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A Contemporary Christian Icon of Saint Thecla
Tertullian (A.D. 160-230) says that the Acts of Paul and Thecla were forged by a presbyter of Asia, who "confessed that he did it out of respect for Paul," and Pope Gelasius, in his Decree against apocryphal books, inserted it among them.
Notwithstanding this, a large part of the history was credited, and looked upon as genuine among the primitive Christians. Cyprian, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Austin (Augustine), Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, and Severus Sulpitius, who all lived within the fourth century, mention Thecla, or refer to her history.
Basil of Seleucia wrote her acts, sufferings, and victories in verse; and Euagrius Scholasticus, an ecclesiastical historian about 590, relates that "after the Emperor Zeno had abdicated his empire, and Basilik had taken possession of it, he had a vision of the holy and excellent martyr Thecla, who promised him the restoration of his empire; for which, when it was brought about, he erected and dedicated a most noble and sumptuous temple to this famous martyr Thecla, at Seleucia, a city of Isauria, and bestowed upon it very noble endowments, which are preserved even till this day." (Hist. Eccl., IIb. 3, cap. 8)
Cardinal Baronius, Locrinus, Archbishop Wake, and also the learned Grabe, who edited the Septuagint and revived the Acts of Paul and Thecla, considered them as having been written in the Apostolic age and containing nothing disagreeing from the opinions and belief of those times, and for the most part as a genuine and authentic history.
What is presented here is not the original book of the early Christians; but however that may be, it is a translation from the Greek manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which Dr. Mills copied and transmitted to Dr. Grabe.
Regardless of the merits of this book, we should remember that Thecla was a real person in Apostolic times, and for her story to have been so widely believed and written about, she indeed must have been a remarkably holy and outstanding woman.
The iconographic tradition of Paul: This mosaic is in the archepiscopal oratory of St. Andrew in Ravenna, Italy. See also Saint Paul with his book (rotulus), a mosaic (late 5th/early 6th century) from an Arian (heterodox) baptistry in Ravenna [standard link].
The skepticism mentioned in the previous note has been partly occasioned by the rather extreme praise of celibacy found throughout the apocryphal Acts of Paul (of which the Life of St. Thecla forms a section). This language is often associated with the Encratites and other Gnostic groups. It is certainly possible that the present form of the text reflects the preferences or even the insertions of Gnostic editors; it is also possible that Orthodox editors toned down a text which was even more extreme. The only passages which explicitly condemn marriage (the Encratite heresy) are 2:16 and 4:2, and it will be noted that the speaker is not Paul himself but his accuser attributing this view to the Apostle.
In any case, the tradition of the Church is that the life of St. Thecla followed the course described in her acts, whether or not every word attributed to St. Paul was accurately recorded. The physical description of Paul in 1:7 is very famous, and in agreement with iconographic tradition. --- N. Redington
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