The Preaching of Peter (Fragments)

The Preaching (Kerygma) of Peter, a lost early-2nd-century book in Peter's name, probably from Egypt: an orthodox missionary sermon that tells its hearers to worship the one God 'not after the manner of the Greeks', with their idols and animal worship, nor as the Jews, and calls Christians a 'third race' who worship him in a new way; the risen Lord sends the twelve apostles into the world after twelve years. Known almost entirely from quotations by Clement of Alexandria (about AD 200); Heracleon and Origen also knew it, and the apologist Aristides seems to have used it. The last verse comes from 'the Doctrine of Peter' quoted by Origen, which James thought was probably the same book (it agrees with a saying in the Gospel according to the Hebrews); other fragments of a 'Teaching of Peter' that James judged different are not given. This is M. R. James's translation (1924); the quotations only, with Clement's comments cut and marked '…'. Not part of any church's canon.