Theology for the Masses

Many Christian movements have sought to cut ties with perverted and corruptible human traditions and return to that glorious (and Godly) pristine primitive Christianity described in the New Testament.  However, we don’t live in first century Rome and we aren’t powerless and poor.  The questions we bring to the text are our own and not those of the first believing communities.  If we only reply on the “naked text” we will get only naked answers.  Lints suggests that

Having rejected the aid of the community of interpreters throughout the history of Christendom, we have not succeeded in returning to the primitive gospel; we have simply managed to plunge ourselves back to the biases of our own individual situations.

Lints, Fabric of Theology, 93

So, in essence, by rejecting the wisdom of our elders, we swim in a sea of theological subjectivism  Oh, the irony!

Perhaps we too are scared of what we might find find in the box!

This is what I have been reading lately:

Osborne, Grant R. The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. Rev Exp. IVP Academic, 2006.

I’ve had this book for a few years, it is really the best comprehensive work on hermeneutics around.  His Calvinism sometimes gets in the way, but astute readers will be able to ignore it.  I am working from this book in Parkade Baptist CYP’s current Sunday School series on Genre Hermeneutics.

Pierce, Ronald W., Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, and Gordon D. Fee. Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy. 2nd ed. InterVarsity Press, 2005.

This book is heralded as the egalitarian response to Piper and Gundem’s Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.  I have only had the chance to start a couple of the essays.  They have been pretty good so far.  I’ll talk about it more as I get more into it.

Piper, John. The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright. Crossway Books, 2007.

Disappointed.  All he did was convince me of Wright’s position.  Other people had built up Piper in my mind as some great exegete/theologian.  Not.the.case.

R, M. Daniel Carroll. Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible. Baker Academic, 2008.

Reading this for one of my classes – looks to be good, but I am only a chapter or two into it.

Stowers, Stanley Kent. Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity. 1st ed. Westminster Press, 1986.

Every student of antiquity and of Paul needs to read this book.  Hands down one of the best books in the field.  I am re-reading it for my class on Letter hermeneutics this Sunday.

Wright, N. T. Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision. IVP Academic, 2009.

Dang.  I can’t talk too highly of this book so far.  I wonder how many critics of Wright will read this book.  If they read it without their systematic glasses on, they might just change their minds. 

The righteousness of God pertains primarily to his faithfulness to his convent with Abraham, not that he seeks his own glory above all else.

Anyone know of good sources for Roman rhetorical strategies?  I cam across these three resources that might be of help.  I have come across a primer of the subject in ESF’s commentary on the Apocalypse of John that I am working my way through.

1. R. Dean Anderson, Ancient rhetorical theory and Paul (Peeters Publishers, 1999).
2. Justin T. Gleeson, Rediscovering Rhetoric (Federation Press, 2008).
3. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Gerhard A. Krodel, Revelation (Fortress Press, 1991).
4. Donald Lemen Clark, Rhetoric in Greco-Roman education (Columbia University Press, 1957).

This is my second post on early Christian sources for women’s leadership.  Today we are going to look at inscriptions.  They are a great source for attitudes in Antiquity.  Today I want to look at some epitaphs, or burial inscriptions. [1]

A note about sources: If you notice, most of these are from later antiquity [2] .  I am sure that for some of you, this delegitimizes the validity of the claims.  You need to realize the nature of our sources.  Any physical sources for Christianity before the 3rd century are almost non-existent.  This is because of two interrelated factors.  First, Christians are persecuted both by the state intermittently and by the Roman “pagan” populace for being a supertitio.  Secondly, there just aren’t that many Christians in the empire up until this point.  I’d be like looking for female Mormon headstones in the late 19th century compared to today.

What we see is that during the 3-6th centuries, there were definitely women elders and deacons in various locations within the Roman Empire.  Women are in positions of leadership in the early church, both as elders and deacons, as bishops and presbyters.

