The Lost Scriptures.

The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity

A number of young catechumens were arrested, Revocatus and his fellow slave Felicitas, Saturninus and Secundulus, and with them Vibia Perpetua, a newly married woman of good family and upbringing. Her mother and father were still alive and one of her two brothers was a catechumen like herself. She was about twenty-two years old and had an infant son at the breast. (Now from this point on the entire account of her ordeal is her own, according to her own ideas and in the way that she herself wrote it down.) While we were still under arrest (she said) my father out of love for me was trying to persuade me and shake my resolution. ‘Father,’ said I, ‘do you see this vase here, for example, or water pot or whatever?’ ‘Yes, I do’, said he. And I told him: ‘Could it be called by any other name than what it is?’ And he said: ‘No.’ ‘Well, so too I cannot be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.’ At this my father was so angered by the word ‘Christian’ that he moved towards me as though he would pluck my eyes out. But he left it at that and departed, vanquished along with his diabolical arguments. For a few days afterwards I gave thanks to the Lord that I was separated from my father, and I was comforted by his absence. During these few days I was baptized, and I was inspired by the Spirit not to ask for any other favor after the water but simply the perseverance of the flesh. A few days later we were lodged in the prison; and I was terrified, as I had never before been in such a dark hole. What a difficult time it was! With the crowd the heat was stifling; then there was the extortion of the soldiers; and to crown all, I was tortured with worry for my baby there.”

The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity accurately reflects the life situation of the African Christian community at the beginning of the third century. Perpetua and Felicity were part of a group of five catechumens apprehended in Carthage in 203 A.D. for practicing their faith.  Perpetua was a well-educated twenty-two-year-old married mother with a nursing infant, and Felicity was her servant, herself seven months pregnant.  Together they and their companions were imprisoned and roughly treated by the soldiers as they awaited their martyrdom.

Perpetua’s brother asked her to ask G-d in prayer if they would be released or if the imprisonment would result in death.  Perpetua was given a vision of a golden ladder laden with iron weapons leading to heaven with a dragon crouching at the bottom.  The two ascend successfully in the vision, and after Perpetua related this to her brother, they decided that it meant that this imprisonment would lead to their martyrdom and not their release.  Perpetua writes, “We understood that it was to be a passion, and we ceased henceforth to have any hope in this world.”

We all want to have hope in the world – we do. We hope that love and joy wins out over evil and death. Having faith will not keep us from experiencing our own mortality – but hope in Jesus will secure our eternity. 

Pastor Dave