After Jesus and Andrew zoom up in their speedboat to save Matthias from cowboy cannibals, Andrew makes the sign of the cross and the guards all drop dead, allowing him to heal the minds of the cow-men. After teleporting everyone else to one of Peter's sermons, Andrew turns himself invisible and really starts to kick ass, rampaging around the city turning cannibal hands to stone and having the earth swallow them whole.

With his henchmen getting wrecked, it's clearly time for the supervillain to reveal himself. Yes, Satan materializes in the form of an old man and takes control of the cannibals, commanding them to drag Andrew through the streets until "his flesh stuck to the ground, and his blood flowed." Don't worry, Andrew finally wins by enclosing the city in a wall of fire and having a pagan statue spew acid from its mouth, which is "eating them up exceedingly." Unsurprisingly, they quickly promise to stop being cannibals and become Christians if Andrew simply agrees to leave within the week. Hell, the most we've ever gotten out of that deal is some motel money.

When they arrive in Antioch, Thecla cuts her hair short to disguise herself as a boy. It doesn't work great. As soon as they enter the city, a rich guy screams that she's the hottest women he's ever seen and starts trying to grope her on the street. Thecla beats him up and he runs to the governor, who sentences her to be torn apart by wild animals. This outrages the women of Antioch, who are completely on board with pervy old street-fondlers getting the shit kicked out of them.

Meanwhile, Paul pretends not to know her and skips town.

Bartolomeo MontagnaGood job, buddy. Way to come through.

Thecla is thrown into the arena, but the vicious lioness that's supposed to tear her apart instead licks her hand, and then begins fighting off the male animals while the women in the crowd cheer. This doesn't work, and the lioness is killed just as surely as Thecla is about to be. Determined not to die unbaptized, Thecla jumps into a nearby vat of ferocious man-eating ... seals? Yes, we've double-checked, man-eating seals. The crowd screams, but God comes through with the assist yet again, shooting lightning at each seal and leaving Thecla encased in "a cloud of fire."

At this point, the governor gets so frustrated that he ties Thecla to some bulls and burns their balls in an effort to persuade them to tear her apart. But the fire only burns up the ropes, and the governor finally relents. The local women all convert to Christianity, and Thecla leaves to find Paul, who is "astonished" to see her alive. With his blessing, she becomes a famous preacher and lives to the ripe old age of 90. Interestingly, although this book was apparently very popular with early Christians, church fathers like Tertulian declared that the story couldn't possibly be true. Not because of the Christian lions, man-eating seals, or people living to be what were wizard years at that time, mind you -- it was because the story implied that women could perform baptisms.

Holy shit, Thomas. Andrew only did this stuff to cannibals.

Artus WolffortAnd even he drew the line at chewing dicks off.

After King Gundaphoros hears that Thomas is a great carpenter, he commissions him to build a palace. The king later finds out that Thomas has been using the funds for his preaching. Unsatisfied with Thomas' explanation that the king's real palace lies in the sweet hereafter, the king decides to flay him alive, but his dead brother suddenly comes back to life and tries to buy that sweet palace the king has waiting in Heaven. The overjoyed king reconciles with Thomas, which probably saved him a good dogging.

Thomas then fills time with some villain-of-the-week stuff. He battles a dragon, then a creepy rape demon, then he gives a sermon on the evils of promiscuity and a young convert immediately murders his girlfriend. Thomas kind of takes that in stride and resurrects her, and the story ends with her grisly description of the horrors of Hell, where damned souls hang by their hair and tongues over pits of fire. She also saw "infants heaped upon each other, and struggling and lying upon each other," with a helpful demon explaining that they're kids born out of wedlock. Of course the afterlife has docents.

Peter and Andrew may be an odd couple, but they sure do have each other's back in a crisis, like when a rich man starts beating Andrew. Peter commands him to stop, and quotes Jesus' line about how it's "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go into the Kingdom of Heaven." In response, the rich guy starts stops beating Andrew and starts choking Peter with a scarf. He then agrees to convert, but only if Peter can show him a camel literally going through the eye of a needle. And for some reason, Peter takes him up on it. Three times. The fourth time, just to show off, he manages to cram a camel and its rider through the needle. Now that's how you convert a city, Andrew.

At this point, most kidnappers would probably have given up, but the evil magician quickly borrows 8,000 soldiers from a powerful relative who lives nearby, and they surround the house where Polyxena is recovering. Philip's 30 followers have a choice between praying meekly or charging out waving the cross and slaughtering 5,000 of the attackers in hand-to-hand combat throughout the city streets. They wisely choose the latter.

Peter Paul Rubens"You fucking with the God now."

Unfortunately, Polyxena has already escaped and fled into the woods, where she bumps into Andrew, who is truly the Wolverine of the Apostle Universe. A boat arrives to take her to Paul, and the Christ-fearing sailors defeat an attack by ferocious islanders before rescuing her yet again after she panics and jumps off the ship. Surely the Philip incident should have taught her to stop trying to escape while the Terminator Christians are slaughterin' suckas, but damsels be distressin'.

The text considers this a happy outcome for everyone, and John meanders off to continue spreading the good news.

Later, a follower of John's named Drusiana dies, and local perverts Fortunatus and Callimachus break into her tomb for, you know, pervert reasons. Suddenly a huge venomous snake appears and bites Fortunatus, then pins Callimachus down and sits on him until morning, when John shows up to bless the body. John orders the snake to get off Callimachus, who is so grateful that he immediately repents and converts. John also resurrects Fortunatus to give him a chance at repentance, but Fortunatus mulls it over and decides he'd prefer to be dead, all things considered.