Saint Thecla of Iconium

The mother of our Saint was not long in noticing the change that had taken place in her; her aversion to marriage, her contempt for all the vanities of the world; the humility, the modesty, the spirit of retreat and devotion that shone upon her face, made it sufficiently apparent that she was no longer a daughter of the world, but a soul won over to the Savior. She asked her whence this novelty came; and, learning from her own lips that Our Lord had enlightened her to recognize the impiety of paganism, the necessity of the Christian religion, and the inestimable price of virginity, she flew into such a fury that she was near to killing her with her own hands. After this first outburst, she passed to an excess of inhumanity far more horrible: she herself accused her daughter before the judge as a Christian and as refractory to the promise of marriage she had given, and begged him to have her burned alive if she did not change her resolution, in order to strike terror into other young girls who might be tempted to imitate her conduct. The judge deferred to this request, had Thecla appear before his tribunal, and, finding her unshakable in her resolution to remain a Christian and to keep her virginity, he commanded a great brazier to be lit and for her to be thrown into it alive. The generous virgin then armed herself with the sign of the cross, and, without waiting for the executioners to lay hands upon her, moved by an extraordinary impulse of the Holy Spirit, she entered boldly into the midst of the flames to offer the sacrifice of her body to the glory of her Spouse. However, God suspended their activity, and at that very hour there fell such an abundance of rain that the fire was entirely extinguished and the idolatrous people were forced to flee to find shelter. Thecla thus emerged from this brazier without having received any harm, without even her clothes being burned, and departed from her native city without anyone thinking to oppose her flight.

Thus miraculously escaped from certain death, Thecla, to whom the Lord alone was henceforth to take the place of family and inheritance, ran in search of the great Apostle. He, for his part, foreseeing the fate that his enemies reserved for his spiritual daughter, had not moved far from the city of Iconium. Some fervent Christians, also brought to the faith by him, had arranged a safe retreat for him in a solitary place. Thecla was informed by them of the location of his retreat and was able to see again the one whose divine exhortations had known how to inspire in her so much energy and greatness of soul. Their meeting was most touching: the master found his disciple girded with the halo of martyrdom; the disciple saw again her master bearing the stigmata of persecution. One glorified the Lord for having judged him worthy to bring forth this daughter to the faith; the other blessed God for having provided her with such an illustrious tutor in the darkness of her ignorance. Both, finally, considered themselves happy and showed themselves full of joy to have suffered for the name and the glory of Jesus Christ, their divine Master.

After they had mutually poured out their hearts before the Lord, Thecla insistently asked that she be permitted to accompany the holy Apostle on his apostolic journeys, in order to be trained in perfection under such an accomplished model. Animated by the same spirit as her master, she wished, in the ardor of her zeal, to share his labors and his sufferings, to win souls for Jesus Christ, and to propagate the glory of his holy name in all places. The Apostle responded to this request with a depiction of all the fatigues of his apostolate and of his life, which was nothing but a struggle and a continual pilgrimage. He reminded her that, devoted to the conversion of the entire universe, he had to traverse the most distant lands and the nations most divided in customs and language. However, not wishing to sadden this faithful servant of her God, and desiring to strengthen even better through more frequent instructions the sentiments of piety and sacrifice that grace had brought forth in her heart, Saint Paul consented to Thecla accompanying him on some of his journeys, until she could settle in the midst of some nascent Christendom, where she would be at once sheltered from the persecution of her family and like an apostle among the neophytes. Thecla received the decision of the holy Apostle with respect and gratitude. She strove, as much as was in her power, to take advantage of the precious moments that remained for her to spend near this great doctor; and one can easily conceive how much fruit the holy word must have produced in a heart so well disposed to receive it.

After having followed the great Apostle in this way for some time, our Saint arrived in Antioch, the capital of Syria . It was Antioche Ancient city where Saint Publia and her community resided. in this city that she was to settle, and it was in this city that God called her to new struggles and new triumphs.

