The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity

Summary

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. It is usually described as the earliest surviving text written by a Christian woman. An editor, whose identity is unknown, framed her narrative with a preface, added the vision of her teacher Saturus, and described the martyrs' deaths in the arena. Perpetua was arrested with other catechumens, including the slaves Revocatus and Felicity. Her father, the only pagan in her family, repeatedly begs her to give up her faith. In one scene she points to a water jug and asks whether it can be called anything other than what it is; she can no more call herself anything but a Christian. Her worry for her baby son, whom she is at first allowed to nurse in prison, runs through her account. Perpetua records four visions. In the first she climbs a narrow bronze ladder lined with weapons, treading on a dragon's head, to a garden where a white-haired shepherd gives her milk; she understands that she will suffer. Two visions concern her younger brother Dinocrates, who had died of a disease of the face as a child; after her prayers she sees him healed. In the last she fights an Egyptian gladiator and wins, and wakes knowing that her real enemy is the devil. At the trial before the procurator Hilarianus, Perpetua refuses to sacrifice for the emperors' welfare and is condemned to the beasts. Felicity, eight months pregnant, fears she will be separated from her companions because Roman law did not allow pregnant women to be executed; she gives birth in prison two days before the games. The editor describes the martyrs entering the arena calmly, Perpetua singing, and both women being attacked by a wild cow before being killed by the sword. The Passion was read in the churches of North Africa; Augustine preached on the martyrs' feast day and warned that the text was not Scripture.

Plot or Argument

• Preface

  The editor argues that recent examples of faith deserve to be recorded as much as ancient ones.

• Arrest and the father's pleas

  Perpetua resists her father's arguments, is baptized and thrown into a dark, crowded prison, worried for her baby.

• First vision: the ladder

  She climbs a ladder guarded by a dragon to a heavenly garden and understands that she will suffer.

• Trial and the visions of Dinocrates

  Condemned by Hilarianus, she prays for her dead brother and sees him first suffering and then refreshed.

• Last vision and Saturus's vision

  She defeats an Egyptian in combat; Saturus sees the martyrs welcomed in heaven.

• Felicity and the arena

  Felicity gives birth in prison; the martyrs face the beasts and the sword on 7 March 203.

Lessons

• Identity under pressure

  Perpetua's water-jug argument insists that what she is cannot be changed by renaming it. The diary shows the cost of that clarity to a daughter and mother.

  • Why does Perpetua's father's pleading hurt her more than the threat of death?
  • What is lost and what is kept when Perpetua refuses to give in?

• Equality in suffering

  The account places a noblewoman and a slave side by side; Felicity's fear of dying separately from her friends shows the bond between them.

  • How does the text treat differences of class among the martyrs?
  • Why might early readers have valued a woman's own account?

• A woman's own voice

  Much of the text is Perpetua's own prison diary, one of the earliest surviving writings by a Christian woman.

  • What does Perpetua's diary reveal that a third-person account might not?
  • How does Perpetua describe her relationship with her father?

• For the Christian reader

  Perpetua and Felicity are honoured as martyrs across the Christian world, and their feast is kept on 7 March. Perpetua chose Christ over the pleading of her father and the comfort of her infant son; Felicity, a slave, gave birth in prison days before her death. Their story shows the gospel making mistress and servant sisters (Galatians 3:28) and has encouraged persecuted Christians for eighteen centuries.

  • What do Perpetua's visions show about how she understood her coming death?
  • How does this account illustrate Hebrews 11 and 12:1–2?

Context

Carthage was the leading city of Roman Africa. Around 202 an edict attributed to Septimius Severus is said to have forbidden conversion to Judaism or Christianity, and new converts were targeted. Martyrs' deaths were public entertainments in the amphitheatre.

Composition

The text survives in Latin and in a Greek version. Most scholars accept that Perpetua's and Saturus's sections are their own work and that the editor wrote soon after 203; some have suggested Tertullian as the editor, but this is uncertain.

Reception

The feast of Perpetua and Felicity was kept in North Africa and spread to Rome; Augustine preached several sermons on it. Modern historians value the text as a rare first-person source for a young woman's experience in the Roman world.

Comparisons

• Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers

  The Martyrdom of Polycarp, in the Apostolic Fathers, is an older martyr account told entirely by others; Perpetua speaks in her own voice.

• The First Apology

  Justin's petition to the emperors protests exactly the kind of trial Perpetua describes.

• Foxe's Book of Martyrs

  Foxe's compilation retells the early persecutions, including Perpetua's, as the first chapters of a much longer history.

• Martyrs Mirror: Selections

  The Anabaptist Martyrs Mirror begins its own history with ancient martyrs and records sixteenth-century women such as Maeyken Wens writing from prison.

• Confessions

  Augustine, who preached on these martyrs, also writes about a mother and child and about faith tested by family ties.

• The Story of a Soul

  Thérèse of Lisieux, another young woman writing her own spiritual story, admired the virgin martyrs.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The shift between the editor's voice and Perpetua's own.
• The water-jug exchange with her father.
• The four visions and their symbols.
• How Felicity's pregnancy shapes the story.

Key terms and names

Catechumen

A person under instruction before baptism.

Procurator

A Roman official; Hilarianus had temporary power of life and death.

Passion

An account of a martyr's sufferings and death.

Martyr

Greek 'witness': one who dies rather than deny the faith.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Why is Perpetua arrested, and what is she asked to do at her trial?
2. Comprehension What happens in her first vision?
3. Comprehension What happens in Perpetua's first vision of the ladder?
4. Interpretation Why does Perpetua describe her father's pleas in such detail?
5. Interpretation What do the visions of Dinocrates suggest about prayer for the dead in the early church?
6. Big Question When loyalty to family and loyalty to conscience conflict, which should win?

Faith Connections

• Matthew 10:37 (Scripture)

  'He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me': the hard saying Perpetua lives out.

• Revelation 12:9 (Scripture)

  The dragon of Perpetua's ladder vision recalls the dragon of Revelation.

• Augustine, Sermons 280–282 (Great Conversation)

  Augustine's sermons on the martyrs' feast day show how the text was used in worship.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Faith in Christ defines Perpetua's identity more deeply than family, status or survival, and God strengthens the martyrs to bear witness through visions and courage.

Rhetorical device: analogy. The water jug that cannot be called anything but what it is stands for a name that cannot be denied.

Debate: Resolved: that Perpetua's refusal to sacrifice was an act of courage rather than of stubbornness.

Memory Work

Neither can I call myself anything else than what I am, a Christian.

Stand fast in the faith, and love one another, all of you, and be not offended at my sufferings.

Writing Prompts

Essay: How does Perpetua present herself as daughter, mother and Christian? Which role finally shapes her choices, and how does the text show the cost?

Comparison with The First Apology: Compare the Roman trial in Perpetua's account with Justin's description of how Christians were tried. What does each want the reader to feel?

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Write a diary entry from Felicity's point of view on the night after her child is born.

• Essay

  Draw and label Perpetua's ladder vision, noting what each element might symbolize and which interpretations the text itself supports.

• Poetry

  Write a short poem from Felicity's point of view on the night before the games.

Further Reading

• Early Christian Writings, Various

  Includes the Martyrdom of Polycarp.

• The History of the Church, Eusebius