St. Barnabas 21. Iconium & St. Thekla.
It is about 47 AD. St. Paul and St. Barnabas left the cosmopolitan Roman Colony of Antioch of Psidia, and now turned to the rustic peoples the Greeks and Romans tended to call the “barbarians” (cf. Col 3:11).
The vast plateau, about 3600' above sea level, was over the Taurus Mountains of today’s southern Turkey, then the Roman province of Galatia. Barnabas and Paul traveled in a southeasterly direction along winding roads among the hills. They would meet simple ordinary rural folks, and no doubt also robbers and bandits as was then common, and would share the gospel with whoever would listen.
Eventually they came to the town of Iconium, the first of a group of neighboring villages that also included Lystra and Derbe in the same general area of southeast Galatia.
As usual, Barnabas and Paul first went to the synagogue in Iconium. There they found both Jew and Gentile attending services, and they must have been invited to speak as “a great company believed, both of Jews and of Greeks” (Ac 14:1). But, as at Antioch of Psidia, certain Jews who rejected their message “stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brethren” (Ac 14:2) – “brethren” here referring to the church Barnabas and Paul were founding where all, Jew and Gentile, men and women, were brethren in Christ.
Not to be deterred, Barnabas and Paul remained in Iconium “for a long time,” speaking with boldness, and God’s grace confirmed his Word with both of them – both Barnabas and Paul – doing “signs and wonders” by the power of the Holy Spirit (Ac 14:3-4).
St. Luke tells us in Acts that, as before, persecution both by Jew and Gentile, and including the rulers, arose to the extent of a plot to stone both Barnabas and Paul, so they fled to the surrounding country, continuing to preach the Gospel (Ac 14:4-7). From the tradition of the Eastern Church we learn at least one of the reasons for this persecution.
A young woman engaged to be married, Thekla, born of a wealthy family in Iconium, heard Paul and Barnabas speak. On one occasion something deeply touched her heart when Paul spoke on chastity, and she decided she must follow Christ and abandon her plans to marry. Her mother and her fiancee were quite opposed to this decision. They brought accusations against Paul to the governor, and Paul [and Barnabas?] was put in prison. (Now we know why Luke tells us the persecution included the “rulers,” Ac 14:5.)
Not deterred, Thekla would slip away from her house to listen to Paul in prison, bribing the guards with her gold jewelry to gain entrance. At his trial, Paul was banished from the city. Paul, Barnabas, and their companions left the city and hid in a nearby cave. (The book of Acts tell us nothing of companions with Paul and Barnabas at this time, however throughout Paul’s career his letters tell us of many traveling companions omitted in Acts.)
So Barnabas and Paul, after their “long time” in Iconium (Ac 14:3), apparently with Thekla and other companions, continued to preach the Gospel in the surrounding country (Ac 14:6-7), undeterred by imprisonment and a second banishment.
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church is located in California City, CA. Visit our website at ollcalcity.org.
Dibby Allan Green has a BA in Religious Studies (Westmont College, 1978) and MA in Theology (Augustine Institute, 2019), is a lay Catholic hermit, and a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish.