Thecla

This book is a collection of studies about the fascinating figure of Thecla and the development of her cult in East and West. The volume starts with a series of four studies that trace her cult and its literary manifestations from late Antiquity to Byzantine times. We follow her cult from Asia Minor, through Syria, to Turfan in modern Western China, although the autonomy and uniqueness of Thecla was often suppressed in these new localities. From the East we move to the West where her figure appears in Latin texts and a previously unpublished Arabic version of the 'Acts of Paul and Thecla'. Subsequently, three chapters analyse representations of Thecla in Turkish Ayatekla (ancient Seleucia), in the grotto of St Paul in Ephesus and in Coptic iconography. From the East we then move back to the West, particularly to Spain. Thecla's cult was brought from Asia Minor via Armenia to Tarragona, where it remains alive today. The last two chapters look at the historiographical trajectories of the 'Acts of Paul and Thecla' and the testimonies of the Christian martyrs, respectively. As has become customary, the volume concludes with an extensive bibliography and detailed index-- Source other than Library of Congress.