Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/974

 a creature of the Asian presbyter's imagination. Jerome, while still more emphatic in condemning the book, expressly names her as a virgin saint. It is hardly likely that if Thecla had not existed, her history and example could have so powerfully impressed themselves on the mind of Christendom for so many ages and been honoured by so many generations of the devout faithful, including some of the foremost intellects of the church. The monastery that marked her place of retreat and bore her name, which, as we learn from Gregory of Nazianzum (Orat. xxi. p. 399, t. i.; Poemata Hist. s. i. 11, p. 703, t. ii.), had made Seleucia a place of pilgrimage before he retired there (c. 375), is a further evidence of her reality, and also confirms the localization in that city of the traditions concerning her. It thus appears that our Acts probably grew out of a true tradition, handed down from the later apostolic age, of a maiden of Asia Minor who was converted to the Gospel and for its sake renounced all and braved death that she might remain a chaste virgin for Christ, and, having escaped martyrdom, lived and died in sanctity at Seleucia. The Asian presbyter whom Tertullian makes known to us, casting about for materials for a story in exaltation of virginity, would naturally choose for his hero St. Paul, as an unmarried apostle and the only N.T. writer from whom the doctrine of the superiority of the celibate over the married state could claim any support. The tradition which we have supposed current in the church, of a Christian who incurred the peril of martyrdom for virginity and ended her days as an anchorite near Seleucia would supply his heroine and leading incidents. Her name was probably part of the traditional story; for an invented name would no doubt have been either a Scriptural one or one of obvious Christian significance. II. Tim. iii. 11 might suggest the scene, "at Antioch, at Iconium." Being of no critical turn, and writing for uncritical readers, the author would not inquire to what stage of St. Paul's course this Epistle belonged, or which Antioch was meant.

The history of Thecla, as we have it, whether this account of its origin be accepted or not, is not without literary merit. It has many touches of pathos, its incidents are striking and effectively told, and here and there the speeches (never of tedious length) rise nearly to the height of eloquence. Defective as we have seen it to be in structure, yet even here, as well as in interest of narrative, it compares advantageously with the clumsy dullness of the Clementine literature; its marvels, however startling, are less extravagant than those of the apocryphal Gospels and Acts; and on the whole it is distinctly above the level of the class of writings (most, if not all, of later date) to which it is usually referred. Its chief defect is the failure to realize and reproduce the spirit and personality of St. Paul. Schlau's opinion (p. 17), that the local knowledge displayed in the work is such as might naturally belong to a resident in Asia Minor, is not to be accepted without qualification. It might, on the contrary, be said that if the author had more carefully studied the canonical Acts with a view to local and chronological knowledge, he might have assigned the scene and date of his narrative with much more definiteness and accuracy. For instance, he seems uncertain how Lystra lay relatively to Iconium (cc. 1, 3 ), and his idea of the position and distance of Daphne seems equally indistinct (c. 23). So too in his records of Thecla's journeys he is content to name the starting-point and the terminus, never noting any place on the way. His knowledge of political geography is shewn to be lacking when he represents the chief magistrates of Iconium (c. 16) and Antioch (c. 33) as addressed by the title of proconsul (ἀνθύπατε), thus betraying that he supposed these cities to belong to proconsular provinces, whereas Iconium, though territorially included in Lycaonia, was in St. Paul's time extra-provincial, as the head of an independent tetrarchy (Pliny, Nat. Hist. v. 25), and Antioch was the capital of Syria, an imperial province governed by a propraetor. Even if we regard Iconium as of Lycaonia, and the Antioch meant to be the Pisidian, in neither city would so high an official as the proconsul of Asia be resident, as the Acts represent. The author, being of Asia—that is, of the Roman province supposed a proconsul to be found at Iconium and at Antioch, because he had himself been accustomed to see a proconsul at Ephesus or Smyrna; and thus Tertullian's statement that he was of Asia (taken in that limited sense) is borne out, not by his exact knowledge, as Schlau supposed, but by his mistake. He has such knowledge of places and political arrangements, and only such, as would naturally belong to an untravelled ecclesiastic of the Roman province of Asia, possessing a familiar but far from critical or precise knowledge of N.T. in general and the book of Acts in particular. The contents of these Acts serve indirectly to confirm the authenticity of the canonical Acts by shewing how difficult—it may safely be said how impossible—it would be for a falsarius, even if writing at no great distance in place or time from the scene and date of his fictitious narrative, to avoid betraying himself by mistakes; and the history of the reception of his work proves that such attempt to palm off pseudo-apostolic documents for genuine was not difficult of exposure, nor passed over as a light offence. The Asian church of the 2nd cent. was quick to detect the pious fraud and severe in punishing it; and in her dealing with the case there is no trace of uncritical promptitude to receive whatever offered itself as apostolical, or of the lax morality that would accept as true whatever seemed edifying-such as some writers have imputed to the early generations of Christians. Dr. Lipsius, indeed, maintains (p. 460) that the work and its author were condemned, not because of the fraud attempted, but because of the Gnostic doctrine which he supposes it to have originally embodied. But this is mere conjecture; and, moreover, one which, while professedly based on Tertullian's authority, substitutes for his express statement an essentially different one. Tertullian, writing of a matter on which he was apparently well informed, and which was recent, is surely a competent witness; and his testimony is express, that the author of the Acts was de-