Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Thecla's Self-Baptism in The Life of Thecla (fifth century)

  

Thecla Baptizes Herself

 

20 1Although this first ordeal was rebuffed, right away a throne of many even more ferocious beasts charged at Thecla. But that martyr’s mind was not occupied with fear of the beasts and with their growling: she was entirely focused on her prayer. I think that, as she prayed in interior silence, she used words like these:

 

THECLA: PRAYER TO CHRIST

 

2”My master Christ, how great is my gratitude to you for your counsel and purpose for me that, although I was a girl, still cloistered and unknown to many, kept for marriage to Thamyris, you led me forth through your own Paul, and you then found me worthy of your seal and grace through him; 3you gave me a taste of labors and dangers on your behalf, in Iconium through the fire and here through these many untamed beasts; you have displayed me in public in the arena, not losing sight of my salvation but exercising my faith in you and my purpose. 4For all of this, not yet worthily, I thank you al the same that I have been found by you wholly worthy of these sufferings and brandings. 5Since I see the Enemy, still great and oppressive, always adding more and more to my dangers, I have been afraid since I am weak by nature and worn down by these evil acts, that I shall grow sluggish in the face in what remains of the struggle and perhaps stay uninitiated and without my crown and—what’s more difficult—that I shall slip away from your kingdom. 6If you see fit, cloak me at last in death: release me from this fear by baptism through death; release them from their toil against me. If I give up my life then they will give up entirely the violence and tyranny against me.”

 

7When she was saying these things (as seems likely), she turned by chance and saw a pool and water and seals swimming in it, beasts who were themselves sea-going and man-eating and which had likewise been prepared for Thecla’s punishment. 8Calling out a few brief words to Christ, and so saying: “In your name, Lord, I am baptized on my last day!” she lept into this water, desiring at least the consummation of death and release to Christ. 9When this was accomplished, the whole public resounded and rebuked this strange and fatal audacity: to plunge headlong and recklessly into the water that so clearly held death from the seals. 10While this is what the virgin welcomed gladly, only so that she might meet with the consummation in Christ, the whole populace keened at this—too foolhardly and horrible!—and showered the animal spectacle with tears like snow. 11But the martyr was not overlooked: For suddenly a heavenly fire flashed up and fell upon the waters; it removed from the beasts their ability to act and it cloaked Thecla, who was naked, and provided for her the necessity of a private chamber. (The Life of Thecla, ch. 20, in The Life of Thecla: Apocryphal Expansion in Late Antiquity [trans. Andrew S. Jacobs; Early Christian Apocrypha 11; Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2024], 81-82)