The discovery of the Coptic translation of these Acts in 1897, and its publication by C. Schmidt (Acta Pauli aus der Heidelberger koptischen Papyrushandschrift herausgegeben, Leipzig, 1894), have confirmed what had been previously only a hypothesis that the Acts of Thecla had formed a part of the larger Acts of Paul.
The Coptic version (C. Schmidt, Acta Pauli, pp. 74-82), which is here imperfect, is clearly from a Greek original, while the Latin and Armenian are from the Syriac. (c) The Acts of Paul and Thecla.
Thecla was most probably a real personage, around whom a legend had already gathered in the 2nd century.
A note by Cyril Lucar states that it was written by Thecla, a noble lady of Egypt, but this is probably merely his interpretation of an Arabic note of the 14th century which states that the MS. was written by Thecla, the martyr, an obviously absurd legend; another Arabic note by Athanasius (probably Athanasius III., patriarch c. 1308) states that it was given to the patriarchate of Alexandria, and a Latin note of a later period dates the presenta tion in 1098.
This is the plot of the Acts of Thecla, a story which probably goes back to the first century.