Saints Perpetua and Felicity

Saints Perpetua and Felicity were young mothers of Roman Africa who in the year 203, at Carthage, under the emperor Septimius Severus, gave their lives for Christ in the amphitheater. When they were arrested they were catechumens; they received baptism while already under guard. The Church commemorates them on March 7 and names them in the Roman Canon.

We know their story from the account of their passion, written down soon after their death. It contains the notes that Perpetua herself kept in prison, the account of the catechist Saturus about his vision, and an eyewitness’s narrative of their last day.

Vibia Perpetua was about twenty-two years old. She came from a good family, had received a careful education, was married, and was nursing a son a few months old. Felicity was a slave and was expecting a child. They were seized together with three other catechumens: Revocatus, Saturninus, and Secundulus. Saturus, their teacher in the faith, joined them of his own free will.

Perpetua’s father, a pagan, begged her to renounce the faith for his sake and for the sake of her child. She answered by pointing to a pitcher: just as a vessel cannot be called by any name other than its own, so she could not call herself anything other than a Christian. Before the procurator Hilarianus she refused to offer sacrifice for the welfare of the emperors and declared: “I am a Christian.” All were condemned to the wild beasts.

In prison Perpetua was frightened of the darkness and worried about her child. When she was allowed to keep her little son with her, she wrote that the prison had become a palace to her. Felicity, in the eighth month of her pregnancy, feared that she would not die together with her companions, because the law forbade the execution of women before they had given birth. After they had prayed together, two days before the games, she gave birth to a baby girl, who was brought up by one of the Christian women. To the guard who mocked her pain she replied that now she suffered alone, but in the arena there would be Another in her who would suffer for her.

The games were held on March 7, the birthday of the Caesar Geta. The Martyrology records that the martyrs went from the prison to the amphitheater with cheerful faces, as if to heaven. A maddened cow was let loose on the women. Perpetua, thrown to the ground, pinned up her hair and helped Felicity to her feet, and to her brother and one of the catechumens she said: “Stand fast in the faith, and love one another.” At the end the condemned exchanged the kiss of peace and died by the sword. Perpetua herself guided the trembling hand of the young gladiator to her throat.

Their veneration quickly spread beyond Africa: the Roman calendar of the fourth century already records March 7. Tertullian, a writer of Carthage and their contemporary, called Perpetua the bravest of martyrs. They have been venerated since antiquity, without a formal canonization. Their companions Saturus, Saturninus, Revocatus, and Secundulus have their own commemoration in the Martyrology on the same day. On April 14, 1996, Saint John Paul II prayed in the ruins of the amphitheater at Carthage and called the two of them courageous women.