the power of God, praying that Simon not be killed but badly injured. Simon is then taken to Terracina to one Castor "And there he was sorely cut (Lat. by two physicians), and so Simon the angel of Satan came to his end." Peter's confrontation with Simon Magus has some resemblance to the Prophet Elijah's confrontation with the Priests of Baal, as depicted in the Old Testament's Book of Kings – a text with which the writer of the Acts of Peter was likely familiar. Following this incident, Peter plans to flee the city; however, he sees an apparition of Jesus, and takes it as a message that he must stay and be crucified to see Jesus again in Heaven (see Quo vadis?). Peter preaches to Agrippa's concubines that they should practice abstinence and chastity. The enraged Agrippa orders Peter to be crucified; Peter requests to be crucified upside-down. The inverted crucifixion of Peter No canonical text refers to the death of Saint Peter. Apart from the Acts of Peter, the earliest attestation that Saint Peter was executed by crucifixion is found in , a treatise composed by Tertullian in the first decade of the 3rd century. Sometime in the middle of the 3rd century, Origen of Alexandria popularized the tradition that Peter requested to be crucified upside-down. At the end of the 4th century, Jerome wrote in his ("On Illustrious Men") that the reason for this request was that Peter felt he was unworthy to die in the same manner as Jesus. However, in the Acts of Peter, the author writes that Peter's request to be crucified upside-down was to make a point: that the values of those crucifying him were inverted themselves, emphasising the need to look beyond these values and adopt those of Jesus. See also Acts of Peter and Andrew Acts of Peter and the Twelve Acts of Peter and Paul Quo vadis? References Sources Richard Adelbert Lipsius, Maximilian Bonnet: pars prior, Hermann Mendelsohn, Leipzig 1891. Elias Avery Lowe: : a palaeographical guide to Latin manuscripts prior to the ninth century. Ed. under the auspices of the Union Académique Internationale for the American Council of Learned Societies and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Vol. 4. Clarendon, Oxford 1947, Reprint Zeller, Osnabrück 1988. Description of codex vercelli 158. External links Early Christian Writings: Acts of Peter (English translation) 2nd-century Christian texts Christian anti-Gnosticism Peter Petrine-related books Texts