Secondly, we also see a variation of gendering of the term deacon.  Sometimes it is used in the feminine and sometimes it is used with females in the masculine.  What is uncertain about the terms deacon and deaconess is the responsibilities that each conveyed.  There is abundant literary and physical evidence for deaconesses who’s job it was to minister to women to avoid suspicions of lewdness.  Male deacons were charged with men; women deacons were charged with women.  However, the pairing of deacon in the masculine with a female creates some confusion.  Is this just a regional naming practice or does it denote something deeper?  Were there deacons who were charged with the ministering to the entire congregation?  Given the evidence of Pliny’s letter to Trajan, this seems to be the case.  However, it is still uncertain as to which is the case.

1) Elder Kale, Centuripae, Sicily, 4th-5th Century CE

Here lies Kale the Elder.  She lived 50 years blamelessly.

2) Elder Ammion, Ucak, Phrygia, 3rd Century CE

Diogas, the bishop, for Ammion [f.], the elder, in memory

3) Sophia the Deacon, the Second Phoebe, Mount of Olives, Jerusalem, late 4th Cent. CE

Here lies the servant and bride of Christ
Sophia the deacon, the second Phoebe,
Falling asleep on the 21st of the month of March
In the 11th indiction
…Lord God…

4) Deaconess Athanasia, Delphi, Greece, 5th Cent. CE

The most pious deaconess Athanasia,
having lived a blameless life modestly,
having been ordained a deaconess by the most holy bishop Pantamianos,
made this monument: in it lie her remains.
Anyone who dares to open this monument,
in which the deaconess has been deposited,
will have the portion of Judas,
the betrayer of our Lord, Jesus Christ…

5) Deacon Maria, Archelais, Cappodocia, Turkey, 6th Century CE

Here lies Maria the deacon, of pious and blessed memory,
who in accordance with the speech of the apostle [3] reared children,
practiced hospitality, washed the feet of the saints, shared her bread with the afflicted.
Remember her, Lord, when you come into your kingdom.

6) Monument erected by Domna, the Deacon, Bulduk, Turkey, unknown date

Domna the deacon, daughter of Theophilos the elder, set up [the monument] to her father-in-law, Miros, and to her husband, Patroklos, in memory.

7) A Vow fulfilled by the Deacon Agrippiane, Patrae, Greece, unknown date

The Deacon Agrippiane, most beloved of God, made the mosaic because of her vow.

8) A Vow Fulfilled by a Deaconess, Stobi, Macedonia, 4th or 5th Century CE

Because of her vow, Mat(rona?) [or “of the vow of the maton], the most pious deaconess, paved the exedra with mosaic.

1. Source: Ross Shepard Kraemer, Women’s Religions in the Greco-Roman World: A Sourcebook (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004). [↩]
2. to use Peter Brown’s conception of the ages [↩]
3. 1st Tim 4:10 [↩]

Such a reading as proposed in my post series presents challenges to modern interpreters of the text. Those wishing to do a historical study of Paul and early Christian movements are need not be troubled by this. We see a Paul that is consistently egalitarian in the sense that women were on par with men from an ontological and practical standpoint. His statements on gender in Galatians and his mention of women co-workers and patrons in Romans and elsewhere no longer are besieged by the contradictions found in 1 Corinthians 11.

However, one needs to be careful that Paul is made into a modern day feminist. Paul lived in a different world from us and practical matters still trumped idealistic concerns. [1] If we construct a reading of Paul that is too clean, too idealized, then we are in danger of allowing our ideologies to overshadow the text. I do not thing this is the case in my reading, but is a very real possibility. Further exploration of the topic is needed to protect against this. I have only been able to flesh out the beginnings of my hypothesis.

Another issue of importance is that if my hypothesis is correct, then the interpolation was canonized was canonized along with the rest of the letter. This has serious implications for modern interpreters that seek a unified interpretation in the modern New Testament canon. Diametrically opposed views on gender are canonized. If the textual hypothesis is correct, then 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 stands firmly against what the historical Paul thought and taught about gender and Church practice. However, there is another voice which was canonized – a voice that showed up very early and intensified quickly as evidenced in the Pastorals and the Early Church Fathers. Therefore, interpreters must not strip out the interpolations, but to craft interpretations that are able to adequately deal with separate and distinct authors, traditions, and interpretations with the text itself.

