A Story for Such a Time as This

I'm guessing you've never heard of St. Thecla. And for typical reasons. Like many amazing women all throughout history, her story and contributions have been diminished, doubted, and erased. But hers is a story for our time, and due to the rediscovery of an ancient text, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, and due to the work of modern scholars, translators and writers, it is being returned to us. While highlighting the perennial conditions of empire and patriarchy, Thecla inspires us to live from a garden of inner liberation, blooming with love of God and self and neighbor, showing us what it may look like to take the gospel seriously. 

Sit back and enjoy the story of Thecla, daughter of God, patron saint of the Sacred Feminine.
 

You can listen to me tell the story here.

* * *

Picture a young woman, just 18 years old, in the mid-first century area of the Roman Empire that is present day Turkey. She comes from a wealthy family, and she is beautiful. Her life is on track to become the woman her parents and culture have planned for her to be. She is engaged to be married. Like all women of that time, she is considered to be her father's property. Upon marrying her fiance', she will become his property. She will bear children that belong to her father and her husband. Any power or influence she may have, will have to come about secretly, behind the scenes, through influencing her father or her husband. But it will not be her own power. It will be proximal, vicarious. 

But one day, in synergistic co-creativity, all of this is turned upside down. Standing at her bedroom window, Thecla hears a man outside speaking of the beloved Christ. Later, this man will become known as the apostle Paul. He is speaking of love, the kind of love that liberates, not controls. He is speaking of freedom, the kind of inner freedom which cuts through the constraints of this world and the surface identities we carry. He is speaking of the indwelling Mystery of Christ. Something comes alive in Thecla. She refuses to leave her open window.  For three days and three nights she roots herself to this place and she drinks in Paul's every word, vision and promise. She is being transformed. The rose garden of her own divine worth is blooming in her soul.

Throughout the three days and nights, her mother and her fiance', Thamyris, try to pull her away, to re-focus her on her upcoming wedding, on food, on sleep, on anything else. Thecla stands, uninterested in the life they've planned for her. Paul's words resonate with the vibrations of real love, deep sustanance, true rest, and worthiness.

Unable to coerce her, Thecla's mother and Thamyris become angry. Thecla ignores them. Awakened, she is unwilling to participate in a system which chains her worth to her capacity for sex and having babies. She wants to teach and preach, like Paul. Further, as the scriptures say, "She also desired for herself to be deemed worthy, to stand face-to-face with Paul and hear the word of Christ." 

Thamyris, hot with resentment, goes to the governor to complain about this teacher who is turning his future wife against him and who is also turning slaves against their masters. As a result, Paul is put in jail. He is a threat to a patriarchal system in which women, children, and poor people are trafficked by the powerful.

After Paul is jailed, Thecla acts on her desire to be face-to-face with Paul. She sneaks out at night to find him, and when she does, she trades her expensive earrings to the jailer for access to Paul in his jail cell. There she sits at his feet, sharing her hunger for freedom, owning her worth to receive what she so desires, and learning more about this Christ life blooming in her.

Thamyris searches the city for her, and finds her in Paul's cell. Furious, he gathers a mob of support, goes to the governor and insists that Paul, once again, and now Thecla, too, be brought before the governor for judgment.

Thecla's mother joins him there, raging at her daughter's disobedience. And then, tragically, she does what any woman who has ingested —and not yet vomited what the patriarchy fed her— does: she betrays any woman—in this case, her daughter— who risks going against the patriarchal status quo around which she has so carefully and righteously arranged her own existence. She becomes her daughter's worst enemy.  Thecla's mother shouts, insisting, "Burn the lawless one! Burn the one who refuses to be a bride!"

The governor, having enjoyed Paul's discourses on Christ, is concerned. He bans Paul from the city, but orders Thecla to be burned.

Thecla is brought to a crowd-filled amphitheater to be burned publicly. As she enters, she searches the crowd for Paul, and as she searches she sees Jesus in the likeness of Paul. She says to herself, "Paul has come to witness me in my distress." While she gazes upon him, he seems to disappear, ascending into the heavens.

