HAILSTORMS AND FIREBALLS:

REDACTION, WORLD CREATION, AND RESISTANCE

IN THE ACTS OF PAUL AND THECLA
Margaret P. Aytner
Union Theological Seminary
ABSTRACT
The Acts of Paul and Thecla is a redaction of two folk-tales, one centered
in Iconium, and the other in Antioch, into one story. It is illustrative of self-
definition and redaction as acts of resistance. Self-definition is resistance
in that it creates "otherness." It is a political act, distinguishing, as political
theorist Carl Schmitt notes, between friend and enemy. The redactor' s job,
in creating canon, is to unite myths and their underlying self-definitions,
into one unified whole that reflects them and redefines the "other." Thus the
redacted story reflects the cultures of both foundational groups and resists
simple definitions. By highlighting the two basic folktales upon which the
Acts of Paul and Thecla are based, this paper illustrates the resistance inherent
in self-definition and in redaction. And it resists current theories, which sug-
gest that Thecla is a protofeminist Christian type.
Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly...
Charles Wesley
1
I NTRODUCTI ON
The first young wo ma n of t he Iconi ans, engaged t o t he first young man,
s uddenl y st ops eat i ng a nd dr i nki ng; i nst ead, all day a nd all ni ght she sits
affixed at t he wi ndow, her at t ent i on dr a wn t o t he ma n i n t he hous e next
door. Thus rel at es t he nar r at or of t he ext racanoni cal Act s of Paul and Thecla
(APTh), a component par t of t he great er Act s of Paul, whi ch i n t ur n is one of
a numbe r of Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles.
2
l Charles Wesley, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," in Pilgrim Hymnal (Boston: The Pilgrim Press,
1965), 210.
21 am using, for the purpose of this paper, the short version of APTh. Ross Kraemer and Vir-
ginia Burrus have suggested that for future efforts, I might look at the longer version of this
text. I believe they are right to intimate that reading the longer version has implications for
how the text is to be interpreted. But it is precisely for that reason that I am using the shorter ver-
sion. By looking at the smaller case, the one in which only presumably three communities are
-45"
46
SEMEIA
What is the purpose of this text and texts such as this one? Is it properly
classified as a novel within the tradition of Greco-Roman novels (Pervo),
3
or
rather as an oral folk tale (Burrus; MacDonald, 1983)? And what does either
classification reveal about its use within a nascent Christian community or
communities? Was this tale used as a rhetorical device in order to glorify suf-
fering, with death as the ultimate "happy ending?" (Perkins: 15-40). Is it, as
Tertullian suggests, a pious legend perpetuated by some male presbyter out
of his love for Paul? (Rordorf ). Or is it a subversive, women-related, tale of
"autonomy through chastity" told within the confines of a widows' commu-
nity? (Burrus; MacDonald, 1983; Davies).
Writing this essay is, for me, an act of resistance against the latter group
of scholars who read this text as the work of a single, proto-feminist, second-
century community. These scholars ignore a parallel community, also evident
in APTh, comprised of dominant males and submissive but passionate fe-
males. Both communities of origin can be discerned at the first level of this
text, the folk tales. At the second level, the redaction, the frame of a nascent
house-church structure with male proto-presbyters is added. Also, the redac-
tor adds gender-bending re-definitions of three of the main characters. This
allows the redactor to superimpose a third level of readingthe Hellenistic
novel, appropriated and redefined, its themes of love and female passion
used "to think with" about Christian conversion (Brown, 1988:154).
This argument will constitute the first half of the essay. Having illus-
trated the richness of APTh, I will turn my attention to kinds of resistance
inherent in the text. I shall highlight three kinds of resistance evident in
APTh: the resistance of self-definition; the resistance of "biculturality"; and
the resistance of master-narrative appropriation.
4
The second half of this
essay will then reexamine the components of APTh to highlight the ways in
which they serve to render APTh as a rhetoric of resistance.
BUILDING BLOCKS: THE FOLK TALES IN APTH
Stevan Davies and Dennis Ronald MacDonald each argue that it is
most appropriate to classify the Apocryphal Acts, and APTh in particular, as
products of oral legend, that is, as folk tales. MacDonald presents nine char-
acteristics of oral folk tales that are clearly exhibited in the Apocryphal Acts in
general, and specifically in APTh. Oral folk tales: 1) begin calmly, not with
sudden excitement; 2) concentrate on one leading character; 3) contrast good
involved, one can make theoretical hypotheses which, at another time, can be tested on the
longer version.
3 For the counter-argument, see Holzberg.
4 In resisting a mono-faceted generating community for APTh, I am treating this text as a
"family member." As an immigrant citizen, I embody a kind of "both-and" biculturality that is
also evident in the text of APTh.
AYMER: HAILSTORMS AND FIREBALLS
47
characters with evil characters; 4) often contain undifferentiated twin char-
acters; 5) follow a "single strand" of narrative, rather than complex multiple
plots; 6) contain repetition; 7) use tableaux scenes in times of narrative climax;
8) close calmly; and 9) contain narrative inconsistencies because of their oral
transmission (MacDonald, 1983:26-33).