Then the question becomes, what do we do with multiple and opposed voices within our text?  How do we, as removed interpreters, hold them in tandem, one along side with the other, without quelling either?

1. See 1 Corinthians 14 and the silencing of women, see Paul’s views on eating meat sacrificed to idols, etc. [↩]

One of the topics that is very dear to me is the role and function of women in early Christianity (both canon and post-canon).  A few days ago, I came across a post by the warm and fussy Jim West who linked to Gary Macy’s podcast on women being ordained until the 12th Century.  Edgar asked me why none of this shows up anywhere.

In this series, I’d like to highlight some of the primary sources for women being ordained in the early church.  I’ll cover official church documents, Roman sources, and unofficial church documents.  Today I am going to look at a letter dated in the early second century concerning a Roman governor’s report of Christian activity to the Emperor.

Source one: Pliny the Younger’s Letter to Trajan.

If there was one thing the Roman’s did not get, it was supertitio such as Christianity.   Christianity befuddled the Romans.  Why should a group Jews [1] revere a executed Roman criminal as a God?   Furthermore, why would people show such an excessive devotion to this person.  As weird as the Jews were to the Romans, these Christians  were even more excessive.

Viewing Christians through the eyes of the Romans helps us negate a certain bias inherent in any internal Christian writing.  Quite naturally, Christians writers were/are heavily invested in painting their brand of Christianity as the correct one over and against all other brands of Christianity, including internal dissenters within their own community (Think about a Cowboys or Boston fan writing about the NFL or the NBA).  Roman sources, while handicapped as mentioned above, bypass this bias.

In this letter from a Roman governor to the Emperor, Pliny asks Trajan what he should do with these darn Christians that have been rounded up.  There are a couple of telling passages in this letter, both about early Christian practice and for our immediate purposes, women’s roles in the early Church:

…They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food–but ordinary and innocent food. Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political associations. Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition.

I therefore postponed the investigation and hastened to consult you. For the matter seemed to me to warrant consulting you, especially because of the number involved. For many persons of every age, every rank, and also of both sexes are and will be endangered. For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but also to the villages and farms. But it seems possible to check and cure it…

(it is worth mentioning that this is the earliest non-christian course for christian practice)

What do we see here?  We see, around 110CE, a local assembly of Christians in the Bithynia-Pontus province that consisted of the complete strata of Roman society.  Slaves, freed persons, rich, poor, young and old.  Pliny, in his quest to find something prosecutable among their deeds, tortures two of the leaders of the community.  Horrifyingly enough (for an elite Roman) the leaders of this community were two slave women.

Thus, we see in unbiased Roman sources that historically women served as deacons in the early Church and, at least in Bithynia-Pontus, they were the leaders of the community, as least as it related to outsiders.

Now, there are some things that need to be held in tension here.  First, is this representative of Christianity of this period?  It is only one source, after all.  Secondly, how do we know that these were the leaders.  All Pliny really mentions is that they are deaconesses (the female form of deacon).  To be minimal in our interpretation of the letter, perhaps that there were women deacons is all we can say.  But, we can say that.  Additionally, it is these two and only these two that Pliny plucked out and tortured.  He would have gone right to the top of the community’s hierarchy to do this.  So, assuming these were the only leaders is a bit of a stretch, but, as stretching goes.  It is about two miles short of the gymnastics Christian historians go through when they try to make the whole of the Bible historically accurate and consistent.  So, as leaps go, it is pretty small.

