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The Passion of Perpetua Author(s): Brent D. Shaw Source: Past & Present, No. 139 (May, 1993), pp. 3-45 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/651089 Accessed: 12/06/2009 21:50
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Men surrender them their souls, women their bodies . . . and for the samereasonfor whichthe spectators glorifythem, they also degradeand belittlethem . . . Whatperversity.They love whom they punish.They depreciate whomthey value . . . There was . . . that womanwho came out of the theatreand returned possessedby a demon.Whenthe uncleanspiritwas beingexorcized,and was pressed with the accusationthat he had entered a woman who believed,he replied'Andquitejustlytoo, sinceI foundher in my place'.1

On the morning of 7 March 2032a smallgroupof youngwomen andmenwereled fromthe prisonwheretheyhadbeenincarcerated to the arenaof the amphitheatre at Carthage.3 They were
1Tertullian, De spectaculis,22, 26. The datesmust remainconjectural. They are the best that can be derivedfrom a range of possiblealternatives; the day and month are probable,the year is a reasonable conjecture. For the arguments, see H. Leclercq,"Perpetue et Felicite", Dictionnaired'archeologie chretienne et de liturgie,xiv (1939),cols. 393-444,at col. 420; P. Monceaux, Histoirelitterairede l'Afriquechretienne depuisles origines jusqu'al'invasion arabe, 7 vols. (Paris, 1901-23;repr. Brussels, 1966), i, Tertullian et les origines, pp. 71-2. The texts I have used are those as edited by C. I. M. I. van Beek, Passio SanctarumPerpetuaeet Felicitatis, vol. i, TextumGraecumet Latinumad fidem codicum MSS (Nijmegen, 1936;repr. 1956).I havealsobenefited fromthe text andcommentaryprovided by J. Armitage Robinson,The Passionof S. Perpetua(TextsandStudies, Contributions to Biblical andPatristic Literature, 1.2, Cambridge, 1891;repr.Nendeln, 1967),and especially that by Pio Franchide' Cavalieri, La Passio SS. Perpetuae
2

et Felicitatis(RomischeQuartalschrift fur christliche Alterthumskunde undfur Kirchengeschichte,v, Supplementheft, Rome, 1896).The Passio existsin a Latin(L) anda Greek

(G) version.The relationship betweenthe two has been intenselydebatedsince the discovery of the latterin the springof 1889 by RendelHarrisin the Library of the Convent of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem: J. R. Harris andS. K. Gifford,The Acts of the Martyrdomof Perpetua and Felicitas: The Original Greek Text (London,1890). The mattercannotbe discussed at lengthhere. My positionis thatthe Latinversion is manifestly the original. The Greekversionis a "translation" of this ("translation", that is, in the sense currentat the time the versionwas made:not a word-for-word translation, but rather whatwe mightcalla "closeversion" withadditions andglosses madeby the translator). 3 On the problem of the location,see H. Slim, "Recherches preliminaires sur les amphitheatres romains de Tunisie",in A. Mastino(ed.), L'Africa romana:Atti del I convegnodi studio Sassari, 16-17 dicembre1983 (Sassari, 1984),pp. 129-65.Thereare casesof cities havingdoubleamphitheatres (p. 135 n. 15) but there is, as yet, only oneamphitheatre attested forCarthage: see D. I. Bomgardner, "TheCarthage Amphitheater: A Reappraisal", Amer.3tl. Archaeology,xciii (1989),pp. 85-103.The problem stems partlyfrom the accountin the Passio itself which nowhereexplicitlystates wherethe trialandexecutions tookplace.Fromcircumstantial detail,historians have arguedthatthe localemust be Carthage, thoughthe only placeattested(in the Greek version)is Thuburbo Minus.

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destinedfor executionin a spectacular entertainment that was simultaneously intended as an instrument of publicterror.4 The celebratory occasion fortheirdeaths wasthebirthday anniversary of Geta, the reigningemperor'syounger son. Amongstthe intended victimswerea youngwoman calledVibiaPerpetua, and her companion in prison,a youngfemaleslavenamedFelicitas. Therewerethreemen, Revocatus, Saturninus and Saturus, who werealsopartof thegroup.According to theauthor whoreported thesubsequent events,the prisoners maintained theircomposure, walkingto their fates "with calmfaces,hardlytrembling, if at all". Perpetua herselfwas able to refutethe intrusive staresof the spectators "withher own intensegaze".Her abilityto stare directly backintothefacesof herpersecutors, notwiththeelusive demeanour of a propermatrona, brokewith the normative body language in a way that signalled an aggressiveness that was not one of conventional femininity.5 Her contemporary, Tertullian, was well awareof the problem.When speakingof the need for young women to cover their heads,he remarks that such veilingis necessary because "a youngwoman mustnecessarily be endangered by thepublicexhibition of herself, whilesheis penetratedby the gaze of untrustworthy and multitudinous eyes, is fondledby pointedfingers,and is too well loved by far".6Her intensereturngaze was therefore a sign of Perpetua's rejection of the legitimacy of the onlookers' voyeurism. Her look was a refutation of the spectators' natural assumption thatthey should be able to engagein "the innocentenjoyment of theirnational pornography".7 Whenthe prisoners were firstled out to theirexecution,the localauthorities had attempted to add shameto their suffering by tryingto compelthe condemned to don the formalattireof
4 K. M. Coleman, C'FatalCharades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments", T1.Roman Studies, lxxx (1990), pp. 44-73, "Humiliation", pp. 46-7; C. A. Barton, "The Scandal of the Arena", Representations, xxvii (1989), pp. 1-36. 5 M. Foucault, The History of Sexuality, trans. R. Hurley, 3 vols. (New York, 1978-88), iii, The Care of the Self, p. 138; E. M. Schur, Labeling WomenDeviant: Gender, Stigma and Social Control (Philadelphia, 1984), pp. 55-7, drawing on the work of Erving Goffman. 6 Tertullian, De virginibus velandis, 14. 7 See T. Mitchell, Blood Sport:A Social History of SpanishBullfighting (Philadelphia, 1991), ch. 5, "Psychosexual Aspects of the Bullfight", pp. 154-75, at pp. 167-71, for "transgressive looking" as an essential part of the "erotico-violent degradation" and "arousal" that "necessarily accompanies any spectacle of killing and gratuitous risk of life"; the quoted phrase is his (p. 173).

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the priestesses and priestsof the greatnon-Christian religious cultsof northAfrica: the womenwereto be dressed as priestesses of the goddessCeres,the menas priestsof the god Saturn.8 The pointwas perhaps not justone of symbolic inversion, but alsoa wayin whichanelement of human sacrifice, whichhadtraditionally been part of the rites of Saturn,could be maintained in another form.9 Because of the resolute resistance of VibiaPerpetua, however,the militarytribunein chargeof the executions relented, andtheprisoners weresentoffto theirexecution clothed as they were. Her abilityto confront authority, and to rejectits terms,no doubtmarked her out as a womenwho, like her later Africancompatriot, the martyrCrispina, could be labelled"a hardand contemptuous woman''.l?When the three men who were with Perpetuaenteredthe arena,by their gesturesand expressions they indicatedto the governorHilarianus on his tribunal that,although he mightbe ableto condemn them,their Godwasgoingto judgehim.Thisbehaviour, takenasa calculated insultto established authority by the largecrowdsin the arena, provoked themto a furious demand forthe infliction of additional corporalpunishmenton the insolent prisoners.The crowd demanded that the men be severelybeatenby being forcedto run a gauntletof "beast-hunting" gladiators or venatores. They werethemainoperational personnel in thispublicexecution since at their trial the group of Christians had been condemned to deathby one of the threemost savagejudicial penalties thatthe Roman statereserved for its mosthardened anddangerous criminals:"throwing to the beasts''.llThe spectacular contextwas
8 M. Leglay, Saturne africain: histoire (Paris, 1966), pp. 10, 236-7; cf. Tertullian, De testimonio animae, 2, and De Pallio, 4.10. 9 Leglay, Saturne africain, pp. 340-1; cf. G. Ch.-Picard, "Les sacerdotes de Saturne et les sacrifices humains dans l'Afrique romaine", Receuil des noticeset memoires de la Societe Archeologique de Constantine,lxvi (1948), pp. 117-23, who pointed out that Lactantius, Institutionesdivinae, 6.26 ("animal hunts, the games devoted to Saturn are called") refers to this African reality; cf. Ausonius, De feriis romanis, 33-7. Coleman, "Fatal Charades", p. 44, notes parallel casesn and the connection with scapegoat rituals. 10H. Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford, 1972), no. 24, 1.5: "dura es et contemptrix!" (by the exasperated governor trying her). 11H. Leclercq, "Ad bestias", Dictionnaire d'archeologiechretienneet de liturgie, i (1907), cols. 449-62; G. Ville, La gladiature en occident (Rome, 1981), pp. 52-225 (venationesand munera), 235-40 (damnatio ad bestias); cf. the Passio SS. DIaximae, Secundaeet Donatillae, 6 (ed. C. de Smedt, n. 40 below) for Fortunatus the venator as the director of the punishment of the women condemned ad bestiasin the amphitheatre at Thuburbo (Minus?).

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therefore providedby a munus,or publicgames,involvingthe hunting of wildanimals. It is interesting to notethata contemporary jurist, Ulpian, thoughtthat "it is customary to condemn youngmen to this punishment''.l2 Customary, perhaps, because the punishmentpitted young, aggressivemales againstwild animals,highlighting active confrontation, ratherthan passive suffering. The involvement of female"criminals" in this sort of publicpunishment therefore signalled something unusual. As a ritualof empowerment, the munusor publicgamewas paradoxical in itseffects. Theintention wasthatthepublic humiliationandexecution of labelled miscreants wouldfurther empower the powerful,the existing social and politicalorder. But the opposite of this process, whether intentionalor not, also happened:
the audiencecould give a man (or woman) honor where fortune had deniedit . . . Whileit was not a prettypicture,it was one that offereda pattern of glorificationto the powerless. If the price paid for this empowerment was debasement, one paidthat priceanyway.13

Perpetua was therefore to acquire honourwith a doublevicariousness,since she would gain it despitethe will of the crowd itself. Throughher actionsmemoryof her would lay claimto that power, the potentia, which befell those sacrificed to the instruments of stateandpopular punishment.l4 It wasonlylogical thatthosewho weremartyred cameto assume special powers,to takeover the positionof "lordliness" normally reserved for the most potentin earthlywealthand prestige.They were granted the titlesof Dominus ("Lord") andDomina("Lady") whichbore strongovertones of mastery, ownership anddomination.l5 Since
12 Coleman, "Fatal Charades", p. 20, citing Digest, 48.19.8.11; little is known about the linkage between social status, type of crime, and the specific punishment of "throwing to the beasts": see P. Garnsey, Social Statusand LegalPrivilege in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1970), pp. 129-31. It is difficult to see any consistent pattern in the application of the penalty, apart from the fact that there is a special element of public expiation in it and so it was particularlyapplied in crimes of sacrilege, and, later, for sacraimpia nocturnave ("impious and unholy acts committed in darkness"). 13 Barton, "Scandal of the Arena", p. 15. 14 One can add very little to the masterful analysis of Peter Brown in his TheCult of the Saints:Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago, 1981), ch. 6, "Potentia", pp. 106-27. 15 H. Delehaye, Sanctus: essaisurle cultedessaints dansl'Antiquite (Brussels, 1927), pp. 59-64; Y. Duval, Locasanctorum Africae: le cultedesmartyrs en Afrique du IVeau VIIesiecle, 2 vols. (Rome, 1982), ii, p. 776; cf. B. D. Shaw, "The Family in Antiquity: The Experience of Augustine", Past andPresent, no. 115 (May 1987), pp. 3-51, at pp. 48 ff.

