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ST. THECLA 245 her bouse and promised to make her her heiress. Thecla rested with hex for eight days, and taught her all the commandments of God, and Tryphena and many of her servants believed in God. Thecla meantime sent and in- quired where St. Paul bad gone, and hearing that he was at Myra, she deter- mined to go thither. She dressed her- self as a man, and taking with her some of Tryphena's maids and several other persons, went to him and told him and his friends all tbat had hap- pened, and they all prayed for Queen Tryphena. Then Thecla returned to Iconium. There she found that Thamyris, to whom she had been betrothed, was dead; but she went to her mother and told her all the wonderful dangers and deliverances that had befallen her ; she entreated her to believe in the one God, and said to her, If thou lovest wealth and gold and silver that perish, lo, they are given unto thee from this hour," for the queen had given Thecla a great supply of gold and precious raiment ; but if thou wilt believe in the one true God, thou shalt be able to live and to learn all that I toll thee." The Syriac version ends by say- ing that when she had testified these things, she went from Iconium to Scleucia and there she enlightened many persons and lay down to sleep in a quiet resting-place. The Greek Acts, however, go on to say that, being afraid of the people of Se- leucia, because they were idolaters, she went out of the city to a mountain called Calamon or Eodeon, and there many noble women joined her and led a holy celibate life and persons afflicted with any sort of disease resorted to her to be cured, so that all the physicians were filled with envy and the devil tempted them to conspire against her. They thought her power was derived from the goddess Diana, who would cease to cure the sick or work other wonders for her if her purity were destroyed ; so they hired some wicked men, made them half-drunk and promised them a great sum of money; but when they arrived at her dwelling- place and told her what they had come for, Thecla, who was now ninety years old, said to them, " Although I am but a mean old woman, I am the servant of Christ and you have no power against me." And she looked up to heaven and prayed that God Who delivered her from the fire and the water and the beasts and from Thamyris and Alexander, would deliver her now from these wicked men. To this a voice from heaven answered, " Fear not, Thecla, for I am with thee." Then the rock opened just enough for her to enter, and when she had fled into it, it closed upon her so completely that there was no crack to be seen where it had opened. The men were speechless with wonder, but they were holding a piece of her veil and tore it off. The manuscript says that Sept. 24 is the day sacred to her memory. This story has been said to be written during the life of St. John the evangelist, and by him condemned as a fiction. Pro- fessor Ramsay considers it to be a historical story, true to the time and founded on fact. It must have been written by a contemporary. Thecla was a real person and so was Tryphena : she was the widow of Cotys, king of Thrace, and queen of Pontus in her own right ; mother of three kings, and cousin of the Emperor Claudius. All the incidents which appear to belong to the original narrative exactly fit in with the circum- stances of the time and place. Professor Eamsay says it has been altered and added to at various times, e.g. the inci- dent of the holy woman baptizing her- self was introduced by members of a party in the Church, who wished to produce authority for the right of women to baptize. Another of the additions is that she lived as a sort of abbess, to the age of ninety, and then disappeared into a rock. B.M., Sept. 23. AA,SS. Wright, Apocryphal Acts of tJie Apostles from Syriac MSS. Hone, Apocryphal New Testament. Professor William Eamsay, The Church in the Boman Empire. Dictionary of Christian Bio' graphy (Smith and Wace), Dr. Gwynn's critical article on the legend, its date and history, and the use that has been made of it. St. Thecla (2), Sept. 3 or 19, V. M. at Aquileia. B.M. {See Euphemia (1).)