- Era
- Early third century
- Region
- Carthage, Roman North Africa
- Category
- Martyr and catechumen
- Feast
- February 1
Jump to A Voice from the Ancient Church “I Cannot Call Myself Anything Else” Felicity and the Fellowship of Martyrs Why the Church Remembers Her What Her Life Asks of Us
A Voice from the Ancient Church
Perpetua was about twenty-two years old when she was arrested at Carthage in the year 203. She came from a prosperous family, had an infant son, and was preparing for Baptism. Arrested with her were other catechumens, including Felicity, an enslaved woman who was pregnant, and the men Revocatus, Saturninus, and Secundulus. Saturus, their teacher, later joined them.
Their story is preserved in The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, one of the earliest Christian martyr accounts. Part of it presents itself as Perpetua’s own prison record. We should still read ancient texts with historical care, but here the Church possesses something rare: not simply a later portrait of a martyr, but words transmitted in her own voice.
Perpetua does not sound untouched by fear or affection. She is troubled for her child. She loves her father, who repeatedly pleads with her to deny the Christian name. Her courage is not the absence of human bonds. It is fidelity to Christ within the anguish of those bonds.
“I Cannot Call Myself Anything Else”
Perpetua describes her father trying to persuade her. Pointing to a vessel nearby, she asks whether it can be called by any name other than what it is. When he says no, she answers that in the same way she cannot call herself anything other than a Christian.
This was not stubbornness about a private label. In the Roman world, an act of sacrifice could function as public loyalty to the religious order of the empire. Refusing it could bring imprisonment and death. For Perpetua, however, Christ was not one allegiance among several. Baptism had given her a new life and identity that no court could rename.
She and her companions were baptized during their confinement. The prison was crowded, dark, and oppressive. Fellow Christians arranged help, and Perpetua was eventually permitted to keep and nurse her child for a time. She recorded visions that strengthened her for what was coming, including an image of a difficult ascent and a contest she would face by God’s help.
Felicity and the Fellowship of Martyrs
Perpetua must not be remembered alone. Felicity was eight months pregnant when arrested. Roman law postponed the execution of pregnant prisoners, and she feared being separated from her companions. She gave birth in prison shortly before the appointed games. Her daughter was entrusted to a Christian woman.
The martyrs entered the arena together. The ancient account describes brutal spectacles involving wild animals, followed by death by the sword. The Church does not preserve such details because cruelty is holy. It preserves them because cruelty did not have the final word. The martyrs’ bodies were exposed to imperial power, yet their worship remained free.
Why the Church Remembers Her
Perpetua was a catechumen, not a theologian with decades of public ministry. Her Christian life, as far as we can measure it, was very short. Yet the grace given in Baptism was not small. The Church remembers her because she belonged wholly to Christ when every visible authority insisted that she belong elsewhere.
She also prevents us from turning martyrs into marble figures. She was a daughter, a mother, and a friend. Fidelity cost her something she genuinely loved.
What Her Life Asks of Us
Most of us will not stand in an arena. We are more likely to be asked, through a hundred smaller pressures, to call ourselves something less demanding than Christian. Perpetua asks whether our confession reaches beyond speech into loyalty, courage, and endurance.
Her witness should not make us despise ordinary family love. It should teach us to entrust even our deepest loves to Christ, who loves every person more perfectly than we do.
Holy Martyr Perpetua, pray that Christ may strengthen us to confess Him without hatred, to endure without despair, and to entrust those we love to His mercy.
A note. These lives are written to introduce, not to direct. Ascetic feats described here belong to particular people under obedience, not to a method anyone should take up alone. Anything touching your own rule of prayer or fasting belongs with your priest or spiritual father.
- The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume III
- Martyrs Perpetua, Felicitas, and Their Companions — Orthodox Church in America
- The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas — Tertullian Project
The same Gospel, a week at a time
The saints spent their lives inside these passages. Words for the Narrow Way takes one saying of Christ and gives it seven days — the passage in full, what the Greek is doing, how the Fathers read it, and one practice to carry through the week.