I have now finished my summaries and discussions of each of the thirteen Pauline letters, “In a Nutshell.”  In this long thread we have now covered 18 of the New Testament’s 27 books, which, by my math, means we are two-thirds of the way through this thread.  Nine more gems to go.

I’d like to pause at this stage and provide a few other posts on Paul and his writings, specifically by talking a bit about Paul as found in early Christian writings outside the New Testament.  I have a fuller discussion of the historical and legendary tales about Paul in my book Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend (Oxford University Press, 2006).  This post and the next will contain excerpts discussing Paul and his female follower Thecla, one of the most famous early Christian women of all history (though widely forgotten today, she was virtually a household name throughout the Middle Ages.)

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The Acts of Paul and Thecla

One of the most popular legends about the apostle Paul in circulation from the late second century down through the Middle Ages involved his female convert, Thecla, and their interactions in the spreading of the gospel. The tale is usually called The Acts of Paul and Thecla, although some scholars have argued that since Paul is only peripheral to the main account, it should perhaps better be called simply The Acts of Thecla.

This was a controversial tale when first penned, for some Christians used it to provide apostolic support for the idea that women could exercise a prominent role in the church—for example, that they were allowed to baptize Christian initiates. So incensed over this issue was the church father Tertullian (ca. 200 CE)—one of the great Christian misogynists of antiquity—that he insisted the book had been forged by a presbyter of a church in Asia Minor, who had been caught red-handed in the act and severely punished for it. For Tertullian, women were to play no leadership role in the church, and Thecla’s example was simply an old wives’ tale that was to be given no credence.

Others clearly thought otherwise. Thecla became an enormously influential figure of Christian tradition for centuries, adored as a female saint of the highest standing. In some parts of the church, her following came to rival even that of the Blessed Virgin Mary herself.^[1]

Her story in its oldest version is easily summarized.^[2]  Paul, on one of his missionary journeys, happens to arrive in the city of Iconium, where he is welcomed into the house of a Christian named Onesiphorus. There he spends his days preaching to all who will come to hear his message. Next door to Onesiphorus lives a young virgin named Thecla, with her mother Theoclia. They are an upper-class pagan family, and Thecla is engaged to be married to the leading citizen of the city, a man named Thamyris.

As it happens, the window of Thecla’s room overlooks the street next to Onesiphorus’s house, and she can hear Paul preach from there, although she can’t see him. She becomes enraptured by his words and, in fact, does not budge from her window seat for three days. Her mother is in some distress over this odd behavior and calls on Thamyris to come to rescue his future bride from the seductive proclamation of this stranger in town. Thamyris tries to woo her away from the window, but to no effect. Out of frustration, he goes out, tracks down Paul, and has him arrested for disturbing the peace.

Thecla’s allegiance has now been secured, however. She bribes her way into the prison to be with her beloved (in a Platonic sense) Paul. Thamyris and her family find her there, and they drag the two of them off to the tribunal for judgment. It is Thecla’s own mother who, out of frustration at the situation, calls out for her execution if she refuses to fulfill her commitment to marry Thamyris.

The governor has Paul flogged, who then disappears from the scene. Thecla, however, is sent off to be burned at the stake. But God works a great miracle, sending an enormous thunderstorm to douse the flames and set Thecla free.

The story gets a bit complicated at this point. Essentially, what happens is this: Thecla tracks down Paul, and they go together to Antioch, where Thecla is assaulted by another wealthy aristocrat, Alexander. Refusing his advances, she publicly humiliates him by pulling off his crown. This leads him to charge her before the local authorities, who decide to have her thrown to the wild beasts. Amid a number of subplots, the narrative shows Thecla in the arena, under attack by the animals. She, after all this time as a follower of Paul, has never yet received baptism. Seeing a vat of water nearby, she decides to baptize herself by throwing herself in. This creates great consternation among some of the audience—the women of the crowd are on her side in all this—because in the vat are a bunch of man-eating seals. But God performs another miracle, sending a lightning bolt down into the vat, killing the seals and allowing Thecla once again to escape.

Once more she tracks down Paul and informs him that she has now been baptized. She receives his blessing, as he tells her to go forth to “teach the word of God.” She does so and lives a long and happy life as a single and celibate proclaimer of the gospel.

Remaining single and celibate is one of the keys to this fascinating narrative. For the theology represented here is not one you might expect, if all you knew were the seven undisputed letters that came from Paul’s own hand. The reason that Thecla spurns her marriage to Thamyris, and rejects the advances of the aristocrat Alexander, is not simply that she is now a Christian and wants nothing to do with a husband or lover who is pagan. It is that she has accepted the message of Paul as found in this book: that it is only through sexual renunciation that one will inherit the kingdom of heaven. It is this, rather than the proclamation of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, that lies at the heart of his proclamation.

This message is best seen at the outset of the narrative, where Paul preaches to those gathered in Onesiphorus’s house, while Thecla listens from the upstairs window next door:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God;

Blessed are those who have kept the flesh chaste, for they will become a temple of God;

Blessed are those who are self-controlled, for God will speak to them;

Blessed are those who have renounced this world, for they will be pleasing to God;

Blessed are those who have wives as if they did not have them, for they will be the heirs of God…

Blessed are those who have departed from the shell of this world because of the love of God, for they will judge angels and be blessed at the right hand of the Father…

Blessed are the bodies of the virgins, for these will be pleasing to God and will not lose the reward for their chastity; for the word of the Father will be an accomplished act of salvation for them on the day of his Son, and they will receive an eternal rest.

From these extracts, Paul’s message is clear. It is important to renounce this world and all the pleasures it holds. What matters before God is a chaste life of self-control. People are not to engage in the acts of sex, even if they are already married. For eternal life is the reward for chastity. This is the gospel that Thecla embraces.  No wonder her fiancé is so disturbed.

 

^[1].  See especially Stephen Davis, The Cult of Saint Thecla: A Tradition of Women=s Piety in Late Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).

^[2].  For a recent translation, see The Acts of Thecla,@ in Bart D. Ehrman, ed., Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 113-21.