However, neither MacDonald nor Davies notices that APTh consists of
two such folk tales: Thecla in Iconium (hailstones) and Thecla in Antioch
(fireballs).
5
The Iconian folk tale is contained in APTh verses 7-10 and 15-22.
6
It begins when Thecla hears Paul's preaching and falls in love. This creates
the protagonist' s pair of Paul and Thecla. The antagonists are Theocleia,
Thecla's mother, and Thamyris, Thecla's betrothed. The latter pair attempts
to cure the "love-sick" Thecla, even throwing Paul into jail to do so. But
Thecla goes to the jail, and sits at Paul's feet swooning to his words. So,
Paul is cast out of the village as Theocleia calls for her daughter to be burned.
As young men and virgins bring the materials for Thecla's pyre, Thecla
finally sees her true lover, the Lord, in Paul's visage. As she mounts the pyre,
she makes the sign of the cross; God, intervening, douses the raging fire with
rain and hailstones.
Note the following characteristics of this first narrative. The women
are silent, yet passionate, actors. The men present the rational, oral argu-
ments. And, all charactersantagonists, protagonists, and even the chorus
are paired heterosexually. In Iconium, God is presented as vengeful, zeal-
ous, and self-sufficient. The Christ is God' s servant (, v. 17, following
Vouaux).
It is from this Iconian narrative that some of my disagreements with the
hypotheses of MacDonald and Davies emerge. Their insistence on a single
women' s community of origin for these texts leaves too many unanswered
questions. For example, neither scholar explains satisfactorily the role of
Theocleia, the mother of Thecla, in Thecla's condemnation to the pyre (v. 20).
According to MacDonald:
Theocleia's violent response to Thecla's desertion is understandable when
we keep in mind the economically precarious status of single women in
most ancient societies.[...] Theocleia apparently was a widow, and if Thecla
had married wealthy Thamyris, he would have supported his widowed
mother-in-law. But when Thecla runs off after Paul [. . .] her mother loses
both a child and a source of economic security. (MacDonald, 1983:51)
MacDonald seeks to secure this argument by noting that, at the end of
the narrative (v. 43), Thecla gives some money to her mother and her child.
5 For a point-by-point comparison of MacDonald' s folk tale characteristics with both of the
folk tales in APTh, see, Appendix A.
61 argue below that verses 1-6 and 11-14 are redactions.
4
8
SEMEIA
However, this hypothesis does not explain the presence of the "female ser-
vants" who weep upon the loss of a mistress in the beginning of the narra-
tive (v. 10), the keeper of the door whom Thecla bribes so as to get out, or his
fellow who informs on him (vv. 18, 19). This evidence suggests that neither
Thecla nor Theocleia is impoverished.
Further, it should be noted that, when they bring the wood and straw
for Thecla's pyre, the virgins of Iconium are accompanied by the young
men (v. 22), and that Paul's makarisms and the testimony of Demas suggest
a mixed audience of continent believers (vv. 5, 12). This is a portrayal of a
society including both men and women believers, rather than one made
entirely of women.
By contrast, the second narrative, verses 26-39, commences when
Thecla, walking in Antioch, is accosted by Alexander, the first man of the
Antiochenes. She resists him, even striking him, thus knocking off a ritual
headdress. Alexander drags her before the governor who sentences her to
die in the arena for sacrilege of the imperial cult. Remanded for sexual
safe-keeping to the care of Tryphaena, relative of Caesar, Thecla is revealed
to be an agent of God who can even pray for the redemption of the dead.
Throughout the narrative, there is female opposition to Thecla's treatment
at the hands of the governor and Alexander. In the arena, Thecla is cheered
by the women of Antioch and is even protected by a lioness. Finally, she
baptizes herself in a pool of human-attacking seals, and she emerges invul-
nerable to attack in a ball of flame. Upon her release, Thecla preaches to the
governor and to the women of the household of Tryphaena.
The moral division in the Antiochene tale is gender-based and serves
as the basis for Davies' and MacDonald's arguments. It is in this story, rather
than in the first, that the women are consistently good and the men are con-
sistently evil. The women have most of the speaking roles, and Thecla is a
powerful, holy woman capable of procuring eternal life for a dead woman by
means of prayer alone (v. 29). In contrast, the two true male characters, omit-
ting Paul for the moment, bring only death until threatened with their own
destruction (v. 36). The Christ emerges as central, described as a refuge, a
relief to the oppressed, a shelter, and most notably, God' s son (); God is
described as "the living" (v. 37).
Thus, it is apparent that APTh represents the folk tales of not one, but
two different communities with contrasting memberships, agendas, and
world-views. If the latter is, as scholars posit, a women' s community, the
former is both mixed in gender and decidedly male-dominated. They also
differ theologically and christologically. In retrospect, these contrasts are not
unusual in formative Christianity. Indeed, major differences in communi-
ties of origin exist among the books of the canonical New Testament. What
makes the differences between these stories particularly interesting is that
AYMER: HAILSTORMS AND FIREBALLS
49
someone attempted to gloss them by splicing these folk tales together into a
genre resembling the Hellenistic novel.
