![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I’ve been reading Bart Ehrman’s Lost Christianities, which is built up around the various books that never made it into the New Testament. They’re all interesting, but my heart is given to the Acts of Thecla, the tale of a virgin martyr manqué.
You remember my love affair with the virgin martys? Well, the Acts of Thecla has all the best elements of those stories: brave maidens! threatened by lustful magistrates! who attempt to torture the maidens into submission, only to be met by snarky comebacks of the “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but they will never break my INVINCIBLE PIETY, foul Roman swine!” variety!
So moved was Thecla by the Apostle Paul’s preaching that she followed him to Antioch, where her chastity was promptly threatened by a Roman nobleman. (One reason that the early church fathers didn’t find the Acts of Thecla edifying: they’re not very flattering to Paul. When the Roman nobleman asks Paul if Thecla is under his protection, Paul is all, “NEVER SEEN HER BEFORE IN MY LIFE.”)
The courageous Thecla resists the nobleman’s lecherous advances. Enraged, he throws her to the wild beasts in the arena. With the aid of a friendly lioness, Thecla eludes the wild beasts of the arena! But at last the lioness is laid low, and ravening lions back Thecla against a pool of man-eating seals. Thecla flings herself into the pool, shouting, “I baptize myself in the name of Jesus Christ!”
And of course God smites the seals. All the women of Antioch cheer to see that justice as been served.
Normally the enraged Roman nobleman would respond to this by chopping off Thecla’s head (decapitation being the only way to really kill a virgin martyr. They’re a bit like zombies that way). But apparently no one told Thecla she was supposed to, you know, die at the end, so she escapes. Not only does Thecla triumph in spirit, she also lives in body to tell the tale! Which she promptly does, traveling to Asia Minor to convert everyone to Christianity!
As you can imagine, all this proselytizing-while-female and self-baptizing-while-female gave the early church fathers vapors. Thus, no Acts of Thecla in the New Testament. I think we can all agree that it was a tragic loss.
You remember my love affair with the virgin martys? Well, the Acts of Thecla has all the best elements of those stories: brave maidens! threatened by lustful magistrates! who attempt to torture the maidens into submission, only to be met by snarky comebacks of the “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but they will never break my INVINCIBLE PIETY, foul Roman swine!” variety!
So moved was Thecla by the Apostle Paul’s preaching that she followed him to Antioch, where her chastity was promptly threatened by a Roman nobleman. (One reason that the early church fathers didn’t find the Acts of Thecla edifying: they’re not very flattering to Paul. When the Roman nobleman asks Paul if Thecla is under his protection, Paul is all, “NEVER SEEN HER BEFORE IN MY LIFE.”)
The courageous Thecla resists the nobleman’s lecherous advances. Enraged, he throws her to the wild beasts in the arena. With the aid of a friendly lioness, Thecla eludes the wild beasts of the arena! But at last the lioness is laid low, and ravening lions back Thecla against a pool of man-eating seals. Thecla flings herself into the pool, shouting, “I baptize myself in the name of Jesus Christ!”
And of course God smites the seals. All the women of Antioch cheer to see that justice as been served.
Normally the enraged Roman nobleman would respond to this by chopping off Thecla’s head (decapitation being the only way to really kill a virgin martyr. They’re a bit like zombies that way). But apparently no one told Thecla she was supposed to, you know, die at the end, so she escapes. Not only does Thecla triumph in spirit, she also lives in body to tell the tale! Which she promptly does, traveling to Asia Minor to convert everyone to Christianity!
As you can imagine, all this proselytizing-while-female and self-baptizing-while-female gave the early church fathers vapors. Thus, no Acts of Thecla in the New Testament. I think we can all agree that it was a tragic loss.
