Nieumęczona męczennica. Konstruowanie męczeńskiej legendy św. Tekli

• Authors: Joanna Rączka

Title variants

EN

A NON-MARTYRED MARTYR. THE CREATION OF SAINT THECLA’S MARTYROLOGICAL LEGEND

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Saint Thecla has been venerated as a martyr and even protomartyr in the Christian East and West. She has even been considered a female alter ego of Saint Stephen. However, while Stephen was perceived as a prototype of the perfect Christian martyr since his death, Thecla was first created as an icon of another Christian concept – celibacy. The apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla were a primal and always predominant source of her legend. When looking at it from the perspective of two fundamental components of the Christian notion of martys, i.e. the testimony of faith and the physical sufferings, one promptly notices the striking differences between the two saints. Nonetheless, some features of Thecla’s story made their association possible. This article investigates the phenomenon of ancient authors’ growing attention to the martyr-like motifs of the Acts of Paul and Thecla and the circumstances that eventually led to the unexpected spread of her cult as a martyr and spectacular promotion of this saint in Late Antiquity.

Keywords

EN

LATE ANTIQUITY; NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA; ACTS OF PAUL AND THECLA; MARTYRDOM; CULT OF SAINTS; ST; THECLA

• Publisher: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
• Journal: U Schyłku Starożytności. Studia Źrodłoznawcze
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 11
• Pages: 137-165

Contributors

author

Joanna Rączka

• Centrum Nauki Kopernik, Wybrzeże Kościuszkowskie 20, 00-390 Warszawa