1. Romans saw them all as Jews [↩]

From The Rise of Christianity: [1] by R. Stark:

Free-rider problems are the Achilles’ heel of collective activities. […] “Truly rational actors will not join a group to pursue common ends when, without participating, they can reap the benefit of other people’s activity in obtaining them.  If every member of the relevant group can share the benefits… then the rational thing is to free ride… rather than to help attain the corporate interest.” [2]

Do you see this being the case?  The Canonical Church certainly faced these issues and attempted to put measures in place to limit freeloading.  We see it in the Pastorals, James, Peter, etc.  In our zeal to be an Acts 2 Church, do we ever miss out of the pragmatics of the Acts 2< church?

1. Subtitle: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religous Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries. [↩]
2. Here Stark is quoting Hetchter (1987:27). [↩]

As I am nearing the completion of my degree and am on the cusp of having time to think on theological matters once again, I am struck by the inclusion of letters, letters, from Paul [1] to various peoples in the Canon.  I am an absolute Canonist (this will show up in an upcoming post which will complete my Paul and 1 Cor 11 series which has been on hold as I completed many school projects.) and take as an article of faith that what shows up in our present Canon belongs in the Canon.

However, having a sentence included in the Canon does not mean it should be taken as completely prescriptive 100% of the time prime facie.  When we have letters, we have to realize that a) letters are very different beasts than Gospels, Apocalypses, etc. and b) there are many different types of letters out there, each meant to be read in a particular way. 

With this in mind I have been pondering how we are to read the Pauline letters.  If we do straight theology from them, we might (but we might not) be missing something…I can’t think of any examples in the specific (and I will have my mind back early next week).

Any thoughts?

1. or people writing in Paul’s name [↩]

Question: If we are to accept the insertion of 1st Corinthians 11:3-16, then who did the inserting?

Hypothesis: It was most likely the Weak faction in the Corinthian Church because it most closely identifies with their worldview, both metaphysical and ideological.

Reasoning: If we are to accept the interpolation of 1st Corinthians 11:3-16; then who were these redactors? The answer lies within Martin’s argument: it most likely was the Weak at Corinth who interjected their own solutions to questions they were having at Corinth. We know from an analysis of Paul’s letters to Corinth that the community was in upheaval and the divisions among members were threatening the very existence of the assembly there. [1] While many have tried to reconstruct the various factions, I follow Martin in imaging the conflict in terms of the Strong and Weak, as detailed above. Under my hypothesis, Martin is correct in his interpretation of verses 3-16, but he is incorrect as to who is writing.

The Corinthian correspondence is not a naked reproduction of Paul’s letters, but the end result of a publication process which represents final editing and processing of Paul’s correspondence with the Corinthians. Adopting such a view of 1st and 2nd Corinthians detracts from pristine Pauline authorship, correcting an idealistic view of the texts. The voice of the Corinthian community resides in the two letters as we have them today, if only by virtue of the letter’s existence.

We have to remember that the “Publisher” of these letters was the Assembly at Corinth, not the Apostle Paul

If this is correct, then the lack of direct manuscript evidence of the insertion of verses 3-16 actually bolsters this view. The manuscripts must have been edited very early and very completely because there are no surviving manuscripts that are absent 11:3-16. [2] If the Corinthian community itself did the editing, then we would expect this to be the case. By reading the surviving pieces of the letters that comprise 2nd Corinthians, which were also edited together very early, we can tell that the situation improved. However, not all of the differences between the Weak and the Strong were negotiated by Paul; as such we can expect that they did some negotiating on their own. One could not hope to have a single man smooth out and declare the synthesis of the two opposing views. One can see that Paul acted as a mediator, but not dictator in dialogue between the two groups.

I want to suggest that what one finds in verses 3-16 is another piece of that negotiation apart from Paul, one that happened under the guidance of, but not directed by Paul. Thus, the Weak’s views on the body, angels, and ontological views of gender show up in the interpolation. We should expect the Weak’s views on these matters so shine through this section of text, for they were the more numerous group in Corinth. Throughout the letter, Paul philosophically agrees with the Strong, but advocated the Weak’s position. Here, however, the opposite happens. The philosophical positions of the Weak are assumed, but the hierarchical positions common to the Strong are aspired to. This hypothesis can only be sketched out here, but needs more careful consideration.