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these attributeswere normallymale, by their actionsfemale martyrs acquired a sort of virilehonour.16 It is no accident that Perpetua's brother,who came to addressher as Domina soror ("Ladysister")while she was in prison,believedthat she had beenraisedto a special"greatstatus"(magna dignatio) andthat she hadextraordinary powersto command connections with the Lord.Evenherotherwise hostilefather wasforced to thisrecognition of her status,to see her not as daughter, but as domina. It was not surprising, then, thatPerpetua herselfbelievedthatshe hadacquired power,having comeintoa special patronal relationship with her Lordwho bestowed his favours(beneficia) on her (4.1-2) The young women, Perpetuaand Felicitas,were carefully reserved asa finale to thepublicexecutions. Symbolic degradation was addedto their punishment. They were to face a wild and savagecow (ferocissima vacca).The choice of the animalwas unusual, but was a deliberate one on the partof the authorities: they wishedto mockthe sex of the condemned womenby using one of theirown, a wild cow, to destroythem. The significance of the choice is made clearonly if we understand the normal message imparted to crowds andto the condemned by the use of the usual wild beast, the bull, in this type of punishment: it signalled uttersexualdishonour, usually thedisplay of thewoman as a knownadulteress.17 Full exposure of the femaleto the bull by entirelystripping her of all clothingwas merelypartof the process of shaming. Crowds werewell acquainted with the symbolic significance of the punishment, and could cry out for its imposition, knowing fullwellwhattheywouldbe implying about thecharacter of thecondemned woman. Thesetwoaspects, sexual shaming andphysical punishment, wereintegrally interrelated.18 The point is, of course,that femalescouldbe accusedof being adulteresses regardless of actual guilt.In the caseof Perpetua and Felicitas, however,the authorities wereplaying a smallvariation on the theme. It was a "wild cow" to which the condemned womenwereexposed.Whatwasthe significance? To mocktheir sex. By analogy witha bull,it wasimplied thattheyweresexually
16 E. A. Clark, "Devil'sGateway andBrideof Christ: Women in the EarlyChristian World",in her Ascetic Piety and Women'sFaith: Essays on Late Antique Christianity (Lewiston,N.Y., 1986),pp. 23-60, at p. 44. 17 Petronius, Satyricon, 45. 18 Mitchell, Blood Sport, ch. 5.

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shameful; but sincea cow was employed, the inference was that they were not "realwomen"enoughto be guilty of adultery. There was the problemthat, being Christians, Perpetuaand Felicitaswere not readilysusceptible to credibleaccusations of adultery. Weretheauthorities andthecrowdattempting to shame the two womenwith the imputation of a different sortof sexuality?Afterall, as waslaterto be said,whereweretheirhusbands? Not only in their exposureto bulls, but more generally in publicpunishment, we find that women were exposedin the nude, often with their handstied behindtheir backsand with theirbodiessecuredto verticalstakes.l9 Their publicdenuding was a calculated move furtherto strip them of dignity and power.20 This specificdegradation of nudityin the punishment of females is illustrated by the actions of a laterRoman governor who sentenced a Christian woman,one Irene,to be sent, under the authority of the localmarket-inspectors of Thessaloniki, to a publicwhorehouse whereshe was to be exposedin the nude.2l ThatIrenedid not surrender to this immense shame,but rather held out to be burntalive, was creditedby the narrator of her martyrdom to the powerof God.So Perpetua andFelicitas were further degraded by havingall theirclothing removed andbeing driveninto the arena,into the publicsight of all, intentionally clad only in diaphanous nets.22Their particular degradation, including, as it did, a publicaffront to manifest motherhood, was too much for the crowd.When the "coversof modesty"had beenremoved fromthe women,the spectators werehorrified to seethat"onewasa delicate younggirlandtheotherwasa woman freshfromchildbirth, with milkstill dripping fromher breasts"
19See the illustrations in Leclercq, "Ad bestias", nos. 89, 90, 92; contrast the treatment of males, figs. 88, 91, 92. 20 M. Perniola, "Between Clothing and Nudity", in M. Feher, R. Naddaff and N. Tazi (eds.), Fragments for a History of theHuman Body(New York, 1989), pp. 237-65, at p. 237; M. Miles, Carnal Knowing: Female Nakedness andReligious Meaning in the Christian West (New York, 1989), introduction and ch. 2, "'Becoming Male': Women Martyrs and Ascetics", pp. 53-77. 21 Martyrdom of Agape, Irene and Chione (A.D. 304): Musurillo, Acts of theChristian Martyrs, no. 22, 5.8-6. 22 This seems to be a typical form of shaming; it is also reported in the case of Blandina at Lyons in 177, and in the Actsof SaintsPaul and Thecla, 33 (W. Schneemelcher, "Acts of Paul", in E. Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha, ed. W. Schneemelcher, trans. R. McL. Wilson, 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1963-5, ii, pp. 324-64, at p. 362) the young girl Thekla is stripped of all her clothing, covered with a see-through net, and sent into the amphitheatre.

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(20.1-2).23 The sexualdimensions of punishment, andthe female resolveto resist such manipulation of their bodies,had a long "pre-Christian" history.Thatmuchis reflected, for example,in the "popular literature" of the period,like novels, to which a literate woman likePerpetua wouldhavehadaccess.In theseone couldreadof episodes suchas theoneretoldin thenovelLeukippe and Kleitophon. In it, the attempted rape of a "slavewoman" named Leukippe (in facta woman of freebirth)by her "master" Thersandros, andhis threats to use torture to enforcehis will on her, is resisted by her with the following words:
Bringon the instruments of torture: the wheel here,takemy armsand stretchthem;the whips here is my back, lash away;the hot irons here is my body for burning;bringthe axe as well here is my neck, slice through! Watcha new contest:a singlewomancompeteswith all the enginesof tortureand wins every round.24

Female opposition wasnothing new northerefore the possibilities of Perpetua's resistance. In answerto the crowd'saffronted sensibilities, Perpetua and Felicitas wereremoved fromthe arena andclothedin plainloose garments. They were then returned to the arenato be hit and trampled by the wild animal.Thoughconcussed and knocked senseless by the initialassault of the beast,Perpetua survived and was takenback,for a briefrespite,through the Gateof Life. In the meantime, Saturus, who hadsurvived earlier attempts to kill him, wasthrownbackinto the arenaandsuffered a savagemaulingby a leopard. So muchbloodgushedout of his bodythatthe greatcrowdin the amphitheatre reacted to the attack withrhythmic chanting: Salvum lotum!Salvum lotum!("Hada greatbath! Had a greatbath!").25 Saturus, still not deadafterall this, had his unconscious body tossed "in the usual place" to have his throatcut. But the crowdgreatly wishedto see his death,as well
23Leclercq, "Ad bestias", col. 458; L. Robert, Comptesrendusde l'Academie des Inscriptionset Belles-Lettres (1982), p. 249 and fig. 9 (p. 248), men exposed nude, except for a brief loincloth. 24 Achilles Tatius, Leukippe^ and Kleitophon,6.20-22 (precisely contemporary with Perpetua's youth), trans. J. J. Winkler, in CollectedAncient Greek Novels, ed. B. P. Reardon (Berkeley, 1989). 25For the background to the shout (it was usually a greeting to those coming out of the baths), see F. J. Dolger, "Gladiatorenblut und Martyrerblut: eine Szene der Passio Perpetuae in kultur- und religionsgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung", Vortrageder Bibliothek Warburg,1922-1923 (1926), pp. 196-214; F. J. Dolger, "Tertullian uber die Bluttaufe: Tertullian De baptismo 16", Antike und Christentum, ii (1930), pp. 117-41, esp. pp. 129-37; cf. Leclercq, "Ad bestias", cols. 429-31.

NUMBER139 10 those as of hisfellowprisoners. SoSaturus wasrevived to mountthe steps of and a platform in the arenawherehis forced wascut by a throat sword-wielding executioner. the finale,likewise Perpetua, reserved as was forcedto climb the steps of the stage. Prepared forexecution, shereceived the errant andrattledyounggladiator blow on her collarbone. She of a nervous agony. screamed Regaining her composure, she guidedthe shaking in ofthe trainee hand gladiator to her throat. Thispublicbloodbathis a difficult document to read levels. The systematic cruelty, the levels and types of on many vented on the bodiesof the violence prisoners, all partof a planned celebration of imperial public power,wereneitherunusual larly nor particuextraordinary.26 Butthepassion of Perpetua is lessremarkable for all of these facts than it is for something quite different: Perpetua's account of herarrest, detainment in prison, ences andexperileading up to her execution. Giventhatall the information we have concerning her is derivedfromthis not singular much can be said about document, her socialbackground explain that herunusual actions. Weknowthatshewaspart might of of a group persons who werearrested on the charge of beinga Christian, perhaps in theaftermath of the emperor Septimius decrees of 202thatforbade Roman Severus' conversion to Judaism ity.27 andto ChristianAs the Greektext of her martyrdom makesclear,she and her companions were arrested in the town of Thuburbo about thirty-six Minus Roman miles(fifty-three kilometres or so) on the Bagrada Riverto the west of Carthage.28 In the midstof one of the wealthiest and mosthighlydeveloped all of agricultural northAfrica, regionsof andin closeproximity to oneof thegreatcities of the empire,Thuburbo Minuswouldhave to be local centreof some consequence. ranked as a Its local doubt, relatively well-offby contemporaryrulingclasswas, no standards. The "family" nameof Vibia ("Vibius") family that had held Roman Perpetua indicates a citizenship for many generations In addition to Barton,"Scandal of
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the Arena"and Coleman, see K. Hopkins, Death and Renewal "Fatal (Cambridge, Games", 1983), ch. 1, "The Charades", pp. 1-30. Murderous 27 Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiae,6.1.1; Scriptor(es) Severi, 17.1. Historiae Augustae,Vita Septimii 28Passio, 2.1 (G). The identification is rejectedby T. Historical and Literary Study (Oxford,1971;revisededn., D. Barnes, Tertullian:A of H. Delehaye, 1985),p. 72, on the basis Les passions des martyrs et les genres litteraires, 1966), p.53, but I can see no 2nd edn. (Brussels, firm for the rejection; litteraire de l'Afriquechretienne, grounds cf. Monceaux, i, p. 73. Histoire

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ll

beforethe timeof herarrest.29 Sheis described as "of highbirth, educatedin a mannerbefittingher status and formallyand properly married", all termsnormally usedto describe a woman of highersocialstanding.30 The descriptors are brief,but would suggestthat she was from a familythat was from the "more honest"ranksof Romansociety-probably fromthe decurial class of the town of Thuburbo Minus.31 She came, therefore, froma solidmunicipal family,no doubtof somelocalwealthand prestige.Shewas arrested alongwith otheryoungcatechumens, two of whom, Revocatusand Felicitas,are specifiedas being slaves (Felicitasspecifically as the conserva, or fellow femaleslave,of Revocatus32). Two othermen arrested, Saturninus and Secundulus, were of unspecified socialstatus(the latterwas to die in prison,and therefore was not partof the groupexecuted in thearena: 14.2).Theintroduction to theaccount of hermartyrdomalsoprovides a few basicfactsaboutVibiaPerpetua's family background: she hada fatheranda motherstill living,as well as two living brothers, one of whomwas a Christian catechumen. Froma report in oneof hervisions we knowthatat someprevious time a youngerbrother,namedDinocrates, had died when he was only six yearsold, apparently froma terriblecancerof the face(7.4-5). Her own familysituation is rather unclear. Shewas married, thoughherhusband is neverreferred to once,eitherby herself(mostimportantly) or by any of the contextual material in the largeraccountthat brackets her own words.His absence is something to be noted,and to be explained. Perpetua herself is described as beingnearthe end of hertwenty-first yearin age, thatis to say, twentyyearsold in our terms.At the time of her arrest,she had a baby boy whom she was still breast-feeding.
29 Vibiiarefrequently foundamongthe military elementsof northAfrican society: seeJ. M. Lassere,Ubique populus:peuplement et mouvements de populationdans l'Afrique romaine(Paris,1977),pp. 254, 266, 287, 443, 445. If they receivedcitizenship from a Vibiuswho was governor,then it must date fromthe firsthalfof the firstcentury (Barnes,Tertullian,p. 70); but thereis no necessary connection with a gubernatorial grant it is a commonnamein Italy and well attestedamongthe Caesarean and AugustanItaliansoldier-settlers who were located aroundThuburboMinus: see Lassere,Ubiquepopulus,pp. 121, 149-50, 157, 192, andhis comments at p. 242. 30 Passio, 2.1 (L): "honeste nata,liberaliter instituta,matronaliter nupta". 31 That wouldmatchthe rankof similar descriptions of socialrankfromAfrica; I find it difficult to acceptBarnes's suggestion (Tertullian, p. 70) that she mightbe of senatorial rank;nothingovertlyindicates this, and othermatters,such as the nature of the punishments and indignitiesheapedon her, and even more so, her father, wouldseem to argueagainst such a high socialstatus. 32 In the Acta Felicitas refersto Revocatus as her cousin(congermanus).

