Locating Death and Burial

Abstract

There was no single story about the deaths of Peter and Paul. Instead, there existed a cluster of traditions with some overlap on basic points, but much variety on other details. This chapter explores the accounts of where the apostles were killed and what happened to their bodies after their deaths. The earliest sources tend to be imprecise or simply silent about the exact locations of the martyrdoms, so the picture is far from clear in the sources. After the executions, the bodies of the apostles travel in divergent ways in different texts, being placed in as many as three different burial places along the way.