hippolytus

This episode is not traceable in the Coptic MS. but it undoubtedly formed part of the Acts, though its place is uncertain. It is preserved in an allusion by Hippolytus (early third century) and in an abstract by Nicephorus Callisti (fourteenth century) in his Ecclesiastical History (ii. 25). There is also a sentence in the Acts of Titus:

Hippolytus in his Commentary on Daniel , iii. 29, says:

Hippolytus is a voucher for the early date of the story, and Nicephorus for its source. It will be recognized, moreover, at once as being quite in the manner of our author. The anger of the Ephesians, it cannot be doubted, was roused by Paul’s preaching of continence, to which Eubula and Artemilla had become converts. The episode is really little more than a repetition of Thecla , with Paul for the principal figure.