Baidarka

ACTS OF PAUL AND THECLA

Although the Magical elements in the Acts of Paul and Thecla are clearly apocryphal. There is much in this writing that seems quite real. First we have a very interesting prose portrait of Paul."He saw Paul coming, a man small in size, bald-headed, bandy-legged, well-built, with eyebrows meeting, rather long-nosed, full of grace." Then we have the story of a young girl, Thecla, sucked into Pauls bizarre cult. The story seems very modern, and very real.

The story is told from a pro-Paul point of view but the very human story of young people seduced away from their friends and families by (Moonies, Scientologists, Jim Jones or some other cult) a strange anti- family cult is vividly told in this story. The threat to burn Thecla alive seems to me to be a primitive attempt at deprogramming. This is a very strange and sad love story. "Thamyris going near," She is sitting at a window listening to Paul speak. "and kissing her, but at the same time also being afraid of her overpowering emotion, said: Thecla, my betrothed, why dost thou sit thus? and what sort of feeling holds thee overpowered? Turn round to thy Thamyris, and be ashamed. Moreover also her mother said the same things: Why dost thou sit thus looking down, my child, and answering nothing, but like a mad woman? They wept fearfully, Thamyris indeed for the loss of a wife, and Theocleia of a child, and the maidservants of a mistress: there was accordingly much confusion in the house of mourning. While these things were thus going on, Thecla did not turn round, but kept attending earnestly to the word of Paul". One has to feel very bad for Thamyris and it is easy to agree with his righteous indignation. One can't help but think of Waco. I also find myself wondering about the sexual elements in this story and the night she spent in Paul's prison cell.

http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/acts/plnthec.htm

What do others on this site make of this strange document?