Perpetua: A Powerful Roman Aristocrat
Perpetua’s testimony (also referred to as her “Passion”) is an electrifying story of a young convert committed to following Jesus no matter the cost. Vibia Perpetua was a young, twenty-two year old Roman aristocrat and nursing mother. In the Roman culture, fathers expected their daughters (even married ones) to take care of them in their old age, and the daughters were required to honour their fathers and to improve the family’s social standing through marriage. In Perpetua’s diary, however, no mention is made of her husband but only her father.
Perpetua bravely chose Jesus over the deepest family loyalties, over remaining alive to raise her infant son, over obeying her father, and even over retaining her noble position as a wife and mother in a wealthy Roman household. She stood upon Jesus’ words to His disciples, “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.” (Matthew 19:26 NASB). Perpetua’s testimony was also her slave’s, (Felicity), story.
Their Christian love for one another and for Jesus became a powerful statement in Carthage that the ties of the Christian community were stronger than Roman laws regarding nobles and their slaves. Perpetua and Felicity, who was eight months pregnant at the time of her imprisonment, are presented as equals in martyrdom. In Christ – these young mothers transcended not only their maternal instincts but also the powerful Roman social structure. Just as Paul declared to the Galatian church, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28 NIV).
This courageous noblewoman had truly become “a new creature in Christ!” The Holy Spirit had been moving among the believers in Carthage, despite or perhaps because of – brutal persecution at the hands of the Romans. When the group of martyrs including Perpetua and Felicity were first arrested, they were only placed under house arrest because they were still only catechumens and had not yet been baptised. If they decided not to be baptised by water and, instead, paid homage to the emperor, they would be set free.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Date: 9th March 2024
Martyr: Vibia Perpetua & Felicity
Location: Carthage (modern-day Tunisia), North Africa
Source: God’s Generals – The Martyrs
Author: Roberts Liardon
Suffering Saturday 081
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