THE REDACTION, PART I: PIECES OF THE PUZZLE
7
"It would appear, . . ." argues MacDonald (1983:26), "that the written
text of the stories is a veneer laid over narrative structures and techniques
taken over from oral tradition." I suggest that this veneer was constructed by
a redactor. S/he adds several pieces to the Iconian and Antiochene folk tales
so that they may be read as one document. The largest of these is the frame
of Onesiphorus (vv. 2-15, 23-26, 42).
Onesiphorus is presented to the reader as the one who will show hos-
pitality to Paul. He goes with his wife and two children to meet Paul, sight
unseen, on the royal road to Lystra. Greeting Paul, Onesiphorus invites Paul
and his companions back to his house. Onesiphorus is portrayed as having
discernment, able to see in others the "fruit of righteousness" (v. 4).
The house of Onesiphorus becomes the locale for Paul's preaching while
in Iconium. As a result, all action in the first fifteen verses of the narrative
is set with reference to Onesiphorus' house: Thecla is next door; Demas
and Hermogenes in front, arguing; Paul inside. And yet, this is not crucial to
the plot of the first folk tale. Paul could be in anyone' s house and still have
Thecla next door and two men outside. The fact that the redactor names
Onesiphorus suggests that he has a certain significance.
After verse 15 and through both of Paul's trials, Onesiphorus disappears,
to reappear in a tomb outside of Iconium with his entire family (v. 23). With
Paul, the family members have been fasting for six days. One of Onesiph-
orus' children gets hungry and tells Paul who sends him to market to buy
bread. There the child meets the newly-released Thecla and brings her back
to Paul. Onesiphorus, with Paul, rejoices to see Thecla. They break bread to-
gether and share the ritual meal. Paul turns down two separate requests from
Thecla: the first to follow him and the second to be baptized. Then Paul
sends Onesiphorus and his family home.
The final time Onesiphorus is mentioned is in verse 42. Upon her return
to Iconium, before she even goes to her mother' s home, Thecla makes a stop
at the house of Onesiphorus, where she throws herself down weeping and
offering her thanksgiving. Only after this does Thecla return home to preach
to her mother.
For the redactor, the role of Onesiphorus seems to be that of the spon-
sor of an assembly (). In the redacted text, he serves as a proto-
7 For a chart detailing the redacted additions to the folk tales of APTh, see Appendix B.
50
SEMEIA
presbyter: one who hosts the church, gives hospitality to the wandering
preacher, and to whose house Thecla feels the need to return. Yet, he has
no real power or jurisdiction in the text over any person in the text, except,
perhaps, those in his family. So he is not a true elder. The house of Hermias
in Myra, which the redactor mentions briefly, is a parallel to the house
of Onesiphorus. However, Tryphaena, with all of her faith and despite the
conversion of her house, does not have similar traffic in her house. Part of
what the redactor is establishing, then, is the framework of the male proto-
presbyter, evidence of a nascent male political structure within this church
community.
Two others are added to the redactor' s narrativethe twin characters
Demas and Hermogenes. Despite the part that they play in the Iconian folk
tale, they are not crucial to that narrative. Rather, Demas and Hermogenes,
as an unrighteous duo, represent a Christian community that disagrees with
the redactor' s community on the fundamental theology of the resurrection.
The redactor uses them as a foil to Paul. Onesiphorus questions their righ-
teousness; and later, with Thamyris they prove that they are enemies of Paul
and of Paul's community, both in their actions and in their theological con-
structions.
In addition to persons, the redactor has added a list of makarisms as an
embellishment on the theme of continence which was central to her/ hi s com-
munity (vv. 5-6). Thus, those that are blessed are "those keeping the flesh
pure," "the continent," "those having wives as if they did not have them,"
and indeed, very explicitly, "the bodies of virgins" (vv. 5-6). This addition
serves to express explicitly the one belief shared by these two disparate com-
munities, that the Christian life is one of continence and self-denial.
Similarly, the redactor uses two of the added Onesiphorus sections to in-
troduce into the narrative a ritual of communal bread-breaking and sharing.
In the first instance, the breaking of bread is a thanksgiving for the safe ar-
rival of Paul and precedes his sermon in the house of Onesiphorus ( v. 5). In
the second, it is a meal of thanksgiving for the safe arrival of Thecla (v. 25).
Accompanied by vegetables and water (rather than wine), and once again
including Onesiphorus and his family, it serves as a community ritual of joy
in having come together. Thus, the redactor appends to the story from each
originating community a shared ritual of thanksgiving.
Finally, the redactor plays gender games with the main characters of the
folk tales. Two instances of this are the reformation of Theocleia at th end of
the redactor' s story and the description of Paul at its beginning.
In the first folk tale, Theocleia is an unequivocally wicked character. She
and Thamyris serve as the foils of Paul and Thecla. Indeed, she condemns
her daughter to death. What then about Theocleia is worth reclaiming in the
eyes of the redactor? To better understand this, a brief excursus into gender
portrayal is in order.
