The Miracles of Saint Thekla (27) recounts how *Thekla (follower of the Apostle Paul, S00092) delivered the city of Selinous (Asia Minor) from attacks of the enemies by bidding the inhabitants erect a church dedicated to her at the top of the path leading to the city. Written in Greek at Seleucia ad Calycadnum (southern Asia Minor) in the 470s.
E05645
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Miracles of Saint Thekla, 27
Summary:
Selinous was a small coastal city [in Isauria] which was once prosperous and important but then attracted enemies. Even though its location over the sea, with an overhanging cliff, protected it, one day it was delivered to its enemies through the action of a savage demon. For once a goat-herd went to pasture his flock along the summit of the crest around the city. One of the goats separated itself from the rest and found a hidden narrow path by which it descended and arrived at the plain, while the goat-herd and the other goats descended step by step down the slope. From this descent the previously unknown path was revealed to everyone at once, even to neighbouring enemies. Thus the city was captured in this way, and thereafter the inhabitants lived in fear that it would be taken again and again. But the martyr Thekla removed this great fear by visiting one of the local men and instructing him to erect a church dedicated to her at the very top, at the beginning of the path leading downward. The inhabitants did it and built the church as a fortification against enemies. The latter made many unsuccessful attempts, but never managed to capture the city again.
Text: Dagron 1978.
Summary: J. Doroszewska.
Cult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivitySaint as patron - of a community
MiraclesMiracle after death
Miraculous protection - of communities, towns, armies
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesOther lay individuals/ people
Source
The anonymous text known under the title of The Life and Miracles of Thekla was written in the city of Seleucia-on-the-Calycadnum in the province of Isauria in southern Asia Minor around 470. It was certainly written before c. 476, which is approximately when Thekla's shrine outside Seleucia (modern Meriamlik/Ayatekla in Turkey) was monumentalised by the emperor Zeno (r. 474-491), since this activity is not mentioned in the text.The text consists of two parts: the first half is a paraphrased version of the second-century Acts of Paul and Thekla, a text which was widely known in Late Antiquity and translated into every early Christian language; this early text was rendered by our author into Attic Greek, and contains many minor changes to the original story, with one major change at the end: instead of dying at the age of 90 years, Thekla descends into the earth and performs miracles in and around the city of Seleucia in a spiritual state. The second half, from which this passage is drawn, comprises a collection of forty-six miracles, preceded by a preface and followed by an epilogue. It is written in a high literary style which distinguishes it among other hagiographical texts, which were typically composed in a low style of Greek.
The text was for a long time attributed to a 5th century bishop, Basil of Seleucia (fl. c. 448-468); but in 1974 Dagron demonstrated conclusively that the Miracles could not have been authored by Basil, since there is an invective directed against him in chapter 12. The anonymous author is himself the subject of a few miracles, including miraculous interventions on his behalf in ecclesiastical disputes.
Discussion
Selinous was on the southern coast of Asia Minor to the west of Seleucia (Dagron 1978: 359, n. 1).Bibliography
Edition:Dagron, G., Vie et miracles de sainte Thècle (Subsidia hagiographica 62; Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1978), with French translation.
Translations:
Johnson, S.F., Miracles of Saint Thekla, in : S.F. Johnson and A.-M. Talbot, Miracle Tales from Byzantium (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 12; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 1-201.
Festugière, A.-J., Collections grecques de Miracles: sainte Thècle, saints Côme et Damien, saints Cyr et Jean (extraits), saint Georges (Paris: Éditions A. et J. Picard, 1971).
Further reading:
Barrier, J., et al., Thecla: Paul's Disciple and Saint in the East and West (Leuven: Peeters, 2017).
Dagron, G., “L'auteur des Actes et des Miracles de Sainte Thècle,” Analecta Bollandiana, 92 (1974), 5–11.
Davis, S., The Cult of Saint Thecla: A Tradition of Women's Piety in Late Antiquity, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
Honey, L., “Topography in the Miracles of Thecla: Reconfiguring Rough Cilicia,” in: M.C. Hoff and R.F. Townsend (eds), Rough Cilicia: New Historical and Archaeological Approaches, Proceedings on an International Conference held at Lincoln,
Nebraska, October 2007 (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2013), 252–59.
Johnson, S.F., “The Life and Miracles of Thecla, a literary study” (University of Oxford, doctoral thesis, 2005).
Kristensen, T.M., "Landscape, Space and Presence in the Cult of Thekla in Meriamlik," Journal of Early Christian Studies 24:2 (2016), 229-263.
Pilhofer, Ph., Das frühe Christentum im kilikisch-isaurischen Bergland: die Christen der Kalykadnos-Region in den ersten fünf Jahrhunderten (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2018).
Julia Doroszewska
04/06/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00092 | Thekla, follower of the Apostle Paul | Θέκλα | Certain |
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