One of the city's leading inhabitants, Alexander, was seized with a vivid passion for Thecla. Taking advantage of the influence his position gave him, he dared to insult her in the middle of the street. But the Christian virgin, listening only to her courage, tore the tunic of her aggressor, snatched the crown he was wearing from his head, and covered him with confusion before all the people. Far from devouring in silence the affront that his brutality had earned him, Alexander led the heroic young girl before the governor, who condemned her to be devoured by beasts. This iniquitous sentence stirred up a portion of the people. Whether the number of Christians was already great in Antioch, or whether Alexander's conduct appeared too infamous not to revolt the pagan conscience itself, the women, taking up the cause of the heroine, began to shout around the tribunal: "The decree is unjust, the sentence is iniquitous!" But Thecla, solely concerned with the care of her virtue, asked for only one favor, that of being kept pure before her death. She was therefore placed in the h ands of Tryphène A high-ranking woman who protected Thecla in Antioch. a woman of high rank, named Tryphaena, who had just lost her only daughter. The hour of the torture having arrived, the executioners unleashed a furious lioness against the young virgin who, instead of doing her any harm, lay down before her and licked her feet. The next morning, Alexander's satellites had difficulty removing Thecla from the arms of Tryphaena, who already cherished her as her daughter. Dragged to the amphitheater, the virgin stood, hands raised toward heaven, in the midst of the ferocious beasts that were unleashed against her; but none touched her. God had enveloped her in a cloud of fire, so that the spectators would not see that she was without clothing.

This last detail is of a saint Ambroise Father of the Church cited for a maxim on strength. charming delicacy, and Saint Ambrose noted it thus in one of his most beautiful pages: "Let Thecla teach you sacrifice. As she fled marriage, she saw herself condemned by the fury of her fiancé; but she knew how to inspire in ferocious beasts a respect for virginity. She had been destined to perish under the teeth of animals; she was there, exposed to gazes she sought to avoid; she taught modesty to those eyes that did not know it. How beautiful it was to see the animal lie down on the ground, lick her feet, and testify by this silent language that it dared not attempt to harm the sacred body of the virgin! It is thus that the ferocious beast venerated its prey: it had stripped itself of its nature, and it had become human, since men were no longer so. In that moment, you would have seen the roles reversed: men changed into wild animals commanded cruelty to the beasts, and the beasts came to kiss the feet of the virgin, teaching duty to men. So admirable is virginity, since it commands respect even from the lions themselves! Instinct of hunger, cries, excitations, bloodthirsty habits, ferocious nature, they listened to none of that. By venerating the martyr, they taught religion, they taught chastity; for, in approaching the virgin, they kissed only the soles of her feet, eyes lowered toward the earth, as if they had not dared to raise their gaze toward the naked virgin..."

At the sight of such an extraordinary prodigy, a gloomy silence took hold of the hearts of all the spectators. Some, recognizing in this sign the visible protection of heaven and the innocence of Thecla, desired that life and liberty be returned to the Saint. Others, more hardened by this very miracle, wished that another type of torture be prepared for her. A thousand confused cries finally rose at once and dissipated the torpor in which the governor himself was plunged. The feeling of vengeance reawakened more violent than ever: he therefore ordered Thecla to be led back to her prison.

The next day, all the people being assembled again, the holy martyr was brought into the amphitheater. As she still persevered in the confession of the faith, the magistrate ordered that she be tied to untamed bulls to be torn to pieces. At the same instant, the executioners entwined her delicate body with thick and solid ropes. The bulls were harnessed to these same ropes in opposite directions: then they were excited, goaded, and animated. Vain efforts! The ropes broke, the executioners were wounded, and Thecla was full of life.

This new prodigy seemed to stir up the hatred of the persecutors even more violently. The saint was then thrown into a deep pit, filled with snakes and other venomous reptiles whose bite was always fatal to the unfortunate condemned to this type of torture. Thecla, in the midst of these dangerous enemies, raised her heart to God and implored Him to accept the sacrifice of her life. She awaited death with a holy impatience in the hope of being soon reunited and forever with the divine spouse of her soul. The God who had protected her against the violence of the flames, who had delivered her from the teeth of the lions, who had also sustained her against the impetuosity of the bulls, was still to defend her against the bite of the snakes. These venomous animals moved away at her appearance, not daring to soil with their foul slime this sacred body, a living temple of the divinity and doubly consecrated to the Lord by virginity and martyrdom. A deep numbness took hold of all their limbs, and the Saint could move in this horrible prison without provoking their attacks.

Without reporting here again the testimonies of the various Fathers of the Church who have transmitted to us the memory of these prodigies, let us listen only to Saint Zeno, Bishop of Verona and martyr, in his book on Fear: "A relentless accuser rises against Thecla. The laws of the country and their inhumane ministers support the words of the accuser. The ferocity of cruel animals is goaded in every way, and yet it is found easier to tame than the ferocity of men. But so that nothing would appear to be missing from this so inhumane spectacle, sea monsters are added to it. The young virgin is stripped of all her clothing, she is surrounded by flames: in the midst of so many instruments of death, and the anguish of the spectators, she survives and tramples underfoot all kinds of terrors. Safe and sound, and as if she had subdued the entire universe, she emerges from the depths of this lugubrious pit, not as a person worthy of pity, but as a heroine worthy of admiration, carrying the trophies of the conquered world, while everyone expected to see her perish and succumb to so many tortures."