AYMER: HAILSTORMS AND FIREBALLS
51
Richard Baer, Jr. (39), notes that for Philo women epitomize sense-
perception () rather than the more rational intellect (vo). Since the
latter is preferable, it behooves women to take on this masculine quality. One
way in which women can do this is by "changing into a virgin," that is, by
abandoning the world of sense-perception with all of its desires, sex in-
cluded (Baer: 51). The widow is like a virgin "because she is widowed of the
passions which corrupt and maltreat the mind" (Baer: 53). Thus, Theocleia,
the widow, is redeemable, and is redeemed by the redactor, because she is
able to recapture that state of virginity which is "blessed."
8
Similarly Thecla,
the virgin, after consummating her love with the Christ at her baptism, cuts
her hair, dresses in man' s clothing, and becomes a "man" of God. She, too,
crosses over from sense-perception to intellect.
In a different way the redactor plays games with Paul's physical appear-
ance, which is most pleasing.
9
Malina and Neyrey (129) note that Paul is
described as a military general: short, with bent legs, and bald (v. 3). His eye-
brows that meet and his hooked nose are both desirable characteristics of
a warrior. And where a general is full of heart ( ), Paul is said
to be full of grace ( ). Malina and Neyrey (146) argue that "the
portrait of Paul, while consonant with a military figure, is first and foremost
that of a noble or ideal male. He is essentially masculine and virile accord-
ing to the conventions of antiquity." Ironically, it is this very ideal male who
preaches continence throughout APTh.
These five additions are the mortar with which the redactor holds to-
gether this mosaic. As with other mosaics, close examination reveals slight
flaws, the most glaring of which are Paul's return to Antioch in verse 26 after
his escape from Antioch in the beginning of the narrative, and Thecla's ac-
companiment of Paul to Antioch, after he has just refused her that right in
the preceding verse. These flaws notwithstanding, this construction, like a
mosaic, holds together as a single work. In order to see it, however, one must
step back from the detail of the added pieces to examine the entire "mosaic"
of the narrative.
THE REDACTION, PART II: ADDING THE NOVEL
One of the ongoing arguments regarding this and other Apocryphal Acts
is whether this text can be classified as a novel. Representative of the position
of classicists is Niklas Holzberg. Holzberg describes the plot of a typical Hel-
lenistic novel in this manner:
81 will discuss further the ways in which the redactor uses sexuality and continence when I
discuss below the larger story that the redactor is telling.
9 For much of this argument, I rely on Malina and Neyrey: 100-152.
52
SEMEIA
The main characters in the story are a young man and a young girl
[stell] from distinguished families and of incomparable beauty; either as
newly-weds or after their betrothal they set out on a long journey to far-off
lands and undergo, together or separately, a series of, in the main, harrow-
ing experiences. The most frequent cause of their tribulations is a mutual
pledge of unswerving fidelity. [. . .] they are frequently in danger of being
murdered [...]. The favored setting for these adventures is Asia Minor and
the Near East [...]. At the end of their ordeals they are reunited and return
home to live thereafter a life of complete bliss. On occasion there are one or
more deities at work (9-10)
Holzberg dismisses APTh and other Apocryphal Acts out of hand for
consideration as novels. His definition of "the novel" is restricted to those
texts which he terms "idealistic," on the one hand, and "comic-realistic" on
the other. These texts, he states, "share a certain ideological framework" that
"reflects their author' s attitudes toward the particular social and political
situation of their age." "And," he continues, "the way in which the authors
of the comic-realistic novels react to the picture of life drawn in those idealis-
tic novels bears the unmistakable marks of an ideological dispute" between
them and the idealistic authors (11). In contrast, Holzberg argues, the Apoc-
ryphal Acts
cannot be included in the genre 'ancient novel' because they represent more
properly the beginnings of its reception and influence.... The variations on
the theme of the lovers beset by misfortunes demonstrate alone that here the
ideological climate has undergone a radical change. [. . .] However, it is
equally obvious that this transposition takes the texts beyond the bounds set
by a literary tradition which had risen out of a specific socio-political situ-
ation [that is the Roman conquest of the Hellenistic world] and then grown
under circumstances which remained comparable. (Holzberg: 34)
The latter argument is somewhat specious, for it presumes that only two
"novelistic" traditions could possibly emerge from the Roman takeover,
completely ignoring other fictional responses of those communities that were
not totally "Hellenized," either in belief or in language. Further, Holzberg at-
tempts to define literary genre by ideology rather than by structure. While
he does not fail to see the marked similarity between the Apocryphal Acts
and the ancient novels, he rejects them primarily because of their Chris-
tian content, which is very different from the pagan novels with their pan-
theon of deities. For Holzberg, it is not that the Apocryphal Acts are devoid
of fictional critiques of the socio-political life. It is, rather, that they critique
popular religious practice along with it.
