Saints Perpetua Research Paper

In the source “The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas,” the narrative of a few early Christians who died for their beliefs is told. The two martyred women, named Perpetua and Felicitas, along with a few other followers of the religion were imprisoned because they identified themselves as Christians and refused to offer sacrifice to the Roman Emperor. The Christians were sentenced to death by beast for this. The source illustrate the problems Christians had in navigating the cultural realities of life in the Roman empire. This can be observed along with the struggles involved in class, family, and gender.

Perpetua was a Christian woman, age twenty-two with an infant son still nursing. Her servant was Felicitas who was also a Christian, and seven months pregnant. Perpetua’s brothers and mother were Christians, but her father was a Pagan. Perpetua, Felicitas and three other men were a group of catechumens from Carthage that was captured in 203 A.D. They were apprehended and jailed due to their religious beliefs. While in captivity and awaiting their martyrdom they were treated roughly and poorly by the soldiers who guarded them.

The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity The document, “The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity,” shows just how mighty and fearless the faith of the martyrs were in Rome around 203 A.D. in which our story takes place. During the rule of Diocletian, Christianity was not the religion of popular belief. Many of Romans practiced polytheism. As a result, numerous Christian believers were persecuted for their divine faith in God.

Saint Rose of Lima is the patron saint of beauty due to her remarkable appearance.Rose is an innovation to many, because unlike many people today, she loathed her beauty due to being too alluring. I chose Saint Rose because she didn’t like people being tempted by her or staring at her. Rose only wanted to satisfy her parents and God. I also chose this saint because throughout her early life, she did things people normally would not contemplate or endeavour. Her feast day is on August 23th on the modern calendar, and in some countries it is on August 30th.

Perpetua was a true woman of faith. Perpetua was a twenty-two-year-old, a Christian, a mother, a daughter, and a martyr. The story of The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas is the story of the execution of Perpetua and her Christian companions. This story reveals the difficulty Christian’s went through during this time, the chasm between the Roman and Christian communities, and the experience of Christian persecution for going against the Roman cultural norms. Perpetua’s personal prison diary expresses her extremely deep faith in Christianity. Perpetua and her Christian companions were prepared to be tortured, publicly humiliated, and in the end, lose their lives for their faith. Perpetua had a young baby still nursing her and Felicitas was

• Writes about Christ suffering extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of Pontius Pilatus. Refers to an immense multitude of Christ followers willing to die for their beliefs. Pg. 82

With this spread Romans became very suspicious about the Christian cult. In fact in 35AD, the Senate decreed it a “strange and unlawful11.  They did not like the idea of monotheism, believing to favor one God so highly above others would anger them. The idea of polytheism also supported the Roman Empire, as by worshipping the gods an individual in turn worshipped the emperor in a way and believed the signs of priests and words to the emperors to be directly from the Gods12. Christians also refused to pledge allegiance to the emperor believing their allegiance could only be sworn to God and Jesus13.  Theophilius of Antioch described it as such “The emperor, given authority by God, must be honored with a proper respect, but he must not be adored. You see, he is not God; he is a man whom God has placed in that office not to be adored, but in order that he exercise justice on earth… As the emperor may not tolerate that his title be taken over by those subject to him, so no one may be adored, save God”14. Romans also found the idea that Christians did not make sacrifices to be very disturbing, especially when combined with the fact that they would gather to “drink the blood and body of Christ”15. Sacrifice was the norm throughout polytheism and the fact that Christians refused sacrifice of any kind, to

St. Ignatius of Antioch understood the Christian faith to be objective and sensible, stating that Christianity is fundamentally a religion based in historic, tangible realties . He was adamant to the fact that Jesus Christ was a real human with real flesh; he encountered real suffering and died a truly human death. Ignatius saw Christian faith and the person of Jesus Christ in such a way that it put him at odds with the Gnostics, who held to a Docetic Christology that was circulating widely among the Church. For Ignatius, this was a serious issue that needed to be addressed due to the purity of the faith and the truth it held. At stake was the validity of the incarnation, suffering, death, and resurrection of the person of Jesus Christ. If this is not real or true, Ignatius believed that man

By comparing the following primary sources, “The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas” and “The Rape of Lucretia,” historians can learn about the archetypes of Roman society. The former text, written in 202 or 203 CE, is a prison diary of a young martyr in Carthage. The protagonist, Perpetua, is arrested and sentenced to death because she refused to renounce her Christian faith. Despite having a newborn and hearing consistent outcry from her father to renounce her faith, Perpetua refused to absolve from Christianity. Prior to her execution, she and her comrades experience visions of entering Heaven and specifics of how their deaths would be bestowed upon them. These visions provided comfort to the prisoners because they legitimized the belief in God, as well as sanctioned the power of God to perform miracles. As God willed it, Perpetua, the “most valiant and blessed martyrs”, was ultimately executed in the arena. The latter text, written in 17 AD by Roman historian, Livy, is a story of propaganda about the rape of a honorable woman named Lucretia. Lucretia, Tarquinius Conlatinus’s wife, was the quintessential example of a Roman martyr. She was applauded for her modest, hospitable, and dutiful nature. Tragically, she was forcibly raped by the emperor’s son, Sextus Tarquinius. Consequently, Brutus, Tarquinius, and Lucretia’s father, did not object while witnessing Lucretia commit suicide in order to preserve her and her family’s

