Preaching of Paul

From the Library of Alexandria Press comes the Preaching of Paul in complete modern English translation, available for online reading with included audiobook narration through our membership platform.

What can you learn about a lost book when its chief witness wants readers to reject it?

Preaching of Paul survives not as a complete manuscript, but through reports and quotations preserved by a critic. Its author is unknown. This account explores what remains of a writing associated with Paul, probably composed in Greek in the second century, and asks how much those traces can tell us.

The anonymous treatise On Rebaptism reports that the lost book describes Paul and Peter meeting in Rome. It quotes the work during a dispute over baptism outside the church. Here, the apostles’ reported encounter meets a larger question: how do historians read evidence preserved by someone who opposes the text?

Inside this book

• A critic as witness – Explore how On Rebaptism preserves traces of a book its writer wants readers to distrust.
• Paul and Peter together – Examine the reported meeting in Rome while keeping the limits of the surviving evidence in view.
• The dispute over baptism – See why a quarrel involving Cyprian of Carthage helps keep this lost writing in view.
• Clues rather than certainty – Follow how historians weigh quotations, reports, and an estimated date without claiming a complete picture.
• Other writings around apostles – Place this lost text alongside related works, including Acts of Paul and Preaching of Peter.

Perfect for readers curious about writings outside the New Testament and how scholars piece together lost books, rather than those seeking a complete text.

Open the first page now and explore what a lost book leaves behind.