The first time that I ever heard the name “Thecla,” I was an undergraduate at Duke University, and met a fellow student who bore this name. I asked her about it and she simply said it was some saint’s name. Not long after that, I took a religion course in which we studied ancient texts that were among those considered for inclusion in the canon but, for one reason or another, did not make the cut. One of those texts was (and is) the Acts of Paul and Thecla (which you can read, in translation, by clicking on the blue text)!

So what does Butler tell us of Thecla? The praise is abundant:

[S]he was well versed in profane (traditional) philosophy, and in the various branches of polite literature (i.e. the humanities) . . . [and he commended] her eloquence, and the ease, strength, sweetness, and modesty of her discourse . . . . [S]he received her instructions in divine and evangelical knowledge from St. Paul, and was eminent in her skill for sacred science.

Thecla was one learned and powerful woman. She knew her own mind as well! She broke off an engagement with a rich man (her mother being so distraught about this that she called for Thecla’s destruction), and used what wealth she had to do such things as pay off jailers to let Paul and other Christian prisoners escape in order to continue their ministries.

It has also been reported–for nearly two millennia, as she was a contemporary and friend of that St. Paul–that Thecla fearlessly faced her accusers and the punishments that threw her way. In one instance, she was, literally, thrown to the lions. The results? She petted them, and they licked her hands and made good friends with her! In another case, she was set fire to, only for God to extinguish the flames–allowing Thecla to go free to continue her ministries!

Articulate, fearless, and in charge of her own body and destiny, Thecla cut her hair short, frequently wore clothes such that she could pass as male and enter places otherwise denied to women, and refused to be kept out of any situation that intrigued her. And she was never successfully killed off, but lived to the age of 90 years old!

One can only speculate about why Thecla does not show up in the final canon (i.e., the New Testament) and why she is not more well known. Could it be that certain persons within a more fully developed Christian movement did not want women to regard Thecla as a role model, instead preferring that females be more obedient and silent than she was? Whatever the case, we can celebrate that she has not been fully erased from history and that today is a day for celebrating Thecla in all her magnificence!