Third Corinthians is an apocryphal letter (a writing not included in the Hebrew Bible but accepted by some Christian groups) that claims to record correspondence between the apostle Paul and the church in Corinth. It was written during the second century AD and is also known as 3 Corinthians.
The work has three parts:
A letter claiming to be from Stephanus of Corinth and sent to the apostle Paul about two false apostles, Simon and Cleobius.
A short story about the delivery of the letter.
Paul’s response, in which he rejects the false teachings.
Originally, these letters were part of the Acts of Paul, a longer apocryphal document. However, they also circulated separately. At one point, they were even included in the Armenian Bible. The letters seek to explain Paul's mention in 2 Corinthians 2:4 of a letter he wrote in "great distress."
According to the early church father Tertullian, in his work On Baptism, a church leader from Asia wrote Third Corinthians around AD 160 as an expression of his love and respect for Paul. However, this leader was later removed from his position because he claimed that his writing came from Paul himself. This event shows how firmly early Christians opposed any writings that falsely claimed to have been written by the apostles.