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Sts. Perpetua & Felicity
00:23:52
Dr. Elizabeth Klein and Taylor Kemp discuss the life and impact of two female martyrs from the third century, Sts. Perpetua and Felicity. Both were beheaded for refusing to renounce their Christian faith. Their feast day is March 7.
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You're listening to a podcast on Catholic Saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live and share their faith.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to Catholic Saints. My name is Taylor Kemp. I'm the director of Formed and with me is Dr. Elizabeth Klein. Dr. Klein, it's great to have you.
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Thanks for having me.
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Continuing to fill out our incredible saints calendar, today we are talking about Saints Perpetua and Felicity. Dr. Klein, who are these saints?
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So Saints Perpetua and Felicity are martyrs. They were martyred around the year 202, very early. They're from Roman North Africa. So they were martyred in this ancient city of Carthage, which is now in ruins, but is in modern day Tunisia. And I just thought I would say a little bit about North African Christianity in the early church. I think a lot of people don't know about it, but in fact, almost all of our most famous early Christian writers in the west come from North Africa. Augustine, so Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine. This is one of the most sort of famous early Christian texts where it describes the Passion of perpetual Felicity.
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Why is this such a hub of major Christian figures? Who knows?
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Christianity's vibrant there. They're too busy at Rome to write things.
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Was education.
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I mean, Carthage is a very wealthy, important city. So, you know, in Roman history, Carthage is the sort of big enemy of Rome. The Punic wars are fought against Carthage. It was a very wealthy trade city and sort of had its own culture. And so, I mean, some of it may just be the circumstances of history. It's hard to know. But we actually don't have very much writing in the early period from Rome. We have a lot more from North Africa. So. Yeah. So these saints are then, of course, very, very famous. They're named in the Roman canon. So that long prayer at Mass when they name all the saints, you get Perpetua and Felicity. We have many homilies. Augustine, for example, preached on their feast day. And so, yeah, so they were very well known. And the reason that they were so well known is because of this beautiful text called the Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity. We don't know who wrote it. Some people think Tertullian wrote it. But I just think it's like he's the only other North African.
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He was writing a lot of stuff.
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He was writing a lot of stu around at the time. You know, it's not a big Christian community. So he could have theoretically written it, but we don't know who wrote it. But it's Pretty much unique among early Christian documents because it actually at least purportedly contains writings of Perpetua herself. So she wrote, like they call it the prison diary. So whoever compiled the Passion says, okay, now you're going to hear Perpetua's own words. And we have a whole section that's reportedly written by her. And then we also have something reportedly either written or conveyed by one of the other martyrs, satirists, who's martyred with them. So obviously there's lots of debate whether or not she actually wrote it or, you know, whether or not the editor of the whole text has, you know, maybe changed parts of it or whatever, or whether or not a woman would be well educated enough to actually write it and all these things. I mean, I don't think there's any reason to be like, hyper suspicious of it, especially because it is so weird. Like you wouldn't. Doesn't seem like it'd be easy to fake something that's so unusual. So, yeah, I mean, it's certainly possible. Like, writing in the ancient world, obviously is usually dictation. So whether or not somebody changed it after or edited it or whatever, quite possibly they did. But I think it's very realistic that she actually. It's actually the martyr's own words. And this is very unusual. Usually early Christian martyrdom stories are very short.
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Usually they're also very similar, a lot
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of times quite formulaic. And whether or not that formula is because it's kind of like a martyr story and everyone expects it to unfold in a certain way, or whether or not it partially is formulaic because Roman court proceedings are formulaic or kind of. There's also a lot of people think that there was actually some kind of. Not formal training would be exaggerated, but like, you had to prepare yourself to be able to make a good confession when you're under duress. Right. So a lot of the martyrs, yeah, they worry about, they say making a good confession. And so whether or not there was kind of like this is what you say. So you, like, you're panicking.
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You get a little pre.
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Rehearsed. Yeah. It's stressful. This is what you say that actually.
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Which makes sense.
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Yeah.
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And often, to an extent.
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Yeah. And often it does have. Some of it sounds kind of like the Creed.
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Yeah. Which also makes sense.
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Which makes sense.
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That's the most. The essentials of the faith. It does strike some problems with when Christ says, do not worry about what you're going to say for the Holy Spirit.
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But they're not worried because they have the creedentially prepared. They have the creed written on their heart. The Creed.
