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Chapter 6 - Shifting the Poetics of Gender Ambiguity

The Coptic Naturalization of Thecla

from Part I - An Act to Follow

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2022

By
Arietta Papaconstantinou
Edited by
Ghazzal Dabiri  and
Flavia Ruani
Ghazzal Dabiri
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
Flavia Ruani
Affiliation:
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris
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Summary

The figure of Thecla knew very early success in Egypt as a model for female ascetics and pilgrims. In learned Alexandrian circles, Thecla was also a literary rallying point for rich women who cultivated an intellectual persona. The association of the character with the blurring of gender categories was also made in the same circles and eventually spread to the equivalent circles in Valley cities. One of the most interesting literary texts in that respect is built around characters called Thecla and Paul, but not explicitly the ones from the APT, and adding a third, Egyptian character called Paese, whom it sets up as the central figure. This seventh- or eighth-century text, entitled the Martyrdom of Paese and Thecla, plays on several motifs of the APT, subverting them and reversing roles and characters, but it also borrows motifs of male companionship from the late sixth- and early seventh-century ascetic literature produced in the area between Palestine, Cyprus, and Alexandria.

Keywords

Coptic hagiographylate antique eliteselite womenmasculinitygender ambiguityitinerant womenActs of Paul and TheclaMartyrdom of Paese and TheclaLife of Eugenia
Type
Chapter
Information
Thecla and Medieval Sainthood
<I>The Acts of Paul and Thecla</I> in Eastern and Western Hagiography
 , pp. 175 - 194
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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