The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity

1Ancient examples of faith were set in order in writing because they bear witness to God's grace and build people up. When they are read, the events are made present again, so God is honored and people are strengthened. Why should new evidences not also be set in order when they serve those same two purposes? These new accounts will one day be ancient themselves and necessary for posterity, even if in their own time they are granted less authority because people assume that antiquity deserves reverence. Let those answer for it who judge the one power of the one Holy Spirit by the ages of time, since each newer work, as the latest, should be counted greater, in keeping with the abundance of grace decreed for the final stretches of the age.

For the Lord says in Scripture, "In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all people, and your sons and daughters will prophesy; I will pour out my Spirit on my servants, both men and women, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams" (Joel 2:28-29; Acts 2:17-18; the Latin follows the author's wording). So we recognize and honor prophecies and new visions alike as promised, together with the other powers of the Holy Spirit assigned as equipment for the church. He was sent to the church, administering all his gifts among all people as the Lord assigns to each one. Of necessity we set these accounts in order and celebrate them by reading to God's glory.

We do this so no weakness or despair in faith will suppose that divine grace dwelt only among the ancients, whether shown in the honor given to martyrs or in revelations. For God always does what he promised, for unbelievers for testimony and for believers for benefit. So what we heard and touched we announce also to you, brothers and little children (1 John 1:1-3). Then you who were present will remember the glory of the Lord, and you who now learn by hearing will have fellowship with the holy martyrs, and through them with the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom are glory and honor forever and ever, amen.

2Those arrested were young catechumens: Revocatus and Felicity, his fellow slave, Saturninus and Secundulus. With them was also Vibia Perpetua, well born, educated as a freeborn woman, and married as a matron. She had a father and mother and two brothers, one of them likewise a catechumen, and an infant son still at the breast. She herself was about twenty-two years old. From this point on she herself told the whole course of her own martyrdom, as she left it written in her own hand and felt in her own heart.

3While we were still with the escorts, my father kept at me with his pleas. He loved me, and he tried to turn me from my course and break me down. "Father," I said, "you see that vessel lying there, for example, a little pitcher or something else?" "I see it," he said. "Can it be called by any other name than what it is?" I said to him. "No," he said. "So I also cannot call myself anything other than what I am, a Christian." Roused by that word, my father lunged at me as though to tear out my eyes. He only harassed me, and then he left, defeated along with the arguments of the devil.

When I had been without my father for a few days, I gave thanks to the Lord, and I got relief from his absence. In that span of a few days we were baptized, and the Spirit prompted me to seek nothing from the water except endurance of the flesh. A few days later we were taken into prison. I was terrified, because I had never experienced such darkness. What a harsh day it was! The crowd pressed hard and the heat was fierce, and the soldiers jostled us roughly. In the end I was worn down by worry for my baby there.

Tertius and Pomponius, the blessed deacons who served us, paid a bribe so that we could be let out for a few hours and might get relief in a better part of the prison. Once we had come out of the cell, everyone else attended to their own concerns. I nursed my baby, who was already failing from hunger. Anxious for him, I spoke to my mother, I encouraged my brother, and I entrusted my son. I myself was wasting away, because I saw them wasting away on my account. I suffered such worries for many days, and then I claimed as my right that my baby should stay with me in prison. He grew strong at once, and I was lifted from the strain and worry for my baby. The prison suddenly became a headquarters for me, so that I would rather have been there than anywhere else.

4Then my brother said to me, "My lady sister, you stand high in favor now: you are great enough to ask for a vision, and it will be shown to you whether this means martyrdom or release." I knew that I talked with the Lord, and I had come to know such great kindness from him, so I promised him with confidence, "I will tell you tomorrow." I asked, and this is what was shown to me.

I see a bronze ladder of astonishing length, reaching all the way to heaven. It was narrow, and only one person at a time could climb it. Every kind of iron blade was fixed to its sides: swords, spears, hooks, knives, and javelins, so that anyone who climbed carelessly and without looking upward would be torn, and pieces of flesh would catch on the blades. A dragon of astonishing size lay coiled directly beneath the ladder. It laid ambushes for those climbing and terrified them so that they would not climb. Saturus climbed first. He later gave himself up for us of his own accord, because he had built us up, and he had not been present when we were arrested. He reached the top of the ladder, turned, and said to me, "Perpetua, I am waiting for you. But watch that the dragon does not bite you." I answered, "He will not harm me, in the name of Jesus Christ." As if it feared me, the dragon slowly thrust its head out from beneath the ladder, and as I set foot on the first rung, I stepped on its head and climbed up.

