St. Perpetua's Passion

To begin, Perpetua grew up with a privileged existence. She was from a good family, newly married with a healthy baby. Even so, she was willing

Perpetua’s father visited her often and begged her to denounce her faith. He pleaded with her to do this for his sake and her infant son’s sake. Perpetua would not do this even knowing what she was facing. Even though her mother and brothers were

Perpetua is concerned with living a good life following God and his plan and not living a significant life. She has every chance in the world to follow the significant path. She is “nobly born, reared in liberal manner, and wedded honorably” (CTR 232). Her dad even tries to “vex her with his

Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast, -at her, the child of honourable parents, -at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, -at her, who had once been innocent, -as the figure, the body, the reality of sin.

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.

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

Perpetua’s background already highlights her significance in the Christian community and even among the Christian women. Since we now have her own narrative of her days in the prison, we as readers can conclude that she was very likely to be literate and maybe well educated. According to W.V. Harris, Perpetua knew Latin, and maybe Greek also. Brent D. Shaw says in his article that Vibia Perpetua’s family name indicates that this was a locally prestigious family that had obtained their Roman citizenship for generations. The high social status of Perpetua is an advocating point in reinforcing the unconditioned devotion to God among Christians, especially among Christian women. As a woman with Perpetua’s significant background, Perpetua became more powerful in delivering the message of her dramatic life experience and her faith. More women in the Christian

This essay will examine documents about the woman in Rome and their position politically, socially, and religiously. Woman began to receive more rights and are recognized as equals as time progresses in Rome.

Above all, Lucretia’s virtues of honor and respect for her husband and family were more important than life itself. Because of Lucretia’s story of life and death in this manner a whole empire was transformed in the way it was governed. Death over dishonor for Lucretia exemplified the ideal Roman virtue of nobility. Lucretia’s suicide created an urgent need to avenge the wrongs done to a virtuous women. Husband, Father, and friend were called upon by Lucretia to essentially extol the Roman virtues of courage, moral authority and dignity in avenging her rape and consequent death. Lucretia’s solution of suicide, in her mind, seems to be a statement of the societal position in the Roman world for women. It’s as though this act was the only way to absolve herself of this crime against her. Death over dishonor seems to be a theme that permeates the Roman culture as a virtue aspired to by both men and women. With the King’s

1. The primary text mentions that audience was displeased and even a bit disturbed to see that the two stripped women, Perpetua and Felicity, before them because of their young age and recent motherhood (The Passions of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, 10). The exposure of them, meant for embarrassment, brings them pity and favor among the audience; their appearance of being weak and vastly outmatched makes them become more victims of the law, instead of criminals. They are proven to be the perfect image of the saint who gives up everything for God, unlike the men who did not have to leave behind newborn children when passing into death. We also know that Perpetua was educated and of higher class, this makes her more desirable as a symbol for

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

The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas is classified as a hagiography on the martyrdom of two important Christian women. Though this source contains bias, being written by a supporter of the two martyrs, important information lies in the typical Roman Christian’s perspective on religious women. Perpetua, in contrast to Lysistrata, does not derive her power and

Pomeroy, S. B. (1995). Goddesses, whores, wives, and slaves: women in classical antiquity. New York: Schocken Books.

An unlikely candidate to dispute the unfair, misogynistic treatment of women by men and society, Christine de Pizan successfully challenged the accepted negative views that were being expressed about women by the all-male literary world of her era. Part of Christine’s uniqueness stems from the time in which she lived, the middle to late 1300’s. The lack of a positive female role model to pattern herself after made Christine a true visionary in the fight for the equal rights of women. Her original ideas and insight provided a new and more intelligent way to view females. Pizan’s work, The Book of the City of Ladies, provided women much needed guidance in how to survive without the support of a man.

The female stock characters in Roman comedy tend to be traditional or stock characters. The primary role of these women is to be subject to the lust and desires of men. The protagonist tends to be a young man who wants to continue his relationship with a young woman for marriage or sex. This