so as to give license to women to teach and baptize, let them know that the presbyter in Asia, who compiled the account, as it were, under the title of Paul, accumulating of his own store, being convicted of what he had done, and confessing that he had done it out of love to Paul, was removed from his place. For how could it seem probable that he who would not give any firm permission to a woman to learn should grant to a female to teach and baptize?" There can be no doubt that this account of Tertullian refers to the whole work and not merely to the Acts of Paul and Thecla. For in the latter little or nothing is said of deeds of the apostle. All which we now have of the Acts of Paul are only portions which were early detached from the original work. We can therefore apply the remark of Tertullian to the entire work, which was composed by a presbyter in Asia who was deposed because he used the name of the apostle. And it is interesting to know that amongst the Coptic fragments is the conclusion of the whole MS. together with the statement; "The Acts of Paul according to the Apostle," i.e. according to St. Paul himself.
The author being a presbyter of Asia, whose history Tertullian knows, we may take it for granted that the Acts were composed at least before A.D. 200, perhaps somewhere between 165 and 195, and most probably within a few years of the middle of that period. Hennecke puts the time between 160-180; Leipoldt names the year 180.
The Acta Pauli were no doubt intended to show the popular Christianity of the second century, of which Paul was the best exponent. The tendency of the author was to give a counterpart to the canonical Acts of the Apostles. The author who wrote " out of love to Paul " was deposed, but his work retained an honorable place in the Church literature.
A. The Acts of Paul and Thecla.
LITERATURE
Pick. Art. " Acts of Thecla and Paul," in McClintock and Strong's Cyclop., Vol. X (1881), 310-314, where the older literature is also given.
