'Blessed are the Bodies of those who Are Virgins':* Reflections on the Image of Paul in the Acts of Thecla

Abstract

Attention has often been paid to the description of Paul's external appearance in the Acts of Thecla (Acts The. 3), but scarcely at all to the question of how Paul is portrayed in the narrative as a whole. This essay looks on the Acts of Thecla as a historically and theologically significant source for the reconstruction of early Christian developments and conflicts, and attempts to employ the methods of social-historical exegesis to investigate how Paul is depicted on the level of the narrative in his conduct towards Thecla. We discover that the perspective of the narrative is extremely critical. The portrayal of Paul reflects on Pauline and post-Pauline discussions of the image of women and the attribution of particular roles to women in early Christianity. The aim is not so much to reconstruct the historical Paul, but rather to uncover the theological self-contradiction of Paul and of early Christian men, who propagated justice in gender relationships, but did not put this into practice. The analysis of the portrait of Paul in the Acts of Thecla reveals this text to be a critical and theologically independent voice in the early Christian debate about gender hierarchy.