Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity, 203

Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity

In the amphitheatre of Carthage the young Vibia Perpetua, the slave Felicity and their companions were put to death at games held for the birthday of the Caesar Geta. Perpetua’s prison diary, preserved in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, is one of the earliest surviving texts written by a Christian woman.

Date

7 March 203exact dateDate in the Julian calendar

Place

Carthagetoday: Carthage, Tunis, Tunisia · Africa

Participants

Vibia Perpetua, Roman Empire

Threads

Africa (1st–5th c.)

Also known as

Passion of Perpetua and Felicity; Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis; Страсти Перпетуи и Фелицитаты; Perpetua and Felicitas

The Passion tells how five catechumens were arrested — Vibia Perpetua, a woman of about twenty-two from a respected family, who was nursing a baby; the slaves Revocatus and Felicity, who was pregnant; and Saturninus and Secundulus — and how their teacher Saturus gave himself up to share their fate. At its core is Perpetua’s own account of her imprisonment: her father’s pleas that she renounce her faith, her hearing before the procurator Hilarianus, and her visions, among them a ladder reaching to heaven with a dragon lying at its foot, and a contest with an Egyptian in which she becomes a man. Felicity gave birth in prison shortly before the games. In the arena the men were set against wild beasts and the women against a savage cow, and those who survived were killed with the sword; Secundulus had already died in prison.

The account was completed by an editor who presents himself as an eyewitness; he has sometimes been identified with Tertullian, but this is uncertain, and some scholars detect Montanist sympathies in the text. It survives in Latin and in a Greek version. The traditional date is 7 March 203; because the games celebrated Geta’s birthday, some have argued for 209–211, when he was Augustus, but the proconsul named in the Greek text held office in 202/203. Perpetua and Felicity became among the most venerated martyrs of the West; their feast is kept on 7 March, and in the Orthodox Church on 1 February.

Connections

Related events

Scillitan Martyrs17 July 180 · Africalike the earlier Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs (180), the Passion records the trial and death of Christians at Carthage

Tertullian’s Apologeticus197 · AfricaTertullian, writing in Carthage at the same time, has sometimes been proposed as the editor of the Passion

Same participants

Same place

Adjacent events in the thread

Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity

Connections

Related events

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Meanwhile in the world

Eastern Europe

Middle East and Egypt

Central and Northern Asia

South Asia

Southeast Asia and Oceania

North America

Latin America

The same period

Sources