I saw a vast expanse of garden, and in the middle sat a white-haired man of great stature, dressed like a shepherd and milking sheep, with many thousands in white robes standing around him. He raised his head, looked at me, and said to me, "Welcome, child." He called me to him and gave me a mouthful of the cheese he was making from the milk. I took it in cupped hands and ate it, and all those standing around said, "Amen." At the sound of the voice I woke, still chewing something sweet I could not name. I told my brother at once, and we understood that martyrdom lay ahead. From that moment I began to have no hope left in this world.

5A few days later rumor spread that we were to be heard in court. My father came from the city, worn out with distress, and climbed up to me to make me fall. He said: “Daughter, pity my white hairs. Pity your father, if I deserve to be called father by you. If these hands raised you to this flower of life, if I set you above all your brothers, do not hand me over to the disgrace of men. Look at your brothers, look at your mother and your aunt, look at your son, who will not be able to live after you. Put away your resolve. Do not destroy us all. None of us will speak freely if anything happens to you.” He spoke as a father, out of dutiful love, kissing my hands and throwing himself at my feet, and weeping he called me no longer daughter but lady. And I grieved over my father’s fall, that alone of all my kin would not rejoice over my martyrdom. And I strengthened him by saying, “What God wills will happen on that platform. Know that we shall not be in our own power, but in God’s.” And he left me in sorrow.

6One day while we were eating lunch, we were suddenly seized for a hearing. We were brought to the forum. Rumor spread at once through the quarters around the forum, and an immense crowd formed. We went up onto the platform. When the others were questioned, they confessed Christ.

Then my turn also came. My father appeared at once with my son. He pulled me down from the step and said, "Make the offering. Have pity on the baby." Hilarianus the procurator, who had then received the power of the sword in place of the dead proconsul Minucius Timinianus, said, "Spare your father's gray hairs. Spare the child's infancy. Make a sacred act for the welfare of the emperors." I answered, "I will not do it." Hilarianus said, "Are you a Christian?" I answered, "I am a Christian."

While my father stood there to pull me down, Hilarianus ordered him to be thrown out. He was beaten with a rod. My father's fall grieved me as if I myself had been beaten. So I grieved for his wretched old age. Then he pronounced sentence on all of us and condemned us to the wild beasts. We went down to the prison cheerfully.

My baby had been used to nursing at my breast and staying with me in prison. So I sent Pomponius the deacon to my father at once to ask for the baby. But my father would not give him. As God willed it, the baby no longer wanted the breast. My breasts did not become inflamed, so that I would not be worn out by worry for the baby and pain in my breasts.

7A few days later, while we were all praying, a voice came forth to me suddenly in the middle of the prayer, and I named Dinocrates. I was stunned that he had never come to my mind except then, and I grieved when I remembered his misfortune. I knew at once that I was worthy and ought to ask on his behalf, and I began to pray long for him and to groan to the Lord.

That very night this was shown to me. I see Dinocrates coming out of a dark place, where many others were also burning with heat and desperately thirsty, in dirty clothing and pale in color, with the wound on his face that he had when he was dying. This Dinocrates had been my brother by blood, seven years old, who died badly of an illness that ate away his face with a sore, so that his death was hateful to all people. So I had prayed for him, and between me and him there was a great gap, so that neither of us could reach the other. In that place where Dinocrates was there was a pool full of water, with a rim higher than the boy was tall, and Dinocrates was stretching up as if he were about to drink. It grieved me that the pool held water, and yet he would not be able to drink because of the height of the rim. Then I awoke, and I knew that my brother was suffering, but I trusted that I would help his suffering, and I prayed for him every day until we were transferred to the military prison, for we were to fight in the military public games at what was then the birthday of Geta Caesar. And I prayed for him day and night, groaning and weeping, that this would be granted to me.

8On the day we spent in the stocks, this was shown to me. I see the same place I had seen before, and Dinocrates is there with a clean body, well clothed, experiencing relief. Where the wound had been, I see a scar. That pool now has its rim lowered to the boy's navel, and he is drawing water from it without stopping. A golden bowl full of water stands on the rim, and Dinocrates steps up and begins to drink from it, and the bowl never runs dry. When he has had his fill, he goes off to play joyfully with the water as children do. Then I woke, and I understood that he had been transferred from punishment.

