INTRODUCTION

Early Christianity used sacred texts, including novels, to distinguish its rituals, ethics and theologies from traditional ancient Mediterranean religions, especially ancient Judaisms. One such novel, the second-century Acts of Paul and Thecla, hereafter APT, promotes its ideology – an ascetic revision of first-century Christian sexual ethics – through the adventures of its female protagonist, Thecla (Lipsius and Bonnet 1891; Barrier 2009 – all dates are ad unless otherwise specified). Scholars have approached the novel, and Thecla in particular, from various and often divergent perspectives (Hylen 2015: 1–16; Cooper 2013b: 533; Aageson 2008: 194–8). Some have seen in Thecla the daily experiences of early Christian women and female leaders residing in Asia Minor; others read the APT as evidence for early Christian literary history and the formation of multiple genres, including hagiography. Those interested in social and theological history have cited the apocryphal acts as supporting evidence. Others less sanguine about the reliability of these texts have read the APT as second-century literature (Kraemer 2011: 117–52). Regardless of approach, recent scholarly output on the APT has continued unabated, and the last decade has seen new editions and monographs devoted entirely or in large part to the APT (e.g., Davis 2001; Johnson 2006; Barrier 2009; Lipsett 2011; Hylen 2015).

Building on that essential research, we examine Thecla's sexual renunciation and repeated sexual assaults through intertexts with Hebrew bible and the first-century gospels, specifically Mary of Bethany's veneration at Jesus’ feet (Luke 7:38, 10:39) and Ruth's seduction of Boaz (Ruth 3:3–6, 4:13). In our view, Mary and Ruth, who actively initiate sexualised interactions with male characters, are increasingly masculinised and hypersexualised as each episode progresses, and may be treated as Thecla's biblical predecessors. By reading Thecla's complicated gender(s) and sexual past through the (counter)feminine lenses of Mary and Ruth, Thecla becomes an allusively charged literary character, and her rejection of, for example, marriage, family and feminine attire becomes more exegetically rich. Our approach situates Thecla's sexuality within its wider literary contexts, underscores her development over the course of the novel and illuminates how the community in Asia Minor responsible for the APT– known now only through the APT itself – interpreted and updated sacred texts to advance their own ideological interests.