Shifting Shadows: The Evolving Legacy of Perpetua Across Centuries and Cultures

Exploring the Transforming Narratives of Perpetua over History

{Trigger warning for Violence, Martyrdom, and Suicide.}

A generated painting of a middle eastern-african young woman, Perpetua, dressed as a saint with hair covered, in ancient carthage

Few stories are as compelling or as complex as that of Vibia Perpetua, a young woman whose faith led her to the sands of the arena. Yet, as we trace Perpetua's final steps toward martyrdom, we also must navigate the maze of narratives that have sprung up around her story. These narratives reveal as much about the tellers and their times as they do about Perpetua herself. But ultimately, I think today we need to start with a question.

Have you ever done something that you thought would change your life?

It doesn't even need to be something positive. Have you ever been wheeled into a surgical room and felt overwhelmed with the sensation that some other ideal version of yourself should undergo this process?

Or maybe you did something wonderful for yourself, but had always envisioned completing that marathon or milestone as some new, better person.

I thought that when I finally finished a book, I would be a different person. Disappointingly, it was still me, just with a book.

When I had to do a major medical procedure, I thought some other Shay would step out and take on the role of "patient," but it was still just me.

I thought some glamorous Shay would show up for my vacations, some more disciplined Shay would be there to hit savings goals, and that some certainly more qualified Shay would descend on an umbrella to scoop up these babies that the hospital had the audacity to send home with very much still just me.

Let's be honest, it is jarring that our POV stays the same through some wild circumstances. It feels like a design flaw.

Perpetua seems to reflect this sensation. Perpetua feels like a person just making it through, not a Capital-M Martyr.

She says to her father that "What is a water jug or a vase or whatever can't be called something other than what it is. So I cannot be called other than what I am; a Christian."

She’s not eloquent, but she’s gloriously stubborn. Perpetua is still a human, not a glamorized saint (yet). She's affected by her circumstances. She wants her baby, she says she's faint with exhaustion and heat, and she's terrified by the dark of the prison. Perpetua is grateful when her father leaves her alone. She's torn. She expresses hopes that she might still be freed. She mentioned feeling badly for her father, feeling pity for his old age and how sad he is going to be when she dies. She has to be reminded that she can ask God for a vision of what is going to happen to her. She relies on her friends to make it through.

In the oldest versions of her story, Perpetua is very brave; however, she's brave in the way humans are brave, doing your best in the face of real emotions like fear, grief, and loss.

Perpetua's story (along with that of Felicitas, Revocatas, Saturninus, Secundalus, and their teacher Saturnus) has two main tellings. However, as soon as the journal is out of Perpetua's hands and somebody else is telling the story, Perpetua moves from person to paragon.

It happens that way sometimes.

Have you ever known someone who wasn't a great person, but when they died, everyone waxes eloquent about all their wonderful qualities?

Putting my historical hat back on, I cannot actually tell you what happened to Perpetua. There is perhaps no more thoroughly examined thread in the tapestry of early Christian martyrdom than Perpetua's story, and in an odd way, that makes it messier. As her story passed through the centuries, it became a canvas upon which various communities projected their theological battles, cultural values, and understandings of gender.

There are two main versions of Perpetua's story.

First is the Passio (in Latin: *Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis*, or the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity). There is also a Greek version of the Passio, and they differ slightly but mostly retain similar story arcs.

a book and a scroll side by side on a desk

In the Passio, Latin or Greek, Perpetua is arrested and tells us of her father's attempts to dissuade her from confessing to Christianity. She writes about the darkness and heat of the prison and mentions her relief when her Christian leaders bribe the Romans for a better cell. Perpetua is allowed to nurse her child and keep him with her. She is baptized.

Her brother reminds her that because God has chosen her for persecution, she is right to request a vision about the outcome. Perpetua has a vision of a narrow bronze ladder, whose sides are treacherously hung with blades; fishhooks, scythes, and daggers. At the base of the ladder lurks a serpent dragon. She treads on the head of the serpent and ascends the ladder to a lush garden, where a white-haired shepherd greets her and gives her milky cheese to taste, and she is greeted by thousands of people in white robes. She understands this as God’s answer: the group will not escape their fate, but will climb the ladder of persecution to heaven.

In this time, she has two other visions of her youngest brother who perished at age 7 of a skin cancer on his face. She sees him thirsty and unable to drink water in the underworld (this is a Roman idea, in the Underworld the dead are always thirsty) and she believes that because of her chosen condition, she could ask God for a favor for her brother and bring him to paradise. She pleads for God to move her brother from this purgatory, and is granted a second vision where the boy is healed, well, and now able to drink.