There are no indications of any other children.The boy was presumably her firstchild,andwouldtherefore indicate thatshe was married at aboutage eighteenor nineteen a paradigm of matrimonial normality.33 Perpetua was privileged not just in her inherited socialrank, butalsobecause of heracquired skills,notably her literary education. Thisis evidentnot justfromherabilityin composition and her use of commonliteraryallusions from "highculture",but from the simplefact that she was literate at least in Latin, perhaps also in Greek.34 If so, she was unusual not literacy, but also because,in the self-laudatory only in her pronouncements of proudnorthAfricans, she was educated in both Greekand Latin (utraque lingua erudita).35 It is precisely thisfactthatdraws ourattention to her case. For, afterhavingbrieflyrepeated the main factsregarding the arrest of the grouparound Perpetua, the editor of the martyrdom announces: "Thewholeseriesof events concerning her own deathshe herselfnarrated, justas she wrote itdownwith her own hand,and according to her own feelings onthe matter"(2.3). The achievement was significant enough for the editorto emphasize the fact yet againat the conclusion ofPerpetua's account:"These were the remarkable visionsof those most blessedmartyrsSaturus and Perpetua,which they themselves wrote down" (14.1). But it was the extraordinary existence of an account in her own wordsof a woman's personal experiences which was seen, even then, as something of great rarity. First,a few elementary facts.The actualnumber of surviving pieces of literature from all of antiquitythat were writtenby females is, of course,exiguously small.If one exceptsthe writing of letters(of whichrelatively few survive) andoperational documents to whichtheyweresignatories (wills,billsof saleandsuch) there is not much left at all in terms of writing, much less
33

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Marriage: SomeReconsiderations", 1. Roman Studies, lxxvii (1987),pp. 30-46. 34 W. V. Harris,Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, Mass., 1989),s.v. "women'sliteracy". For someof her literary allusions, see P. Dronke,WomenWritersof the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Textsfrom Perpetua ( t 203) to MargueritePorete ( t 1310) (Cambridge, 1984),pp. 107-11. I am, however,very suspicious of the one piece of evidence for her knowledge of Greek. 35 T. Kotula, "Utraque lingua eruditi: une page relativea dans l'Afriqueromaine",in J. Bibauw(ed.), Hommagesa l'histoirede l'education Marcel (Collection Latomus, nos. 101-3, Brussels,1969),ii, pp. 386-92. Renard, 3 vols.

B. D. Shaw, "The Age of RomanGirlsat

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therefore, To haveany one suchdocument, literature. reflective both in termsof with unusualopportunities is to be presented and for a qualityof interthe simplecontentof the document, deniedus. Wehavethe systematically thatis otherwise pretation hope, howeverfleeting,of being able to seize for a momentin whoseentireclass sharedby an individual time the perceptions denied this sort of expression. of personswas systematically Beyondthis, of course,also lies the simple fact of Perpetua's to most indicate thatclearly factors Giventhe various martyrdom. to thanmaleswereconverting thatmanymorefemales historians one wouldtendto expectthem in its firstcenturies, Christianity Femalesmay well have to be in the frontline of persecution.36 fits of as malesin the sporadic justas frequently been martyred empire, regions of the Roman in various thaterupted persecution wasnowhere in literature of beingmemorialized buttheirchances four times (or nearas frequent.In fact, maleswere celebrated as females.A usefulpoint of view on that more)as frequently and earlymodern by a studyof medieval is provided imbalance "The idealtype we discussed remark: As its authors sainthood. the question'Who was a saint?'might well have in answering into males and females,for nothingso clearly been separated In theirwholesurvey, asgender".37 theranks of thesaints divided only aboutone out of six of all the "saints"(sancti) whomthey which countedas partof theirstudywerefemales,a proportion andfourteenth saints"in the thirteenth rosein the "eraof female to aboutone in five,but whichfell as low as aboutonecenturies tenthof all saintsin the eleventhandtwelfthcenturies a male see as closelylinkedto the deepwhichthe authors preference Although thecriteria society.38 of medieval maleprejudices seated demand arenotthesame,thetwocategories andmartyrs forsaints andit therefore similar, thatarebroadly characteristics personal
36Averil Cameron, "Neither Male nor Female", Greece S Rome, xxvii (1980), pp. 60-8, noting that the claim goes back at least as far as A. Harnack, The Mission and Expansionof Christianityduringthe First ThreeCenturies,English trans., 2nd edn., 2 vols. (London, 1908), ii, ch. 2.4, "On the Inward Spread of Christianity: Among Women", pp. 64-84; R. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians(New York, 1987), pp. 308 ff.; though the received view is currently being questioned: M. R. Salzman, "Aristocratic Women: Conductors of Christianityin the Fourth Century", Helios, xvi (1989), pp. 207-20. Society: The Two Worldsof Western 37 D. Weinstein and R. M. Bell, Saints e 1000-1700 (Chicago, 1982), ch. 8, "Men and Women", pp. 220-38, at Christendom, p. 220. 38 Ibid-, pp. 220-21-

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cannot be purelyaccidental thattheproportion of "female entry" to thesehighlyprivileged religious statuses is muchthe same. Perpetua's accession to the rank,therefore, wasin itselfsomewhatunusual. But exactlyhow unusual? A statistical analysis of all knownpre-Constantinian martyrs revealsthat, compared to generalMediterranean trends, Africanwomen represented a markedly higherproportion of all femalesaints.This patternis unusual because it involves an extraordinarily stronginversion of gendervaluation in the westernMediterranean world.Of all the major regional zonesandsocialgroupsof the westernempire,it is north Africathat revealsby far the greatestbias towardsa higherpublic valuation of men (and, combinedwith this, an unusual emphasis on seniority).39 Even if we take into account her highersocialstatus,therefore, thereis still a largeproblem to be explained. The onlyimportant conclusion thatcanbe noted at thispointis thatnorthAfrican females werereacting to martyrdom in almostexactlythe oppositeproportion to their actual devaluation in their own society. They were doing this with sufficient frequency to upset the normalexpectation of female roles in martyrdom in the Mediterranean world (and hence a certaintype of empowerment in Christian circles).A reasonable deduction thatflowsfromthis observation is that,whetherconsciouslyor not, they were doingthis in reaction to theiractual position in their secularrelationships. Therefore,Perpetua's behaviour musthavebeenpartof thistendency in African society. On the otherhand,heractions, andthoseof Felicitas, musthave contributed to, and reinforced, this behaviour must,in part, have set a model for later women.Later femalemartyrswho cameto playsucha dominant roleat Carthage, couldhardly have been unawareof her action. Othersoutside Carthage as, for example,the three females,Maxima,Donatillaand Secunda, whosemartyrdom boreresemblances to hers,couldhardlyhave beenignorant of herexample40 especially so sincethegovernor Anullinussentencedthem to die, preciselyas Perpetua,by throwing themto the beastsin the amphitheatre at Thuburbo.
39 B. D. Shaw, "The Cultural Meaning of Death: Age and Gender in the Roman Family", in D. Kurtzer and R. Saller (eds.), TheFamily in ItalyfromAntiquity to the Present (New Haven, 1991), ch. 4, pp. 66-90, where some of the evidence is presented. 40 C. de Smedt, "Passio SS. Maximae, Secundae et Donatillae", Analecta Bollandiana,ix (1890), pp. 110-16; C. Annius Anullinus, procons1l1 Africae, was governor A.D. 303-4. Monceaux tried to make the case for Thuburbo Minus but, alas, there is nothing in the martyrology to clinch the identification.

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Ofcourse, occupational andsocialstatus werealsodeterminants of access to celebratedmartyrdom. The measurable patterns clearlyshow high-ranking imperialand ecclesiastical officials, and personsof high socialstanding,absolutely dominating the calendar.Set against these patterns, Perpetua'shigh social standing (despiteher gender)makesthe recordand survival of herownaccount of hermartyrdom morecomprehensible. At the sametime, it bringsto our attention the extraordinary natureof the memorialization of Felicitas,the slave. Finally,thereis the dimension of chronological context.Perpetua's deathoccursin an earlyphaseof recorded and remembered Christian martyrdoms.Mostmartyrdoms, including mostfemaleones,wereto be recollected for periodsmuch closer to the final Constantinian victoryof the Christian church.The Decianpersecution of the mid-third century is clearly a watershed, butmostof the formally remembered martyrdoms comefromoneperiod-the immediate run-upto Constantine, the so-called"Great Persecution" beginning with Diocletianand his successors. This period,close in timeto the Constantinian "revolution" thatwasfinally to legalize andofficially empower the church, accounts for well nighhalfof all recorded andmemorialized martyrdoms. Perpetua, therefore, is to be placed in a veryearlyphaseof the production of narrative memoirs that were to feed into the laterreinterpretation of the historical significance of martyrdom in the church. Perpetua's accountis also unusualin anotherway a way whichmightwell account for the relative freedom she hadin her narration andin the fixingof her own account as authoritative in a way that was not possiblefor laterwomen.She was the first. Thatis to say, if we were to makea crudedivisionamongst the narrative martyrologies andformal martyr Acta(Actamartyrum) we mightsay thatthereis a divisionbetweenthosethatportray the fates of collectivegroupsof Christians as opposedto those whichrelate thefatesof "solitaries". The lattertendto emphasize the heroicachievements of greatindividuals all of themmale andordinarily holdingsomespecialstatusin the church(usually that of bishop).In this respectthe martyrActa only reflectthe generalmale preferences and power networksof the time power relationships that are even more clearlydrawnin the general runof allmartyrs whereecclesiastical andimperial officials (and soldiers)dominatethe field. Femalefiguresdo appearin "collective" accounts of martyrdoms beforePerpetua but as

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Africa.42

subordinate actorsin a widerdrama.In writingher account of her own experiences, therefore, Perpetua was(to the best of our knowledge) breaking new groundin asserting the primacy and legitimacy of her own experiences.41 But her wordsdid not just recordthis personal experience. They had such persuasiveness that her narrative had a greatinfluence on the way subsequent autobiographical accounts of "martyrdoms" werecomposed, provoking mimicryof her words and style, especiallyin north

To make the point clearer,we might consider the roles of females in the accounts that precedehers in date.A very early reference to a femalemartyrdom comes from the time of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, fromPergamum in AsiaMinor.43 The narrative is primarilyof the "solitary"type, with the main emphasis beingon the heroicresistance of two males,Karpos and Papylos. Theaccount alsoincludes theactions of one Agathonike, oneof the first femalemartyrs so celebrated. Althoughshe is executed alongwith the two men,her actions arerepresented as
41 I would therefore like to make three critical others that have been commonly used to analyse distinctions in my approach from Perpetua's significance: (1) One is to claim her as a "late antique" or even a "medieval" writer. Unless we are willing completely to ignore the normal meanings of historical periodization, such a categorization does violence to her experience. She cannot properly be understood as "late antique", and even less as "medieval" (as the female writers from those periods summoned in comparison clearly show), but must be placed in a late secondand early third-century social milieu, at the height of "classical" Roman power in the Mediterranean. (2) Another is to claim her as an example of a great, but lost, tradition of femal.q writers. This position I also reject. There is, alas, no sign of any such "lost tradition" and the few surviving female writers who can be placed with her are utterly imcomparable in every way with her achievement. Though of small scale, her narrative is an incandescent jewel of writing; to place beside it, for example, Egeria's travelogue would be somewhat like claiming the regionaries of Rome, or extracts from geographers, as paradigms of high literature, which they are not. Historians, alas, must face the facts. There is very little surviving female writing, and few indications of any "lost tradition": it is the relative absence of any such tradition that demands explanation, and we are not likely to get an honest by false ideological claims. Typical of the latter answer by pre-empting the solution is P. Wilson-Kastner et al. (eds.), A Lost Tradition: Women Writers of theEarlyChurch (Washington, 1981). (3) Finally, there are movements to theologize her whole experience (an interpretation that is manifestly rejected by the whole of this article) or to reread it through the modern ideology of Freudianism. 42 The accounts of Marianusand Jacobus (A.D. 259) Martyrs, no. 14, pp. 194-213) and that of Montanus (Musurillo, Actsof theChristian and Lucius (A.D. 259) (ibid.,no. 15, pp. 214-39) show clear signs of mimicry of certain aspects of the diction, themes, concepts and structure of Perpetua's narrative. 43 Ibid., no. 2, pp. 22-37: "possible" because there is a dispute over the dating, with some placing the acts under the emperor Decius (A.D. 249-51).

