“When my father in his affection for me was trying to turn me from my
purpose by arguments and thus weaken my faith, I said to him, ‘Do you
see this vessel—waterpot or whatever it may be? Can it be called by any
other name than what it is?’ ‘No,’ he replied. ‘So also I cannot call
myself by any other name than what I am—a Christian.’”
So
writes Perpetua, young, beautiful, well-educated, a noblewoman of
Carthage, mother of an infant son and chronicler of the persecution of
the Christians by Emperor Septimius Severus.
Despite threats of
persecution and death, Perpetua, Felicity (a slavewoman and expectant
mother) and three companions, Revocatus, Secundulus and Saturninus,
refused to renounce their Christian faith. For their unwillingness, all
were sent to the public games in the amphitheater. There, Perpetua and
Felicity were beheaded, and the others killed by beasts.
Perpetua’s
mother was a Christian and her father a pagan. He continually pleaded
with her to deny her faith. She refused and was imprisoned at 22.
In
her diary, Perpetua describes her period of captivity: “What a day of
horror! Terrible heat, owing to the crowds! Rough treatment by the
soldiers! To crown all, I was tormented with anxiety for my baby....
Such anxieties I suffered for many days, but I obtained leave for my
baby to remain in the prison with me, and being relieved of my trouble
and anxiety for him, I at once recovered my health, and my prison
became a palace to me and I would rather have been there than anywhere
else.”
Felicity gave birth to a girl a few days before the games commenced.
Perpetua’s
record of her trial and imprisonment ends the day before the games. “Of
what was done in the games themselves, let him write who will.” The
diary was finished by an eyewitness.
Comment:
Persecution
for religious beliefs is not confined to Christians in ancient times.
Consider Anne Frank, the Jewish girl who, with her family, was forced
into hiding and later died in Bergen-Belsen, one of Hitler’s death
camps during World War II. Anne, like Perpetua and Felicity, endured
hardship and suffering and finally death because she committed herself
to God. In her diary Anne writes, “It’s twice as hard for us young ones
to hold our ground, and maintain our opinions, in a time when all
ideals are being shattered and destroyed, when people are showing their
worst side, and do not know whether to believe in truth and right and
God."
Quote:Perpetua, unwilling
to renounce Christianity, comforted her father in his grief over her
decision, “It shall happen as God shall choose, for assuredly we depend
not on our own power but on the power of God.“