The final vision of Perpetua has to do with the arena. In the dream, she is brought out to fight an Egyptian man, and she is anointed and stripped for battle and then becomes male. Then:

"A certain man came out, of amazing size, such that he was taller than the roof of the amphitheater. Unbelted, wearing a purple outfit with two stripes through the middle of his chest, and fancy shoes made out of gold and silver, carrying a rod like a gladiatorial trainer and a green branch which had golden apples on it. He requested silence and said: ‘This Egyptian, if he defeats her, will kill her with a sword; if she defeats him, she will receive this branch." (Passio X:8-9).

green branch which had golden apples on it

She fights in the dream, floating off the ground to kick the Egyptian as he attempts to grapple her. Perpetua defeats him and steps on his head in the classic victory pose of a gladiator and recieves the branch of life. She interprets this as winning not life, but martyrdom. This is where Perpetua's journal leaves off.

The narrator picks back up here in the Passio, describing how the how the group prayed for Felicity to deliver her baby at eight months so she could stay with them and not be killed alone after her pregnancy. That night, Felicity delivered a little girl that was raised later by a sister in Carthage.

Finally, the day arrives for the martyrs to go to the arena. In the Greek version, it is said that the group recalls the verse "Ask and it shall be given onto you" and the men all have specific ways they want to die (One wants to avoid the bear, another to be killed in one bite by a leopard, and another to face all the animals in turn to gain the highest crown) It feels a bit like gallows humor. But, according to the narrator, all happens as they request.

The women are sentenced to die by a female heifer.

As a person in the modern world, this sounds a bit silly. (Death by Bessie!) Still, Romans didn't put docile animals in the arena, so we can assume an animal something like the horned African auroch, now extinct but still alive in the Roman days. The animal would be agitated with whips and burning irons.

Perpetua is gored and thrown (onto her back in the Greek version, onto her groin in the Latin). Here we see the narrator begin some of the beatification of Perpetua. She covers her exposed thigh out of modesty and calls for a hair tool to put her hair back up, so she won't seem to be mourning for the death she is about to die. In the Greek version, she even takes a time-out to resew her outfit’s tear. Eventually, they are gathered in the middle of the arena and killed by sword. Perpetua guides her gladiator's sword to her neck, and so ends the story of Perpetua.

Then there is the later Acta (in Latin: A*cta brevia sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis*, or in English: the Acts of Perpetua and Felicity). The Acta is more streamlined, it reduces focus on Perpetua and uplifts Felicity, and it has the group of six martyrs acting as one character more frequently. Two brief visions are included from Perpetua, but they're now about the whole group. Her brother is missing entirely.

Perpetua is also different as a character. In the earlier Passio version, her father comes to the dock alone to see her be judged. After she is condemned, she sends for her infant son, but her father refuses to bring the boy to her. She comes to terms with the baby's absence, feeling grateful that her breasts don't hurt and the child has weaned through the ordeal.

But In the Acta, Perpetua's whole family, plus her husband and child, are there, and her father thrusts her child at her and Perpetua thrusts the babe back at him, quoting Jesus and saying "Stand back from me, workers of inequity, since I did not know you." Again, we begin to see the beatification of Perpetua. The writers have begun to "saintify" her.

Perpetua becomes a mother that doesn't have motherly feelings.

Perpetua also dies in completely different ways. In the Passio, she refuses to put on the costume of Demeter's priestess and is so delivered to the arena in nothing but a net, is gored by the heifer and then put to death by a nervous gladiator.

In the Acta, she's unceremoniously eaten by a lion.

lioness in a roman amphitheater

In the Passio, Perpetua enters a non-binary space in terms of gender, or we might say, as does David Reis, that she is a "leading character who slides back and forth along the gender spectrum, a point illustrated most forcefully in Perpetua’s combat vision." (Christianity and Literature 68(2), 357-8) Passio Perpetua is womanly; nursing, compassionate, modest. Yet, simultaneously, she flips gender hierarchies; her father goes on his knees in supplication before her and calls her lady rather than daughter; she advocates for and wins justice for the group before the Roman guards; she advises her male teacher. She's the one who has visions of their future. In her combat dream, she is male, a victorious warrior, yet is still addressed with feminine pronouns by the immense royal figure.

