The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity · §5 · Passion of Perpetua and Felicity

A fathers pleading and refusal

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Perpetua herself narrates in her prison diary how her father comes to turn her back before her hearing.

A 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.

Latin

Post paucos dies rumor cucurrit ut audiremur. Superuenit autem et de ciuitate pater meus, consumptus taedio, et ascendit ad me, ut me deiceret, dicens: Filia, miserere canis meis; miserere patri, si dignus sum a te pater uocari; si his te manibus ad hunc florem aetatis prouexi, si te praeposui omnibus fratribus tuis: ne me dederis in dedecus hominum. Aspice fratres tuos, aspice matrem tuam et materteram, aspice filium tuum, qui post te uiuere non poterit. Depone animos; ne uniuersos nos extermines: nemo enim nostrum libere loquetur, si tu aliquid fueris passa. Haec dicebat quasi pater pro sua pietate, basians mihi manus, et se ad pedes meos iactans et lacrimans me iam non filiam nominabat, sed dominam. Et ego dolebam casum patris mei, quod solus de passione mea gauisurus non esset de toto genere meo; et confortaui eum dicens: Hoc fiet in illa catasta quod deus uoluerit; scito enim nos non in nostra potestate esse futuros, sed in dei. Et recessit a me contristatus.

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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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