TECLA, Saint, Martyr. — Venerated in antiquity, she had her principal center of worship at Seleucia, where there existed an important sanctuary, a frequent destination of pilgrimages, mentioned by St. Gregory Nazianzen (PG 35, 1105) and rebuilt by the Emperor Zeno (Evagrius, *Hist. eccl.*, III, 8).
All Greek and Latin martyrologies include her name under different dates. Churches dedicated to her were found in Constantinople, Rome, and Milan; her image is preserved in the museums of the Eufrasian basilica in Parenzo. The historical figure of St. Tecla, however, is shrouded in legend, which places her birth in Iconium. The place of her burial is unknown; it was not, in fact, in the famous sanctuary of Seleucia, as is clearly evident from the biography of the saint written in the 5th century by Basil, bishop of the city. The various recensions of the *Passio* (BHG, 1710-19; BHL, 820-25) all derive from the apocryphal *Acts of Paul and Thecla* (Enc. Catt., IX, 725), rejected even by the so-called *Decretum Gelasianum*, whose author, a presbyter of Asia, was exposed as a forger and deposed from office (Tertullian, *De baptismo*, 17).
Iconography. — The iconography of St. Tecla is inspired by legends. The most notable representation of her (5th century) is on the vault of one of the funerary chapels of El-Bagawat in the Great Oasis of Egypt. The Apostle Paul and the Virgin, seated facing each other on large folding stools, appear to be in conversation. Tecla holds between her two hands, resting on her knees, a book or writing tablet, while Paul offers her a stylus. Above the circular band containing the scenes, their names are inscribed in Greek. Also on a 4th-century marble from the portico of the church of Etchmiadzin in the Caucasus, facing seated Paul in the act of speaking, Tecla stands listening, her right hand on her chest. The two figures are framed within two arches, separated by an Ionic column (cf. J. Strzygowski, *Das Etschmiadzins Evangelium*, in *Byzantinische Denkmäler*, I, Vienna 1891, p. 6 ff.). The names of the two saints are found on a fragment of a sarcophagus (4th century) discovered in the basilica of St. Valentine on the Flaminian Way, now in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. Tecla is the name of the vessel carrying the Apostle together with another figure, while a third fisherman sits on the shore. Symbolically, therefore, it expresses the image of the soul (of the deceased woman of the same name?), regenerated by Baptism and carried to heaven through the intercession of Paul (cf. Wilpert, *Sarcofagi*, pl. 10, 3; M. Simon, *L'apôtre Paul dans le symbolisme funer. chrét. Sur un fragment de sarcoph. avec barque et scène de pêche*, in *Mél. d'archéol. et d'hist.*, 50 [1933], pp. 156-82).
Drawn from the apocrypha instead is the episode of Paul’s arrest in the presence of Tecla on a sarcophagus in Marseilles (Wilpert, *Sarcofagi*, p. 166, pl. 16, 3), while the martyrdom of the saint is alluded to in a relief of an Egyptian necklace preserved in the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin, which shows Tecla among lions and, nearby, Daniel among the same beasts. A wholly unique representation of Tecla appears on a Coptic stele in the Cairo Museum: the virgin is in an attitude of prayer, dressed only in a loincloth (H. Leclercq, V. *Thècle*, in DACL, XV, cols. 2225-36). On two ivory plaques
Tecla, Saint, Martyr — The Martyrdom of St. Tecla. Detail of the retablo of the high altar, work of Pedro Juan de Vallfogona (15th century), Tarragona, Cathedral.
instead, the scene of Paul’s preaching in Tecla’s presence recurs. The first, in the British Museum, shows the Apostle reading while seated, and the virgin leaning out from the walls; the second, in the Louvre, essentially repeats the previous one, but in a broader and more complex composition, discussed and variously interpreted by scholars (cf. R. Schlumberger, in *Monumenta Piot*, I [1894], p. 165; id., in *Mél. d'Arch. Byz.*, 1895, p. 193). On some ampullae (4th-5th century) of red clay, now in the Museum of Alexandria in Egypt, Tecla is depicted among wild beasts together with the martyrdom of St. Menas (C. M. Kaufmann, *La découverte des sanctuaires de Ménas dans le désert de Maréotis*, Alexandria 1908, p. 71, fig. 67; id., *Zur Ikonogr. der Menas-Ampullen*, Cairo 1910, pp. 139-41 and passim, fig. 85).
In Rome, a small cemetery on the Via Ostiense bears the name of Tecla; but this refers to another saint buried nearby the tomb of Paul, to whom the now vanished above-ground structure was dedicated. It is mentioned in the Itineraries and was explored by M. Armellini in 1870; it comprises the historic crypt “in qua corpus eius quiescit” and a short series of regularly excavated galleries. The inscriptions are very few, and there are only two frescoes in two arcosolia: one with the figures of Moses, Daniel, Jonah, an orant between saints, a Good Shepherd, the Saviour with the book of the Gospels, and Abraham showing the angel in the symbol of the divine sacrifice; the other, recently discovered and whose fragments are now in the Museo Sacro of the Vatican Library, contains a debated depiction in which episodes from the legend of Tecla of Iconium seem to be represented. From the same cemetery comes the Lateran sculpture depicting the deceased Marcus, seated in a chair holding an olive branch.
TE DECET LAUS. — An hymn or rather a brief Trinitarian acclamation in the form of a doxology.
Very ancient, it already appears in the Apostolic Constitutions (Book VII, ch. 48, with a variant reading “Patrem per Filium in Spiritu Sancto”) and still today in the Orthros of the Byzantine liturgy (*Orologion*, Rome 1937, pp. 129-30). Following the example of Eastern monks, the hymn, translated from the Greek, was prescribed by St. Benedict (*Regula*, ch. XI) for Sundays and feasts in the Night Office after the Gospel reading; in the monastic rite the doxology follows the singing of the “Te Deum,” just as in the Byzantine rite the similar “Gloria in excelsis” concludes the Night Office. In the Middle Ages it was also used in the Office of the secular clergy in place of the “Te Deum” when another Office was recited at night or in the morning (double Office; Radulphus de Rivo, *De canon. observatione*, prop. 21 at the end, ed. C. Mohlberg, II, Münster 1915, pp. 123, 21). A doxology similar to T. d. L. was already used in the synagogue service on Saturday morning.