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That's exactly right. Okay, so we have this passion of perpetual and felicity. Where do we go from there?
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Okay, so what's going on in the
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context of the time? What is the story?
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Right, so, yeah, that's helpful to start with that. Okay, so sometimes the story of kind of early Christian martyrdom or persecution, sometimes people get, like, a really flat version of it where it's like, the Romans are not going around dragging everyone out of their houses. And that's not really accurate to what was happening, especially in the early period. So there are two formal persecutions of Christians by emperors. The first one is. Why am I blanking? Decius. No, Decius is the first one. So Decius particularly targeted the clergy. Makes sense. And then the great persecution is under the Emperor Diocletian. So that's in the fourth century. We're talking in the 100 years before that. So persecution of Christians at this time is kind of like local and sporadic. Romans were very suspicious of Christians because they met in secret. They didn't worship the Roman gods, which is considered essentially a security risk. Right. If you don't worship the gods properly. And they were kind of obstinate under pressure, they wouldn't recant the faith. So there's a very famous letter written by an emperor in the Eastern Empire, Pliny, to the Emperor Trajan, about early Christian persecution. And he's like, I don't know what to do with these people. I've got these Christians. They seem to be doing suspicious things. I don't know. Should they be punished simply for confessing the name Christian? Should they be punished for offenses that are charged to the name? Like, how do I deal with these people? So then he says, like, if I, you know, if it comes to my attention that there are Christians, I question them. If they're. I give them a chance to recant the faith or they don't recant the faith, then I punish them. Cause obviously, they got something to hide kind of thing. And so this is kind of an example.
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This period is what's going on.
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This is an example of what's going on in this period where it's like. And then he says, if people come to me with a list of people they say are Christians, like, I'm not looking into that because I'm not gonna hunt them down. Yeah. Because, you know, people are slandering each other. They're telling me, oh, there's Christians.
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It's basically like, if the problem hits you right in the face. Fine, I'll address it. But it's not an act of persecution.
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Right? So. And we don't know, obviously, Pliny's letter is in a different part of the empire, so we don't know exactly what's going on in the context of North Africa, but some kind of local persecution. So actually, the Passion kind of starts in the middle of things like the beginning of the Passion. They're already under arrest.
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Okay.
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So we don't know why. We don't know why or exactly what, or if they're arrested at church. Like, we don't really know, but they're under arrest. And Perpetua is actually a catechumen. So she has not been baptized. And she is baptized while under arrest. And then we have really interesting kind of exchanges with her pagan father who wants her to renounce the faith.
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Do we know how old she is?
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I don't know if they say exactly how old she is, I think, but she's young. She has a young child. So she has a newborn who's still breastfeeding while she's under arrest. And so her father's trying to convince her to recant the faith for the sake of her child. And so it's a really interesting. I mean, a psychology of martyrdom that you wouldn't normally have any window into in the early church of her father trying to say, like, it's not worth it for your family. Have pity on me. You know, and her sort of steadfast faith in refusing to do that. And it's. I mean, it's really remarkable to think of how strongly. How strong her faith is and how strongly she identifies as Christian, even though she's a catechumen and this is a relatively new faith. She's really very secure in the faith. And part of that has to do with what she considers the name Christian. So we take the name Christian for granted, but because they're persecuted for the sake of the name. And you consider when you're baptized, you receive the name of Christ, right? Augustine says, we're not only called Christians, but Christ himself. So have this conformity to Christ in baptism. And she says to her father, well, that vase over there, or whatever you. Can you call it whatever you want. And he says, no. And she's like, well, I'm a Christian.
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That's so good.
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She's like, you can't. I can't be called anything else, right? So that's the questioning. Like, are you a Christian?
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Yeah.
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And they say, I am.
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She's like, I Can't say something.
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I can't say I'm something I'm not. So I am a Christian.
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It's just so remarkable, too. She's a young child. Like, the. The impulse to be like, I can. I can justify renouncing this for the sake of saving my child. But she's like that. You know, this is someone who's truly thinking of the things above, not of the earth.
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Totally. And it's like, a really interesting cultural picture because some people who critique sort of the psychology of early Christian martyrdom, they, like, side with the. They side with the Romans. They side with the Romans because the Romans are like, you guys are weird. Like, and the Romans are like. The Romans are, like, literally often trying to help them get out of it. Like, they're like, I don't want to kill you. Like, just.
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Just throw me a bone here.