St. rosalia was born to the sicilian nobility,the daughter of sinibald,lord of roses, and was also a descendant of charlemagne. She was raised around the sicilian court.rosalia was mostly known for her piety and was devoted to her religion at a very early age.When rodalia was older she moved into a cave and lived in it the rest of her life by her parents house. Some people say that she was lead to the cave by two angles. On the wall of the cave she wrote “I, Rosalia, daughter of sinibald, lord of roses,and Quisquina,have taken the resolution to live in this cave for the love of my lord, Jesus Christ.” Rosalia stayed in that cave away from the world. Rosalia died in that cave. She died around 1160 Mount pellegrino, apparently by natural causes,alone,and

Saint Bonaventure was born in Umbria, Italy to parents Giovanni di Fidanza who was a physician and Maria Ritella, he was an Italian medieval Franciscan, scholastic theologian and philosopher, and there is not a lot of information about his childhood. He fell ill while he was young and was saved from death by the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi. He was born as Giovanni di Fidanza just like his father but later on be canonized by Pope Sixtus IV. He would be also later on declared a Doctor of the church in 1588 by Pope Sixtus V.

As Christianity was spread throughout Rome, people began to question the teachings of Jesus. Out of fear, officials arrested and killed a multitude of Christians as a result. The everyday plebeian became impressed with these people dying for a belief. Although persecutions became more common, the number of Christians stayed the same and maybe even grew because of the influx of polytheistic Romans converting to the monotheistic religion of Christianity. People were converting quicker than they were being killed off because of the likeable teachings of love, the bravery of these people dying because of what they believed in, and their appealing message to those not in the affluent classes.

With its insistence on exclusive monotheistic worship of the Christian God it won where paganism could only fail, in demanding solitary allegiance to its movement (pp. 201-204). In demanding such commitment, those won to Christianity were far more allied to its goals and purposes than adherents to pagan movements that were non-exclusive. Further, the possibility of publicly suffering for their faith offered Christians the hope of enormous communal esteem. For those already firmly committed, the benefits of esteem and other-worldly reward far out-weighed whatever cost in suffering martyrdom might bring. Paganism had nothing analogous to win such enthusiastic commitment. Whereas, Christianity promised life after death in heaven while in the Roman religion, only gods went to heaven; emperors were considered gods, everyone else went to the underworld.

The early church was hated by the society and government of the Roman Empire for various reasons, such as the refusal of Christians to sacrifice to the gods. The Empire went through many phases of demanding that the Christians sacrifice which meant denying their faith or be killed. The earliest attacks claimed the lives of many of the apostles.This text is the story, from around 160 AD, of the martyrdom of Polycarp, the Bishop of the church in Smyrna, a city in Asia Minor (modern Izmir in Turkey) devoted to Roman worship. The account is in the form of a letter from eye-witnesses to other churches in the area. It is the earliest chronicle of a martyrdom outside the New Testament.Polycarp was an old man, at least 86, and probably the last surviving person to have known an apostle, having been a disciple of St. John. This was one reason he was greatly revered as a teacher and church leader. One interesting feature of the letter is that the writer is very conscious of how Polycarp’s death followed the pattern of Christ’s. As you read it, look for parallels between this story and the Easter story in the gospels. We are writing to you, brothers, with an account of the martyrs, especially the blessed Polycarp, whose death brought to the persecution to a close. Almost all the events that led up to it reveal it to be another martyrdom in the divine pattern that we see in the Gospel. For he waited for his betrayal, just like the Lord did, so that we might follow him, in looking out

Saint Peter was born in Bethsaida Gaulanitis, Syria Roman Empire at around 1 AD. Peter’s feast day is on the twenty ninth of June. Bethsaida Gaulanitis was near where the Jordan River enters the Sea of Gennesaret. This place was abandoned at around 65 AD. Peter’s original name appointed to him by his parents was Simon, it became Peter when Jesus changed his name. His father’s name was Jonah. Jonah was a physically strong individual, hence he became a fisherman. Peter deeply followed in his father’s footsteps. His mother’s name was Perpetua. Not much is known about her. Peter also had a brother named, Andrew. Andrew was another one of Jesus’s twelve disciples. Peter did not go to school, he was just taught by his father in the trade of fishing