Up next: If someone else, who was in opposition to Paul, wrote this section, what do we, as Canonical Christians, do with the text?

1. Calvin J Roetzel, The Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context, 4th ed (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 83-95. [↩]
2. Walker, “1 Corinthians 11,” 98. [↩]

A while ago Tom wrote about the connection between the bizarre dictums [1] found within the Pauline letter to the Ephesians and the Artemis cult in Ephesos.  While I remain unconvinced about the genuine Pauline authorship of the letter [2] and therefore am more open to early Christian patriarchal forms seeping into the canon than Tom is, his posts on the topic are very good and the counter-point I hold when thinking through issues of authorship and gender relations in the Pauline corpus. [3]

ProTip: Read his posts on the topic!

Part of a frieze from the temple of Artemis, Ephesos.  Greeks under Herakles (marked by his club and lion’s cape) scare off hour Amazons, who seek Sanctuary with Artemis (on block to right, not preserved). Found inn and described by Price in Religions of the Ancient Greeks. 

With that said, I came across an interesting passage in Religions of the Ancient Greeks by Simon Price on this very topic.  After discussing the merits of talking about Panhellenism [4] , Price opens a discussion concerning local versions of myths.  In doing so, he contrasts the Athenian myths of Theseus fighting the Amazons [5] with the Ephesian myth of the town harboring Amazons. 

Not only was Ephesos guardian of a unique image of Artemis, which has supposedly fallen from heaven, but Ephesos also claimed that Artemis had been born there (and not as it was often claimed on the Aegean island of Delos).  The Ephesians also sometimes claimed that her cult had been established by the Amazons, who thus sometimes had a much more positive significance at Ephesos than at Athens.  The benevolence of Artemis towards the Amazons is also illustrated in the local story of how the Amazons successfully sought the sanctuary of Artemis, both from Herakles and from Dionysos.  Artemis remained the protector of both the Amazons and the city right through antiquity.

The city’s connection with something as repulsive to the average Greek [6] as the Amazons, one of the ultimate threats to the Greek way of life, can only lend further support to Tom’s thesis. [7]   It further demonstrates the pull that Artemis had in the city and demonstrates that there was a substantial mythic will in the city to invert the male/female domination scheme, which was a product of the fall.

1. saved through childbirth??? [↩]
2. I am textually liberal, theologically conservative, politically indifferent, and socially… something [↩]
3. could that be a longer sentence? [↩]
4. it is a problematic, but useful term [↩]
5. the fabled feminist threat to the male/Greek way of life [↩]
6. well, often this hypothetical “Average Greek” is constructed from the particular Greek of Athens and then abstracted over all of the Greek cities, a topic for another post [↩]
7. Even though it is circumstantial evidence at best, which I might add, is the best kind of evidence you are going to get either way here.  We simply don’t have the sources to demonstratively demonstrate anything on this topic! [↩]

Early Christian Writings: New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, Church Fathers.

It is back up.  The internets thank thee.

A few Mondays ago we completed our analysis of the two major story arcs in the Acts of Thecla.  Today we’ll take some time to recap the two previous posts.

The first arc of the Acts of Thecla serves to introduce Paul and Thecla and to begin the critique of the opponents of the writer’s community. The ideals of the state, of the family, and of Paul himself are being questioned. The second arc repeats this process and intensifies it, demonstrating the victory of Thecla and what she represents. The interesting thing here is what the Acts of Thecla does with gender roles of the day. Interpreters have often said that Thecla moves into maleness to overcome her opponents, thereby subverting the male under the female. [1]   In reality, something much more subtle is occurring than a mere gender critique.

Acts of Thecla is not equating the feminine with the masculine, nor lifting the one above the other. Instead, the Acts of Thecla is critiquing the very notion of gender itself! Notice that Thecla attacks male dominated society at almost every turn, but also uses the category of feminity to critique Paul. [2]   Paul increasingly become feminized and his feminine passivity is being critiqued! 