Perpetua collapses gender. This is early church stuff, where Paul and even Jesus indicate that, in the Kingdom of God, our divisions will be subsumed, gender included.

But already by the Acta, most of that is removed. Perpetua is shuffled out of the spotlight and the group takes over. Saturnus, her teacher, now speaks for the group, and Perpetua is muted. Even when she speaks it is holy and assured, already disconnected from earthly concerns. She is made more saintly and less accessible.

Sometimes pedestals are so high, you can't see the person any more.

Perpetua's story moves through the centuries. It was once very common for a church to observe a calendar of martyrs and saints. Perpetua and Felicity share a feast day on March 7th. A saint's story was read out loud on their feast day, and the sermon was often centered around it in the early years. We have several such ancient sermons recorded.

Tertullian, bishop of Carthage and a contemporary of Perpetua, uses her vision of the garden and the ladder to tell his congregation that only by being martyred can you reach heaven. Everyone else waits in the Underworld until Christ's return, then you can go in--probably. Better to be martyred though. For sure.

It should be noted that Tertullian died of old age.

Augustine, bishop of Hippo, also North Africa, nearly 200 years later talks of Perpetua as weak woman who Christ made perfect with his strength. Her gender is only played to demonstrate how she should have been weak, but wow! she wasn't! Thank Christ!

Augustine was embroiled between a group called the Caecillianists who supported forgiveness for those who had avoided martyrdom during the violent persecutions, and the Donatists who did not: especially for clergy. Bishop Caecillian had been installed by a man who had avoided martyrdom by giving up holy books and items to Emperor Diocletian. Bishop Donatus was a rival church leader that Donatists believed was the true bishop. Imagine a church with rival pastors.

Augustine was trying to give a sermon uplifting a martyr while holding the opinion that forgiveness should be offered to people who had avoided martyrdom. This is why he places Perpetua in a position of admirable, but not imitable. He wanted to make it seem as though Christ could fill up even a weak vessel and make it strong, and Christ's presence could make sufferings seem like ecstasies. He took the stance that if Christ hadn't given a person supernatural bravery to withstand martyrdom, then they couldn't be faulted for avoiding it.

Which turns Perpetua from champion to conduit, from valiant to vessel.

Two hundred more years go by and we hear from Quodvultdeus, bishop of Carthage, probably around the year 440 CE. He was bishop during the years that the Vandals took Carthage from Rome and made it a stronghold for pirates. These pirates would later go on to sack Rome a few years later. To live through the beginning of the fall of a nation is terrifying, and we see it show up in his sermon.

"O wailing afflicting the heart with all melancholy! It’s nice to weep. We wail then, dearest ones, for them and for us, since it’s also we who deserve accordingly to be tortured with such people. We accuse ourselves with the others, we have all turned aside, we have all been made useless, certainly all! No one is forgiven; for the judge is such that every person has been found by him to be criminal." (From Sermon: De tempore barbarico - On the Barbaric Age).

Quodvultdeus uses martyr story after martyr story in his sermon, each highlighting how people were willing to die rather than be sinful. For a man terrified that his world was crumbling because of God's judgment on them, this makes sense. He doesn't see Perpetua and her fellows as being persecuted, but as being righteous enough to save everyone else. (Even as a weak woman! It's like she wasn't even a woman! so brave!)

Perpetua's story, once out of her hands (if it ever truly was in them), is bent to fit the times and the teller's needs and culture.

Stories work like that though. I can see that I'm drawn to the elements of Perpetua that uplift her gender, raise her voice, and highlight her authenticity. These are very 21st-century concerns, especially from a woman in the Christian community. I too am a product of my time and place. We will never know what happened to Perpetua in that ring and her heart.

The story has passed into the hands of others now.

I think, as the longevity of Perpetua's story shows, we are the inheritors of stories to be wrestled with. And it is important to know what we are bringing to the story. As our collection of bishops shows, it's easy to make a story say what we want it to say. I can tell that I have a strong pull to make the Passio the "true story" of Perpetua, because it is "feels correct" in my spirit because that's what I want it to be.

Part of learning to be a historian is learning to recognize your own biases. I come to Christian history and beliefs with a whole backpack of Shay stuff that colors my perspective. So do you, dear reader, as did anyone who wrote or talked about these stories. Your pastor, your professor, me: none of us have a mystical ability to come to a story or scripture with completely clear eyes and get God's uninhibited truth.

We wrestle and we're wrong.

In a way, that makes us gentle. We learn to recognize that we're doing our best and we can always learn more.

Until next time - S

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