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the sudden, impulsiveactionsof an onlooker:"There was a thereandwho to be standing who happened Agathonike certain saw the gloryof the LordwhichKarpossaidhe had seen, and, out". shouted call,immediately thatthiswasa heavenly knowing actwhichleadsto herexecution unpremeditated It is thissudden, alongwith the two men. Sheendslife not as a saintherself,but The only other femalesso celebrated "with the holy men".44 where the martyrdoms appearin "collective" beforePerpetua thatwould emphasis is on the maleactors.The account principal wasthe ownexperience for Perpetua's haveset the stagedirectly versionof the deathsof the (commentarius) "trial transcript" martyrs,personsfrom Scillium,a villagelocatednear Scillitan took Theirtrialandexecutions herhometown,in northAfrica.4s just before in the generation placeon 17 July 180 - therefore alongwithseven whowereexecuted, Thefivefemales Perpetua's. men, are listed in secondplace in the account.Only threeare directlyquestionedby the governor,and they offer only the answers. Not muchin thewayof aninspiraperfunctory standard model. tionalliterary in the generation martyrdom female The onlyothercelebrated who died is thatof a femaleslave,one Blandina, beforePerpetua execuand theatrical publicdegradation in the brutalmassacre, ancient The cityof Lyonsin 177.46 in theGallic tionsof Christians to admitthat Blandina's was compelled editorof the document provedthe oppositeof male assumptions the achievements worthof someonewho was both a slaveand a woman.Indeed, provedthatthingsthatmenthink herthat"Christ it wasthrough worthyof glorybefore aredeemed cheap,uglyandcontemptible vaunted of herloveforhimwhichwasnot merely God,by reason in deeds".She provedherself but demonstrated in appearance, precisely with respectto her body: superior
44 That is to say, in the Greek recension. In the later Latin version Agathonica is not moved by a sudden fit of emotion, but is put through the same inquisitorial process as the men, facing much the same questions, and offering her own rational defences of her beliefs. The crowd of spectators shout out to her to have pity on herself and her children, a sentiment that is then echoed by the proconsul. When she which they could judge of herbeauty, does not relent, they have pity on her because since she had been stripped of her clothing (6.4-5 [L]). 45 The precise location of the town is not known; it was in the general area of north chretienne: Africa close to Carthage, and Thuburbo Minus: see P. Mesnage, L'Afrique antiques (Paris, 1912), p. 219. eveAches et ruines Martyrs,no. 5, pp. 62-85; Eusebius, Historia 46 Musurillo, Acts of the Christian

Ecclesiae, 5.1 (1-51).

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Blandina's earthlymistress[that is, her female slave owner], who was herselfamongstthe martyrs in this conflict,was in agonylest, becauseof her bodilyweakness,she wouldnot be able to makea bold confession of her faith. Yet Blandina was filled with such power that even those who were takingturnsto tortureher in every way from dawn to dusk were wearied and exhausted. They admitted that they were beaten, that therewas nothingfurtherthey coulddo to her. They were surprised she was still breathing, for her entirebody had been brokenand torn.

On the day she was takeninto the amphitheatre at Lyons,along withthreemalecompanions, to be exposedto wildbeasts "to offera publicspectacle". The menweremadeto "runthe gauntlet" and were exposedto other calculated tortures,finallyto expire. Blandina, on the other hand, was tied to a post and exposedto wildanimals thatwerelet looseon her:"Sheseemed to hangtherein the formof a cross".But none of the animals wouldtouchher,so she wastakendown,andreturned to prison. On the lastdayof the gladiatorial gamesBlandina wasbrought back,savedfor the culminating pointof the tortures.That was the usualfemale placein suchentertainments.47 In publicpunishments,therefore, the specialvalueof rarityattached to females, when coupledwith the dangerous and yet alluring spectacle of witnessingthe public violationof normsof sexualityand the mutilation of otherwise protected and honoured femalebodies, gavea special edge,a sharper culmination to the display. In being compelled to play the femalerole in a drama of publicpunishment,theslavewoman Blandina achieved thesortof glorydoubly deniedto her in normallife, where honourwas normally the preserveof malesof free status.48 Giventhese knownways in which femaleswere punished,where else would women like Blandina andPerpetua expectto be in thatprocess,exceptlast? As the culminating point of the display,however,Blandina's deathcouldbringher honour.Afterthe ritualgauntlet of whipping and clubbing, beingburnedon glowingred irons,she was stripped naked,coveredwith see-through netting,and exposed to theattack of a bull.Hernudityandexposure to the quintessential male beast,as must now be clear,were simplypartof the
47 M. Cebeillac-Gervasoniand F. Zevi, "Revisions et nouveautes pour trois inscriptions d'Ostie: des femmes gladiateursdans une inscription d'Ostie", Melangesd'archeologie et d'histoirede l'Ecole Franfaise de Rome, lxxxviii (1976), pp. 602-20; in general, see Ville, Gladiatureen occident,pp. 263-4; on the parallel attraction and marginality of the Spanish senoritastoreras,see Mitchell, Blood Sport, pp. 157-8. 48 J. Davis, Peopleof the Mediterranean: An Essay in Comparative Social Anthropology (London, 1977), pp. 89-100, remains the most convincing treatment.

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Roman language of punishment. Blandina wasgoredandthrown aboutuntilshewassenseless, until"sheno longer perceived what washappening". She died. The spectators, it is said,werecompelled to admitthat in their experience"no womanhad ever suffered so much".Her fortitude andendurance werecompared to those of a victorious maleathletewho triumphed againstall odds"to win" andso to achievegreathonour. Theseearlier publicexecutions providea minimal contextfor the understanding of whathappened to Perpetua and Felicitas: the orderin whichthey werebe placed(because of gender),the types of humiliation to which they were to be exposed, the dishonour of publicnudityandthe shameof netting(because of gender), the sortof wildbeasts to whichtheywereto be exposed, bulls or cows (becauseof gender),the bodily reactions (being thrownuntil rendered insensate), and the types of attitudes in whichthesewere to be interpreted (by malewriters).Although theaccount of Perpetua's demise canbe betterunderstood against this background, it is the uniqueness of her narrative thatstands out againstthe earliercomparative materials. Perpetua's words are of such unusualliteraryand historical qualitiesthat it is difficult to conveyhow theirpowerof communication, styleand content differ so muchin thefundamental aspect of simple reportage fromall otherso-called"martyr acts".Her wordsare:
colloquial . . . no emotion,no fantasyof Perpetua's appears disguisedby stylisticornaments . . . [she]recordsher thoughtsin an informal, graphic way, which is moving partlybecauseshe is not strivingto be literary. There are no rhetorical flourishes, no attemptsat didacticism or edification. The dialogue. . . retainsthe imprecisions of livingconversation ... The heroinesin Greektragedyhave momentsof comparable intensity, but the intimate and unselfconscious quality of Perpetua'sutterance standsalone.49

Perpetua's composition alsoshares characteristics typical of other femalewritingin comparable genres,amongst them a penchant for a repetitive paratactical style whichemphasizes the concrete and is more directlytied to the realitiesof actualface-to-face
49 Dronke,Women Writersof the Middle Ages, ch. 1, "FromPerpetua to the Eighth Century",pp. 1-35, at pp. 1, 6; he sees this not so much as a literaryartifice,as something wellingup out of given socialconditions: "Whilethereis as Auerbach saw a profoundconnection betweensermohumilisand the new realismfoundin certainChristianwriters, this concept is particularly problematic in the case of Perpetua.Her diarycan scarcelybe discussedin terms of a 'new realism'-any morethancan the diaryof AnneFrank,or the Indianmemoirof MaryTyler,or the prisonlettersof AngelaDavis, in our time";cf. E. Auerbach, Literary Languageand (cont. on p. 20J

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relationships thanthe abstractions andcomplexities of maleliteraryproduction. It has beenargued,convincingly, thather style, andthatof womenwritersfromlate antique andearlymedieval contexts,flowsdirectly out of a worldof oralcommunication, to whichwe otherwise havelittle, or no, access.50 But if Perpetua wasthe firstto so write,she was, in manyways,the last. There were to be few repetitions of her singularachievement. Her position is therefore likethatof a Sappho or a Corinna females who brokeinto the worldof literary production at a fortuitous conjuncture when new genres were openingand before male control anddomination overliterary production led to a complete exclusion of womenfrompublicwriting.Thatis surelywhy she "speaksof things that do not occur elsewhere. . . Ancient literature hadits Antigone, but thereis nothinglike [Perpetua], norcouldtherebe; therewas no literary genrecapable of presenting realitywith so muchdignityandelevation''.5l The whole documentthat is today labelledthe "Passion of Saints Perpetua andFelicity"(PassioSanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis)is much more than just Perpetua's bare account.(See Table). It also includes substantial additions by an editorwhich both precede andfollowherwords.Myinvestigation of the entire document hastwo primary purposes. First,I wishto establish an understanding of the core of the document shornof the male editor's additions. The greatimportance of this aim shouldnot have to be emphasized. Establishing theprimacy of whatPerpetua experienced, thought,saw and felt is not only a rarepossibility granted to the historian, but also demands that we reproduce a faithful version of howshe sawherself andthe waysin whichshe interpreted whatwashappening to her. This taskis all the more pressing because of thesecond aimof thisinvestigation: to demon(n. 49 cont.)

its Publicin Late LatinAntiquity and in the MiddleAges,trans.R. Manheim (New York, 1965),ch. 1, "Sermohumilis",pp. 27-66, at pp. 60-65. 50E. A. Petroff(ed.), Medieval Women's Visionary Literature (Oxford,1986),introduction, "The VisionaryTraditionin Women'sWritings:Dialogue and Autobiography", pp. 28-9, noting the effect of oral communication on female reportage. Perpetua's stylehasthusbeenfrequently misinterpreted, leading to typicalmisiudgements such as that of Leclercq "this heroic woman uses childishlanguage": Leclercq, "Perpetue et Felicite",col. 422. I amonlyclaiming thatthissortof rhetoric is "characteristic", not determined. It couldwell be the resultof conscious or semiconscious "rhetorical" strategies as muchas anything else: see A. Weber,Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity (Princeton,1990), esp. pp. 5-1S, for a cogent analysis. 51 Auerbach, Literary Language andits Public, p. 63.

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TABLE STRUCTURE OF THE "PASSIONS OF SAINTSPERPETUAAND FELICITY" Editor's Introductionto the document(1-2) (a) Statement concerning the theological statusof the document (1) (b) Introduction to the principal characters of the drama(2) Perpetua'saccountof her arrest,imprisonment, and life in prison to the point of her execution "writtenin her own hand"(3-10) (a) Arrestand firstencounter with her father(3) (b) First vision (4) (c) Secondencounter with her father(5) (d) Trialscene and thirdencounter with her father(6) (e) Visionsof Dinocrates (7-8) (f) Life in prisonand finalencounter with her father(9) (g) Visionof personal combatin the arena(10) Vision of Saturus:One of Perpetua's fellow prisoners"writtenin his own hand"(11-13) Editor's accountof the fate of Perpetuaand her fellow prisoners (14-21) (a) General statement on the fidelityof the documents (14) (b) Reportof the fate of Felicitas(15) (c) Reporton the executionof the prisoners in the amphitheatre (16-21.10) (d) Peroration orl the significance of the martyrdoms (21.11)

strate the modes by which this unmediatedself-perception, her reality,was subsequentlyappropriated by a male editor, and then greatly distorted by subsequentmale interpreters.52 There is, of course, the related, and larger, problem of reconstituting her experiences, free from the mass of subsequent theologicalinterpretation.Both problemsare provoked by the natureof her own
52 That is to say, it is a simpleattempt to test the utilityof a category of historical analysis: JoanW. Scott, "Gender: A UsefulCategory of Historical Analysis", Amer. Hist. Rev., xci (1986), pp. 1053-75,revisedas ch. 2 in her Genderand the Politics of History (New York, 1988), pp. 28-50, on which see the cogent remarks by W. H. Sewell,History and Theory,xxix (1990),pp. 71-82. I wouldabjure the literary-critical elements of Scott'stheoryin favourof moretraditional historical methods so Linda Gordon in Signs, xv (1990), pp. 853-8.

