Saints Perpetua and Felicity

In 202 AD an edict of Septimius Severus forbade anyone to become a Jew or a Christian. The next year five catechumens were seized in Roman Africa, among them St. Perpetua and St. Felicity. Their teacher in the faith gave himself up rather than leave them.

St. Perpetua's father was a pagan, advanced in years, who loved her above all his other children. The prisoners were held some days in a private house, and there he pressed her to give up the faith. She pointed to a pitcher lying on the floor and put a question to him about it.

The catechumens were baptised within days, before they were led down to the dungeon. St. Perpetua wrote that she was afraid, having never before felt such darkness. Her mother brought the infant, and she obtained leave to keep him at the breast.

Her brother asked her to seek a vision of what was coming. She saw a narrow ladder hung with iron weapons, and a dragon crouching beneath it. At the top a grey-haired shepherd milking sheep called her daughter and gave her curd.

Taken suddenly from dinner, the prisoners were set on a platform in the forum. Hilarianus the procurator held the power of the sword after the proconsul's death. Her father appeared with her son and dragged her down from the step.

Hilarianus urged her to sacrifice for the welfare of the emperors. Her father was thrown down and beaten with rods at the judge's order. The whole company was condemned to the beasts, and went down to the dungeon rejoicing.

After the sentence her father refused to send the infant back to her. St. Perpetua wrote that the child no longer sought the breast, and her body gave her no pain. At prayer she suddenly named Dinocrates, a brother who had died at seven years old.

She saw him in a gloomy place, parched, the wound of the cancer that killed him still on his face. She prayed for him until she saw him clean and drinking from a golden bowl. The condemned were then moved to the camp prison for the games of Geta Caesar's birthday.

St. Felicity grieved that her pregnancy would keep her from the arena with her companions. The law did not permit a pregnant woman to be exposed to punishment. Three days before the games her companions joined in one prayer for her.

Her pains came on at once, and she laboured in the difficulty of an eighth-month birth. A warder taunted her as she cried out. She bore a girl, whom a Christian woman brought up as her own daughter.

On the day before the games St. Perpetua saw the deacon Pomponius call her to the amphitheatre. In the vision she fought an Egyptian, threw him and trod on his head. She woke knowing that she would fight not with beasts but with the devil.

The condemned turned their last public meal, eaten before sightseers, into a love-feast. Saint Saturus, the catechist who had built them up in the faith, spoke to the crowd that had come to stare at them. All who heard went away astonished, and many of them believed.

The day of their victory dawned, and they walked into the amphitheatre cheerful of face. At the gate they were told to put on the dress of Saturn's priests and Ceres' priestesses. St. Perpetua resisted to the end, and the tribune conceded that they enter as they were.

A very fierce cow, procured against all custom, was loosed on the two women. Tossed to the ground, St. Perpetua drew her torn tunic over her, mindful of her modesty. Seeing St. Felicity crushed on the ground, she gave her a hand and lifted her up.

The crowd called for the martyrs to be brought into the middle, where the blow could be seen. They rose of their own accord and went, and first kissed one another with the kiss of peace. St. Perpetua, pierced between the ribs, guided the young gladiator's wavering hand to her throat.

Tertullian, writing at Carthage within a decade, cited St. Perpetua's revelation of paradise. Their names stand together in the Canon of the Mass. In 1907 AD Father Delattre found their tombstone, broken in pieces, in his excavations at Carthage.