Св. Текла във и през огледалото на апостол Павел
St Thecla in and through the Mirror of St Paul

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses a significant episode in the Martyrdom of St. Thecla describing Thecla sitting next to the window and listening to the preaching of St. Paul the Apostle. She could observe the people crowding and hear Paul’s voice, but she could not look at him. Anxious to see Paul’s face, Thecla left her home and followed Paul. In a recent study Adelina Angusheva-Tihanova has already interpreted this part of St. Thecla’s passion. In this article Apostle Paul is considered as a key figure for the understanding of the whole episode. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 13-12) he uses a catoptrical metaphor which could be used as an interpretative key which allows us to think about the episode as an allegory of what was said by Paul in 1 Cor. 13:12. It is interesting that the Passion of another early Christian martyr, St. Justina, contains the same episode. The author suggests that Paul’s words in 1 Cor. 13-12 cast light on the symbolic meaning of episodes about virgins sitting by the window as a symbol of the spiritual change they were going through.

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