Vibia Perpetua and an anonymous editor (d. 203) · CatalogVibia Perpetua and an anonymous editorVibia Perpetua and an anonymous editor (d. 203) · CatalogYoung Christian noblewoman of Carthage whose prison diary forms the core of the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity.
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Vibia Perpetua and an anonymous editor
d. 203 · Young Christian noblewoman of Carthage whose prison diary forms the core of the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity
Vibia Perpetua (c. 181–203) was a young married woman of good family in or near Carthage in Roman North Africa, about twenty-two years old and nursing an infant son when she was arrested as a catechumen, a Christian under instruction, along with her slave Felicity, who was pregnant, and several men. In prison she was baptized and wrote an account of her trial and visions. She and her companions were killed in the amphitheatre at Carthage on 7 March 203, during games for the birthday of the emperor's son Geta. An unnamed editor, perhaps a member of the local church, added an introduction, the vision of her fellow prisoner Saturus and an account of their deaths.
The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity is an account of the arrest, imprisonment and death of a group of young Christians at Carthage in North Africa in 203. Its central section is a first-person prison diary written by Vibia Perpetua, a well-born married woman of about twenty-two.