It was known that a Syriac work of this name existed, and an extract was published in 1856. In 1899 Monsignor Rahmani, Patriarch of the United Syrians, published from a late manuscript the Syriac text, a Latin introduction and translation. The work is in two books. It begins with an apocalypse of the approaching day of Antichrist alleged to have been uttered by Our Lord after His Resurrection . Between this and the body of the work there is a very loose connection, as the main portion represents Christ as enacting, even to small details, laws for the governance and ritual of the Church. The writer places on Our Lord's lips descriptions of liturgical observances prevalent in his own and earlier periods. There are evident points of contact between the Testament and the ancient ecclesiastico-liturgical Canones Hippolyti, Apostolic Constitutions, and Apostolic Canons. Monsignor Rahmani assigns the Testament to the second century, and places the above works in the relation of dependence on it. But critics unanimously refuse to accord a high antiquity to the Testament, dating it in the fourth or fifth century, and inverting the dependence mentioned. On the ground that there is no indication of an acquaintance with the book outside the Orient, and that Arabic and Coptic recensions of it are known, Dr. A. Baumstark regards the work as a compilation originating in Monophysite circles, and current in the national Churches of that sect in Syria and Egypt. The apocalyptic opening has been found in a Latin manuscript of the eighth century, and published by M. R. James, "Apocrypha Anecdota" (Cambridge, 1893).
The Preaching of Peter or Kerygma Petri.
Clement of Alexandria repeatedly quotes from a kerygma Petrou, concerning whose credibility he obviously has no doubt. On the other hand, Eusebius classes it as apocryphal. A certain "Doctrine of Peter", mentioned by a later writer, was probably identical with the "Preaching". From the scanty remains of this work we can form but a very imperfect idea of it. It spoke in St. Peter's name and represented him above all as a teacher of the Gentiles. The doctrinal parts occur in a framework of an account of the missionary journeys. The pseudograph was probably suggested by the text, II Peter, i, 5. A work which was so well accredited in the days of Clement of Alexandria (c. 140-215), and which was known to the "Gnostic Heracleon" (c. 160-170), must have come from almost Apostolic antiquity. Scholars favour the first quarter of the second century. The fragments which remain betray no signs of heterodox origin. There is a Syriac "Preaching of Simon Peter in the City of Rome."
Two Ways or Judicium Petri
This is a moralizing treatise ascribed to St. Peter, and prefixed to the Didache. It is of Jewish-Christian origin, and probably was based on the so-called "Epistle of Barnabas".
Preaching of Paul
The only witness to this work is the treatise "De Rebaptismo" in the pseudo-Cyprian writings. According to this it represented Christ as confessing personal sins, and forced by His mother to receive baptism.