The miraculous deliverance of the virgin of Iconium had moved all the people of Antioch. The governor summoned her and said: "Who are you, you whom the beasts dare not touch?" — "I am," replied Thecla, "the servant of the living God. If the wild animals have spared me, it is because I have placed all my trust in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is the delight of the Father. He alone is the way that leads to salvation, the refuge of those who have been beaten by the storm, the consolation of the afflicted, the hope of those who have none left. He who does not believe in him will not live, but will have eternal death as his portion." The governor, hearing this, issued a decree to this effect: "Thecla, the servant of God, is free." The shouts of joy from the crowd accompanied the virgin to the house of Tryphaena, where she remained for several days, instructing the young girls in the true faith. Learning that Saint Paul was in Myra, in Lycia, she went to join him there to tell him of the graces with which God had filled her. From there, she returned to Iconium to preach the Gospel. Arriving in her hometown, she found her mother, but her fiancé had died. In vain did she use everything that a living faith can inspire in filial love: Theoclia remained deaf to her daughter's prayers and did not convert. Then Thecla, leaving her father's house, went to the tomb where she had once found Saint Paul with Onesiphorus, and, falling to her knees, she shed abundant tears before the Lord. Leaving there, she went to Seleucia, where she converted several people t o the Go Séleucie The saint's final place of retreat and burial. spel. Withdrawn into a cave on Mount Calamon, she instructed by word and example the women who came to her, drawn by the fame of her virtues. A final assault disturbed the virgin in the solitary place she had chosen. Some physicians of Seleucia, irritated that the sick were taking the road to Calamon instead of coming to them, hired vicious men, who entered the cave to carry out their infamous project. But, at that very instant, the rock opened and closed around the Saint, whom it protected against the violence of the scoundrels. Thecla had reached the age of ninety when the Lord called her soul to him.

Few saints have had as many panegyrists and as many admirers as this illustrious virgin. Her memory was held in such high veneration in the first centuries of the Church that when one wished to give someone the highest degree of praise, it was said that she was a Thecla; this word encompassed all possible praise. Thus, Saint Jerome calls the famous Melania, and Saint Gregory of Nazianzus names the illustrious Macrina, sister of Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory of Nyssa. After the august Mother of God, Thecla is the model and example that the holy doctors propose to virgins and martyrs. They honor her with the title of apostle and evangelist of her sex, and place her immediately after the Apostles of Jesus Christ. They call her the first spiritual daughter of Saint Paul, his faithful disciple and his companion in his evangelical labors. They exalt her faith, her love of purity, her fearlessness in suffering, and show her surviving various types of torture to die a slower and even more painful martyrdom, that is to say, consumed by the love she bears for her God. "It seems to me today," cries Saint John Chrysostom in his homily, "it seems to me that I see the blessed virgin Thecla, holding in one hand a crown won over the passions, in the other a second crown won over dangers, and offering to the sovereign Master of all things these trophies of her virginity and her martyrdom. Was not virginity for her an anticipated martyrdom more painful than martyrdom itself?"

Saint Isidore of Pelusium, writing to a monastery of women in the city of Alexandria, said: "After the example of Judith, Susanna, and the daughter of Jephthah, you can no longer allege the weakness of your nature. Add to these generous first fruits of all the martyrs, this generous heroine who, the first of her sex, erected so many trophies to victorious chastity, I mean Thecla, so famous and so renowned throughout the world. Her life is like an unshakable column on earth which will be an eternal monument to her virtue, and which, serving virgins as a second lighthouse during the dark night of this century, will show them the path they must follow, so as not to be shipwrecked in the stormy sea of the burning affections of the flesh, but to arrive at that desired port where she has so happily arrived."

Saint Principius, Bishop of Soissons and younger brother of Saint Remigius, honored on the date of September 25, had such a vivid devotion to our Saint that he wished to be buried outside the city walls, in a chapel dedicated to this illustrious martyr.

If one then traverses from age to age the writers subsequent to the Fathers of the first centuries of the Church, everywhere one finds the most pompous praises and eulogies given to this same Saint. The learned Baronius, in his Annals and his annotations on the martyrology, and after him Spondanus and others, have worthily exalted the holiness of Thecla.

