Theology for the Masses

Wednesday, we looked at the an overview of the rhetorical effect of the Acts of Thecla to better understand how it functioned in the early Christian mind.  Today, we will examine the first arc of gender criticism in detail in the Acts of Thecla.

The narrative structure of the Acts of Thecla consists of two four-part arcs. [1] I have modified Aubin’s two three-part arcs by including the parallel episodes of confrontations between Thecla and Paul. While she acknowledges the existence of these episodes, she excludes them from the arcs. I have included them since they provide the resolution of the arc. The components of the arcs are listed as follows

1. Pauline instruction and rejection of suitor,
2. arrest and trial,
3. execution and deliverance, and
4. confrontation and contrast with Paul.

The first arc consists of the conversion of Thecla and rejection of a suitor. The arc opens with the active Paul entering Iconium preaching a variation of the Beatitudes that promote celibacy and ascetic lifestyle. The passive Thecla is enamored with this message and for three days and three nights listens to Paul preach. Passivity was a gendering mark of the feminine as was activity a mark of the masculine. [2]   The “three days and three nights” reference may draw the reader back to Jesus’ time in the tomb before his resurrection and symbolize what is happening in Thecla as she listens to Paul preach. Thecla is critiqued by her family which criticizes her along gender lines, referring to her as one that is paralyzed, distracted, and full of passion. [3] With her first step away from the Roman construct of female passivity, she decides to follow Paul and takes her first step into action by deciding not to marry her influential fiancé. This entrance into agency and action places here at odds with her family, her fiancé, and the city. Her fiancé throws Paul in jail. She is still a passive observer at this point in the story. She does not actively disavow her fiancé, only passively withdraws from him. She does not act towards him, but instead does not follow through with her socially prescribed actions. As such her rejection is more tacit than explicit.

In the second part of the first arc Thecla, her first arrest and first trial, she attaches herself to Paul though the shedding of feminizing possessions, her mirror and bracelets. Again, while Thecla shows some agency in seeking out Paul, she still is passive though out her arrest and trial alongside Paul. Additionally, she does not speak during her trial. The agents working against her are the Roman ideological bastions of family and state. Her actions are threatening to the state and to her family because of the worry that her example will spread. Two statements by her opponents underscore this. First, the governor, the representative of the Roman state, questions her about her abandonment of social duty, saying “Why do you not marry Thamyris according to the law of the Iconians?” [4]   After she refuses to answer, her mother, the representative of the Roman family, petitions the governor to execute Thecla, saying, “Burn the lawless one! Burn her who is no bride in the midst of the theater in order that all the women who have been taught by [Paul] may be afraid.” [5]   The story shifts away from Paul at this point as he is sent away with a beating and begins to center more on Thecla, as she is sentenced to be burned at the stake. Thus, in the second episode of the first arc Thecla passively challenges through the sin of omission the status quo of the family and state and as a result is condemned to die as a result.

The third episode resolves the crisis of the second episode and doles out the consequences for the parties involved. Thecla is saved from the pyre by a hailstorm sent by God that kills many of the onlookers in the crowd. Here we see in her time of trail being protected by God and her opponents punished. In the reader’s minds, Thecla and her ideals are vindicated while the values of the state and family are conversely condemned.

As Thecla is beginning to show agency and is moving away from the Roman conception of feminity at the resolution of the first arc in the fourth episode, Paul begins to move away from the ideal of masculinity. She actively seeks out and finds Paul, who becoming more and more passive in the story, hiding in a cave. Paul, the hero earlier in the story, moves farther away from this ideal through her dealings with Thecla in the fourth episode. At the turn of the fourth episode Thecla and Paul exchange places in the narrative. Thecla has now earned the right to be a confessor and even to forgive sins.  [6] She still, however, seeks instruction from Paul but finds none. In fact, Paul slides towards Thecla’s opponents in his denouncement of Thecla’s desire to be baptized. Yes, he is foreshadowing her self-baptism but his reasons are suspect. He is afraid of her falling into temptation because of her beauty, not lack of virtue. Paul is thus discredited through this process, given Thecla’s courage at the theater. [7]  

Thus, Paul is moving into the realm of the imagined feminine my means of his increased passivity and Thecla is moving into the realm of the masculine with her gradual accrual of action.  Monday, we will look at the second arc in which Thecla and Paul complete this journey.

1. Aubin, "Reversing Romance? The Acts of Thecla and the Ancient Novel," 261. [↩]
2. Ibid. [↩]
3. Acts of Thecla 10. [↩]
4. Acts of Thecla 20.  [↩]
5. Acts of Thecla 20. [↩]
6. Davis, The Cult of St. Thecla: An Introduction to Women’s Piety in Late Antiquity, 73. [↩]
7. Aubin, "Reversing Romance? The Acts of Thecla and the Ancient Novel," 267. [↩]