Acts of Paul and Thecla
The Acts of Paul and Thecla (Latin: Acta Pauli et Theclae) is an apocryphal text describing Paul the Apostle's influence on a young virgin named Thecla. It is one of the writings of the New Testament apocrypha. Edgar J. Goodspeed called it a "religious romance"[1]
Not to be confused with Acts of Paul.History of the text[edit]
It is attested no earlier than Tertullian, De baptismo 17:5 (c. 190), who says that a presbyter from Asia wrote the History of Paul and Thecla, and was deposed after confessing that he wrote it.[2] Eugenia of Rome in the reign of Commodus (180–192) is reported in the Acts of her martyrdom to have taken Thecla as her model after reading the text, prior to its disapproval by Tertullian.[3] Jerome recounts the information from Tertullian,[4] and on account of his exactitude in reporting on chronology, some scholars regard the text a 1st-century creation.[5]
Many surviving versions of the Acts of Paul and Thecla in Greek, and some in Coptic, as well as references to the work among Church fathers show that it was widely disseminated. In the Eastern Church, the wide circulation of the Acts of Paul and Thecla in Greek, Syriac, and Armenian is evidence of the veneration of Thecla of Iconium. There are also Latin, Coptic, and Ethiopic versions, sometimes differing widely from the Greek. "In the Ethiopic, with the omission of Thecla's admitted claim to preach and to baptize, half the point of the story is lost."[6]
The discovery of a Coptic text of the Acts of Paul containing the Thecla narrative[7] suggests that the abrupt opening of the Acts of Paul and Thecla is due to its being an excerpt of that larger work.