## CULT AND RELICS.

The cult rendered to our holy Martyr is very ancient and very illustrious in the Church. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus went by devotion to Seleucia to visit her tomb, as did Saint Marana and Saint Cyra; people flocked there from all parts, because of the great miracles that God worked there through her intercession. These pilgrimages were so frequent and so famous that they are even mentioned in the Acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council: "What I assure as most certain," says the holy bishop of Seleucia, "is that no one has ever been deprived of the fruit of their requests there, whether they desired health or sought deliverance from their ills. It has not yet been heard that anyone has gone away complaining of not having obtained the effect of their prayers. On the contrary, one sees every day that all those who visit her tomb return singing the praises of the Saint, proclaiming that they have obtained much more than they would have dared to hope, and that the fame is far below the wonders that are worked there."

It is a common thing to implore her assistance in great trials and to conjure the mercy of God to be as favorable to us as it was to this incomparable Virgin. Some Martyrs, in their tortures, pray to God to deliver them, just as He had preserved Saint Thecla from the fire, the beasts, and other torments: one can see this in the Acts of Saint Terence and his companions. Saint Cyprian, in a prayer he makes to God, uses these words: "Assist us, Lord, and be with us as you were with Saint Paul in his bonds, and with Saint Thecla in the midst of the flames." And, praying for himself, on the very day of his martyrdom, he says to Jesus Christ: "Deliver me, Lord, from the miseries of this world, as you delivered Saint Thecla from the midst of the amphitheater." Finally, the Church, in the prayers she has composed to recommend the souls of the dying to divine mercy, addresses these words to God: "We beseech you, Lord, that, as you delivered the blessed Thecla, virgin and martyr, from three cruel torments, you may also have the goodness to deliver this soul and grant it the grace to enjoy heavenly goods with you." These testimonies are so many authentic proofs of the great merit of our Saint. The Emperor Zeno had a superb temple built in her honor in Seleucia, in recognition of having recovered the empire through her assistance. Justinian also had a very sumptuous one built for her in the city of Nicaea, in Bithynia.

Her body, first buried in Seleucia, now rests in the metropolitan church of Tarragona, which is dedicated under her name. According to local tradition, Peter II, King of Aragon, wishing to reunite with his domain, by force of arms, som Tarragone Spanish city housing the saint's relics. e fiefs of this church that he claimed belonged to him, received a blow from the hand of the Saint; he fell ill from it and died. He recognized, however, before his death, that this punishment came from God, and, in this sentiment, he had the goods he had usurped restored, and repaired all the damages he had caused to the Church.

But, although the Catalans pride themselves on possessing the body of Saint Thecla, other churches do not fail to have relics of her. The cathedral of Chartres preserves some bones with great veneration. They are enclosed in a gilded wooden reliquary, with relics of Saint Cosmas and pieces of a large ivory box, on which the martyrdom of Saint Thecla is represented. These ivory fragments were found during the exhumation of Saint Piat. At the Revolution, the reliquary that contained her relics having been looted, these precious remains were buried in the ground and mixed with others; that is why, not having been able to be identified during their exhumation, they were placed in the gilded wooden reliquary that one sees today at the cathedral.

The church of Notre-Dame de Vernon-sur-Seine still possesses a bone from the arm of the Saint that the church of Riez had given it in 1223. This relic, saved from the Revolution by a former sacristan of this collegiate church, was identified in July 1836 by Mgr du Châtellier, Bishop of Evreux, and reunited in a beautiful Gothic reliquary with the relics of Saint Maur, patron of the city of Vernon.

The church of Riez was, in 1223, in possession of the head and an arm. The Bishop of Riez, Fulque de Caille, enclosed this precious head in a silver reliquary. The reliquary disappeare d in Riez Episcopal see of the saint. the revolutionary turmoil; but a part of the holy bones was preserved. Today the church of Riez possesses only the lower jaw of Saint Thecla; it is enclosed in a reliquary.

The cathedrals of Milan, Tarragona, and Riez, and the collegiate church of Vernon-sur-Seine, venerate this Saint as their special patroness, and celebrate her feast with an octave. The feast of this illustrious virgin is marked in all the martyrologies on September 23.

We have used, to compose this summary, the Remarks of Baronius on the martyrology; the lessons of the Roman breviary and the martyrology of Ado; the Saints of the Church of Riez, by Abbé Foraud; the Apostolic Fathers and their era, by Mgr Froppel.