Prayer of the Apostle Paul
New Testament apocryphal work
The Prayer of the Apostle Paul is a New Testament apocryphal work, the first manuscript from the Jung Codex (Codex I) of the Nag Hammadi Library. Written on the inner flyleaf of the codex, the prayer seems to have been added after the longer tractates had been copied. Although the text, like the rest of the codices, is written in Coptic, the title is written in Greek, which was the original language of the text. The manuscript is missing approximately two lines at the beginning.
Authorship and Composition
Like other early Christian writings, the author of this prayer identifies themself with the historic Apostle Paul to give authority to the text. Consequently, the prayer is widely understood to be a pseudepigraphical work. Because the prayer lacks its opening lines, it is unclear whether there was a title at its beginning. However, a title written in Greek is preserved at the bottom of the treatise, reading "Prayer of the Apostle Paul" and followed by a colophon. The colophon, also written in Greek, states "In Peace. Holy is Christ." The prayer in its entirety was likely written in Greek and translated into Coptic.
The public source identifies “Prayer of the Apostle Paul” as new Testament apocryphal work. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Prayer, Apostle and Paul.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 7, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2550652. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Prayer of the Apostle Paul” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.