The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity · §8 · Passion of Perpetua and Felicity

Dinocrates Healed and Drinking

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Perpetua, writing her prison diary, reports what she saw after praying day and night for her dead young brother Dinocrates.

On 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.

Latin

Die quo in neruo mansimus ostensum est mihi hoc. Uideo locum illum quem retro uideram, et Dinocraten mundo corpore, bene uestitum, refrigerantem; et ubi erat uulnus, uideo cicatricem: et piscina illa summisso margine usque ad umbilicum pueri; et aquam de ea trahebat sine cessatione. Et super marginem fiala aurea plena aqua; et accessit Dinocrates et de ea bibere coepit; quae fiala non deficiebat. Et satiatus accessit ludere de aqua more infantium gaudens. Et experrecta sum. Et intellexi translatum eum esse de poena.

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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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