A pyre is laid and Thecla is stripped naked before the crowd. She maintains such dignity and poise that the governor himself is moved to tears by her beauty and courage as she walks to the stake. Before climbing atop the pyre, she makes the sign of the cross. The fire is lit and produces exceedingly large flames that, miraculously, do not touch Thecla. 

Suddenly, the ground shakes violently and the sky unleashes tremendous rain and hail, dousing the fire. Some onlookers die in the earthquake and as chaos ensues Thecla escapes.

Some days later Thecla is trying to find Paul when a young neighbor boy leads her to him, now in a cave, hiding, and praying for her, that the fire would not touch her. They are joyfully reunited.

Thecla names her desire to travel with Paul. Paul, however, is not so sure about this. He argues that she is very beautiful and will create complication and risk even more violence from men. She boldly insists, declaring, "I will follow you wherever you go," and she asks only that Paul baptize her, with this sign sealing the worth she has already claimed. Paul agrees to let her follow him, but says that she is not yet ready to be baptized.

Together Paul and Thecla travel to Antioch. As predicted, upon arriving, a city magistrate, Alexander, becomes obsessed with beautiful Thecla. He insists on marrying her. He is a well-known, powerful and rich man. He plies Paul with many fine gifts, trying to convince Paul to give her over to him. Paul meets this with a lie and a truth. He claims he does not know Thecla (echoes of Abraham and Sarah from Genesis 20) and that she does not belong to him. (Apparently, he could preach, theoretically about a woman's freedom, but wasn't yet able to illustrate that to another man in the here and now.) 

And so, Alexander uses force. In the middle of the street he grabs her, forces himself upon her. Desperate, Thecla looks about the crowd for Paul. He is nowhere to be seen. Distressed, she cries out, "Do not force me! I am a stranger here and a servant of God! I just left a town where I was being forced to marry. Get off of me!"

In front of the gathering crowd, and, likely, following a well-aimed knee, Thecla rips Alexander's coat and throws his crown from his head. She has now publicly humiliated this leader.

Alexander wants vengeance. He drags her to Antioch's governor, where she tells all that has happened to her and her response. The governor sentences her to be thrown among the beasts in the amphitheater.

When the people of Antioch hear of this ruling, they are upset, feeling it is unjust. The women, especially, voice their dissent. Thecla, fearing she will be raped before being sent to the beasts, begs the governor to find her safe housing until it is time for her to be brought to the amphitheater. A rich widow named Trifina comes forward. She has recently lost her own daughter and she takes Thecla into her home and cares for her as her own. 

After a number of days Thecla is brought, in a sort of pre-execution sneak peak, to meet the beasts intended to kill her. Trifina goes with Thecla, and together they enter an amphitheater filled with spectators. When Thecla is ushered into a den with a well-known, extremely fierce she-lion, Trifina remains, nonplussed, at her side. The she-lion approaches Thecla. And then licks her feet.

This action only confirms to Trifina what she and the women of Antioch already knew: the accusations and punishments against Thecla are supremely unjust. Trifina loudly cries out for all to hear, "O God! The judgments of the city are unrighteous!"  Trifina takes Thecla home for the night. Tomorrow she will face this she-lion and all of the other beasts. The two women spend the night in prayer.

Early the next morning the governor comes to insist that Trifina deliver the criminal to the beasts. Trifina is so outraged by this injustice that she fiercely attacks the governor, causing him to run away. The governor then sends soldiers, and, despite Trifina's royal standing and outrage, she is unable to protect Thecla. She cries out to God, insisting "O Lord God, you be the helper of Thecla, your servant!" As Thecla is led away, Trifina rushes to her side and again heads to the amphitheater with her. Moved by such tender mothering from one who is not her own mother, Thecla prays that Trifina would be rewarded for her abiding presence and compassion.

