Acts of Paul

The Acts of Paul is one of the major works and earliest pseudepigraphal series from the New Testament apocrypha also known as Apocryphal Acts. This work is part of a body of literature either about or purporting to be written by Paul the Apostle, including letters, narratives, prayers, and apocalypses. An approximate date given to the Acts of Paul is 100-160 AD. The Acts of Paul were first mentioned by Tertullian, who deemed the work to be heretical because it encouraged women to preach and baptize. The Acts of Paul were considered orthodox by Hippolytus of Rome but were eventually regarded as heretical when the Manichaeans started using the texts. The author of the Acts of Paul is unknown, but probably came from a Christian community in Asia Minor that revered Paul. The work does not use the canonical Acts of the Apostles as a source; instead it relies on oral traditions of Paul's missionary work. The text is primarily known from Greek manuscripts. The discovery of a Coptic language version of the text demonstrated that the text was composed of: The Acts of Paul and Thecla The Third Epistle to the Corinthians The Martyrdom of the Holy Apostle Paul All of these constituent parts were often considered worth treating as separate texts and frequently appeared independently, leading to speculation that the Acts of Paul may have been compiling disparate stories into one work, although other parts scholars believe to be original to the Acts of Paul. Besides the four main sections mentioned above, the remainder of the Acts of Paul exist only in fragments from the 3rd and 5th centuries: The Healing of Hermocrates from Dropsy The Strife of the Ephesian Beasts The texts are a coherent whole and are generally thought to have been written by one author using oral traditions, rather than basing it on any of the other apocrypha or the orthodox canon. The main emphasis of the text is on chastity and anti-Gnosticism. According to Tertullian, the author was a priest in Asia Minor.