Perpetua and Felicity

Vibia Perpetua was a twenty-two-year-old woman of good family in Carthage, in Roman North Africa, married and nursing an infant son. Felicity was a slave, pregnant at the time of their arrest. In 203, under the emperor Septimius Severus, they were arrested with several other catechumens, people preparing for baptism, and were baptized while under guard. Perpetua's father, a pagan, pleaded with her repeatedly to renounce her faith for the sake of her child, but she refused. In prison she kept a diary describing these scenes and several visions, including one of a ladder to heaven guarded by a dragon. Felicity gave birth to a daughter shortly before the games. On 7 March 203 the prisoners were exposed to wild animals in the amphitheatre during celebrations for the emperor's son, and were then killed by the sword. An editor, possibly Tertullian, combined Perpetua's diary with the account of another martyr and his own narrative in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity. Their feast is kept on 7 March. Their courage has encouraged persecuted Christians for centuries.

Perpetua and Felicity is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: Christian martyrs who suffered at Carthage on 7 March 203. Source: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)