9A few days later Pudens, the soldier who served as assistant officer in charge of the prison, began to hold us in high honor, for he understood that great power was at work in us. He let many visitors in to see us, so that we and they might give relief to each other in turn.

As the day of the public games drew near, my father came in to me worn out with grief. He began tearing out his beard and throwing it to the ground. He threw himself facedown. He reproached his own years and spoke words that would have moved the whole of creation. I grieved for his unhappy old age.

10The day before we were to fight, I saw this in a nighttime vision. Pomponius the deacon came to the prison door and knocked hard. I went out to him and opened the door for him. He wore a loose white robe and many little sandals. He said to me, “Perpetua, we are waiting for you. Come.” He took my hand, and we started walking through rough, winding ground. We barely reached the amphitheater at last, out of breath, and he led me into the middle of the arena. He said to me, “Do not be afraid. I am here with you, and I am struggling alongside you.” Then he left.

I looked out at a huge crowd standing in shock. I knew I had been condemned to the wild beasts, so I was surprised that no wild beasts were sent out for me. Then an Egyptian came out against me to fight me, foul-looking, along with his helpers. Handsome young men also came to me as my helpers and supporters. I was stripped, and I was made male. My supporters began rubbing me down with oil, as fighters do before a contest, and I saw that Egyptian on the other side rolling in dust. Then a man of astonishing size came out, so tall that he rose even above the top of the amphitheater. He wore a loose purple robe with two stripes down the middle of his chest, and also ornate sandals made of gold and silver. He carried a staff like a trainer and a green branch hung with golden apples. He called for silence and said, “If this Egyptian defeats her, he will kill her with the sword. If she defeats him, she will receive this branch.” Then he stepped back.

We came together and started trading blows. He tried to grab my feet, but I kept striking his face with my heels. I was lifted into the air and began beating him as if I were not touching the ground. When I saw the fight dragging on, I clasped my hands to lace my fingers together, grabbed his head, and he fell flat on his face. I trampled his head. The crowd began to shout, and my supporters began to sing. I walked up to the trainer and took the branch. He kissed me and said to me, “Daughter, peace be with you.” I set off in glory toward the Sanavivarian Gate. Then I woke up. I understood that I would fight not against the wild beasts but against the devil, yet I knew the victory would be mine.

I have written this account up to the day before the public games. Let whoever wishes write the story of the public games themselves.

11Blessed Saturus also published this vision of his, which he wrote out himself. "We had suffered death," Saturus says, "and we had left the flesh, and four angels began to carry us eastward, yet their hands never touched us. We traveled not on our backs with our faces turned upward, but as if we were climbing a gentle slope. Once we had left the first world behind, we saw an immense light, and since Perpetua was at my side I said to her, 'This is what the Lord was promising us. We have received the promise.'"

While those same four angels were still carrying us, a great open space appeared before us, like a garden planted with rose trees and flowers of every kind. The trees stood as tall as cypresses, and their leaves kept falling without ceasing. Four other angels waited there in the garden, brighter than the rest.

When they saw us, they gave honor to us and said in wonder to the other angels, "Here they are! Here they are!" At this the four angels carrying us grew awestruck and set us down. Then we crossed a full stadium on foot by a broad road. There we found Jocundus and Saturninus and Artaxius, who had been burned alive in that same persecution, and Quintus, who had also died in prison as a martyr, and we asked them where the others were. The angels told us, "Come inside first and greet the Lord."

12We drew near to a place whose walls looked as though they were built of light. At its doorway four angels met us as we entered and dressed us in white robes. Once inside, we heard a single voice crying without pause, “Holy, holy, holy” (Isaiah 6:3) (Revelation 4:8). Seated in that same place was one who looked like a white-haired man, with hair white as snow and a young face, though we could not see his feet. Four elders stood at his right and his left, and behind them a great many other elders.

We came forward in awe and stood before the throne, and the four angels lifted us up. We kissed him, and he passed his hand across our faces. Then the other elders said to us, “Let us stand for prayer.” So we stood and made peace with one another, and the elders said to us, “Go and play.”

At that I said to Perpetua, “You have what you want.” She answered me, “Thanks be to God. As I was cheerful in the body, so I am more cheerful here and now.”

