The Acts of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca is a work of New Testament apocrypha dating from the third or fourth century. Regarding its place in literature, twentieth-century classicist scholar Moses Hadas writes: "Christians learned not only from pagan preachers but also from pagan romancers. The perfectly orthodox Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena ... has all the thrilling kidnapings, deliveries, and surprises of the typical Greek romance". The tale is set in the time of Nero and consists of essentially two almost completely separate stories: the tale of Xanthippe and the tale of Polyxena. Although a third woman named Rebecca is included in the title, she doesn't figure as a major character. The liturgical feast of these figures is Sept. 23. The Tale of Xanthippe Having briefly witnessed Paul preach in Rome, a servant returns to Spain and falls sick due to wishing to have heard Paul properly. The master's wife, Xanthippe, overhears the servant explaining this, so she speaks privately with the servant, which causes statues of the household gods to fall down. Xanthippe thereupon proceeds to fast, pray, lose sleep, and enter into celibacy, gradually wasting away. Paul is led by God to come to Xanthippe but, when she expresses a desire to be baptized, her husband throws Paul out and locks Xanthippe up. Xanthippe then prays that her husband will fall asleep at dinner, which he does, so she is able to escape the house by bribing the porter. On her way to Paul, Xanthippe is attacked by demons wielding fire and lightning, from which she is saved by a vision of Jesus (as a beautiful youth) and Paul finding her. Paul then takes her indoors where she is baptised and given the Eucharist. Returning home, Xanthippe has a vision and collapses. Her husband soon awakes and, having had a dream, asks some wise men for an interpretation. They declare that the dream reveals the struggle between Satan and Christ and advise that the husband be baptized. When they look in on his wife Xanthippe, expecting her to be near death, they discover her singing praises to Jesus. This impresses the wise men to the extent that they have Xanthippe take them to Paul. All of this induces her husband to likewise convert. The Tale of Polyxena Xanthippe's younger sister, Polyxena, later has a dream in which she is swallowed by a dragon but then rescued by a