The Acts of Thecla is an example of a text that challenges the orthodox Christianity that we are all familiar with today. It presents a different side to the story, one that focuses on a woman’s role in the family and ministry. Our knowledge of women’s roles in society goes beyond what is found in the New Testament. Women were considered inferior to men, had no leadership positions in society, and were expected to submit to men. In the New Testament, the message of Christianity spread solely through men. As we briefly mentioned in class, the authority positions in the Christian church have always been men. Jesus was a man, with male disciples. Paul and the other popular figures in the early church, such as Peter and Stephen, were all men as well. Then as the Christians in Rome moved into Catholicism the leadership went to Popes and Bishops, also men.

The Acts of Thecla challenges this point of view that Christianity was spread, and lead, by men alone. Thecla is a young virgin betrothed to a man named Thamyris. She overhears Paul’s teaching, and from that point on she begins to challenge every stereotype of women in antiquity. She ends up not marrying Thamyris, which was an uncommon choice for women to make. She also begins to follow Paul, be persecuted by the governor, and even is sent out as a missionary of the Christian faith.

In sections 13 and 15 both Thamyris and other men in the community are angered at Paul for convincing the women that they didn’t need to marry. Already the social norm for women is being challenged, and Thecla is at the helm. Men are getting angry because the women that they are meant to marry are no longer interested. Then the story moves to the theatre, where it gets quite a bit more far fetched.

In section 21 Thecla is tied up and supposed to be burned, but she avoids that along with numerous other punishments. Besides these miraculous escapes being extremely entertaining and wild, I think there is an underlying message. Persecution and martyrdom was a popular theme amongst the early church. Some even believed that to die a martyr was a good thing. Never in the New Testament, however, do the Romans persecute a specific woman. The author may have been trying to make a point: that even women can be doing things worthy of persecution and martyrdom. Being persecuted would have been a sign of devotion and faith to God. If Thecla was persecuted to the extent that she was, then her faith and devotion could be that or even greater than that of a man’s.

Her escape from these attempts at her life could have been pointing to that faith and devotion as well. After she survives, when asked by the governor who she is, she claims she is “a servant of the living God.” Her claiming to endure the persecution because she was a servant of God would have challenged the view of women as well.

The final and, I think, most significant jab at the mistreatment of women in the early church is when she is sent out as a missionary. All throughout Acts (in the New Testament) men are sent to various countries to spread the word of God. In section 41, after Tehcla requests to go to Iconium, Paul says, “Go, and teach the word of God.” In Paul’s letters to Timothy in the New Testament, he describes how church leadership should work. He tells Timothy that elders, deacons, and anyone who teaches should be a man. Here, in the Acts of Thecla, Paul is specifically telling a woman to go teach the word of God.

This text would have told Christians that anyone could have been a servant of God. Women who would have read this text would have felt encouraged and maybe even empowered to go against everything they have known about being a woman, and devote their lives to serving God, even teaching his word. The leaders in the church probably ousted this text because it did just that: go against the social norm. To allow women the position suggested in the Acts of Thecla would mean the chain of command from Jesus to the Popes would be disrupted. If it would have stuck, and this text wouldn’t have been dubbed heretical, who knows, maybe we would have had a woman Pope by now.