13We went out and saw Optatus the bishop to the right of the doors and Aspasius the priest and teacher to the left, standing apart and sorrowful. They threw themselves at our feet and said, "Settle between us, for you have departed and left us behind like this." We answered them, "Are you not our father, and you a priest, that you should throw yourselves at our feet?" We were moved with pity and embraced them. Perpetua began speaking with them in Greek, and we drew them aside into a green garden under a rose tree.

While we were still talking with them, the angels said to them, "Let them alone; let them have relief. And if you have any quarrels among you, forgive one another." They rebuked them, and they said to Optatus, "Correct your people, for they gather around you as if returning from the Circus and quarreling about rival parties." Then it seemed to us as if they meant to shut the doors. There we began to recognize many brothers, and martyrs as well. We were all fed by a fragrance beyond words, and it satisfied us. Then I woke in joy.

14These are the more remarkable visions of the most blessed martyrs Saturus and Perpetua, which they wrote down themselves. But God called Secundulus out of the world while he was still in prison, by an earlier departure. This was not without grace, so that he might gain the wild beasts. Yet even if his soul did not know the sword, his flesh certainly did.

15As for Felicity, the grace of the Lord came to her in this way. She was eight months pregnant as the day of the spectacle drew near, for she had been arrested while pregnant, and she was in great distress for fear her punishment would be put off because of her pregnancy, since pregnant women may not be presented for punishment, and she would then shed her holy and innocent blood later among common criminals. Her fellow martyrs were also deeply grieved at the thought of leaving so good a comrade behind alone on the road of their shared hope.

So together they poured out a united prayer to the Lord with groaning three days before the public games. Labor pains seized her right after the prayer. As she struggled in childbirth, made harder by the natural difficulty of the eighth month, one of the prison gatekeepers said to her, "You suffer so much now, what will you do when you are thrown to the wild beasts, which you scorned when you refused to sacrifice?" She answered, "Now I suffer what I suffer. But there another will be in me who will suffer for me, because I too am about to suffer for him."

In this way she gave birth to a little girl, and one sister took the child to raise as her own daughter.

16Since the Holy Spirit has permitted the record of these public games to be written down, and in permitting it has willed it, we are carrying out what stands as a command from most holy Perpetua, indeed a charge she entrusted to us, although we are unworthy to add to the telling of so great a glory. We add one further proof of her firm resolve and her greatness of mind.

The tribune had begun to treat them rather harshly because he had listened to the warnings of utterly foolish men and feared they would be stolen out of prison by some magical incantations. Perpetua answered him to his face: "Why do you not let us get relief, the most noble condemned ones who are about to fight, of course, for Caesar's birthday? Or is it not to your credit if we are brought out fatter on that day?" The tribune shuddered and blushed. Then he ordered them to be kept more humanely, so that her brothers and the others were given leave to come in and get relief with them, and by this time even the prison adjutant himself had come to believe.

17On the day before too, when they sat down to that last dinner they call the free dinner, they ate it, as far as they were able, not as a free dinner but as a love meal. With the same constancy they hurled words at the crowd. They warned of the judgment of God, called them to witness the blessedness of their martyrdom, and mocked the curiosity of those who had rushed together to stare.

Saturus said, "Is tomorrow not enough for you, that you gladly look at those you hate? Friends today, enemies tomorrow? But mark our faces carefully for yourselves, so that you may recognize us on that day." So they all left that place stunned, and many of them believed.

18The day of their victory dawned, and they walked out of the prison into the arena as if into heaven, cheerful and radiant in appearance. If they trembled at all, it was with joy and not with fear. Perpetua followed with a calm step, as a matron of Christ and as God's beloved, and the strength in her eyes made every onlooker look away. Felicity rejoiced that she had given birth safely and could now fight against the wild beasts, going from blood to blood, from the midwife to the net-fighter, to wash herself after her labor in a second baptism.

When they were brought to the gate and ordered to put on ritual dress, the men into the robes of the priests of Saturn and the women into the robes of the consecrated women of Ceres, that noble resolve resisted to the very end. Perpetua spoke for them: "We came to this place freely so our freedom would not be veiled. We pledged our lives so we would do no such thing. That is the agreement we made with you." Injustice recognized justice, and the tribune allowed them to be brought in simply wearing what they wore.

