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

Past & Present, May, 1993 by Brent D. Shaw

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A few days later a rumour began to circulate that we were to be taken

our court hearing. My father, consumed with worry, hurried from to

city. He came up to me in order to dissuade me, and said: |My daughter,

have pity on my grey hair. Have pity on your father, if I am still worthy

to be called "Father" by you. With these hands of mine I raised you to

the flower of your present age. I placed you before all your brothers in

honour. Please don't shame me before other men. Consider your brothers.

Consider your mother and your mother's sister. Think of your baby son,

who will not be able to live without you. Change your mind before you

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destroy us all. If anything should happen to you, none of us will be able

to speak freely again'.

My father spoke these words to me, as a father would, with paternal

affection, kissing my hands. Then, throwing himself at my feet, he wept.

He no longer addressed me as |Daughter' but rather as |Lady'. For my

part, I grieved for my father's misfortune, because he alone of all my

relation; took no joy in my suffering. I tried to comfort him, and said,

|What happens tomorrow on the prisoners' platform will be what God

wishes. You must know that we are no longer in our own power, but in

that of God'. He went away from me deeply saddened.

Next day there follows the trial scene in which the defendants are arraigned before the proconsul's tribunal in front of a large crowd in the town forum. One by one they climb the stairs to the platform to be interrogated. Here again, Perpetua's father is the principal figure in her account, as he attempted, yet again, to get her to change her mind (6.2):

My turn came. My father appeared right there carrying my baby boy.

He pulled me down off the stairs and said to me, |Sacrifice . . . please

... have pity on your baby'. In which pleas her father was supported by the governor Hilarianus, who added (6.3-5):

|Spare the white hair of your father, spare your infant son. Make a sacrifice

on behalf of the Health of our Lord Emperors.'

And I said, |I will not'.

Hilarianus said, |Are you a Christian?'

And I replied, |Yes, I am a Christian'.

And when my father rushed up to try to dissuade me, Hilarianus ordered

him to be struck down. He was beaten with rods. I was in pain over my

father's treatment -- as if I myself were being beaten. I grieved for his

old age. Perpetua's final encounter with her father came in the final day before she was to be led out for execution in the amphitheatre (9.2-5):

Then the day of the games was upon us. My father, absolutely exhausted

by the ordeal, came to see me. He began to tear at his beard. He prostrated

himself, falling face down on the ground. He cursed the number of his

years, and uttered such words as would have moved all creation. I grieved

for his unhappy old age. It was the last time they met before she died. Her father is the single dominant person in her diary. Her husband is nowhere to be found in her account (and there is no presumption of divorce or death).

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

Past & Present, May, 1993 by Brent D. Shaw

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