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Like, just. They're like, just offer. They're like, just offer a little bit of wine. Nobody's going to, like, yeah.
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Or in the Maccabees, like, just put a little bit of pork in your mouth and then spit it out for all I care.
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Yeah. It's not a big deal. Like, all you have to do is show that you're not, like, against the Emperor, right? So just, like, there's another one around this period of. He's a veteran of the Roman army, so he really does not want to, you know, kill him. He doesn't want to punish him. He's a veteran, right? So this is, like, very important. And he's like. He's like, nobody. People know. Your heart's not in it and, like, that. You don't really mean it, just do it. And so for them to be like, this often happens in our own life, right. Where the earthly stakes are low.
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Yeah, right.
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The earthly stakes are, like, nobody's looking, nobody really cares. But, like, to have that properly oriented, like, no, this is the devil. And that's how Perpetua sees it. And it doesn't mean, like, Romans are possessed by the devil or whatever, but she's like, this is the way that the devil works. The devil says, it's not a big deal. Just take the fruit. Just take the fruit. Like, God will forgive you. Like, is God holding out on you? Who cares? Just a piece of fruit, right? It's not that big of a deal. And so for them, and they see this so clearly. Perpetra sees this so clearly as spiritual combat. So another reason the text is very famous is because Perpetra records a series of visions that she has while in prison. And they really clearly illustrate to her the nature of the sort of spiritual combat that she's engaging in. So in the first vision, she sees a dragon at the bottom of a ladder, and the ladder is covered in weapons. And she has asked for. She's asked for a vision that will help reveal the fate of her and the other people under arrest. So in the vision, sort of, her catechist calls to her, perpetua, don't fear. And she steps on the head of the dragon, climbs up this ladder into heaven, into basically the Garden of Eden, where a shepherd, Jesus, gives her something to eat. She says, amen. And she's sort of surrounded by the heavenly court. So she wakes up and says she knows she'll die a martyr. And so she has. So she conveys that to the others, like, this is going to be a glorious combat. And then her. I'll skip over the second vision for now. In the third vision, she sees herself transformed into a warrior, where she battles against an enormous gladiator who's, like, super tall and beats him. And she says, I knew I would fight the devil and win. And so this is like. I mean, to us now, it's easy to look back and be like, martyrdom's glorious. But, like, at the time when people are saying, like, this doesn't matter, like, you're dying for nothing, you know, and to see it as like, no, this is the devil confronting this new faith. And, like, to renounce Christ is to renounce everything. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are.
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Yeah. There's no justifying, there's no justifying.
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I can't do it. And for her to see that as spiritual battle with the devil and winning, it really is to see the world from the perspective of the cross. Because the cross just looks like not a victory. Right. That doesn't look like victory over the devil. And yet we have a crucifix in all of our churches because we see this. This is God's triumph over the sin of the world. And so to be able to see the world with that, like this, to everyone in the world, this is gonna look like a humiliating death and defeat for no reason. But she knows because of her visions, our faith and her visions that, no, this is combat with the devil and I'm gonna be victorious. Yeah. And it's very powerful.
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And how much our nature just wants, you know, we are children of the fall, so to speak. We, our nature rebels against the cross. And so we have to battle against our own nature and ask for the Grace to accept those things. Because it's like, yeah, we want to compromise on everything. You want to compromise on your penances, you want to compromise on your promises to the Lord, you want to compromise on prayer, you want to compromise on all these little things. And it's so easy to just be like, it's okay, it's okay.
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And it's hard, like, in the face of people who aren't. There's a lot of people who are not like atheists necessarily, not necessarily out to get Christians, but they just care about religion or they don't understand why it's a big deal. So, like, why do you have to leave the family gathering to go to Mass? Why do you have to, like, do these things? And you can just seem like you're being holier than thou, and it can be very easy to sort of, yeah. Make those compromises. But I think we forget too. Like, we forget the dignity to which our baptism calls us. I mean, if you're baptized under arrest, you're not going to forget the dignity of your baptism because, yeah, you know what?
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You've given up a lot to be there.
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Right. And I mean, in this time period, of course, you couldn't be at the Eucharistic assembly unless you were baptized. So when she's baptized, she prays in the community for the first time, and she says that. So Tertullian tells us elsewhere that, you know, the newly baptized ask for special graces after their baptism in the assembly, and she asks for grace to persist in martyrdom. And so it's like, all of us are called to martyrdom by our baptism. We're called to die with Christ. But I think the connection between that is not as palpable necessarily as it is for them. But especially in North African Christianity, there's a very close relationship between baptism and martyrdom. And like, you know what you're signing yourself up for.