By doing so, the Acts of Thecla argues that neither construction of gender categories is adequate. Friday we will conclude this post series on the Thecla tradition by traveling farther back in time and look at what created the ideological hole that Thecla was trying to fill.

1. Ibid., 271. [↩]
2. Ibid., 272. [↩]

The Church at Corinth was all kinds of broken.  The had problems over charismatic gifts.  They had problems over class divisions.  Gender roles split their spirit.  And on and on.

But, in light of all of that, look how God lead Paul to open his second letter to the Church there:

I am writing to God’s church in Corinth, to you who have been called by God to be his own holy people. He made you holy by means of Christ Jesus, just as he did for all people everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.  May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. 1st Corinthians 1:2-3

In spite of the very problems God that have splintered God’s Kingdom and turned us against one another, Paul writes to them as one unified part of the body of Christ.  It is their calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ which unifies them.  What a wonderful reminder and challenge present in those words.

May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give us grace and peace today as He did to the body in Corinth back then.

Friday we looked at how Thecla began her journey from the standard Roman passive feminity on through standard Roman active masculinity toward the early Christian ideal of nongendered activity.  Today, we will look at the second arc of the Acts of Thecla and see how she completes her journey.

The second arc begins in much the same way the first one does, but with a furthering of the themes presented at the conclusion of the first arc. Instead of merely passively watching Paul, Thecla is now actively following him. Paul, and therefore the branches of Christianity that claim him as an authority, claims to not know Thecla when Alexander asks about her, receding farther into femininity by becoming even more passive. When she is accosted by Alexander, “the first man of Antiochenes,” instead of tacitly rejecting him as she did her fiancé, she explicitly rejects the advances of this male, going so far as to “rip off his chlamys, an imperial or military mantle,” to “denude him of his crown, making him appear as one conquered,” [1] and to humiliate him in public. She effectively steals his honor at this point in the narrative.  We need to mention that power in antiquity was always taken from someone else, not earned or obtained by any other means.  In addition, she finally gains her voice. Up until this point she has been silent in the narrative. This rejection of male dominance enrages Alexander, the symbol of male and state dominance, at which point he hauls her in front of the governor demanding justice.

In the second episode of the second arc, the 2^nd trial of Thecla, maintains the same structure as the first trial, but continues add agency to Thecla and to further critique the standard notions of family and civic values. Queen Tryphaena becomes her replacement mother, Paul is nowhere to be found, and the female crowd comes to her defense against the absurd accusations of the court.

The climax of the second arc in the third episode is the most dramatic yet. Everything is aligned against Thecla. She is stripped naked, attacked by a lioness, an assortment of wild beasts, and almost pulled apart by the legs by two bulls that have fires lit under the “appropriate spot[s]”. Through each of these attacks on her honor and body, she is delivered by god or its agents. A cloud of fire reminiscent of the cloud that hid the glory of god during the 40 years of Israel wandering in the desert hides Thecla’s nakedness from the crowd. The lioness sent to attack befriends her and saves her from the assortment of wild animals. The cloud of fire burns the ropes connecting her to the bulls. Thus Thecla is saved once again. During the course of all of this and fearing for her life, Thecla performs the ultimate act of Christian agency, she baptizes herself. In doing so, she fulfills Paul’s foreshadowing speech in chapter 25. This climatic episode serves to signal the complete and utter victory of Thecla over her opponents.

The fourth episode brings resolution to the second arc and to the story as a whole. After her deliverance from her execution, she dresses like a male and finds Paul again. Paul still is concerned with her temptation, even though she has remained steadfast through incredible trials. Yet, perhaps because of the numbers of people who were thronging around to hear Thecla speak, Paul relents and commands her to go forth and preach. She, though her transformation, has won over that which she became enamored with at the beginning of the story.

On Wednesday we will sum up the effects of the rhetoric.  Stay tuned and tell me where I am wrong!

1. Ibid., 268. [↩]

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. [↩]