Was “the son of one Lazarus of Bethany,” the son of Christ’s friend? The dates would seem to prove the possibility. On the other hand, though Bethany was a very small village, the name Lazarus was a very common one. The story of this escape from the city is found in Josephus.
That Herodias’ husband had been banished from Palestine to the Danube and from the Danube to Spain will be found in the Herod Letters already quoted.
The location of the Antonia Tower was exactly as given in the story—a bastioned high Tower ascended by circular steps inside, with the east wall joining the roof and upper galleries of the Temple, the west side of the Tower running along the parapet of the North Jerusalem Wall to the Herod Towers of the Palaces on the west side of the city.
APPENDIX D
THE DISPUTES AS TO THECLA IN
LEGEND AND HISTORY
Concerning the story of Paul and Thecla, there are fortunately very few controversial questions that cannot be answered definitely and simply.
Was there ever any real Thecla?
If so, how much of her story is legend, and how much history?
And of the known history, how closely have the facts been followed in the story?
Many of the Paul and Thecla legends must be ascribed to folklore of the Roman Road, much of it wildly exaggerated; but beneath the legends is the fact of some young woman martyr converted by him in Iconium, Derbe or Lystra, escaping the ordeal of wild beasts and fire, whether in Antioch or Iconium, and leaving a tradition of having retired to the caves, where she established one of the first monastic houses among the Greeks, and drew away the Daphne dancing girls from sensual pagan rites of the Temples to such an extent that the merchants of Antioch were so maddened at the fall off in trade of sacrificial beasts, images and incense to pleasure seekers and winterers from Rome that they plotted against the lives of the Christian refugees hiding in the mountain caves.
How much of her story is legend, and how much history?