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narrative. The startling and incandescent wordspennedby this youngwomanfacingdeathproducean accountthat derivesits powerfromthe simplicity and directness of its communication. Hers is a directaccountof actualhumanexperience, a piece of reportage strippedof the illusoryrhetorical qualitiesof other martyr Acta. Whatthen are the significarlt elementsin her own story, as told in her own words?First of all, her decisionto act on her own, in sucha way as deliberately to riskher own life, brought into question all her familyconnections, the closestrelationships of powerinto whichshe had been boundon a day-to-day basis up to thatpoint.Therecan be no doubtthatthe mostpowerful linkin this familial network so faras she wasconcerned (andthe one whichis constantly brought to the foreas the mostproblematic)wasthatwithherfather.53 In thecourse of herimprisonment, trial, and the events leadingup to her execution,she had no fewerthanfourtraumatic meetings with her father,eachtold in a straightforward manner thatrevealsboth the tensionsandthe problems in this relationship. The firstconfrontation took place whileshe wasstill underhousearrest.Shereports it in the form of a dialogue (3.1-4):
Whenwe were still with our arresting officers,my fatherwishedto make me change my mind with words of persuasion.He perseveredin his attemptsto defeatme, all becauseof his love for me. 'Father', I said, 'for the sake of argument,do you see this vase, or whateveryou want to call it, lying here?' And he said, sYes,I see it'. And I said to him, 'Canyou call it by any othernamethanwhat it is?' And he said, CNo, you can't'. 'So', I said, 'I cannotcall myself anythingother than what I am a Christian. Merelyhearingthis word upset my fathergreatly.He threw himselfat me with such violencethat it seemedhe wantedto tearmy eyes out . . . but in the end he just harassed me and then left, beaten,alongwith his devilisharguments. For the next few days duringwhich my fatherwas away, I gave thanks to the Lord, and was able to refresh myself in his absence.

The secondconfrontation with her fatheroccurred aftershe had already been in prisonfor a few days.Suddenly newscamethat the prisoners wereto be takento trial(5.1-6):
A few dayslatera rumourbeganto circulate thatwe were to be takento our court hearing.My father,consumedwith worry, hurriedfrom the Cf.C. Heilbrun) Writinga Woman's Lafe(NewYork, 1988)) pp.64-8.

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city. He cameup to me in orderto dissuade me, and said:'My daughter, havepity on my grey hair.Havepity on your father,if I am still worthy to be called"Father"by you. With these handsof mine I raisedyou to the flowerof your presentage. I placedyou beforeall your brothersin honour.Pleasedon'tshameme beforeothermen. Consider yourbrothers. Consider yourmotherandyour mother'ssister.Thinkof yourbabyson, who will not be able to live withoutyou. Changeyour mind beforeyou destroyus all. If anythingshouldhappento you, none of us will be able to speakfreelyagain'. My father spoke these words to me, as a father would, with paternal affection, kissingmy hands.Then, throwinghimselfat my feet, he wept. He no longeraddressed me as 'Daughter'but ratheras 'Lady'.For my part) I grieved for my father'smisfortune,becausehe alone of all my relationstook no joy in my suffering.I tried to comirt him, and said, 'Whathappenstomorrowon the prisoners'platformwill be what God wishes.You must know that we are no longerin our own power,but in thatof God'. He went awayfromme deeplysaddened.

Next day therefollowsthe trialscenein whichthe defendants are arraigned beforethe proconsul's tribunal in frontof a large crowdin the town forum.One by one they climbthe stairsto the platform to be interrogated. Hereagain,Perpetua's fatheris the principal figurein heraccount, as he attempted, yet again,to get her to changeher mind(6.2):
My turn came. My fatherappearedright there carryingmy baby boy. He pulled me down off the stairsand said to me, CSacrifice . . . please . . . have pity on your baby'.

In which pleas her father was supportedby the governor Hilarianus, who added(6.3-5):
'Spare the whitehairof yourfather,spareyourinfantson. Makea sacrifice on behalfof the Healthof our Lord Emperors.' And I said, 'I will not'. Hilarianus said, 'Areyou a Christian?' And I replied,'Yes, I am a Christian'. And whenmy fatherrushedup to try to dissuade me, Hilarianus ordered him to be struckdown. He was beatenwith rods. I was in painover my father'streatment as if I myself were being beaten.I grievedfor his old age.

Perpetua's finalencounter with her fathercamein the finalday beforeshe was to be led out for executionin the amphitheatre (9.2-5):
Then the day of the gameswas uponus. My father,absolutely exhausted by the ordeal,cameto see me. He beganto tearat his beard.He prostrated himself,fallingface down on the ground.He cursedthe numberof his years,andutteredsuchwordsas wouldhavemovedall creation. I grieved for his unhappy old age.

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It was the last time they met beforeshe died. Her fatheris the singledominant personin her diary.Her husband is nowhere to be foundin her account (andthereis no presumption of divorce or death). Perpetua's other constantconcernwas her new-bornchild, whomshe was still breast-feeding at the time of her arrestand imprisonment. It is the firstthing that occursto her aftershe adjusts, as muchas she can,to the terrors of beingtransferred to the prison(3.5-8):
A few days later [afterour arrest]we were throwninto prison. I was reallyfrightened. I'd neverexperienced suchdarkness. It wasa hardtime. The overcrowded conditions.The heat was overpowering. The constant 'shake-downs' and demands by the prisonguardsandsoldiers.On top of everything,I was torturedwith worry for my baby. Then the blessed deaconsTertiusand Pomponius,who broughthelp to us, paid out the necessary bribes and withina few hourswe were sent to a betterpart of the prisonwherewe were able to refreshourselves.Whenwe left our prisonquarters,we were all able to get some freedomfor ourselves.I breast-fedmy baby. He was alreadyfaint from hunger.In my worry, I spokeaboutthe babyto my mother,and tried to comfortmy brother. I handedmy baby boy over to their care. I was exhaustedwhen I saw how wornout they werewith concernfor me. Theseworriestortured me for many days. Finally I got permissionto keep my baby with me in prison.Once I had been relievedof my torturesand worriesaboutmy child, I immediately got better.The prisonsuddenlybecamea palace I wouldhavepreferred to be thererather thananywhere elsein the world.

Thispermission, however, musthavebeentemporary. The baby musthavebeengivenbackto her parents' caresincehe appears with her fatherat her trialbeforethe governor.Followingher sentencing ad bestias andreturnto prisonquarters, Perpetua was onceagaindistressed by this separation fromher child(6.7-8):
But becausemy babyhadbecomeusedto beingbreast-fed andto staying with me in prison,I immediately sentthe deaconPomponius to my father to ask him to returnmy baby to me. My fatherrefused.It was as God willed. The babyno longerdesiredmy breasts.They were no longerto be so sore and inflamed.I was no longer torturedwith concernfor my baby,or by the painin my breasts.54

The personswho figuremost prominently in her accountare thereforeher fatherand her baby son; after that appearher brothers then, as a shadowy figure,her mother.Her husband is absent.That absencedemands some explanation. A hint might be found in Perpetua'sperplexingstatementthat her father "aloneof all her relations" took no joy in her suffering. On the
54 Shaw, "Family in Antiquity", pp. 41-2, for further context on Perpetua's experiences here.

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faceof it, this claimis falseif one takesthe "family line"(genus) concerned to be herownnatalfamily,sincethereis no indication whatever thather motheror her brothers got any particular joy out of her suffering. Indeed,at least one of her brothers was a Christian catechumen like herself.A reasonable solutionis that the "family line"concerned is thaton herfather's side, to which her husband was related.In thatcase, only her fatherout of all of the relatives on his side of the familysympathized with her plight.It seemsmostprobable, then, thather own husband was frankly hostileto her decisionto becomea Christian and found no difficulty in accepting the harsh actions the Roman authorities were takingagainsther and her companions. In that case, his absence fromher account is easilyexplicable. Shehad,in effect, rejectedhim and his views.55Such husbandly hostilityto the involvement of wives with the newfangled cult of Christianity and its organizations outsidethe home (directed by "outsider" males)is well attested.56 Perhapsjust as puzzling,given the joint attribution of the martyrology, is the absence of anymention of Felicitas by Perpetua. Although arrested, imprisoned andexecuted with Perpetua, Felicitas' storyhasto be told by the editor(15). The lackof any reference to Felicitas in Perpetua's own wordsis perhaps understandable givenherdiary-like concentration on the self. Butsince Felicitas was apparently closelyconnected with her in the small group of Christians receivinginstruction at ThuburboMinus, waspregnant, andgavebirthwhenshe wasin prisonwithPerpetua, the absenceof any hint of her existenceis worth noting. PreciselybecauseFelicitas'experiences have to be reportedby the male editor, they lack the immediacy of Perpetua's sentiments. We know that she was eight months pregnantwhen
55For her husbandto be part of her father'sline presentsno great difficulty; it would involve a cross or parallelcousin marriage (i.e., a marriage to her father's brother's or father'ssister'sson), a not-infrequent occurrence amongthe socialclass fromwhichPerpetua came.The wordPerpetua usedforthatsegment of her "family" that was so hostile to her (genus) can certainlybe taken to have preciselythis meaning i.e., the "family"of the maleascendants (see ThesauruslinguaeLatinae, vi.2, 1925-54,s.v. "genus",#I.l, cols. 1886-8). 56 To takebut one example fromthe martyrologies themselves, thereis the martyrdom of Ptolemaios (Musurillo, Acts of the ChristianMartyrs, no. 3, pp. 38-41, from the A.D. 150s-160s; JustinMartyr,Apologia, 2.2). It concernsthe case of a woman (unnamed) who joineda Christian groupand whose husband is reported(fromthe Christian viewpoint)to have been "depraved"; in fact, she wishedto divorcehim. The angryhusband then turnedon her Christian teacherand informed on them to the authorities as a resultof whichboth of them were executed.

