The Acts of Paul have received the most diverse and contradictory interpretations. Do the ActPl intend to promote the veneration of Paul or a particular theology? Do they offer transparent fiction or do they claim factuality? Are they a collection of oral traditions or a designed literary construction? From the perspective of cultural memory theory, however, the key question is rather how the text allows the reader to participate in a community-generating past. In this view, the opposites turn out to be complementary aspects of an integrative textual strategy. This becomes manifest especially in the technique of metaleptic narration, which transcends the boundary between the world of the text and the reader, between past and present.

The figures of Demas and Hermogenes in the Acts of Paul are puzzling for their ambiguous relation with figures by the same name in 2 Timothy (and, for Demas, in Philemon and Colossians). The purpose of the present article is to question what personal biographical details present in the Thecla narrative contribute to larger issues of literary dependence, focusing in particular on the notice that Hermogenes is a ‘coppersmith’. Although several scholars explain this passing reference in terms of a confused literary dependence on previous Pauline traditions, it is rarely approached as a meaningful narrative feature. This personal detail, however, should be read for its contribution to the Thecla narrative in light of the wider early Christian view of ‘smiths’, running from the New Testament texts into the third century and later. When these elements are taken into account, the smith-notice is highlighted as characterising Hermogenes (and, by extension, Demas) negatively.

The article addresses the problem of the reception of Paul: how does the construction of the image of Paul in the Deuteropauline letters (Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians), the Pastoral letters, the Acts of the Apostles and the apocryphal Acts of Paul relate together? The difficult question of the relationship between Paul in his letters and Paul in Acts is treated first. A typology of the reception of Paul is proposed following three poles: documentary (his letters), biographical (his life) and doctoral (his permanent authority for the Church). The conception that Paul's letters were the only regulation for the memory of Paul in the first century is denied. This three poles typology is applied to some topics of the Pauline tradition: the status of the apostle, the suffering of the apostle, and his teaching. It is possible to observe finally how the writings which honor the memory of the apostle have interpreted these topics by working out a feature present in the writings of the apostle.