The Cult of Saint Thecla: A Tradition of Women's Piety in Late Antiquity (Oxford Early Christian Studies)

304 Pages·2008·3.08 MB·English

by  Stephen J. Davis

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The Cult
of Saint Thecla:
A Tradition of Women’s Piety
in Late Antiquity
Stephen J. Davis
3
3
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Davis, Stephen J.
The cult of Saint Thecla : a tradition of women’s piety in late antiquity / Stephen J. Davis.
p. cm. — (Oxford early Christian studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Thecla, Saint—Cult—Turkey—Silifke Region (çðel çli)—History. 2. Women in
Christianity—Turkey—Silifke Region (çðel çli)—History—Early church, ca. 30–600. 3.
Thecla, Saint—Cult—Egypt—History. 4. Women in Christianity—Egypt—History—Early
church, ca. 30–600. I. Title. II. Series.
BR1720.T33 D38 2000
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PREFACE
Thecla, believed to have been a disciple and colleague of the
apostle Paul, became perhaps the most celebrated female saint and
‘martyr’ among Christians in late antiquity. She was recognized
for her example of chastity, and honoured as an apostle and pro-
tomartyr, the first female martyr, of the early church. Thecla’s
example was associated with the piety of women—in particular,
with issues of women’s empowerment and ministry. Because of
the patriarchal social customs of the time, these associations lent
an air of controversy and ‘transgressiveness’ to her sanctity.
Thecla’s fame can be traced quite early in written records,
starting at least in the second century ce with the Acts of Paul
and Thecla. This work served as the basis for later biographical
legends about Thecla, and for the many references to her in
ascetic treatises and miracle stories from late antiquity. Thecla
also became a popular subject for Christian artists: her image is
painted on walls, stamped on clay flasks and oil lamps, engraved
on bronze crosses, wooden combs, and stone reliefs, etched onto
golden glass medallions, and even woven into a textile curtain.
By the fourth and fifth centuries, devotion to Saint Thecla was
widespread in the Mediterranean world; from Gaul (modern
France) to Palestine, writers and artists extolled her as an exem-
plary virgin and martyr. However, it is not my task here to
survey the geographical range of Thecla devotion, or to catalogue
all the literary and artistic evidence related to the figure of
Thecla. Much of this work has in fact already been done by other
scholars.1Instead, I am more interested in reconstructing the cult
1 Carl Holzhey, Die Thekla-Akten: Ihre Verbreitung und Beurteilung in der
Kirche, Veröffentlichungen aus dem kirchengeschichtlichen Seminar München,
2/7(Munich: J. J. Lentner, 1905); Claudia Nauerth and Rüdiger Warns, Thekla:
Ihre Bilder in der frühchristlichen Kunst (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1981);
Claudia Nauerth, ‘Nachlese von Thekla-Darstellungen’, in Studien zur spätan-
tiken und frühchristlichen Kunst und Kultur des Orients, ed. G. Koch, Göttinger
Orientforschungen, series 2, Studien zur spätantiken und frühchristlichen
Kunst, vi (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1982), 14–18, pl. 4–9.
vi Preface
of Saint Thecla—that is, the complex set of social practices
(such as asceticism, pilgrimage, burial), institutions (such as
churches, martyr shrines, monasteries), and material artefacts
(such as texts, relics, sacred souvenirs) that marked the lives of
actual devotees.
In this book, I focus my attention specifically on the cult of
Saint Thecla in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and Egypt: only
in these regions does archaeological, artistic, and literary evidence
provide enough context for a ‘thick’ description of communities
and practices connected with Thecla devotion. Asia Minor has
been the subject of previous study—its well-known shrine of Saint
Thecla at Seleucia was the hub of her cult in late antiquity.2
In contrast, the diverse but scattered evidence from Egypt has
up till now been largely neglected. I bring this evidence together
for the first time in order to reconstruct the Egyptian cult of Saint
Thecla. I will argue that in both Egypt and Asia Minor, the cult
of Saint Thecla remained closely linked with communities of
