The Acts of Paul and the Acts of Paul

[cantonin_01]

I had a question as to whether there were two "Acts of Paul". The radical critics including L. Gordon Rylands said that some of the biographical information about Paul that can be found in, e.g., Rom 15 and 1 Cor 16, was likely drawn from an Acts of Paul, which was also the same document that the writer of Acts incorporated and updated in the second half of Acts (.e.g, in Acts 23, Paul tells the Sanhedrin that he is innocent of the blood of all men; implying that the source for this passage did not include an account of Stephen's martyrdom or Paul's persecutions). This Acts of Paul, according to Rylands, did not incorporate the We passages, which were from a separate travel account. It may have contained an episode where Paul went to Jerusalem and was accosted by the Jewish Christians there; transmuted to "Jews of Asia" in the canonical Acts.

My question is whether this "Acts of Paul" is the same as the one that can be found on Early Christian Writings today. This one contains a few fragments of individual stories, Paul's martyrdom, as well as the life of Thecla, but all of this content appears consistent with the "Acts of Paul" that Tertullian said was written by the Asian presbyter in the late second century. Its contents seem heavily Catholic and not at all consistent with anything that could have been used as a source for Rom 15, or 1 Cor 16, or for that matter any of Paul's movements in the letters that conflict with Acts. So, for those familiar, do some believe that there were two Acts of Paul, one totally lost?

[Ben C. Smith]

I had a question as to whether there were two "Acts of Paul". The radical critics including L. Gordon Rylands said that some of the biographical information about Paul that can be found in, e.g., Rom 15 and 1 Cor 16, was likely drawn from an Acts of Paul, which was also the same document that the writer of Acts incorporated and updated in the second half of Acts (.e.g, in Acts 23, Paul tells the Sanhedrin that he is innocent of the blood of all men; implying that the source for this passage did not include an account of Stephen's martyrdom or Paul's persecutions). This Acts of Paul, according to Rylands, did not incorporate the We passages, which were from a separate travel account. It may have contained an episode where Paul went to Jerusalem and was accosted by the Jewish Christians there; transmuted to "Jews of Asia" in the canonical Acts.

My question is whether this "Acts of Paul" is the same as the one that can be found on Early Christian Writings today. This one contains a few fragments of individual stories, Paul's martyrdom, as well as the life of Thecla, but all of this content appears consistent with the "Acts of Paul" that Tertullian said was written by the Asian presbyter in the late second century. Its contents seem heavily Catholic and not at all consistent with anything that could have been used as a source for Rom 15, or 1 Cor 16, or for that matter any of Paul's movements in the letters that conflict with Acts.

I think that there are definitely at least two different (sets of) sources about Paul, one represented by the Acts of the Apostles and the other represented by the extant Acts of Paul. (This is so whether these texts stand alone or whether they are based upon earlier sources.) The difference between the two sides is highlighted by the relationship of the Acts of Paul to the Pastoral epistles:

Matthijs den Dulk, "I Permit No Woman to Teach Except for Thecla," Novum Testamentum 54 (2012), page 178: In what follows, this paper will demonstrate that the APl agrees with 2Tim in many respects. 2 Tim contains virtually all of the personal and place names which the PE and the APl share. Additionally, very few, if any, of the precepts found in 2 Tim stand in tension with the APl. In stark contrast, many of the notions promulgated by 1 Tim and Tit conflict with Paul’s activities and teachings in the APl, and these two epistles contain hardly any details which overlap with the APl.

Robert M. Price, "Schleiermacher's Dormant Discovery," Journal of Higher Criticism 9/2 (Fall 2002), page 210: Under Schleiermacher’s guidance, we might also venture to modify MacDonald’s thesis that the three Pastorals all deal with the general and variegated Paulinist encratisms of Asia Minor, adopting the same body of oral traditions about Paul invoked on behalf of encratism in the Acts of Paul. He shows (admittedly not for the first time) that the autobiographical data in the Pastorals is shared with the Acts of Paul, though the moral stance of the Pastorals is decidedly anti-encratite, hence the “battle for Paul” between two factions that claimed him. But once we separate 1 Timothy from the other two, we discover that the material held in common with the Acts of Paul occurs only in 2 Timothy, the anti-encratite material only in 1 Timothy. The sole exception would be the mention in 1 Timothy 2:17 of Hymenaeus and Alexander, clumsily borrowed, as Schleiermacher shows, from 2 Timothy.

The relationship between the Acts of the Apostles and the Hauptbriefe is one that I am still exploring; but I think that they are closer to each other than either is to the Acts of Paul.

So, for those familiar, do some believe that there were two Acts of Paul, one totally lost?

I know that there are plenty who recognize the stark differences between the Acts of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles (two of them quoted above). I also know that there are people who think that sources stand behind the second half of the Acts of the Apostles (as well as its first half). But I do not know whether or how far these two groups might overlap, sorry.

[cantonin_01]

Thank you. It would indeed seem that the Pastorals and their itinerary draw on the Acts of Paul that we have today; things like the tribulations that he faced in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch. But I think that your ongoing investigation into the relationship between the principle letters and Acts is one that could get at one of the mysteries of these letters and early Christianity in general. Because what led me down this path is the realization that the "story" of Paul in the letters seems to be this:

Paul was doing missionary work from a base in Ephesus and was zigzagging throughout Macedonia and Achaia working on his big collection project. Finally, when he writes Romans, he's ready to drop off the collection in Jerusalem, but the writer seems to know that something bad is about to happen. (Rom 15:31, "that I may be rescued from those who are disobedient in Judea, and my service for Jerusalem may prove acceptable to the saints.") The "bad" event was probably some confrontation between Paul and the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem that the author of Acts of the Apostles has transmuted into the controversy over Jews of Asia believing that he brought Trophimus into the temple.

In the lead-up to Paul travelling to Jerusalem for that last voyage, no collection project is mentioned in Acts, but later in Paul's speech before Felix it's mentioned almost off-hand that he arrived to bring gifts of charity to his nation (Acts 24:17). Also in Acts, Paul does not travel from Achaia to Jerusalem, as he said he would in Rom 15. Rather, his itinerary is Ephesus for two years (Acts 19), Macedonia (Acts 20:1), Greece for three months (Acts 20:2) [if Acts is following the Pauline letters, this is when Rom would have been written], "he was about to set sail for Syria" (Acts 20:3), Macedonia again (Acts 20:3), Philippi (Acts 20:6), Troas (Acts 20:6), and by then he's on his way to Jerusalem. The posited lost "Acts of Paul" would have Paul reaching Jerusalem with his gift, causing a stir among the Jewish Christians, the Romans somehow rescuing him, and him most likely going on to Rome and finally Spain.

These are just some comparisons that I had because while the Acts of the Apostles narratives probably could be matched to the letters, it seemed simpler to posit that there are two competing stories:

1. Paul travels to Jerusalem to drop off the collection from the saints of Achaia and Macedonia, it goes poorly, he moves on to other adventures including Rome and Spain.
2. Paul travels to Jerusalem as part of the normal course of his missionary travels, it goes poorly, he is arrested by the Romans and is taken to Rome..."the end?"