Vibia Perpetua was remarkable for a number of reasons. She was raised and educated in a well-off family, and was duly married and bore a child in Carthage, in the Roman province of Africa. She felt herself to be deeply Christian even before she was baptized and, in fact, was arrested for her faith in one of the early persecutions only a few days after receiving that sacrament. Her education was important, because it allowed her to be one of the first Christian women to write about her experience–in her case from prison. She recorded the horrors of imprisonment, the visions that kept her on the path of righteousness, and her determination to resist denying Christ, even for the sake of her beloved father and child. Here she writes about learning that she and the others who were arrested with her were going to face judgment for their beliefs:
“A few days after, the report went abroad that we were to be tried. Also my father returned from the city spent with weariness; and he came up to me to cast down my faith saying: Have pity, daughter, on my gray hairs; have pity on your father, if I am worthy to be, called father by you; if with these hands I have brought you unto this flower of youth- and I-have preferred you before all your brothers; give me not over to the reproach of men. Look upon your brothers; look upon your mother and mother's sister; look upon your son, who will not endure to live after you. Give up your resolution; do not destroy us all together; for none of us will speak openly against men again if you suffer aught.
“This he said fatherly in his love, kissing my hands and groveling at my feet; and with tears he named me, not daughter, but lady. And I was grieved for my father's case because he would not rejoice at my passion out of all my kin; and I comforted him, saying: That shall be done at this tribunal, whatsoever God shall please; for know that we are not established in our own power, but in God's.”
Perpetua remained modest, visionary, determined, and steadfast, and a support to her fellow martyrs until the end of her short life, which ended at the age of 22 on March 7, 203. She is often shown in icons with Felicity, a slave who gave birth the day before she joined Perpetua in being martyred.
Your holy martyr Perpetua, O Lord,
Through her sufferings has received an incorruptible crown from You, our God.
For having Your strength, she laid low her adversaries,
And shattered the powerless boldness of demons.
Through her intercessions, save our souls!
Holy mother Perpetua, pray to God for us!