Richard Pervo, an early Christianity scholar, represents the other side of
this argument. Unlike Holzberg, he does not see this evidence as a reason to
dismiss APTh as a novel. Pervo argues,
AY MER: HAILSTORMS AND FIREBALLS
53
The ApocActs are novels not because they share, on balance, sufficient
motifs with Chariton and Heliodorus, but because they are novels: the prod-
ucts of an extended narrative designed by an author who has welded vari-
ous sources and forms into a unified whole. Like most ancient novels they
are historical fictions. Their service to a particular group and creed may set
them apart, but this could be a somewhat deceiving conclusion. (244)
I take some exception to Pervo's classification of APTh as a novel per se, as I
do Holzberg's out-of-hand dismissal of such. Thecla is a brief tale and much
less complex than the longer Hellenistic novels. However, it is clear that the
redactor intends to appropriate two aspects of the novelistic plotthat of the
besieged lovers who are faithful to each other and are reunited in the end,
and that of the erotic power which underlies the novel.
Judith Perkins (41-76) calls the first of these two novelistic aspects "mar-
riage as a happy ending." She asserts that novels served to reinforce the
symbolic universe of the Roman world, in which legitimate marriage be-
tween two Romans was an ideal to be reached at whatever cost. The redactor
of APTh, seems, at first, to appropriate this central story of the Hellen-
istic world. As a typical Hellenistic novel, the protagonists of the Acts of Paul
and Thecla are beautiful people: Paul, the ideal male, as shown above; and
Thecla, a beauty whose imminent destruction causes the condemning gover-
nor to weep (v. 34). Throughout the narrative, Paul and Thecla are continent,
showing "unswerving fidelity," although like the main characters in a novel,
they are separated. And, as in a typical Hellenistic novel, they return to each
other chaste. Ironically, however, their chastity becomes a means to fictive
kinship, rather than to marriage. Thecla, in essence, becomes an ,
Paul's brother.
10
The redactor also appropriates the erotic power of the novel. For it is
clear that Thecla is experiencing many of the classic signs of having fallen
in love. The redactor reports that Thecla is not eating, drinking, or sleeping
(vv. 7-8), and she follows Paul everywhere, even to prison (vv. 18-19). These
are symptoms similar to those found in ancient Greek novels.
11
But the cure
for Thecla's love-sickness does not seem to lie in finding Paul, but in the bap-
tism which she self-administers in the stadium. After this event, Paul's fears
10 Although this is not present in the text, an argument can be made for the accuracy here of
the masculine, rather than the feminine . Thecla is no longer a woman, in the sense that
she is a threat to Paul's continence. Her hair is cut. Her identity is changed. She, like Maximilla in
Acts of Andrew, has become a man. For more on this see R. Rodman' s "Who' s on Third?" in this
volume.
11 For example, note this scene from the Greek novel Daphnis and Chloe by Longus: "Her
heart ached; her eyes wandered uncontrollably; she kept repeating ' Daphnis.' She took no inter-
est in food; she lay awake at night; she disregarded her flock . . . " (294) and so on. Compare this
to Thecla's trance, her night-wandering, her searching for Paul even as she is condemned to be
burned.
54
SEMEIA
of her love-sickness are abated when she tells him she has received the water
(v. 40). So it appears that Thecla's passion has been sated, but not by Paul.
This, then, is the source of Holzberg and Pervo's disagreement. How can
a story be a novel and not result in a marriage? And yet, how can one dis-
miss the clear influences of the novel on this and other Apocryphal Acts?
What is the redactor trying to do in this story? One way for me to better
understand this is to remember the words of my fifth-grade science teacher:
"For every action, there is a equal and opposite reaction." That reaction,
whether in science or in the ancient world, is resistance.
Two UNIVERSES OF IDEAS: SELF-DEFINITION AS RESISTANCE
At least three forms of resistance present themselves in APTh. The first is
the resistance inherent in self-definition, especially self-definition as pre-
sented in the stories a community tells to itself and about itself. According to
Henri Desrosche (152), to find the origin of these ideas one has to go to the
world of the imaginary, the collective imaginary, in which a community
through ideas which manifest themselves in a number of ways, including
ritual, song, and storyconstitutes for itself a consciousness. This collective
consciousness links itself to a collective imagination by means of a collec-
tive memory. Such a memory is "constituted," and moreover is "constitu-
tive," for through it, and because of it, active forces are unleashed. In their
pre-' script' -ural form, folk tales and other oral narratives are a part of this
collective (Desroche: 153). When they are finally "scripted" these same
stories become a part of a "universal" memory; their forms become part of
a written "canon" of some collective whole, in the same way that the legend
of John Chapman has become a part of the "canon" in the United States as
the story of Johnny Appleseed.
Oral and scripted legends, when they are about extraordinary persons
like Johnny Appleseed or Thecla, can become hagiographies. For the consti-
tutive force behind the collected consciousness of a community (sometimes
called "belief" or "faith") is strong enough to "construct" saints, regardless
of historical verification, by force of collective memory. As P. Delooz states
more or less all the saints appear to be constructed saints in that, being nec-
essarily saints because of a reputation made by others, and because of the
role expected of them by others, they are remodeled at the level of collective
mental representations. (7-8, cited in Desroche: 155)
This implies that, for the purpose of this essay, it matters little whether Thecla
was historically present at any time. Through their collective memories, at
least two communities of women and/ or men chose to construct her story
as analogous to their own. And, through the telling, retelling, and the even-
AYMER: HAILSTORMS AND FIREBALLS
55
tuai "scripting" of her story, they kept it as part of the collective "universal
memory" of their community.
