Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology and all later martyrologies, Sarum, York, Hereford, &c. By the Greeks on Sept. 24. In some later martyrologies also on Feb. 22 as martyr at Nicomedia. All the Acts of S. Thecia are fabulous. They exist in Greek, Syriac, and Latin. According to Tertullian they were composed by an Asiatic priest to do honour to S. Paul.1 S. Jerome held them as apocryphal.2] Unfortunately, as they stand, the Acts of S. Thecia cannot be trusted. They were composed by a priest in Asia to do honour to S. Paul. They may be condensed into a few words. Thecia, daughter of pagan parents in Iconium, heard S. Paul preach as she sat at her chamber window, and refused after that to listen to the advances of her betrothed, Thamyris.

She ran away from home after S. Paul to Seleucia. A 1 Dc baptismo, c. 17. "Quod si, qui Pauli perperam scripta legant, exemplum Theclze ad licentiam mulierum docendi tingendique defendunt, sriant in Asia presbyterum qui earn scripturam construxit quasi titulo Pauli de suo cumulans, convictum atque confessum id se a more Pauli fecisse, loco decessisse.” 2 Catal. Script. Ecclcs. " Periodicum Pauli ct Theclae et totam baptizati Leonis fabulam inter apocryphas scripturas computanus.” Liber ins.

native of that place tried to kiss her in the street, and she tore the clothes off his back in return for his salute. The man accused her before the governor, and she was exposed to wild beasts, which, however, would not touch her. She then jumped into a pond full of seals and porpoises, and baptized herself. All the sea-monsters in the pond died when she jumped in. After that she escaped, and followed S. Paul everywhere, dressed in boy’s clothes. She was then aged eighteen. When S. Paul left for Rome, she was led by a shining cloud to a cave, where she spent seventy years. The recomposed Acts of Thecla certainly embody early and genuine Acts that date back to subapostolic times. See Ramsay, “The Church in the Roman Empire,” 1895.