Perpetua and Felicity

Who they were

Perpetua was a well-educated noblewoman of Carthage, married, with a baby of a few months. Felicity was her slave, whom she had brought to Christ; she too was married and expecting a child. With Saturninus, Secundulus and Revocatus they were arrested as Christians while still catechumens. Their catechist Saturus, away at the time, gave himself up to stay with them, and they were baptised in prison. Perpetua wrote her own account of their imprisonment in secret.

Felicity prayed to give birth before the day of the games, since Roman law would not execute a pregnant woman; her child was born two days before. When a soldier mocked her cries in labour, asking what she would do facing the beasts, she answered: 'What I suffer then, I will not suffer: Jesus will suffer it for me.' In the amphitheatre the women were set upon by a wild cow, the men by a leopard and a bear, and all died for Christ.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: the account of their martyrdom went around the empire and they have been venerated ever since; the oldest images of them are in sixth-century mosaics at Ravenna and Poreč.

Why that counted as sanctity

A noble mother and a slave girl, two young women with babies, went to their deaths together as sisters in Christ, praying not to be freed but to be strong. Their story was written to encourage all who came to the faith, and it still does.

Connected on this site

• Felicity Saint one of this group
• Perpetua Saint one of this group
• Felicity Saint
  “Perpetua and Felicity (Latin: Perpetua et Felicitas; c.” — Wikipedia