The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity · §15 · Passion of Perpetua and Felicity

Felicity gives birth in prison so she can die with the others

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The editor continues the narrative after the visions by telling what happened to Felicity, the pregnant prisoner.

As 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.

Latin

Circa Felicitatem uero, et illi gratia domini eiusmodi contigit. Cum octo iam mensium uentrem haberet (nam praegnans fuerat adprehensa), instante spectaculi die in magno erat luctu, ne propter uentrem differretur (quia non licet praegnantes poenae repraesentari) et ne inter alios postea sceleratos sanctum et innocentem sanguinem funderet. Sed et commartyres grauiter contristabantur, ne tam bonam sociam quasi comitem solam in uia eiusdem spei relinquerent. Coniuncto itaque unito gemitu ad dominum orationem fuderunt ante tertium diem muneris. Et statim post orationem dolores inuaserunt. Et cum pro naturali difficultate octaui mensis in partu laborans doleret, ait illi quidam ex ministris cataractariorum: Quae sic modo doles, quid facies obiecta bestiis, quas contempsisti cum sacrificare noluisti? Et illa respondit: Modo ego patior quod patior; illic autem alius erit in me qui patietur pro me, quia et ego pro illo passura sum. Ita enixa est puellam, quam sibi quaedam soror in filiam educauit.

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About this text

The prison diary of Perpetua, a young mother of Carthage, with the visions of Saturus and an editor's account of how she, the slave woman Felicity and their companions died in the arena in 203.

This account was put together by Perpetua, Saturus, and an unnamed editor. Perpetua wrote her prison diary in her own hand, Saturus wrote his own vision, and the editor arranged and supplemented their words with a beginning and an end. It is addressed to fellow Christians, called brothers and little children, who will hear or read the account in the church.

It was written because new visions and martyrdoms had occurred. The editor holds that they should be written down and read in church like older examples, so that God is honored and faith is strengthened rather than supposing that grace worked only in the past. He argues that recent prophecies, visions, and martyrdoms carry the same authority as ancient ones because the Holy Spirit was promised for the last days and God still acts for believers and against unbelievers.

The reader will meet Perpetua, Felicity, Revocatus, Saturninus, Secundulus, Saturus, Dinocrates, Hilarianus, Tertius and Pomponius, Pudens, Optatus, and Aspasius, with Perpetua and Saturus speaking in the first person and the editor speaking around them. Here martyrdom means suffering from arrest to execution accepted as faithful witness, vision means sleep vision received as promised revelation, to confess Christ means to declare Christian identity before interrogation, wild beasts means the arena animals and the public execution, public games means the imperial birthday show where the sentence is carried out, baptism covers water baptism and blood as a second cleansing wash, relief means release from prison misery and suffering after death, and the devil is the opponent met as dragon, serpent, Egyptian, and cow. The work cites the last days promise of the Spirit in the form found in Acts, given here as Joel 2:28-29 and Acts 2:17-18, with ancient book and divine names in modern form such as Jesus Christ, Felicity, Revocatus, Ceres, Saturn, and Geta Caesar.

Printed text used

Translated from Oscar von Gebhardt, Acta martyrum selecta (Berlin: A. Duncker, 1902) (Latin)

This work has passed our source check. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Latin on any section, or the Latin source link, to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.

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