiquities. This text is also commonly known today under the Latin title Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, a title that is not found, per se, on the Latin manuscripts of Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities. Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities is preserved today in 18 complete and 3 fragmentary Latin manuscripts that date between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries CE. In addition, portions of Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities parallel material also found in the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 14th-century Hebrew composition. The Latin text of Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities circulated in some Latin collections of writings by Philo of Alexandria. Scholars have long recognized the pseudonymous character of the text now known as the Biblical Antiquities. Primary in this regard is a vastly differing approach to and use of the Jewish Scriptures than that of Philo of Alexandria. For the sake of convenience and due to the lack of a better option, scholars continue to follow the lead of Philo scholar Leopold Cohn in calling the author “Pseudo-Philo.”

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christian martyr</span> Person killed for their testimony of Jesus

In Christianity, a martyr is a person considered to have died because of their testimony for Jesus or faith in Jesus. In years of the early church, stories depict this often occurring through death by sawing, stoning, crucifixion, burning at the stake or other forms of torture and capital punishment. The word martyr comes from the Koine word μάρτυς, mártys, which means "witness" or "testimony".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Testament apocrypha</span> Writings by early Christians, not included in the Biblical Canon

The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings were cited as scripture by early Christians, but since the fifth century a widespread consensus has emerged limiting the New Testament to the 27 books of the modern canon. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant churches generally do not view the New Testament apocrypha as part of the Bible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acts of Paul and Thecla</span> Apocryphal story of Paul the apostles influence on a young virgin named Thecla

The Acts of Paul and Thecla is an apocryphal story–Edgar J. Goodspeed called it a "religious romance"–of Paul the Apostle's influence on a young virgin named Thecla. It is one of the writings of the New Testament apocrypha.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gospel of the Ebionites</span> Apocryphal gospel

The Gospel of the Ebionites is the conventional name given by scholars to an apocryphal gospel extant only as seven brief quotations in a heresiology known as the Panarion, by Epiphanius of Salamis; he misidentified it as the "Hebrew" gospel, believing it to be a truncated and modified version of the Gospel of Matthew. The quotations were embedded in a polemic to point out inconsistencies in the beliefs and practices of a Jewish Christian sect known as the Ebionites relative to Nicene orthodoxy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acts of Peter and Paul</span>

The Acts of Peter and Paul is a pseudepigraphical 5th century Christian text of the genre Acts of the Apostles. An alternate version exists, known as the Passion of Peter and Paul, with variances in the introductory part of the text. Some versions have been written by a certain Marcellus, thus the anonymous author, of whom nothing further is known and is sometimes referred to as pseudo-Marcellus. The intended Marcellus is doubtless he who after the martyrdom takes the lead in burying St. Peter "near the Naumachia in the place called the Vatican."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Mark</span> Biblical saint

John Mark is named in the Acts of the Apostles as an assistant accompanying Paul and Barnabas on their missionary journeys. Traditionally he is regarded as identical with Mark the Evangelist, the traditional writer of the Gospel of Mark.

John Paul Meier was an American biblical scholar and Roman Catholic priest. He was author of the series A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, six other books, and more than 70 articles for peer-reviewed or solicited journals or books.

Pseudo-Abdias is the name formerly given to a collection of New Testament Apocrypha held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France and consisting of Latin translations in ten books containing several chapters. Each book describes the life of one of the Apostles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woman with seven sons</span> Jewish martyr described in 2 Maccabees 7

The woman with seven sons was a Jewish martyr described in 2 Maccabees 7 and other sources, who had seven sons that were arrested by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who forced them to prove their respect to him by consuming pig meat. When they refused, he tortured and killed the sons one by one in front of the unflinching and stout-hearted mother.

Pseudo-Melitus, or the Passion of John, "Passio Iohannis apostoli", is a Christian text belonging to the later New Testament Apocrypha.

Pseudo-Linus is the name given to the author of a fourth-century account of the martyrdom of Paul, the "Passio Sancti Pauli Apostoli".

Pseudo-Sophronius was an anonymous Greek orthodox chronicler who recorded an apocryphal account of Bartholomew the Apostle's travels to and preaching in Armenia and India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Candida Moss</span>

Candida R. Moss is an English public intellectual, journalist, New Testament scholar and historian of Christianity, who is the Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham. A graduate of Oxford and Yale universities, Moss specialises in the study of the New Testament and martyrdom in early Christianity.

Kephalaia are a genre of Manichaean literature represented mainly by two large papyrus codices containing Coptic translations from 5th-century Roman Egypt. The kephalaia are sometimes seen as the actual words or teachings of the prophet Mani, but are probably better viewed as later discourses and interpretations laid upon "an authoritative oral tradition" ostensibly going back to Mani and thus analogous to the Talmud in Judaism and the ḥadīth in Islam.

References

  1. The Martyrdom of St. Paul: Historical and Judicial Context, ...Harry W. Tajra - 1994 - Page 143 "I. The Pseudo-Marcellus Re-Working of the Tale of Paul's Martyrdom 1,1. Introduction The Ps-Marcellus re-working of the earlier apocryphal accounts of Paul's martyrdom is preserved in three different recensions, which Lipsius presented in ..."
  2. Harry W. Tajra (1994). The martyrdom of St. Paul: historical and judicial context, traditions, and legends. Mohr Siebeck. pp. 143–. ISBN   978-3-16-146239-9 . Retrieved 13 November 2012.
  3. Els Rose (2009). Ritual Memory: The Apocryphal Acts and Liturgical Commemoration in the Early Medieval West (c. 500-1215). BRILL. pp. 257–. ISBN   978-90-04-17171-8 . Retrieved 13 November 2012.
  4. David A. Wells (2004). The Central Franconian Rhyming Bible: Mittelfränkische Reimbibel. Rodopi. pp. 142–. ISBN   978-90-420-0860-1 . Retrieved 13 November 2012.