John Gager calls that which is constructed by the ideas of one com-
munity a "world." By "world" he means those socially constructed concepts
of "reality, duties, social roles, etc." that we perceive as eternal (9). Margaret
MacDonald concurs. Using the theories of Berger and Luckmann, she speaks
of the Pauline writings as a symbolic universe: "The projection of the thought
of a certain New Testament community" (11). This universe both shapes and
is shaped by the community from which it comes, "reinforc[ing its] social
structures . . . and being reinforced by them" (MacDonald, 1988:11). Such
mutual reinforcement is what Gager (9) calls "world-maintenance."
The two folk tales of APTh, then, represent two constructed and main-
tained worlds, symbolic universes, each of which reinforces the beliefs and
the practices of the community from which it emerges. Through their collec-
tive imaginations, these two communities chose to construct Thecla's story,
as part of their canon, and by doing that to construct their own stories of self-
definition.
Self-definition is resistance in that it creates "otherness." It constitutes
"the specific political distinction to which . . . actions and motives can be
reduced: . . . that between friend and enemy" (Schmitt: 26). Thus, in Iconium,
Thecla and all those who listen to Paul and turn to the continent life are
friends. Thamyris, Theocleia, and all of those men and women who try to
hinder the continent life are enemies. In contrast, the enemies of the Anti-
ochene community, thus, of the continent life, are entirely masculine; and this
gender division also extends beyond the realm of humanity into the animal
kingdom. In addition, the "outside world," which upholds the conventions
of marriage and desire, and supports the imperial cult, that is, the world out-
side of the , this world is "other" to both the Iconian and the Anti-
ochene communities. By creating a story of a moral ideal, the originators of
the Iconian and Antiochene folk tales draw for themselves moral boundaries
outside of which they will not step. And, through their representations of
Thecla, they accept as a moral responsibility whatever political consequences
emerge from not crossing those boundaries.
"BICULTURALITY": RESISTING THE SIMPLE STORY
The combining of these two folk tales into one unit, then, suggests a
joining of worlds and world-views, a re-creation by redaction. The redactor' s
job, in recreating canon, is to unite their myths, their self-definitions, into one
unified whole that reflects them and redefines the "other." Thus, the redacted
story is similar to the double consciousness, the "both-and" biculturality of
the immigrant citizen. It resists simple definitions.
56
SEMEIA
Fernando Segovia notes that we persons of the Caribbean basin who
have emigrated to this country have a unique perspective on the world.
Having emerged from two worlds, we find ourselves in a paradox. "While
our . . . situation does mean having no place to stand, it also means having
two places on which to stand" (Segovia: 65). It is in the process of re-creating
the self and the other that we learn the fine art of negotiating two divergent
situations to create a clumsy synthesis within our bodies, a synthesis which
is at once volatile and stable.
Biculturality, however, is necessarily tempered by the imperfections of
both imperfect cultural systems. The redactor has to balance these imper-
fections, as well as to highlight commonalties and differences. So s / he has
to stand with a foot in each world, and create in that place a clumsy syn-
thesis of the male-dominated Iconium and the female-dominated Antioch.
Like Thecla, s/ he must learn and struggle, and come to the synthesis which
emerges out of a fiery passion, and an immersion in one' s first love.
In practice, this standing between two communities creates a nascent
male-dominated world order. Perhaps, it is the redactor' s concession to help
to make sense of a world being turned sideways. So, the narrative keeps
one foot in Iconium. The apostle is still the primary source of the evangel.
And the head of the churches that meet in homes still seems to be a man, as
Onesiphorus and Hermias show.
At the same time, a foot stands in Antioch. Virgin women and widows are
unleashed with charismatic power into the community. Like the apostle, they
can go forth and preach. For they have with them the ultimate "man," their
lover and their pattern, God' s son. The freedom that its women have puts this
community at odds with its contemporaries. D. MacDonald, in arguing for
exclusive female authorship, makes a case for conflict between the APTh com-
munity as redacted and that of the pastoral epistles (1983:54-77). He points
out the probability that APTh (or at least its foundational folk tales), along
with the other acts of Paul, was the source of great antagonism; he also argues
that it became the catalyst for the composition of the pseudonymous pastorals
which restricted the power and voice of women and their stories.
12
This may well have been the case. Nevertheless, APTh is neither solely a
women' s nor a men' s text. It carries the "both-and-ness" of its generating
stories: the masculinity of Iconium as well as the feminine power of Antioch.
As a bicultural entity, it resists simple definition.
A NEW HAPPY ENDING: RESISTANCE AND THE MASTER NARRATIVE
If the first job of the redactor is to resist the "outside world" of "others,"
and the second is to create a bicultural unity out of two divergent groups that
12 Other arguments also are canonized into the final redaction. Two of these are the one
against the imperial cult, and the one against the theology of "Demas and Hermogenes."