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arrested and throwninto prison.Two daysbeforethe munus at which the catechumens were to die, she suddenlywent into labour. According to the editor's account, she suffered greatlyin this birth(according to his explanation "because of the natural difficulty of givingbirthin the eighthmonth").The babywas a girl, and was handedover to "a certainsister"to raise (almost certainly a Christian woman, not one of Felicitas' siblings). Then thereare the editor'sreactions first,to the premature birth. Forhimthisis entirely a theological matter. Felicitas is distressed because she will haveto die alone,thusdevaluing the impactof her martyrdom. Her executionwouldhave been postponed by theRomanauthorities because of a law forbidding the execution of pregnantwomen.57 It was thereforebecauseof the ardent prayers of herfellowprisoners to "theLord"thatthe birthpains immediately cameon. Secondly,the "suffering" of childbirth. The ordealwas so difficultto witness that one of the prison guards' assistants was moved to remarkthat if she could not tolerate this degreeof pain,how wouldshe be ableto facebeing torn to piecesby beastsin the arena? Felicitas'(reported) reply categorizes the suffering of childbirth as something whollyher concern. Her sufferings in the arena,on the otherhand,she is made to assert,will be shared with "Him"andso will be more bearable. "His" absencefrom, and lack of concernwith, the process of childbirth is takenfor granted, at least, one must be careful to add,by the editor. Finally, therearePerpetua's visions.Theyaretrulyextraordinary in the qualityof their reportage. Whatever the traditional and stereotypical images contained in them,thereis no reasonable question of their authenticity.58 Moreover, her visionssharea number of characteristics thathavebeenfoundto be characteristic
Digest, 48.19.3 (Ulpian). E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christianin the Age of Anxiety New York, 1970), pp. 47-53, at p. 52: "I conclude, then, (Cambridge, 1965; repr. that in the prison diary we have an authentic first-hand narrative of the last days of a gallant martyr. It is a touching record of humanity and courage, quite free from the pathological selfimportance of an Ignatius or an Aristides. Perpetua has been with another Christian martyr, Sophie Scholl, who at about instructively compared the same age was put to death by the Nazis. Miss Scholl also had a dream as she lay in prison on the last night of her life: she thought that she was climbing a steep mountain, carrying in her arms a child to be baptised . . .". A further item: Perpetua's visions have been interpreted almost solely in the light of Greek or Roman models; but there was a deeply rooted indigenous north African tradition of receiving dream messages from the god, especially via incubation; for the evidence, see Leglay, Saturne africain, pp. 342 S.
57 58

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a strongdrivetowardsan accounts: of similarfemalevisionary rhetof the self (withthe necessary presentation autobiographical therebyinvolved),a markedimpactof oral orical stratagems and an immanent in the writtenpresentation, communication of the authorthat exudesfromher own account.S9 "presence" first vision came in responseto a requestfrom her Perpetua's who believedthat she couldeasilyask for a visionsince brother shestoodin such"highdignity".She,in turn,feelsshecaneasily to havesucha visionbecause"I makea promiseto her brother knew that I could speakwith the Lord, whose favoursI had (4.1-2). In her dreamshe does not get a experienced" already a ladder climbs butinstead request, to herbrother's directanswer snake. of greatheight,at the baseof whichis coiledan enormous (hortus = garden= garden At thetopsheentersintoanimmense man(likeherownfather) wheresheseesa white-haired paradise) dress milkinghis sheep. Aroundhim are many in shepherd's He givesher whitegarments. of peoplecladin shining thousands multitudes some cheese to eat. Upon hearingthe surrounding withthetasteof "something awakes shesuddenly chant"Amen", of the interpretation sweet"in her mouth.Sheoffersno further cameto her of the dream.Hersecondandthirddreams meaning reactionwhen she was at as the result of an unpremeditated Perpetuautteredthe name of her prayer.Quite involuntarily of herdead recollection The sudden brother Dinocrates. deceased in provokes a secondvisionin whichshe sees Dinocrates brother a darkplace(alongwith manyotherpeople)wherehe is hot and of accessto a pool of waterthat was very thirsty,but deprived on his behalfby Shedecidesto intervene locatedcloseat hand.60 the successof her prayingfor him. Her third dreamconfirms pool is not onlyableto drinkfromthe nearby efforts.Dinocrates facialcancer of water,but alsohas beencuredof the disfiguring "to andproceeds thathadkilledhimas a youngchild.He drinks play joyfullyas young childrendo". She attributesno more to hersecondandthirdvisionsthanthe communication meaning of herownactions andthe efficacy typeof knowledge, of a certain once she hadbecomeawareof it. in dealingwith the problem
59Petroff (ed.), Medieval Women'sVisionaryLiterature, introduction, p. 21 f.; one must note that the characteristicsPetroff assigns to her medieval female writers (e.g., celibacy) are not shared by Perpetua. In her actual social position, she cannot be grouped with them. 60 The standard images which lay behind parts of the vision are outlined by F. J. Dolger, "Antike Parallelen zum leidenden Dinocrates in der Passio Perpetuae",
(cont. on p. 28)

these visions, however, it is the fourth-the one seen the day before her on execution-that has occasionedthe greatest comment.61In it she is taken from Pomponius and led to an arena. A her prison by the deacon huge roaring crowd awaits her. Even in her dream state Perpetua is confused. She that she has been condemnedto the beasts; yet this is knows is happeningto her. Rather, it is clear that she is to not what engage in a physical combatwith a male inher own words (10.6-7): opponent. The rest is best continued
There cameout againstme an Egyptian,disgusting with his assistants, in appearance, to fight me. And there along came to me some handsome youngmen as my assistants and supporters. I was undressed a man. And my assistants beganto rub me all over with and became customary in suchathleticcontests.62 olive oil, as is

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Overshadowing the arenashe sees an enormousfigureclad in the resplendent festivalgarmentsand holding the symbolsof a patron (editor) of the games, holding the staff of a gladiatorialtrainer (lanista) and a branchwith golden apples that is to be the reward for the victor. A brutal, is a combinationof the grindinghand-to-handfight ensues that Greek-style "no-holds-barred" arts martial contest known as the pankration and elements of gladiatorial combat.63 Perpetuadefeatsthe Egyptianand goes up to the lanista to accept her reward. He kisses her and says: "My peace be with you". To Perpetua, daughter, that in the games on the next the visionhad the clearmeaning day with mere beasts, but against the she was not going to battle Devil himself (representedby
(n. O cont.)

Antike undChristentum, ii (1930), pp. 1-40, though it must be said that the are notall that strong in parallels
61

substance. Though it too is dreamt in conventional images: F. J. Dolger, dem Agypter in der "Der Kampf mit Perpetua-Vision: das Martyrium als Antike undChristentum, Kampf mit dem Teufel", iii (1932), pp. 177-88. 62 The choice of the "foul Egyptian" is almost always reflection of racism. The Egyptians misinterpreted. It is a simple were the most despised, group in the Roman world hated and reviled ethnic therefore an appropriate choice satanic thing. for a dark and 63 Louis Robert, "Une vision de Perpetue, martyre a rendus del'Academie Carthage en 203", Comptes desInscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1982), pp. 228-76, who that the Greek text has a better observed command of the does technical notargue, however, for any priority of this version. terms of the contest. This author's The reason for the Greek mastery of the technical vocabulary was understood long Cavalieri, PassioSS. Perpetuae ago by Franchi de' et Felicitatis, p. 35 f. It not is simply that Perpetua was conversant with the jargon of the arena or translator amphitheatre, was. Further, contra Robert, the contest is not just a whereas her Greek contest; as with many Christian pankration texts (see ibid., p. 37 f.) elements of both or athletic and athletic contests are merged into a gladiatorial single mixed literary type.

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the disgusting Egyptian in her dream). But the manner in which it is represented hasits troubling aspects. Therearetwo radically opposed standard interpretations. The first,committed to Freudianor Jungian psychoanalysis, sees deepandtroubling psychologicaldimensions in her dream.64 The other,morepragmatic and rootedin the hardrealities of the Graeco-Roman world,is simply dismissive: if Perpetua wishedto engagein a pankration in the arena she hadto becomea male,andthatis that.65 But the latter positionis surelymistaken therewas no needfor her to have seen matters this way, muchless to go out of her way to dream the detailsand feel constrained to describethem in words. A closerreading of the text suggests otherwise. Beingrubbed down with oil was not only a simpleathleticprocedure.66 The words suggest an undertow of recognition subliminally released forPerpetuain her dreamstate, a confessional realitywhichshe does not consciously facein "thewaking world",butwhichshe faithfullyreportsas partof her confrontation with a threatening and evil male.67 That is to say, this incidentin her dreamseemsto be coherent with the importof hervisionsin general-they are empowering experiences. In themPerpetua is able to asserther powers to the full: to be able to interveneon behalfof the
64 Dodds, Paganand Christian in theAge of Anxiety; M. L. von Franz,an acolyte of Jung,in her "Die PassioPerpetuae: Versuch einer psychologischen Deutung",in C. G. Jung(ed.), Aion(Zurich,1951),pp. 389-496;on whichtype of interpretation considerthe salutarywarningsof S. R. F. Price, "The Future of Dreams:From Freud to Artemidorus", Past and Present, no. 113 (Nov. 1986), pp. 3-37. For an exampleof the excesses of the genre, see R. Rousselle, "The Dreams of Vibia Perpetua:Analysisof a Female Christian Martyr",ZI. Psychohistory, xiv (1987), pp. 193-206. 65 So Robert,"Visionde Perpetue", pp. 256-8. 66 See, for example, Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 10.21, paralleledin the earlier Pseudo-Lucian, Ass, 51. The latternovelincludes a striking passage (9-11) whereoil rub-downs are used extensivelyin a sexualencounter betweenthe hero and a slave girl named,appropriately, Palaestra ("Ms. Wrestler"), whichis an extensiveparody of a pankration matchof the type in whichPerpetua engages here;cf. Dronke,Women Writers of theMiddle Ages,p. 14: "Herewe mightsee not so mucha sexualfantasy as a willed identification . . . At the sametime, the detailof her nakedbody being rubbedwith oil by handsome youngmen who are her secondscannothelp carrying erotic suggestion,notwithstanding her disclaimer that this is customary before an agon" 67 Therefore, a rather moreconscious socialthing(cf. Heilbrun,Writing a Woman's Life, pp. 96-8), for which there are manyparallels in early Christian communities: see Miles, carnQl Knowing, ch. 2. This is not to deny the distinctpossibilityof an "unconscious" absorption of the dominant ideologythat to be good and to succeed one hadto be male:see K. Aspegren,TheMale Woman: A Feminine Idealin theEarly Church, ed. R. Kieffer (Uppsala, 1990),esp. chs. 6-8, wherethe impactof this "ideal" is studied.

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betterment of the conditionof the dead, to deal directlywith figures of authority in the churchon an equalbasis,andto fight successfully in the arenain a quintessentially malecontest.68 With this finaldreamends the sequenceof Perpetua's words as we now have them. This simpleand barerecordof a human experience, however, wasonlybeginning its ownlife,so to speak, one in whichit wasdestined to be reread andcommented on by others,all of whomhappened to be men. Theirinterestin her words was, to say the least, hardlydisinterested. Indeed,the processof the male rethinking of her experience beganalmost immediately. The firsteditorknewof, andemphasized, the fact thatthe executions were timedto coincidewith the birthday of Geta,the younger sonof Septimius Severus, thereigning emperor of Rome.As has been convincingly argued,thatwouldseem to indicate an editingprocessthat took placein the yearsimmediatelyfollowing the deaths in thearena in 203.69 Thisfirsteditorial response was, so to speak,unpremeditated. Thereare few signs that the editingwas a deliberate attemptto distort.Rather,the resulting text seemsto mirror the way in whichhe assumed this text oughtnaturally to be interpreted. The editeddocument as we haveit, therefore, includes VibiaPerpetua's experiences, but systematically brackets them with a complicated prefacewhich attemptsto lay out the terms on which her accountis to be understood by reader andlistener alike)andby a tailpiece thatis meantto conclude her story(againto produce the desiredeffect on reader andlistener). (SeeTable.) Thetermsof thesebracketing piecesarethoseof the formal male-dominated church. Therehas been much speculation, some convincing,some not, that the editorwasnoneotherthanTertullian.70 If he wasthe editor,the casefor the degreeand type of malereinterpretation is thereby strengthened; if not, the casestillstands.The identification is not necessary. Givenboththeoverwhelming probabilities of the case, and the types of ideasand verbiage and modesof expression of
68 That is to say, although some femaleathletesare known,they were rare,rarer still in the gladiatorial arena(I knowof no femalepankrationists). 69T. D. Barnes,"Pre-DecianActa Martyrum", 3tl. Theol.Studies,xix (1968), pp. 509-31, at pp. 522 ff., repr. in his Early Christianity and the RomanEmpire (London,1984),ch. l; Barnes,Tertallian, appendix17, p. 265; since the date must be well before211, thereis no reasonto delaythe editingprocessto long afterthe event;simplelogic arguesotherwise. 70 On the much-debated subjectof Tertullian's authorship, see Robert)"Visionde Perpetue", p. 235 n. 35, who opts for Tertullian, but adds"but I wouldn'tinsiston it", whichis perhaps the pointof cautionwherethe wholematteroughtto be left.

