The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity · §6 · Passion of Perpetua and Felicity

Questioned before the procurator and condemned

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Perpetua is speaking in her prison diary as the group is brought to the forum for interrogation.

One 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.

Latin

Alio die cum pranderemus, subito rapti sumus ut audiremur. Et peruenimus ad forum. Rumor statim per uicinas fori partes cucurrit, et factus est populus immensus. Ascendimus in catastam. Interrogati ceteri confessi sunt. Uentum est et ad me. Et apparuit pater ilico cum filio meo, et extraxit me de gradu dicens: Supplica; miserere infanti. Et Hilarianus procurator, qui tunc loco proconsulis Minuci Timiniani defuncti ius gladii acceperat: Parce, inquit, canis patris tui, parce infantiae pueri. Fac sacrum pro salute imperatorum. Et ego respondi: Non facio. Hilarianus: Christiana es? inquit. Et ego respondi: Christiana sum. Et cum staret pater ad me deiciendam, iussus est ab Hilariano proici, et uirga percussus est. Et doluit mihi casus patris mei, quasi ego fuissem percussa: sic dolui pro senecta eius misera. Tunc nos uniuersos pronuntiat et damnat ad bestias; et hilares descendimus ad carcerem. Tunc quia consueuerat a me infans mammas accipere et mecum in carcere manere, statim mitto ad patrem Pomponium diaconum, postulans infantem. Sed pater dare noluit. Et quomodo deus uoluit, neque ille amplius mammas desiderat, neque mihi feruorem fecerunt, ne sollicitudine infantis et dolore mammarum macerarer.

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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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