The Martyrdom of Thecla

“On this, my last day, I baptize myself in the name of Jesus Christ,” uttered the beautiful first-century C.E. virgin Thecla as she was about to be devoured by beasts, according to the second-century C.E. Acts of Paul and Thecla.

Legend has it that Thecla (shown in this limestone plaque, which is 25 inches in diameter), who was from the city of Iconium, in southeast Anatolia, had been condemned for refusing to marry and for embracing the cult of Christ. She then became a missionary and followed the apostle Paul in his peregrinations in the mid-first century C.E. When she reached Antioch, the region’s highest-ranking official, the Syriarch, mistook her for a prostitute and pursued her. Since Thecla claimed to be a Christian, the Syriarch decided to have her killed by wild beasts. In the amphitheater, women sympathetic to Thecla put the lions to sleep with perfumes. When Thecla leapt into beast-infested waters, lightning electrocuted the creatures.

Eventually, Thecla settled down a few miles from Seleucia Pieria, Antioch’s port-city. There she lived in the mountains above the city for 70 years, curing the sick and exorcising demons. But her trials were not over: After pagan men from a nearby town tried to rape her, she mysteriously vanished into the wall of her cave.