As they enter the arena, the crowd cries out, "Bring in the criminal!" And the beasts roar. Thecla is ripped from Trifina's side and stripped naked. At this Trifina cries out for all to hear, "O may the whole city be punished for this unjustice! Why not order us all to the same punishment?!"

And then many in the crowd begin echoing the same! "May this city be ruined! You may as well kill us all!" 

Thecla is thrown into the place appointed for fighting the beasts. Bears and lions are loosed upon her. But the she-lion rushes to Thecla and lies down at her feet. The women in the crowd are ignited in cheers. Next, a she-bear comes barreling toward Thecla, but the she-lion tears it to pieces. Then, a he-lion, accustomed to devouring men, rages toward Thecla and the she-lion fights the he-lion, and they killed one another. 

Now the women are anxious because the she-lion who had protected Thecla is dead, and more beasts are brought in.

Thecla stands. Rooted, with arms branching to heaven, she prays. And when she is done praying she turns, sees a pit of water and announces, "Now is the time for me to be baptized!"

She had waited for Paul to seal her belonging and the Christ-life in her, but there is no more time to wait. Despite the water being alive with fierce seals, she hurls herself into it, proclaiming, "In your name, Lord Jesus Christ, I am baptized!" 

At this moment, lightning and fire descend on the pool, killing the seals so they float to the surface.

Still more beasts are turned upon her, evoking mournful cries from the women in the crowd.

However, a circle of fire protects Thecla from the beasts. 

Using what they carry, the power of scent, the women, unified, give it all for Thecla. They begin to throw spikenard, the rare and precious roots used to make an oil that is earthy, grounding and relaxation-inducing. They toss into the arena cassia, a fragrant cinnamon type of bark used for the anointing of priests and the consecration of holy places. They hurl toward the beasts amomus, a profuse edible plant which produces a foul odor when crushed. The quantity of scent is so large in proportion to the people that the beasts lay down and fall asleep. 

Even in the awe of this sacred quieting, Alexander remains intent upon revenge and suggests to the governor, "I have a pair of terrible bulls we can tie her to and she will be dragged to death."

The governor, concerned, responds, "Do as you see fit."

So Thecla's feet are bound and a rope is tied around her waist, attaching her to the bulls. Hot branding irons are applied to bull's testicles to enrage them further. Making a hideous noise, the bulls begin to tear about, but the fire which had encircled Thecla at the pool now burns the rope, and, again, Thecla stands, unconcerned.

Meanwhile, though, watching it all from her seat in the arena, it has been too much for Trifina. She faints and dies on the spot. The whole city, even Alexander himself, becomes afraid. If Caesar, a member of the same royal family as Trifina, learns what has happened, he will let loose his rage on the entire city of Antioch.

At this point, the governor stands, beckons Thecla forward, and asks, "Who are you? Why is it that none of the beasts will touch you?"

Thecla replies, "I am a daughter of the living God. I am a believer on Jesus Christ, God's son. He is a refuge to those in distress, a support to the afflicted, a hope and defense to those who are hopeless. In the living God I live and move and have my being."

When the governor hears this, he orders Thecla's clothes be brought to her. She puts them on and he announces to the crowd, "I release to you Thecla, daughter of God." 

At this the crowd of women erupt, shouting in one voice, "There is one God, the God of Thecla!" Their voices are so loud it seems the city itself shakes and Trifina, in death, hears the good news, resurrects and rushes with the crowd to gather around Thecla. Trifina once again takes Thecla home with her.

Thecla , daughter of God and apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, lived and served God to the ripe old age of 90 years. Many young women and young men followed her. She taught and she healed. She faced many more trials and she met each with the full-bloom of faith graced to and nurtured in her. 

This is the story of Thecla, a woman who believed the gospel she heard was true and who dared to baptize herself.
 

* * *

Soul Friends, there's so much more I want to say about this story, but for now, Can you just wonder with me, "What if I had grown up with this story? What if my parents and grandparents had? What if it had never been erased, like the voices and experiences of so many women? 

Can you just ponder that a moment? 

I'll be back in your inbox soon, but for now, let's just let our curiosity bloom.