The passion of Perpetua - Christian woman martyred in Carthage in A.D. 203

TABLE
STRUCTURE OF THE
"PASSIONS OF SAINTS PERPETUA AND FELICITY"
Editor's Introduction to the document (1-2)
  (a) Statement concerning the theological status of the document (1)
  (b) Introduction to the principal characters of the drama (2)
    Perpetua's account of her arrest, imprisonment, and life in
    prison to the point of her execution "written in her own
    hand" (3-10)
      (a) Arrest and first encounter with her father (3)
      (b) First vision (4)
      (c) Second encounter with her father (5)
      (d) Trial scene and third encounter with her father (6)
      (e) Visions of Dinocrates (7-8)
      (f) Life in prison and final encounter with her father (9)
      (g) Vision of personal combat in the arena (10)
Vision of Saturus: One of Perpetua's fellow prisoners "written in
his own hand" (11-13)
Editor's account of the fate of Perpetua and her fellow prisoners
(14-21)
  (a) General statement on the fidelity of the documents (14)
  (b) Report of the fate of Felicitas (15)
  (c) Report on the execution of the prisoners in the amphitheatre
      (16-21.10)
  (d) Peroration on the significance of the martyrdoms (21.11)

What then are the significant elements in her own story, as told in her own words? First of all, her decision to act on her own, in such a way as deliberately to risk her own life, brought into question all her family connections, the closest relationships of power into which she had been bound on a day-to-day basis up to that point. There can be no doubt that the most powerful link in this familial network so far as she was concerned (and the one which is constantly brought to the fore as the most problematic) was that with her father.(53) In the course of her imprisonment, trial, and the events leading up to her execution, she had no fewer than four traumatic meetings with her father, each told in a straightforward manner that reveals both the tensions and the problems in this relationship. The first confrontation took place while she was still under house arrest. She reports it in the form of a dialogue (3.1-4):

When we were still with our arresting officers, my father wished to make

me change my mind with words of persuasion. He persevered in his

attempts to defeat me, all because of his love for me.

|Father', I said, |for the sake of argument, do you see this vase, or

whatever you want to call it, lying here?'

And he said, |Yes, I see it'.

And I said to him, |Can you call it by any other name than what it is?'

And he said, |No, you can't'.

|So', I said, |I cannot call myself anything other than what I am -- a

Christian'.

Merely hearing this word upset my father greatly. He threw himself at

me with such violence that it seemed he wanted to tear my eyes out ...

but in the end he just harassed me and then left, beaten, along with his

devilish arguments. For the next few days during which my father was

away, I gave thanks to the Lord, and was able to refresh myself in

his absence. The second confrontation with her father occurred after she had already been in prison for a few days. Suddenly news came that the prisoners were to be taken to trial (5.1-6):