One of the earliest of the apocryphal acts of the apostles, the Acts of Peter is one of the books in the New Testament Apocrypha. It is generally thought to have used the Acts of John as a basis, and tradition credits both these works to the pen of Leucius, identified as the travelling companion/friend/boyfriend of the apostle John. In Judeo-Christian theologies, apocrypha refers to religious Sacred text that have questionable authenticity or are otherwise disputed. ... In the process of determining the Biblical canon, a large number of works were excluded from the New Testament. ... The Acts of John is a 2nd-century Christian collection of narratives and traditions inspired by the Gospel of John, long known in fragmentary form. ...

The Acts of Peter was originally composed in Greek during the second half of the 2d century, probably in Asia Minor. The majority of the text has survived only in the Latin translation of the Vercelli manuscript.

The content reports a miracle contest between Simon Magus and the apostle Peter in Rome. Miracles performed by Peter include making dogs talk, and resurrecting smoked fish. The text heavily denounces Simon Magus, a gnostic figurehead who appears to have concerned the writer of the text greatly. Simon Magus, also known as Simon the Magician, Simon the Sorcerer and Simon of Gitta, was a Samaritan (Proto-)Gnostic. ... According to tradition, Peter was crucified upside-down, as shown in this painting by Caravaggio. ...

Some associated texts give accounts of stories on the theme of a woman/women who prefer paralysis to sex, in some accounts (e.g. one of the texts from Nag Hammadi) the woman is the daughter of Peter. Paralysis is the complete loss of muscle function for one or more muscle groups. ... The members of many species of living things are divided into two or more categories called sexes (or loosely speaking, genders). ... Nag Hammâdi is a village in the middle of Egypt, called Chenoboskion in classical antiquity, about 225 kilometres north-west of Aswan with some 30. ...

The conclusion of the text gives an account of Peter's martyrdom, and is the origin of the tradition that Peter was crucified upside down. The concluding chapters are preserved separately as the Martyrdom of Peter in three earlier Greek manuscripts and in Coptic (fragmentary), Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Armenian, and Slavonic versions. Because of this, it is sometimes proposed that the martyrdom account was the original text to which the preceeding chapters were affixed.