Image: Acts of Paul and Thecla; additional images at Tours and Turkey and in scholarship cited below
Clavis number: ECMA 122
Other descriptors: none
Location: northern slope of Bülbüldag (ancient Mount Koressos), Ephesus
Category: frescoes
Related literature: Acts of Paul and Thecla
Featured characters and locations: Paul (apostle), Thecla, Theokleia.
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: water colors on plaster
Size: cavern is 15 m long × 2 m wide and 2.3 m high, terminating in a rectangular area about 2.7 m wide
Images: on the western wall Paul is seated with a book on his lap and his right hand raised with two extended fingers; Thecla is to his right in the window of a building; to his left is Theocleia with the same hand gesture. The eyes and hand of Theocleia have been defaced. All three figures are labelled in Greek. Other images include Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, a depiction of Christ and several people sitting at a table, and the Virgin Mary with child accompanied by two other figures.
Date: late 5th to early 6th cent.
Provenance: in situ
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
The image evokes several aspects of the Acts of Paul and Thecla, but the closest analog is the story of Thecla’s first encounter with the apostle:
While Paul was saying these things in the midst of the church in Onesiphorus’s house, there was a certain virgin named Thecla, daughter of Theocleia and engaged to a man named Thamyris, who was sitting at the window of the house next door. Day and night Thecla heard what Paul said about chastity, and she did not budge from the window, but was drawn to faith with great joy. (7; trans. Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barrier, Jeremy W. The Acts of Paul and Thecla: A Critical Introduction and Commentary. WUNT 2.270. Tübigen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009 (pp. 52–53).
Miltner, Franz. “XXI Vorläufiger Bericht über die Ausgrabungen in Ephesos.” JÖAI 43 (1956): Beiblatt, 54–63.
Pillinger, Renate Johanna. “Thekla in the Cave of St. Paul in Ephesos.” Pages 62–72 in Religion in Ephesos Reconsidered: Archaeology of Spaces, Structures, and Objects. Edited by David Showalter et al. NovT Supp 177. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
__________. “Thekla in der Paulusgrotte von Ephesos.” Pages 205–18 in Thecla: Paulʼ s Disciple and Saint in the East and West. Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha 12. Edited by Jan Bremmer, et al. Leuven: Peeters, 2017.
__________. “Vielschichtige Neuigkeiten in der sog. Paulusgrotte von Ephesos (dritter vorläufiger Bericht, zu den Jahren 2003 und 2004).” Mitteilungen zur christlichen Archäologie 11 (2005): 56–58.
__________. “Neue Entdeckungen in der sogenannten Paulusgrotte von Ephesos.” Mitteilungen zur christlichen Archäologie 6 (2000): 16–29.
Pülz, Andreas. “Archaeological Evidence of Christian Pilgrimage in Ephesus.” Herom 1 (2012): 225–260 (pp. 249–52).
Wright, Ruth Ohm. “Rendezvous with Thekla and Paul in Ephesos: Excavating the Evidence.” Pages 227–42 in Distant Voices Drawing Near: Essays in Honor of Antoinette Clark Wire. Edited by Holly E. Hearon. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004.
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
“The Grotto of Saint Paul in Ephesus.” BiblePlaces.com
“A Video Tour to the grotto of Apostle Paul in Ephesus by Biblical Ephesus Tour Guide Hasan Gülday.” Youtube.
Nowakowski, Pawel. “Cult of Saints, E00739.” Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity.
Entry created by Tony Burke, York University, 28 October 2022.