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Thecla and the Church Fathers

Thecla and the Church Fathers THECLA AND THE CHURCH FATHERS* BY LÉONIE HAYNE In 1969 the Catholic Church decided to remove many names from its canon of saints. Among the exclusions was St. Thecla, who had enjoyed a very long and successful existence for someone whose origin was a work, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, denounced as early as the late second/early third century as a forgery. In recent years the apocryphal New Testament works and the role and importance of the women they depict (of whom Thecla is a prime example) have received considerable scholarly attention, with arguments over their origin and to what extent, if at all, they reflect real people and events.' It is not my intention to add another contribution to the numerous analyses of why Thecla and her adventures caught popular imagination, especially in the east. The twin emphases in the Acta on asceticism and the virginal heroine seem to me adequate explanation. This article has a different and more limited purpose: to see what use the church fathers made of Thecla and how, as a result, her official acceptance was ensured for seventeen cen- turies despite the fact that her biography never became part of the http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Vigiliae Christianae Brill

Thecla and the Church Fathers

Hayne, Léonie
Vigiliae Christianae , Volume 48 (3): 209 – Jan 1, 1994
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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1994 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0042-6032
eISSN
1570-0720
DOI
10.1163/157007294X00014
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

THECLA AND THE CHURCH FATHERS* BY LÉONIE HAYNE In 1969 the Catholic Church decided to remove many names from its canon of saints. Among the exclusions was St. Thecla, who had enjoyed a very long and successful existence for someone whose origin was a work, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, denounced as early as the late second/early third century as a forgery. In recent years the apocryphal New Testament works and the role and importance of the women they depict (of whom Thecla is a prime example) have received considerable scholarly attention, with arguments over their origin and to what extent, if at all, they reflect real people and events.' It is not my intention to add another contribution to the numerous analyses of why Thecla and her adventures caught popular imagination, especially in the east. The twin emphases in the Acta on asceticism and the virginal heroine seem to me adequate explanation. This article has a different and more limited purpose: to see what use the church fathers made of Thecla and how, as a result, her official acceptance was ensured for seventeen cen- turies despite the fact that her biography never became part of the

Journal

Vigiliae Christianae – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1994

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