women among whom Thecla’s example was a source of empow-
erment and a cause of controversy.
2 E. Herzfeld and S. Guyer, Meriamlik und Korykos: Zwei christliche
Ruinenstätte des Rauhen Kilikiens, Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antique, ii
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1930); G. Dagron (ed.), Vie et
miracles de Sainte Thècle(Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1978).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
While writing this book, I have been sustained by a family and
by a community of scholars and friends whose support and
counsel are difficult to measure. Above all, I owe a huge debt of
gratitude to my wife Jennifer for her love, patience, and willing-
ness to share me with ‘that other woman’, Thecla. Jenny, this
work is dedicated to you and our children Evanleigh, Harrison,
and Rowyn.
Among those who have assisted me directly in my research
and writing, I especially want to thank Bentley Layton for his
critical eye and his cogent advice as I prepared my manu-
script for publication. I owe special thanks as well to Maria
Georgopoulou, who instilled in me a passion for early Christian
and Byzantine art: ε(cid:3)χαριστ(cid:10)γι(cid:12)α(cid:3)τ(cid:13)τ(cid:13)πολ(cid:17)τιμοδ(cid:10)ρον. I also
have had the pleasure of working closely with Rowan Greer and
Wayne Meeks; both read large portions of my manuscript and
were charitable with their time and suggestions. In addition,
other colleagues have provided invaluable help, criticism, and
encouragement: among them, Roger Bagnall, Paul-Alain
Beaulieu, Betsy Bolman, David Brakke, Elizabeth Clark, Jaime
Clark-Soles, Scott Cormode, Andrew Crislip, Stephen Emmel,
Georgia Frank, David Frankfurter, Todd Hickey, Theo Joppe,
Rebecca Krawiec, Susan Matheson, Timothy Poncé, Stephen
Shoemaker, Warren Smith, Donald Spanel, Heinrich von Staden,
and Terry Wilfong. In the summer of 1995, Henry Maguire and
the staff at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC, showed me
great hospitality and helped facilitate my research into early
Byzantine pilgrimage. Opportunities to lecture at Harvard Uni-
versity and at the American Research Center in Egypt allowed
me to refine my interpretation of Egyptian wall paintings of Saint
Thecla in Chapter 5. I also want to recognize those institutions
and persons who have facilitated my research in Egypt: Yale
University, the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), the
Dar Comboni Arabic Study Centre, the Evangelical Theological
Seminary in Cairo (ETSC), the Société d’archéologie copte, the
viii Acknowledgements
Deutsches Archäologisches Institute in Cairo, Peter and Eleni
Grossmann, Josef Engelmann, Monsour Osman and Abd el
Aziz at El Bagawat, his Eminence Archbishop Damianos, and the
gracious monks at the Monastery of Saint Catherine. Finally,
I want to thank Hilary O’Shea, Gillian Clark, Andrew Louth,
Georga Godwin, John Callow, and the other editors associated
with Oxford University Press for their fine work in preparing my
book for publication.
Stephen J. Davis
Cairo, Egypt
14November 1999
CONTENTS
List of Figures xi
Abbreviations xiii
part i. the cult of saint thecla in asia minor 1
1. Origins of the Thecla Cult 3
Introduction 3
Women’s Culture in the Acts of Paul and Thecla 8
Social Practice in the Acts of Paul and Thecla:
Asceticism and Itinerancy 18
Thecla as a Social Type: Charismatics and
Communities of Female Support in Second-
Century Asia Minor 26
2. The Cult of Thecla at Seleucia in Asia Minor 36
Hagia Thekla: The Physical Setting 37
Literary Patronage of the Thecla Cult at Seleucia:
The Expansion of Her Legend 39
Women’s Piety in Cultural Conflict at Hagia Thekla:
Asceticism, Itinerancy, and Martyr Cult 48
part ii. the cult of saint thecla in egypt 81
3. Thecla Devotion Among Ascetic Women in
Alexandria 83
Introduction 83
Female Monasticism in Alexandria: A Social Context
for Thecla Devotion in the Fourth Century 87
Women’s Devotion to Thecla in Political Context:
Theological and Ascetic Factionalism in
Fourth-Century Alexandria 95
The Fate of the Virgins: A History of Alexandrian
Devotees to Saint Thecla 103
4. Pilgrimage and the Cult of Saint Thecla in the
Mareotis 113
Egyptian Pilgrim Flasks with the Image of Saint
Thecla 114