It is also said that Thecla spent the rest of her life in Maaloula, a village in Syria. There, she became a healer and performed many miracles, but remained constantly persecuted. In one instance, as her persecutors were about to get to her, she called out to God, a new passage was opened in the cave she was in, and the stones closed behind her. Before her death, she was able to go to Rome and lie down beside Paul's tomb. Traditions and interpretations The Church Fathers recount a number of traditions about Thecla. Gregory of Nyssa writes in the 4th century (Homily 14 in Cant) that she undertook the sacrifice of herself, by giving death to the flesh, practicing great austerities, extinguishing in herself all earthly affections, so that nothing seemed to remain living in her but reason and spirit: the whole world seemed dead to her as she was to the world. Macarius Magnes, shortly after AD 300, wrote how the message of Christianity was "the Sword, [Matt 10:34] which cuts relations from each other [Matt:10:35], as it cut Thecla from Theocleia." Around AD 280, Thecla features as one of the characters in Methodius of Olympus' Symposium, in which she displays considerable knowledge of profane philosophy, various branches of literature, and eloquent yet modest discourse. Methodius states that she received her instruction in divine and evangelical knowledge from Paul, and was eminent for her skill in sacred science ("Logos 8"). The martyrdom of Thecla is frequently referred to in the earliest Acts of the Martyrs. Eugenius, a martyr of Trebizond under Diocletian (284–305), couples Thecla with David and Daniel in his prayers. The exordium of the Acts of Polyeuctes (died 259) refers to Thecla and Perpetua, and there were certainly many virgin martyrs who drew their first inspiration from the same source. Eugenia of Rome in the reign of Commodus (180–192) is reported in the Acts of her martyrdom to have taken Thecla as her model. Paul is also an ambiguous figure in the Acts of Paul and Thecla. He is seen as a preacher of asceticism, but one with whom women are besotted. His teachings lead Thecla into trouble, and yet he is never there when the trouble comes. This presentation of Paul as ascetic preacher, discouraging marriage, appears to be very different from that of the Pastoral Epistles. For instance, 1 Timothy 4:1–3 has Paul explicitly