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Yeah, that was an active reality.
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It was an active possibility. And, you know, some historians like to be like, well, they're like, percentage wise, not that many people are martyred. And you're like, well, but having people
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martyred around you at all means, like,
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you know, you're like, this could be. Yeah, this could be me. And it's like, I mean, technically that's true. If there's 100 Christians and only one is martyred, that's not percentage wise a lot. But like, if you're in a parish, let's say of 2,000 people and 20 people are martyred, that has an enormous psychological impact. Right.
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That's a really big deal today. We've often heard the statistic that there's more martyrs in the 21st century than in all the centuries leading up. But for us, most of that's not in the United States, in Africa, it's not anybody we know or China or other parts of the world. So it's like, for those people there in Africa, in Asia, in these areas, it's like, for people that are right now today in the cabinet, catechumen, all that, they're coming to the Church and they know that a friend of somebody was just martyred. You better believe they're like, I know full well what I am.
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Exactly. And if we're thinking about, like, Cyprian, who's a famous North African bishop in the third century, that's not that long after this. Like, he's going to be in living memory of people who knew these martyrs. And so, you know, he talks about essentially, the Eucharist as being a very real pledge to martyrdom. Because if you receive the Eucharist first thing in the morning and people smell the smell of wine on your breath, they might know you're Christian, because why would you.
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Yep.
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So it's like, there's like, a really palpable connection between baptism, Eucharist and martyrdom. Got to bring it back. Tertullian elsewhere talks about. He's summarizing the Creed and how, like, everyone holds the Creed in common. And then at the end of the creed, he summarizes the rites of initiation. So he says, you know, the church baptizes water, lays on hands, feeds with the Eucharist and exhorts to martyrdom. And, like, so I've often wondered, like, does he mean literally?
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Yeah, like, what does he mean?
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Like, is that literally part of the rite of initiation?
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Or to, like, die with Christ today and whatever that may?
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Or is it just the understanding that, like, the rite of initiation is the exhortation to martyrdom, and this continues. Right. Even after the time of actual martyrdom? The idea of white martyrdom, obviously they don't refer to it that way, but the idea that monasticism is the kind of proxy martyrdom of the next time period after the persecution of Diocletian's just
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looking to die to the world.
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They're just looking to die to the world. And you know what? Martyrdom's the easy way out because you literally just die.
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What is martyrdom for us today in the United States? Good question.
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So we should probably mention Felicity.
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Go on, Felicity.
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I don't want to Leave Felicity.
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We can't leave out. She's in the feast day.
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It's true. So Felicity is not. Obviously, there's not as much talked about. It's mostly Perpetua in her prison diary and kind of her martyrdom. But Felicity is. So Perpetua is kind of a noble woman. Felicity is her servant. Felicity is pregnant when she's arrested. And all of the people under arrest pray that she will go into labor early because otherwise she would not be put to death at the same time as the rest of them. Because Romans wouldn't kill a pregnant woman. I mean, under Roman law, the baby's the property of the father, Right? So you're not gonna kill a pregnant woman until she's given birth. Because the baby wouldn't kill the baby. But if she wasn't killed with the Christians, then she would have gone into the arena with, like, common criminals. So she would have been all alone. So they pray that she will have the baby early. And she does. She goes into labor and delivers. And then it says she. The baby's raised by her sister, who is a believer. And the guard sort of like, mocks her and says, like, oh, you're crying out in so much pain. Like, how are you going to manage to, like, hold up under torture, basically? And she answers very beautifully, like, now I suffer for my own sake, but then another one will be suffering in me.
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Come on.
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Yeah. I mean, it's just. It's beautiful because obviously we're not talking about someone who has a super sophisticated theological understanding, but she understands that, like, this is martyrdom for Christ and it's unity with Christ. It's Christ who will suffer.
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Conformity to Christ on the cross.
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Yeah. And that'll actually be easier.
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A mystical union. Yeah. That there is.
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Although having given birth myself, like, I don't know that martyrdom could be that much more painful. Anyway, she'll be fine.
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She'll make it.
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She'll be great. It'll be good.
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Yeah.
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But, yeah, this is an incredible story.