AYMER: HAILSTORMS AND FIREBALLS
57
defied simple definitions, then the third is to use the very tools of the era, in
this case the novel, to accomplish both of these previous tasks.
Sociologist Barbara Harlow notes that resistance literature of the twen-
tieth century, whether written under occupation or in exile, "presupposes
a people' s collective relationship to a common land, a common identity, or
a common cause." Some sort of "' occupying power ' . . . has either exiled or
subjugated" this people, and has intervened in the people' s "literary and cul-
tural development." Because of this, popular "literature" becomes "an arena
of struggle" (Harlow: 2). And popular literature, which in twentieth-century
movements often consists of the press and propaganda, "can . . . become a
means in the hands of the resistance which will wrest back from the repres-
sive authorities the control over cultural production," even if the majority of
the resistance is illiterate (Harlow: 12).
Narrative, and especially narrative fiction, plays an important role in this
resistance. It appropriates and challenges the "master narratives of society
those ideological paradigms which contain within their plots a prede-
termined end" (Harlow: 78). So it is also with the redacted version of APTh.
Both in its explicit resistance of the "master narrative" of marriage as the
happy ending and in its implicit co-optation of that same "master narrative"
as a paradigm of conversion, APTh serves as a novelistic resistance literature,
one which defies the Roman idealization of marriage.
Explicitly, the redactor of APTh appropriates the "master narrative" of
the novel to herald the life of the sexually continent. S/ he sets out a parallel
structure to that of the novel, with a male-female protagonist pair, Paul and
Thecla, who are separated from each other yet remain faithful. However,
whereas in the Hellenistic novels marriage is the goal, in APTh, celibacy,
at first seems to be, in itself, the end. The resistance underlying APTh is the
very explicit valuing of continence over all other sexual interactions, includ-
ing normally legitimate marriage.
Although this elevation of sexual continence resists the dominant cul-
tural strain, it is not unusual within religious circles. As previously stated,
the ideal for the female convert is the reversion to virginity. As Richard Baer,
Jr., puts it, "when souls become divinely inspired, from (being) women they
become virgins, throwing off the womanly corruptions which are (found) in
sense-perception and passion" (55). Using this as a model, then, the explicit
supertext of the APTh is that Paul helps Thecla to become a man, by con-
vincing her to remain a virgin committed to the religious life. This is why,
after she is baptized, Thecla changes into men' s clothes and cuts her hair
(v. 40). And yet, the eroticism and the love-sickness which Thecla exhibits
until her baptism deny the simple conclusion that celibacy is indeed the
end, or that there is no marriage in APTh. It is clear, however, that Thecla's
love is not Paul, the redactor' s ideal man.
In order to identify Thecla's lover, the reader has to return with the
redactor to the open window in Iconium. What has so captivated Thecla is
58
SEMEIA
not Paul, but Paul's words, those about faith in Christ. It is because of these
words that she will not budge from this window for three days and nights
(v. 7). Thecla's sojourn in the prison with Paul is similar: she sat at his feet
and heard the great deeds of God (v. 18). It is "the Lord" that appears to her
in Paul's visage before she is to ascend the pyre; God, who takes pity on her
and sends the hail and rain (vv. 21-22). This fits nicely with the Antiochene
folk tales in which God' s son is the "good man" who saves Thecla. Thecla's
desire is finally fulfilled at the climactic baptism scene where she gives her-
self wholly to her "lover," and emerges a changed being, invulnerable to any
attack (v. 34) The marriage is completed and she has been made perfectly ac-
ceptable to her new family (v. 40).
Thus, APTh goes beyond using the narrative of the novel to uphold
celibacy. It holds up marriage, but a specific kind of marriage, that between
the believer and the Christ. If one views Thecla as the ideal convert, then this
becomes an example of using a woman "to think with." For if becoming a
virgin is one way for a woman to move toward a more perfect way of living
the masculine equivalent is "the divine impregnation of the s o u l . . . In this
context it is God . . . that plays the active, dominant, male role, and man who
is receptive and passive" (Baer: 55). Thecla is used by the redactor as the
quintessential "lover" of Christ, who falls in love with the beautiful one, goes
through many trials to be with her lover, and finally is able to consummate
that love.
But as perfect convert, Thecla does not only remain a model for women.
Remember, at least one male-dominated community told her story also as
a sacred myth. So, men too must become like the virgin Thecla, fall in love
with God' s son, and finally consummate that relationship in baptism. If
Paul's role is to turn Thecla into a man, then Thecla's role as the ideal convert
is to help men to become women before God.
CREATIVE RESISTANCE
One of the most important lessons that APTh teaches about resistance
is that resistance is not merely reactive. Indeed, resistance can be quite pro-
active and creative, both of intended constructions as well as those which
it unintentionally constructs. For example, APTh intentionally constructs a
world in which continence is key, regardless of what the Hellenistic world
might presuppose. It intentionally constructs a world in which the parousia
is still to come, and in which Demas and Hermogenes are pariah. Legal
sociologists Alan Hunt and Gary Wickham call this "the mechanism of the
sacred. This mechanism operates by making some objects or practices sacred
and others profane" (96) in an attempt to bind a society together.
