During the course of writing a book such as this one many debts, both personal and academic, are accrued. Simple acknowledgement of names seems like poor recompense for the encouragement, the will- ingness to discuss ideas, and the interaction with my own published material that has fed into this volume. The sense of standing on the shoulders of previous luminaries has been keenly felt. Admiration for the work of Urbain Bouriant who, under what must have been diffi- cult conditions, prepared the magnificent editio princeps of the Gospel of Peter has only increased as my own project progressed. The early scholars who published on the text did so with a rare combination of accuracy and alacrity which is a tribute to their industry, as well as being an aspiration to be followed. Figures such as Adolf von Harnack, Oscar von Gebhardt, Henry Barclay Swete, Armitage Robinson, and of a later generation Leon Vaganay have formed a cohort of able guides. Many of their original insights have an abiding validity.