Perpetua sang a psalm as she went, already trampling the head of the Egyptian underfoot, while Revocatus, Saturninus, and Saturus threatened the watching crowd. Then, when they came into the sight of Hilarianus, they began to speak to him with gestures and nods: "You condemn us," they said, "but God will condemn you." The crowd was enraged at this and demanded that they be beaten with whips as they passed down the line of hunters. They were glad of it, because they had come to share even something of the sufferings of the Lord.

19But the one who had said, "Ask and you will receive" (John 16:24), had granted to them as they asked the outcome that each one had desired. For whenever they were talking together about the vow of their martyrdom, Saturninus for his part would openly declare that he wanted to be thrown to all the wild beasts, so that, of course, he would wear a more glorious crown. So at the opening of the show Saturninus himself and Revocatus faced a leopard and were also mauled by a bear on the platform. Saturus, however, loathed nothing more than the bear, but he was already expecting to be finished off by a single bite from a leopard. So when he was handed over to a boar, it was rather the hunter who had tied him to the boar who was gored from below by the same wild beast and died after the days of the public games; Saturus was only dragged. And when he had been bound fast for the bear on the bridge, the bear refused to come out of its cage. So for a second time Saturus is called back unharmed.

20For the young women the devil prepared a most ferocious cow, procured contrary to custom, because he envied their sex even in respect of the wild beast. They were led out stripped and dressed in nets. The crowd shuddered to look at one delicate girl and the other fresh from childbirth with dripping breasts. So they were called back and dressed in loose ungirded clothes.

Perpetua was tossed first and fell on her hips. As she sat, she drew her tunic, torn at the side, across to cover her thigh, mindful of modesty rather than pain. Then she asked for a pin and fastened up her scattered hair. For it was not fitting for a martyr to suffer with loose hair, lest she seem to be mourning in her glory. So she stood up, and when she saw Felicity crushed to the ground, she went to her and gave her a hand and raised her. And the two stood together. And when the hardness of the people was overcome, they were recalled to the Sanavivaria Gate.

There Perpetua was received by a man named Rusticus, then a catechumen, who stayed close to her, and as if woken from sleep — so deeply had she been in spirit and in ecstasy — she began to look around, and as everyone stared in amazement she said, “When are we to be thrown to that cow or whatever it is?” When she heard what had already happened, she did not believe it until she recognized certain marks of the attack on her body and clothing. Then she sent for her brother and that catechumen and spoke to them, saying, “Stand firm in faith and love one another, all of you, and do not be made to stumble by our martyrdoms.”

21At the other gate, Saturus was encouraging Pudens the soldier. He said: "In short, you can be sure that, just as I claimed beforehand and foretold, I have felt no wild beast at all up to now. And now believe with all your heart. Look, I am going out there, and one bite of the leopard will finish me." Then at once, near the close of the show, the leopard was let loose, and one bite covered him with so much blood that the crowd shouted to him as he came back with the testimony of a second baptism: "Saved and washed, saved and washed." He was plainly saved, for he had washed himself in this way. Then he said to Pudens the soldier: "Farewell. Remember the faith, and remember me. Do not let these things trouble you. Let them make you strong." At the same time he asked for the little ring from Pudens's finger, dipped it in his own wound, and gave it back to him as an inheritance, leaving him a pledge of his blood to remember him by.

From that moment he lay drained of life and threw himself down with the rest in the usual place for the cutting of their throats. When the crowd demanded them in the center, so that the people could join their own eyes to the murder as the sword sank into each body, they rose on their own and moved to whatever spot the crowd wanted. They had already kissed one another, so that they would complete their martyrdom with the rites of peace. The rest received the steel motionless and in silence. Saturus did so even more. He had gone up first, and he gave up his spirit first, for he was also holding Perpetua up. But Perpetua, pierced between the bones, cried out, that she might taste something of the pain. Then she herself guided the straying right hand of the young gladiator to her own throat. Perhaps so great a woman, who was feared by the unclean spirit, could not have been killed in any other way unless she herself had willed it.

O bravest and most blessed martyrs. O truly called and chosen into the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Whoever magnifies and honors and adores that glory should surely read these recent deeds, no less than the ancient models, for the building up of the church. In this way these new acts of power will also testify to God the Father Almighty and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord that one and the same Holy Spirit is still at work. To Him belong glory and immeasurable power forever and ever. Amen.