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the "editor", there can be little doubt that the hand is a male one, and, for the purposesof the problemat hand, that is all that matters. This first stage in the appropriation of Perpetua'sexperiences thereforeleft her own accountfundamentally intactandunaltered. That already argues for a certain "untouchability"of the basic text, for which the most likely explanation(to me) would lie in its inherentpower, its resistanceto tampering.Somethingof this inability of the editor to touch the original is hinted at when he remarkson how "unworthy"he might be to add anythingto the descriptionof her glory ( 16.1). Being unableto rewritePerpetua's own account in any "better way" the editor chose instead to surroundher document with his own materials that is to say, with a preface(1-2) and an epilogue (16-21), and by the insertion of the dream of Saturus immediately after the conclusion of Perpetua'sown words that report her final vision (11-13). That is to say, the editor brackets or surroundsthe original work in such a way that the reader enters it, and exits from it, through his interpretations,through his words. In this way he can guide the readerinto Perpetua'swords, can "set up" the readerso that he or she will read Perpetua's account with a certain meaning alreadyplaced in his or her mind. First of all, in direct contrast to the simple, factualreal-time replay of what was happeningto her, the editor counterpoisesa heavily theologizedtext, a densely theoretical structure which is intended to deflect the reader's attention away from the plane of immediateexperience to transcendent levels of meaning. The ideology (as opposed to her straightforwardpractice) holds that her experiences are to be interpreted in a cosmic frameworkwhere, as the editor quotes Holy Scriptureto show, God will work in such a way that even daughtersand female-slaveswill be able to functionas bearersof His Spirit in this world. That such low-status persons should be able to be witnesses (martyres) was just anothersign that the final stages of the currentworld orderwere at hand, and that everyone was now living "in the final days". Much the same themes can be found in the "tailpiece"attached to the end of the passion. The editor neatly works his way from the last of Perpetua's own words (her fourth dream) by adding to the accountat that very place the dreamof Saturus.This vision has been deliberatelyinserted to counter the implicit assertions of her words (that is, men can have visions too) and to serve as

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a bridge to the closing comments of the editor. In attemptingto establishthe equallegitimacyof Saturus'visions, the editormakes the same claims of primacy for it as for Perpetua's: "But the blessed Saturusalso publishedthis vision of his, which he himself wrote down in his own hand" (11.1). But this vision is unlike Perpetua's not only in its language and construction,but in its impersonalbent, its concern with theologicalinterpretationand ecclesiastical hierarchy (underwritten as a template of divine order), a cast of new male characters,and a "reread" Perpetua (now speaking, quite properly, in ecclesiastical Greek) who declares:"Praise to God, as I was once happy in the flesh, so I am now much happierhere in this existence" (12.7). If the vision was truly Saturus'own, then it would already attest to distinct perceptualdifferencesbetween those who were to be martyred (basedpartlyon gender, it would seem). But there must be strong doubts that the account, as it stands, is indeed "by him and in his own hand". The editor can also assertthe highestauthorityfor his intervention in Perpetua'sstory: it is the Holy Spirit that finally permits his recountingof the final events of the games (16.1). He can also appeal to the strongest secular legitimationfor his actions; in a parody of the Roman law, he claims both a contractof mandate (mandatum) and a "trust" (fideicommissum) granted to him by Perpetuaherself. In his version of their deaths, the editor's martyrs hardly experience the real terrorsof jail and prison. Instead they walk from prison to the amphitheatre"in joy, as if they were going to heaven". Perpetuais transformedinto a "shining countenance" and becomes the "bride of Christ" and "God's darling"(Dei delicata)(18.1). Similarly,the experiencesof Felicitas (one who had endured the frighteningordeal of giving birth in prison) are reconfiguredinto a metaphorical symbol: "she goes from one blood bathto another,from the midwifeto the gladiator, ready to wash after childbirthin a second baptism" (18.3). The reinterpretation simultaneouslybears a simple theologicalimage and a manifestly degradingmessage. The terrifyingexperiences of the arena itself are themselves reread. Insteadof the real fear evinced in Perpetua's words, one gets divine certainties. "But He who said, 'Askand you shall receive', answeredtheir prayers by giving each one the death he asked for" (19.1). So too, Perpetuaherself, in behaviourand image, is transformedinto the model of a Roman matrona.When shaken by the charge of the

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wild cow, she is moreconcerned aboutpersonal shameandstyle thananything else (20.3-5):


First the wild CQW chargedPerpetuaand threw her on her back. Then, sittingup, she pulleddown the garmentthat had been rippedalongone side, so that it uncovered her thighs,thinkingmoreof her modestythan of pain.Next she askedfor a pin to put her messed-uphairbackin place. It wasnot rightthata [female] martyr shoulddiewithherhairout of order.

Withthese words,and a heavytheological envoi) the editorhas finished his taskof "framing" Perpetua. The first editor'sresponseto Perpetua's words was neither unusual nor solitary. It was to be repeated againandagain.The specificproblemthat faceda male-dominated socialorderwas the very rarityof Perpetua's achievement. That a femalehad donesuchthingsin itselfthrewintoreliefthosevery problematic areasof sexual definitionand power that much troubled the organized church.7lHer challengewas thereforea permanent one. She had narrated her own accountof her experiences, and theseweretold in sucha way, with sucha power andsimplicity of rhetoric thatthe verywordsshe wrotecontained an irrefutable self-empowerment. They could not be ignored. They assert specific actionsthat placedher experience at the centre and she was achieving in roles that had been overwhelmingly restricted to males.That was only part of the problem.Every year,on the anniversary of her martyrdom, Perpetua's words wereread aloud to the assembled parishioners in the various Christian churches in northAfrica.Her particular visionwasreenacted annually, andthusreplayed wascontinually to returnto haunt thosewho hadto confront it. In this sense)therefore, hers was a livingtradition in whichthe audiences) maleand female, would hearreplayed for themthe experiences of a womanput in amode, and in a contextof action,that surely(at least)threw doubt on the normative valuesof theirsociety. One way in whichthe problem posedby her recordcouldbe met wasby its redaction fromherlargely descriptive andnarrative account into anotherform, that of a commentarius (trial transcript).72 Thatis to say,a laterauthor tookthe basicfactsknown about Perpetua's deathandrecasttheminto the classicmouldof
71 S. Leuchli, Power and Sexuality: The Emergenceof Canon Law at the Synod of Elvira (Philadelphia, 1972), ch. 4, "The Sexual Dilemma", pp. 88-113. 72 For the conventions of the form, see G. A. Bisbee, Pre-Decian Acts of Martyrs and Commentarii (Philadelphia, 1988).

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the trial-transcript formoftenfoundin othermartyrologies. The author wasprobably writingsometime in the fourthcentury; his perhapspretendedignorance is suggestedby his placingthe deathsof the two women in the consulships of Valerian and Gallienus (A.D. 255/7).73 This sort of later reactionto earlier Christian historyalso seems to have been typicalof the midfourth century. In theaftermath of theformalization of ecclesiasticalpower,therewas a general"housecleaning" to makemore manageable the marginal problematical areasof power,including sainthood andsexuality. For liturgical andideological purposes, earlier experiences anddocuments hadto be brought "into line". Thefirstbig problem of composition facedby the re-compositor of Perpetua's experience of merelyprovidinga neat court document wasthattherewasno surviving trialtranscript: the original martyrology of Perpetua and Felicitas had very little to sayaboutthe trialproceedings at whichthey were condemned. Unless we cansuppose thatthe author hadindependent accessto such information (forwhichthereis no evidence), thenthe only reasonable supposition is that his mode of workingwas to use what information he had (in the GreekandLatinaccounts produced in the first decadesof the thirdcentury)and to use his imagination to reconstruct whathe thoughtmusthavebeensaid on the occasion of the trial.This doesindeedseemto havebeen his modus scribendi. The interesting questions to ask are: What did he thinkwasworthadding to the account thatwasnot in the original (eitherin word,or by implication)? Andwhatwouldbe suggested to him as normal inquisitorial questioning and typical dialogue from othersuch trialscenes(questions such as: "Will you not sacrifice?", followedby the appropriate defencesand retorts regarding adhesion to Christian belief)?Otherthanthese "typical elements" therearenotable inventions thathavestruck more than one readerof the Acta. First of all, the proconsuljudge separates the menfromthe womenso as to dealwiththem separately.74 After this sexualsegregation, he proceedsfirst to ask the men the normal questions aboutsacrifice and belief.He removes them,andthenturnsto the females. Herethe questions are of a whollydifferent order:
The Acta arepreserved in two variant Latinrecensions (A andB); for the texts, see VanBeek,Passio SanctarumPerpetuaeet Felicitatis, pp. 58-73;the evidencein my text is drawnprincipally fromthe fuller(A) version. 74 Acta, 4.5 (A)73

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35

The proconsulorderedthe men to be removed(from his tribunal)and orderedFelicitasand Perpetua to be broughtin. He then spoketo Felicitas:'Whatnamedo you go by?' She replied, 'Felicitas'. The proconsul said:'Do you have a husband?' Felicitasreplied:'I haveone whomI haverejected'. The proconsul said:'Whereis he?' Felicitasreplied,'He's not here'. The proconsul said:'What'shis rank?'Felicitasreplied,'Plebeian'. The proconsul said:'Do you haveanyparents?' Felicitasreplied:'I don't. Revocatus is my cousin.The truthis that I am not able to have more important relativesthanthese personswith me here'. The proconsul said:'Girl,have pity on your own and makethe sacrifice so that you can continueto live. Especially since I see that you have an unbornchildin your womb'. The proconsulthen turned to Perpetuaand said: 'Do you have any parents?' Perpetua replied:'I do'. [Indeedher parents,her motherand father,as well as her brothersand husband, werelisteningandpresent,alongwith her new-bornchild,who was still beingbreast-fed.] The proconsul said to her: 'The tearsof your parentsshouldmove you androuseyoursenseof pity, andespecially the criesof yourlittleone'. [Her fathermakesa finalprotest,and asksher to pity them.] Shovingaway her infantand pushingher parentsaway, she said: 'Get awayfromme you workersof evil, since I no longerknow
you'.75

The writerof the Acts then quicklyends the courtproceeding with the finalsentencing and deathsof Perpetua and Felicitas. The question mustbe, why hadthe author fashioned his account in the way he did by addingthe new creativematerial he has? Clearly it is a matterof genderthattroubles him. He imposesa clearseparation of malesand femalesin the trialscenein order thatthe issuecanbe madedistinct andclearin the mindsof those who reador heardhis version.The proconsul facesthe women alone(though secondin order)andthe questions he putsto them areobviously onesof the typethatthe redactor thinksmustmost concern his potential audience. The firstmatter thatarises,oddly enoughwith respectto Felicitas(has the authormadeanother one of his characteristic confusions?) and which we must also understand to applyto Perpetua, is "Where arethe husbands in all of this?"To thisquestion Felicitas is ableto offerno satisfactory answer.The authordoes not put this obviousquestionin the caseof Perpetua. He merelyasserts,ratherlamely,thather husband wasamongst the relatives whocameto the courtto hear the proceedings (forwhichthereis no supporting evidencefrom anyotheraccount). The proconsul's wordsreflect a greatconcern not onlywith"Where arethe husbands?", butalsoon the proper
75

Acta,

5.1-6.6(A).

