The Legend of Thecla

The Acts of Paul and Thecla is famous for being one of the first primary texts about a female in antiquity and one of the few to talk about women’s liberation or feminist power. This was not typical during the time of ancient antiquity, where it was only normal to have males writing and holding various seats of power. Others say that because a woman may have written The Acts of Thecla, it is a myth and cannot be believed to be true.

The text tells the story of a woman named Thecla, who is about to betrothed, but hears Paul preaching about celibacy. She listens and ignores her fiancé and mother for several days before calling off her marriage and dedicating her life to virginity. Her fiancé and mother get Paul put in jail, and Thecla visits him and shares that she is choosing to dedicate her life to his message. 

Tertullian claimed that a presbyter in Asia forged the story. His claim was that it was written out of respect of Paul. Tertullian wanted to fight against the popularity of this text because it promoted women teaching and being baptized. As mentioned before, this was atypical during Early Christianity, and clearly, early church fathers would have wanted to decrease its popularity as to not allow other women to feel that they may have the same power as Thecla. 

There is also significance in the story about the animals when Thecla is put on trial. The lion is masculine, and so her ability to defeat them adds to her masculinity because in this time, only a man would be able to defeat another man. As well, some say that the lion is a martyr who died against Thecla’s case (Davis 11). Lastly, according to Tama Adamik, “Paul had fought a lion in Ephesus and had escaped unharmed” (Bremmer 66). As well, there is a lion in relation to Daniel in the Old Testament, and so this parallel may play a role in the inclusion of lions in the Acts of Thecla.

Thecla is both masculinized and feminized throughout the text. She is naked in several of the trial scenes, which is an ideal of femininity. She is described as beautiful several times throughout the text, and the number of her passive actions is another key to how she is feminized. According to Stephanie Cobb, her lack of control is a sign of femininity. Cobb describes how an “ability to control one’s life…was also vital to the ideology of masculinity in antiquity” (Cobb 66). However, she is also masculinized by her authority that she gains through her trial, her ability to baptize herself, her stance on celibacy, and her strength. Every action where she gains strength moves her up the Christian Antiquity Hierarchy.   

The Cult of Saint Thecla originated and flourished in Asia Minor (Turkey). It also moved into Egypt (Davis 4). Saint Thecla is honored as the first female martyr and has a shrine dedicated to that martyrdom called Hagia Thekla (Davis 5). Saint Thecla’s martyrdom stands out because according to the Cult of Saint Thecla amd other textul retellings of her story, Thecla did not die. She merely sank into the earth. The location of this occurrence is the location of Hagia Thekla and is the source of a spring which produces healing water (Davis 42).

The Cult believes in its members making a pilgrimage to Hagia Thekla. There are four steps to this pilgrimage. The first step is prayer, once arrived at the holy place. The second step is reading a passage from Deuteronomy. The third step is prayer once more. The final step is departing from the holy place (Davis 66).  

Thecla is considered a saint in the Catholic Church, one of component of granting an individual sainthood is the attribution of two post humorous miracles to this individual. Below are some of the post humorous miracles attributed to Saint Thecla

Miracle3- “… Where Thecla chases Aphrodite from Seleucia, a subtle allusion to the Iliad puts Thecla again in the position of a Christian Athena” (Davis 77).

Miracle11- “… We get perhaps the most vivid glimpse of these competing claims for healing power. After the doctors fail to provide the cure for a tumour for the granddaughter of a woman devoted to Sarpedon, Thecla appears to the woman in a vision and prescribes the proper remedy. However, because the remedy is applied sparingly, the tumour persists in some areas. Finally, one of the doctor’s strikes upon the idea of applying more of the remedy, and the tumour is cured” (Davis 76).

Miracle14- “… The story of the faithful wife of Hypsistios and her petitions to Saint Thecla that her impious husband might become a Christian. In response, Thecla besets the man with a ‘tenacious illness’ in order to soften him up before ‘she furnished the cure’. After intensifying and prolonging Hypsistios’ sufferings, Thecla finally visits him ‘in reality, not in a dream’, and urges him to embrace the Christian (Trinitarian) faith along with the happiness of health. Most important, Hypsistios’ conversion was especially marked, ‘after a very long life lived in the faith’, by his dying in ‘the hope of the resurrection’” (Davis 74).

Miracle15- “… Seafaring pilgrims would disembark when they reached the coast at Isauria and would journey over land to the martyr shrine. At the shrine itself, the architectural adaptations of Hagia Thekla during the fifth and sixth centuries also would have had the effect of redirecting and channeling the movements of the large number of pilgrims approaching and entering Thecla’s martyrium” (Davis 70).

Miracle16- “Thecla offers protection to a soldier named Ambrosius who, while fulfilling his duties travelling for the emperor, was ambushed by robbers. In response to the soldier’s prayers to her on his journey, Thecla preserves him from attack by creating the illusion of a military escort, a battalion of soldiers and cavalry. In this account, Thecla is portrayed as a protector of travelers, in that her intercession was designed to preserve the soldier’s ‘freedom of movement’.” (Davis 69, 70).

Miracle29- “… When the controversy between the cities turns overtly hostile, he demonstrates a markedly partisan support for Thecla’s center at Seleucia. In that story, the author reports a dispute between Marianos, the bishop of Tarsus, and the aforementioned Dexianos, the bishop of Seleucia. In a political manœuvre against Dexianos, Marianos issues an interdiction against Seleucia and Hagia Thekla right in the midst of the festival of the virgin, the time of year when the pilgrimage routes were most crowded with travelers. When Marianos dies only five or six days later, the author interprets his fate as the swift judgement of Saint Thecla” (Davis 78, 79).

Miracle34- “… Two men from Eirenopolis, who came to the shrine not to pray but to carouse, find ‘a virgin wandering about [peριpλaνωµ$νη] outside the sacred enclosure’. When the men attempt to seduce her, Thecla intervenes before they can defile her. In the end, the men are unable to escape the severe judgement of the saint; they both drown after falling off a ferryboat that conveyed pilgrims travelling to and from the sanctuary” (Davis 71).