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It is incredible.
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And they have also a very strong understanding in North Africa and in the story itself of martyrdom also as a second sort of baptism in flood. And so that idea of. Yeah, baptism and then other baptisms. So Tertullian talks about the two types of baptism flowing from the side of Christ on the cross, the water and the blood. And so we think about. We often think about that as the institution of the sacraments. But they also saw it as kind of like the twofold sacrament of baptism.
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Something that strikes me all the time when I read stories from the early church or when we're doing these Catholic saint episodes is like the treasure that they understood that they had in the Creed. I'm always struck by this, because today it's like, we have the Creed, we have the 500 page catechism. We have a million theological books. And it's so easy to just, like, just keep going deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper, which is a beautiful thing. And it's a tremendous gift that we get to do that through the faith of the Church. But that, like, they had just the Creed, and it was like, that's who I am. Like, this is what I believe. And it was like such a adherence to that.
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Yeah. And I think part of that, you're, like, hitting on one of my absolute favorite topics, early Christian liturgy. So part of the reason for that is because the Creed is so closely linked to baptism.
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Yeah.
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Right. So actually, historically, the Creed was probably developed as a baptismal creed. It says that in the Catechism as well. So the idea is like, the Creed is handed over to you. You learn the Creed, you write it on your heart, and then in order to be baptized, you produce the Creed. So we still have this in the baptismal. Right. Like, do you believe in God's word?
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You don't really.
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Right.
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You don't really recite the whole thing. You just say, yes.
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Well, and they do that. They probably did that in North Africa as well. It was a. Do you believe? Yes. Do you believe? Yes.
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You didn't have to memorize the.
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Right. Well, you probably. You knew the Creed.
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Who is the senator in Augustine's Confessions?
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Oh, Victorinus.
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Yeah.
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He's not a senator, but whatever he
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is, he's a public figure.
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Yes, he's a public figure. Yeah.
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But I always. I imagine that he, though, isn't he, like, proclaiming the Creed?
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Yes, he is proclaiming the Creed. Yeah. So by Augustine's time, it would be the.
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Like, you're standing up and you're like.
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You memorize it.
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Yeah.
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And I mean, we still do that now in adult. Adult baptism. Right. Or even. Yeah, yeah. I mean, when I came into the Church, I had to recite the Creed. I don't think everybody did.
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I think I just gave the. Do you believe in God the Father? Yes, yes, yes.
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Oh, yeah, I remember.
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Oh, you know what? That's not true. The Dre. I had a wonderful RCI experience. Not trying to knock it here. The DRE would say the article, you would repeat it. So you didn't have to, like, fully memorized, all 12 articles. They would say an article. You would say an article.
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Well, our standards are just lower.
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They are lower. I'm like, bring it back.
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Writing it on your heart.
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Bring it back.
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Producing it. But yeah, I mean, but that idea that this is. The idea that this is part like, that the creed and your identity in Christ are so closely related is like, this is the moment you prepared for. Some early documents suggest the catechumen, it is years. We don't know exactly how long the catechumenate was. But you know, you profess the Creed and then you're baptized. And if you haven't ever been in the Eucharistic assembly, the idea of like, the psychological impact of like full initiation and then, you know, being there for the first time, it's kind of hard to overstate. Like, we take it for granted.
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No, we do.
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We don't.
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The mystery is right.
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We take it for granted. And if you ever go to the Byzantine liturgy, they still have the part where they shout, the doors. The doors. Right. And that would be the part where the catechumens would not be allowed and they would close the doors. I think we should kick people out of masks. It's not secret.
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I do love that there is now more move to remove the catechumens out after the Liturgy of the Word, before the Liturgy of the Eucharist. This is, it's great. It's inspiring.
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These are some of my absolute favorite saints. This is one of my absolute favorite texts from the early church. It's not very long. Anybody can read it. So if you want to go look up the Passion of Perpetuate and Felicity and read it, I think you will find it very inspiring.
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I agree. And Dr. Klein, you have a short course called Martyrs and Monastics and I believe you talk about them.
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Yes. So in that short course, yeah, I talk a lot about a lot of this stuff. More in depth, like how martyrdom is related to monasticism. Then I have some examples of martyrs and monastics from the early period from different places in the empire including Patriot and Felicity.
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So check that out. Dr. Klein, thank you. It was a pleasure. It was wonderful. We will see you next time on Catholic Saints.
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