Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/973

 Latin versions; but the four extant Greek copies represent her as living an anchorite's life in a cave, on herbs and water, and they subjoin a marvellous account (certainly of more recent composition) of her latter years. She (according to three of these copies, A, B, and C) went to Rome to see St. Paul again, but was too late to find him alive. She died there soon after, aged 90, and was buried near his tomb 72 years after her martyrdom.

Though the story was undoubtedly written originally in Greek, the oldest Greek MS. is not earlier than 10th cent. But ample proofs of its high antiquity are forthcoming. The so-called Decree of Gelasius, de Libras Recipiendis et non Recipiendis, which is probably of the early years of the 7th cent., formally excluded (c. vi.) from the list of "scriptures received by the church" the "book which is called the Acts of Paul and Thecla." The Syriac version, extant in four MSS., one of 6th cent., contains internal evidence that the Greek text had been long in existence and frequently copied before the Syrian translator did his work. We have also an expanded Life of Thecla, composed before the middle of 5th cent. by Basil, bp. of Seleucia (in Isauria), professedly framed on the lines of a previous work then ancient. A comparison of our Acts of Paul and Thecla with this Life leaves no doubt that the former is the basis of the latter. These Acts (as we shall now call them") were thus "ancient" early in the 5th cent., and can hardly therefore be later than 300. In the 4th cent. Hilary (the Ambrosian) has several clear references to these Acts (Comm. on I. Tim. i. 20; II. Tim. i. 15, iv. 14; cf. Acts 1: also on II. Tim. ii. 18; cf. Acts 14); and even, as it seems, cites them in connexion with the last passage, as "alia Scriptura." Jerome, then or a few years later, mentions (de Vir. Ill. c. 7) but rejects a book called Περίοδοι Παύλου καὶ Θεκλης, which he says was discredited by startling marvels; probably Jerome is here inaccurately describing the book as we have it. The very early currency in Christendom of a written narrative of the life of Thecla is proved by the much earlier, more exact, and more authentic evidence of the writer whose authority Jerome here appeals to, Tertullian, in his treatise de Baptismo (c. 17), written c. 200. Tertullian refuses to admit the authority of certain writings falsely assuming the name of Paul, which some alleged in support of the claim of women to teach and baptize after "the example of Thecla"; for these (he says) were the production of a certain "presbyter of Asia," who was, on his own confession, proved to have composed them "through love of Paul" (as he said) and who for this fraud was degraded from the presbyterate. Jerome represents this degradation as occurring in St. John's time, which seems to be merely an addition of his own, and is inconsistent with our Acts, for they, in the age to which they prolong Thecla's life, imply that she survived St. John. Tertullian is our earliest witness that a story of Thecla existed; but whether the extant book of her Acts is identical with the Asian presbyter's production is a question. The balance of probability distinctly favours the identification. If so, it would be the oldest of the extant N.T. Apocrypha.

The story thus traced back, certainly as regards its substance and probably as regards its existing written form, to 2nd cent., was widely current in the church, East and West, thereafter. But though she is frequently mentioned by the Fathers, none of them, except Basil of Seleucia, cite our Acts or any written narrative. But of all the references to Thecla in ecclesiastical writers, not one (except that already noticed in Jerome) lies distinctly outside the range of the incidents which the Acts relate; so that a history of Thecla reconstructed out of the references to her in early Christian writers would be in fact an abridgment of these Acts, containing nearly all its chief points and adding nothing to them. Of these writers, the earliest seems to be Methodius, in his Symposium Decem Virginum (written c. 300; see Migne, Patr. Gk. xviii. ). The incident of Thecla's sacrificing her ornaments to purchase access to Paul is turned to account by Chrysostom, "Thecla, for the sake of seeing Paul, gave her jewels; but thou, for the sake of seeing Christ, wilt not give an obolus" (Hom. 25 in Acta App. 4). Isidore of Pelusium (lib. i. Ep. 87) is apparently the first to style her by the glorious title, ever since appropriated to her, of proto-martyr—that is, as Basil of Seleucia explains (p. 232), first among women as Stephen among men. Theodore of Mopsuestia is stated by Solomon of Bassora, a 13th-cent. Nestorian (cf. Assem. B. O. iii. p 323), to have composed an oration on Thecla, in which it appears that her prayer for Falconilla was mentioned. Epiphanius (Haer. lxxviii. 16; lxxix. 5) praises her for sacrificing under St. Paul's teaching her prospects of prosperous marriage, and reckons her near to Elias, John the Baptist, and even the Virgin Mother. In the West her name is similarly joined with that of Agnes as a virgin worthy to rank with Mary herself, by Ambrose (de Lapsu Virg. p. 307); and by Sulpicius Severus (c. 400), who relates (Dial. ii. 13) how St. Martin of Tours was favoured with a vision, in which Mary, Agnes, and Thecla appeared and conversed with him (Migne, Patr. Lat. t. xx. col. 210). Ambrose likewise associates her with Mary the Lord's mother, and Miriam, Moses' sister (Ep. 63, ad Vercell. Eccl. t. ii. pt. 1, p. 1030); and here and in de Virginibus (ii. 19, p. 166) dwells on her deliverance from the wild beasts. Jerome in one of his Epp. (xxii. p. 125) also associates her with Mary and Miriam, promising that they shall welcome Eustochium, to whom he writes, into the virgin choir of heaven. And in his Chronicle (s.a. 377) he tells of one Melania, a Roman lady who by her sanctity earned the name of Thecla.

That the book as we have it is a fiction few will doubt; but it is a fair question whether it has been formed on a nucleus of fact; and if so, how far we can distinguish fact from fiction. The incidental reference to Thecla by Eusebius proves that he regarded her as a real person; and if Athanasius wrote her Life, he must be reckoned on the same side. Tertullian, even in rejecting her written history, raises no doubt as to her existence, as he certainly would if he had suspected her to be