But as is evident from the process of redaction and reconfiguration
through which APTh has gone, "the content of the sacred and profane is not
AYMER: HAILSTORMS AND FIREBALLS
59
fixed" (Hunt and Wickham: 96). Thus, the "othering" at the folk tale stages
of these Thecla stories changes at this stage of the narration, and must nec-
essarily change again as more stories are added on to create the extended
narration. At each stage, the collection, as well as each of its parts, is repre-
sentative of some type of resistance, some kind of self re-creation, some
biculturality, some appropriation. The new community redefines itself, re-
sisting older definitions to stand in a new "both-and" place.
So, returning to my original resistance, I reassert that APTh is prob-
ably not the work solely of some proto-feminist communitywhich does
not mean that I do not believe there was a women' s community, or even more
than one, involved in the writing and redacting of the stories surround-
ing this constructed saint. Rather, using my bicultural stance to think with,
I argue that Thecla was a heroine to both genders and to at least two diver-
gent communities. Some of what they wrote and imagined of her life rang
true and became part of APTh. Some was told by word of mouth only, and
if written down, is now lost. Some rings true for the late twentieth-century
in the Western academic world. Some parts of it didn' t even make sense for
its period. All of it is, finally, an act of world-construction, of self-definition,
of cultural appropriation, of resistance. And, as Foucault notes: "One does
not have to maintain that these confused voices sound better than the others
and express the ultimate truth. . . . It is sufficient that they exist and they
have against them so much which is set up to silence t hem. . . " (cited in Hunt
and Wickham: 32).
6
SEMEIA
APPENDIX A
This appendix highlights the major characteristics of folk tales as seen in APTh.
Note, also, the parameters of the two separate folk tales.
Characteristics of
Folk Tales
13
Iconian Folk Tale
APTh 7-10,15-22
Antiochene Folk Tale
APTh 26-39
1. begin calmly,
not with sudden
excitement
2. concentrate on
one leading
character
3. contrast good
characters with
evil characters
4. contain
undifferentiated
twin characters
5. follow a
single strand of
narrative
6. contain
repetition
7. use tableaux
scenes in times of
narrative climax
8. close calmly
Thecla is sitting by the
window of her house,
when she hears Paul
in the house next door
Thecla
Thecla and Paul:
good
Theocleia and
Thamyris: evil
virgins and young
men who bring wood
to Thecla's pyre
Thecla falling in
love with the Lord
Thecla's silence
under questioning
Paul's questioning
by the governor
Thecla on the pyre
(omitted by the
redactor, in order
to join the two stories)
(omitted by the
redactor, in order to join
the two stories)
Thecla
Thecla and
Tryphaena: good
Alexander and the
governor: evil
none
Thecla, Tryphaena, and the
women of Antioch oppose
Alexander, the governor,
and the imperial cult
repeated trials in
the arena
repeated protestations
by the women
use of and
the scene in the
arena is a series
of tableaux scenes
in the house of
Tryphaena
13 McDonald, 1983:26-
AYMER: HAILSTORMS AND FIREBALLS 61
APPENDIX
An Outline of APTh Highlighting the Additions of the Redactor
Others (v. 1) Demas and Hermogenes introduced. Paul is coming from Anti-
och, trying to win them over.
FRAME (V. 2-3A, 4) ONESIPHORUS AND HIS FAMILY GO TO MEET
PAUL.
Gender (v. 3b) Paul is described as a Roman general, the ideal male.
EUCHARIST (V. 5A) EUCHARISTIC FEAST AT THE HOUSE OF ONESIPH-
ORUS
Makarisms (vv. 5b-6) Paul's makarisms on continence
ICONIAN FOLK TALE (VV. 7-10)
Others (vv. 11-14) Demas and Hermogenes inserted. Actions have no bearing
on final outcome of the story
ICONIAN FOLK TALE (W. 15-22)
FRAME (V. 23-24) ONESIPHORUS AND FAMILY REINTRODUCED,
WITH PAUL, FASTING AND PRAYING FOR THECLA.
ONESIPHORUS' CHILD FINDS THECLA IN THE MARKET
PLACE, AND THERE IS A REUNION.
EUCHARIST (V. 25A) CELEBRATORY EUCHARISTIC MEAL OF BREAD,
WATER, AND VEGETABLES.
FRAME (V. 25B) AWKWARD TRANSITION, IN WHICH REDACTOR
RETURNS ONESIPHORUS AND HIS FAMILY HOME, AND
THECLA AND PAUL END UP IN ANTIOCH, ALTHOUGH
HE HAS REFUSED HER THE PRIVILEGE OF FOLLOW-
ING HIM.
ANTIOCHENE FOLK TALE (VV. 26-39)
(Note: Paul is immaterial and quickly disappears.)
Gender (v. 40-41) Thecla cross-dresses as a man, is accepted as a be-
liever, and is sent to teach.
FRAME (V. 42) THECLA RETURNS TO HOUSE OF ONESIPHORUS
TO GIVE THANKS
Theocleia is redeemed.
^ s
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