Thecla an amazing woman in Christiananity kept hidden

According to the Acts of Paul and Thecla, Thecla was a young noble virgin who listened to Paul's "discourse on virginity" and became Paul's follower and a Disciple of Paul's teachings and Ministry. Thecla's mother and her fiancé Thamyris became concerned Thecla would follow Paul's demand "one must fear only one God and live in chastity", and punished both Paul and Thecla.

Thecla was miraculously saved from burning at the stake by the onset of a storm and traveled with Paul to Antioch of Pisidia. There a nobleman named Alexander desired Thecla and attempted to take her by force. Thecla fought him off, assaulting him in the process, and was put on trial for assaulting a nobleman. She was sentenced to be eaten by wild beasts, but was again saved by a series of miracles when the female beasts protected her against her male aggressors.

Thecla gained a massive "cult-like" following, and became perhaps the most prominent figure for female empowerment at the time. She listened to Paul's teachings to fear nobody but God, and live in chastity. She demonstrates these teachings on several occasions starting from the first time she heard Paul speak by leaving Thamyris, fighting off Alexander, and surviving several life threatening situations. She traveled to preach the word of God and became an icon encouraging women to also live a life of chastity and follow the word of the lord. [1]

um, only kept "hidden" by a shallow Western Christianity focused on turning God into a combination galactic valet/personal magician where if I have good things God loves me. *sigh*

I have never heard of this story before. I'll have to look it up and learn more.

There is always more to learn and do I suppose

Thank you for sharing.

a reply to: maxzen2004

Have a source for this?

Here's one I can find more, if you like. this is why I saud she was "hidden" only to the Western flavour of Christianity.

Does anyone know if this story has been hidden from the shallow Western flavor of Christianity or not?

I can only suspect that it has.

a reply to: MentorsRiddle

Short version : prior to 1056, there was only one Christianity. Just one, although there were a few sects that sprang up preaching what was generally considered heresies ( I could do a whole thread one the current notion of how that happened, let's just say Dan Brown is even worse at history than he is at writing.) Then, round 1056, Bishop of Rome got PO'd and excommunicated pretty much the entire Church that wasn't under his domain ( fun fact...there's a minimum of 3 current Popes). The rest everyone knows - Marty Luther got mad, and 5 million denominations sprang up. The Crusades helped widen the rift betwixt east and West, and the traditions of the east became less important to the West. That's what I meant by "hidden" : not actually hidden, just less known.

a reply to: Ironhawke

Then what is the "true" Christianity? I have been searching for clues since I'm quite disillusioned by the current brand of various branches "Christianity."

a reply to: maxzen2004

A lot of the female saint's, prophetess and holy religious Christian figures were suppressed from church doctrine following an enclave of bishop's some time in the eight century and again in the tenth and later century's.

This included banning woman from being priest's and limiting there role in the catechism as well as forbidding priests to marry and have family's turning the priesthood into a secular male sect and consigning woman who wanted to take holy vow's to convent's were before they often had active roles in the church.

In fact Jesus was the one who said "I am the way and the life and the resurrection" and also "In the Resurrection there is no difference between a man and a woman" so these priests were actually in opposition to the very word of God and harmed the church severely as they turned it into a control mechanism even forbidding the publication of the gospels in any language other than Latin or Greek within there sphere of influence, probably so that there hypocrisy could not be questioned and also in direct opposition to Christ who said Go and preach the Good News and in opposition to the holy spirit who caused the apostles to speak in tongues, Tongues is not gibberish but is recorded as every man hearing them as if they spoke in his native Tongue and so in fact this proves that a certain Jesuit priest by the name of Martyn Luthor is likely to be at the side of Christ while those in the Vatican of the time who tried to excommunicate him actually excommunicated themselves but I digress from the main subject.

The worship of the female saint's was so strong and the veneration of the virgin Mary too that these power monger's who infiltrated and corrupted the church at these times could not stamp it out but in fact many if not the majority of the early convert's may have been woman, many early churches were called house churches and where held and these were also family home's.

The church itself is seen as a female persona as is New Jerusalem in the book of revelation.

Every religion that suppressed woman has cruel and evil tendency's, every religion that oppressed woman also preached death, war and murder.

What has been called Christianity for over a thousand years was seldom practiced but often used as an excuse.

These same twisters of the word's in the bible who actually when they could not pervert them to there use would simply ignore them also created the myth of rule by diving right to place false king's over people who already have a king and that king is the Risen and living JESUS CHRIST, for this reason I have no time for royalists hypocrites or a church that places a false king or queen as it's head when Christ is the only crown over HIS kingdom and elevates the humble while these so called nobles who are nothing but descendants of murderers and thieves are either for the pit or will be the janitors of the world to come.


Christ is equal and does not see a difference in a man or a woman, he cares about the poor and the downtrodden and has no time for the wealthy and the rich, he the king of heaven did not live in a penthouse or drive a Porsche he walked in sandals and rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, he came into his own and it knew him not, he spoke of the HIRED servant's who murder the son and how then the father will come and destroy these wicked hired servant's (the powers and principality's of this world, it elite wealthy and corrupt bankers).

Christ was a feminist in that he pointed out that there is no difference, he is a socialist in that he talked about sharing and caring for the poor, he told the rich to exchange there wealth for true wealth in heaven by selling all they owned, giving it to the poor and following him, dyeing with him by taking up there own crosses and rising with him in the resurrection.

And lastly Christ came as a man because that is what they world needed with the corrupt human nature likely to have ignored a female messiah but his mother Mary suffered with him as she watched her son dyeing on the cross and in a real sense any mother would feel like it was her dyeing so in a real sense she was crucified with her son, long before the catholic faith or it's later corruption under the likes of power mongers etc the veneration of the female co saviour as most early Christian churches regard her existed.

It was not so much the Church that hid the truth as the power's that perverted the church, the wolf in sheep's clothing who turned the servant's of god into princes over the poor masses of his children and hijacked the church into the power of Satan but the truth Christ said SHALL SET YOU FREE and the more they tried to suppress it the greater it struggled until it broke free, Every secret shall be shouted from the roof top's.

a reply to: starwarsisreal

The response I usually give is this - whatever happened to the Church the Bishop of Rome kicked out for not giving him his way? ;-)

a reply to: maxzen2004

Why wasn't she written about in Luke's Book of Acts - the original? The real Paul said that women are below men and should obey their husbands. Why try to put Paul in a positive view for something he never believed in?