In the Epistle to the Romans he is mentioned as one who rendered many services to the Church, and it is believed that by his influence the malicious Jews were not allowed to interfere with the teaching of the Apostles, and therefore multitudes were converted. After remaining there some time, SS. Paul and Barnabas returned to visit those whom they had already converted at Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, who received them with great joy. {51} Among the new disciples at Iconium was a young maiden named Thecla, who, during the absence of the Apostles, had been chosen to risk her life for God's truth--the first female martyr. When she was dragged before the pagan judges, she firmly resisted all their attempts to force her to renounce the Christian faith; they threatened, they tortured her, yet she was not afraid. At last Thecla was exposed to the cruelty of the wild beasts in the amphitheatre, but they came crouching to the feet of the virgin Saint, so beloved of God. The crowd who looked on were so moved by this spectacle that they demanded the maiden's release, and the judges dared not resist them; so Thecla ended her days peacefully serving and praising God. Nevertheless, she has received the title of "martyr," and her name placed next to that of St. Stephen, because, in the early ages of the Church, they who had suffered torments for God's sake, which they could not have survived excepting by miraculous help from Heaven, were thus called. {52} While SS. Paul and Barnabas made this second visit to the cities where already their preaching had brought forth fruit, they formed rules for the orderly government of the Churches. Then, passing again into Pamphylia, through Perga, to Attalia, and thence to Antioch in Syria, they closed their first mission. {53} Chapter III. For some years the Apostles remained labouring amongst the people of Antioch, but at length a trouble arose, through the disputing of the Christian Jews. It was very difficult to them to divest themselves of the idea, that in the exact observance of the Mosaic law lay the one way of justification and salvation. It was very difficult, again, for them to believe that faith and obedience to the law taught by Jesus Christ was sufficient without the outward ceremonies to which they had been accustomed, and which were peculiar to them as a nation. {54} When, therefore, the Christian Jews refused to communicate with the Christian Gentiles until they submitted to the rites of the old Hebrew law, SS. Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem, there to confer upon such matters with St. Peter, and SS. James and John.