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relationshipof these women to their other relatives, above all their parents. The troubling matter is the way in which these particularwomen feel free to move away from the normal constraintsimposed by husbands,fathersand others. In his rewritingof Perpetua'sexperiences, the redactorof the Acta seems to be pushed mentally first this way and that. He is constrainedto end contradictorily,in a rather schizoid manner: the women are to be praised after all they weremartyrsto the Christianfaith. On the other hand, their actionsare so unnatural, from the standpointof male culturalexpectations, that they are portrayedin an extreme and ratherunlikeablemanner. Perpetua is shown to reject her own baby, and harshlyto dismiss her own parentsin a way that would be bound to elicit a negative reaction from (at least) the male listeners to the Acta. Perpetua'sexperience is totally "reread"in a mannerthat simultaneously concedes the technicalvalue of her martyrdom,but removesany sense that these actions were innately good or could be made to coincide with "natural"passions(as, for example, a mother's concernfor her new-born infant). Of course, it hardly needs pointing out that all of this wholly contradicts Perpetua's own view of her relationshipto her baby (as expressed in her own words) and to her father (the fine nuances of her own contradictoryemotions are wholly absentfrom the Acta) or her own views of her relations with her mother or brothers.The purposeof producingthe Acta version must have been twofold: to provide a shorterabbreviated "passion" account that would be more readily usable for liturgical purposes, but in the very process of abbreviationto excise its dangerouscontent-Perpetua's own words which, as we shall see, bishops were coming to fear greatly since such narrativeswere coming to be regardedby ordinaryparishioners as C'canonical scripture". Yet another way in which the challenge of the annual verbal re-enactmentof Perpetua'sactions was met, was not by embedding the written documentitself in anotherone, nor by rewriting it, but by challengingit orally by meeting it, so to speak, on its own ground. In this context, one might considerthe sermons delivered by the great African preachersof the fourth and fifth century, amongst them the bishops Augustine of Hippo and Quodvultdeusof Carthage.Male church leaders, like Augustine, could hardly ignore the potential in the message, and they dealt with it, if Augustine'swords are to be taken as a normaltype of

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the the message by accompanying by reinterpreting response, words (and their not-too-covert direct messageof Perpetua's a sermon,whichwould oralpresentation, subtext)with another in a "correct" experience interpretthe meaningof Perpetua's of the because wasdemanded way.Indeed,somesortof response words,listenedto eachyearby parishioners Perpetua's authority people.Augustine hadwiththecommon northAfrica, throughout himselfhadto warnsternlythather words,her views,werenot have of Augustine Threeof thesesermons scripture.76 canonical of Perpetua's anniversary on a different eachdelivered survived, Thatas manyas threeof thesehavebeenpreserved martyrdom. to Augustine of thesubject of theimportance is someindication he may well have deliveredsuch controlpieces on an annual (the way in That is to say, facedwith a livingchallenge basis.77 wasrelivedeachyear)he responded experience whichPerpetua's maleeditorof her written in muchthe sameway as the original whichwere intended it with his comments work:he bracketed to lead the listenersto rehearwhat they had heard.Augustine, deliveredsermons and other northAfricanbishops,frequently "birth"into eternal of the martyrs' on the natalitia, celebrations (and planeson whichhis response life. But therearetwo distinct caneasilybe seento be differto Perpetua thatof Quodvultdeus) ent in kind. First of all, his responseto thteproblemof male thatPerpetua challenges the specific neverconfronts martyrdoms casewasto restrain in theformer concern Hisprincipal presents.78 forms of popular belief and what he saw as unacceptable even than Moresignificant to martyrs. attributed empowerment this, however,is the simplefact that otherfemalemartyrdoms, at Theveste woman executed an African suchas thatof Crispina, reinterpretain A.D. 304, did not usuallyprovokethe intensive did.79 thatPerpetua's in refutation tion andarguments
76Augustine, De natura et origine animae, 1.10.12: "nec scriptura ipsa canonica est", in specific reference to her dream sequence on her deceased brother Dinocrates. 77 For context, see a list of all sermons delivered by Augustine on the occasion of the anniversaries of martyrs collated in V. Saxer, Morts, martyrs, reliquesen Afrique aux premierssiecles(Paris, 1980), pp. 315-21. chretienne 78 C. Lambot, "Les sermons de saint Augustin pour les fetes de martyrs", Analecta Bollandiana, lxvii (1949), pp. 249-66; A. M. La Bonnardiere, "Les Enarrationesin Psalmos prechees par saint Augustin a l'occasion de fetes de martyrs", Recherches vii (1971), pp. 73-104. Augustiniennes, in Psalmos, 120, 137. Indeed 79 On Crispina, an interesting parallel, see Enarrationes her anniversary provokes no comment at all. Augustine felt quite at liberty, as he did on the anniversary days of most male martyrs, to use the occasion to deliver a sermon
(cont. on p. 38)

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The reason is clear.Theirownwordswerenot at the epicentre of theirremembrance. As Augustine makes clear,hisreplieswere intendedto reflectbackon the lived experience createdby the re-creation of Perpetua's worldin the reading of her account:
Todayis the anniversary day on which, by a sort of repetition) there is calledback to our memory,and in some way actuallyre-presented, the day on which Perpetuaand Felicitas,holy slave-womenof God, were rewarded with the crownof martyrdom which[words]. . . we haveheard as they were readaloud. . . thosewords,so shiningandluminescent, we have takenin by ear, we have considered in our minds,and honoured in
our belief.80

Beginning witha concession thathis talents mightnot be equal to thepraise theymerit-Augustine launches intohisinterpretation of her words for his listeners:'4Forwhat could be more glorious thanthesewomen, whommenadmire muchmorereadily thanthey imitate?" He then gives expression to a normalmale judgement: measured against the standards set forexcellence, the actionsof these womenhave outdonethose of men. But he is thenleft with the taskof explaining theirunusual "virility". He appeals firstto Pauline scripture) where,in the millennial scheme of things,actual genderdifferences areto be abolished: accordlng to Paul "there will be found inside men neither male nor female''.81 Thenhe goes on to makethe connection:
even in the case of these women althoughfemalein body, the virtue of theirmind/soul(anima) concealed the sexuality of theirflesh,andwhat is considered so shamefulin the physicallimbs of their bodiesdoes not appearin theirsimpleactions.

To Augustine, Perpetua's sexualchastity becomes the key to her being able to treadon the snake'shead in her vision from whichclaimhe is thenableto makea connection neverapparent in Perpetua's own words:';Thus the head of that old snake, whichwas the causeof the fall of woman,was madeinto a step by whichshe [Perpetua] couldascend[to Paradise]". Thatis to say, Augustine is ableto suggestto his listeners an essential fault in Perpetua's gender,to whichhe canthenattachthe imagery of the snake a not overlysubtleway of bringing to the mindof
(n. 79 cont.)

on another themeentirely,simplynotingfor the congregation thatthe day happened to be this or thatsaint'sbirthday. 80Augustine, Sermo,280.1.1; also directlyalludedto in the last sermon,Sermo 282.2.2. 81 For the male-dominant contextin whichPaul'scomments mustbe understood) see Cameron, "NeitherMalenor Female".

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39

in whichPerpetua's order sortof moral a different parishioners his her gaze appropriate then can He placed.82 be can achievements can faith", who, with the "gazeof it to his auditors transfer and that, crown,and who can now understand the martyr's witness was merely "thatsavagecow", Perpetua of charge facingthe in her own bodyin this world. shedding manyof thesesame replays sermons of Augustine's Thesecond crownis [martyr's] only with greaterforce. "For the themes, he begins: glorious", more

andFelicwhatPerpetua attaches thenonceagainspecifically He and fromthereto by men, by husbands, did to domination itas "Evetheme": traditional the

goes withoutsaying,a in the case where the sex is weaker.Because,it things [relatively greater achieve to able is body female a in mind male give out beneath not does fragility feminine as long so is] speaking,that suchan onerousburden.83

goes on at somelengthto play on this themeof role Augustine how the Devil, who madewomenweakto explainlng reversal, weakcreatures: by theseselfsame men,is in turndefeated defeat likemen,to die death "He[God]madethesewomenableto face so sorrowfully born be to onbehalfof thosewho were destined is able Augustine fromwomen".As proofof this interpretation in her narrated herself to appeal"to whatthe blessedPerpetua the with struggled she that her vision: own wordsconcerning able then is He man". a into Devil aftershe had been changed it was a goodthingthat to closethis firstcircleof his argument: shouldnot be woman through man the Devil "whohaddefeated to feel ableto escapethese ambushes good that he was able with him like a man". thata womanwas fighting
in the Fathers of the R. R. Ruether, "Misogynism and Virginal Feminism of Womanin the 3tewish Images Sexism: and Religion (ed.), Ruether R. R. Church", in good general context, a offers 150-83, pp. 1974), York, (New and Christian Traditions evidence she analyses the of all think, I which, against shorn of her final conclusions, and the Rhetoric Women Metaphor: as speaks; see, rather, Averil Cameron, "Virginity History as Text: The Writing of of Early Christianity", in Averil Cameron (ed.), who catches the reasons for both AncientHistory (London, 1989), ch. 8, pp. 181-205, systematically links the two. then and virginity, with fascination the the misogyny and 83 Augustine, Sermo, 281.
82

husband,He to whom the It was good for them that they clung to one It was a good thing, I virgin. pure a as presented is Church,being one, the strengththey drew they whom from man say, that they clungto that lay low that old to able were women neededto defeatthe Devil that enemy,who, throughwoman,utterlydefeatedman.

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This logically leads Augustine into a considerationof another highly problematicareaof Perpetua'saccount(remembering that his parishioners,and others, would have heard her own words) and one which is the burden of his sermonizing. This was the problem of her unorthodox("unorthodox"that is from the perspective of current ideology) relationships with persons who should have been dominantmales: her husbandand her father. As alreadystated, there is nothing in her own words that gives any hint of the existence of her husband.Augustineexplains:
He [the Devil] did not troubleher with a husband, so that she, who was already dwellingon heavenin her higherthoughts,wouldremainstrong, not being drawnaside, blushingeven at the merestsuspicionof desires of the flesh. But he inculcated in her fatherwordsof deceit so that her godlymind,whichcouldnot be softenedby the instincts of sexualdesire, mightbe brokenby the bondsof parental piety.

Likewise, in her relationshipwith her father, Augustine has to tone down the natureof her repliesto him: "When holy Perpetua replied to her father, she did it with such moderationthat she would not violate the commandby which we owe honour to our parents". He then turns his attention to the other female, Felicitas:
Felicitaswas indeedpregnantwhen she was in jail. In giving birth she gavewitnessto herfeminine condition with herfemalevoice. The penalty of Eve was not absent,but the graceof Marywas also present.She had to pay the dues whichwomenowe.

He goes on to explain that all she did and happenedto her (that is, the premature birth of her child) was due to the "plan of God". In thus addressinghis congregation,Augustinewas being more specific about the context in which Perpetua was to be understood.Her actions, as well as those of Felicitas, were to be seen within a theodicy rooted in the creation of all existing conditions. Her powers could then be "explained" as an overcomingof inherentfaultsand weaknessesthrough"the grace of God". In his final (surviving)sermon on the matter, Augustinerefers once again to the readingof her accountwhich everyone has just heard, and then remarks:
those womenof such greatvirtueand achievement were not just female, but fully grown women. One of them was a mother, so that softer (maternal) affections wereaddedto the weakness of her sex . . . But they wereableto hold out against attacks on them, andto breaktheseassaults

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they were by a hiddenand very greatstrengthbecauseinsidethemselves like men.84

"evenverybraveandstrongmenwere Afterall, saysAugustine, overcomeby violenceon the same day, but they did not give of this day".The factthatthe day theirnameto the celebration females is not "because andFelicitas for Perpetua is remembered men in the worthof theiractions,but sincewomanly outshone of a greater the old enemybecause wasableto conquer weakness miracle,and a male virtue struggledon behalf of perpetual andadds existinginterpretations reinforces felicity".The sermon seems rather little (excepta banalpun, with which Augustine of timeshe repeatsit). But therewere taken,giventhe number in whichAugustine preached, fromsermons apart othercontexts, by thesewomen, posed problems to other respond felt he hadto andthelegitimvisions, of Perpetua's validity the for example, as, implicaQuiteapartfromthe theological acy of her experience. tionsof hervision(of whichmore,later)he felt calledupon,once natureof her martyrdom. again,to explainthe extraordinary How couldshe have done it? The key, he says, lies withinthe she saw herself with the Egyptian, visionwhere,in her struggle changeinto the bodyof a man."Howcanone doubt",he says:
that her mind was not also changedlike her body?But not so much in in fact her body, because,when she was asleepon her bed she remained in the likeness herfemininesex whilehermindfought[withthe Egyptian] of a malebody. Is it not likelythatthis was merelythe likenessof a man's body, and not a real body?. . . if indeedit was an actualbody, why did it not keep the shape of its vagina?For in that female flesh no male were to be found.85 genitalia

mighthavethe meritof some interpretations Augustine's Perhaps thatcan justifications general someoverall content", "theoretical in making be drawnfromhis worldof thought.He is interested practices,but not with traditional concordant her experiences more butperhaps Blunter, andfuturethinking. alsowithpresent of generalmale attitudesof the time, are a seriesof revealing who wroteand by Quodvultdeus, composed tractsand sermons He too in the A.D. 430s.86 themas bishopof Carthage delivered of the to the public readingand celebration was responding howin thisregard, of the two women.His problem martyrdom
Ibid., 282; cf. the similar themes enunciated in the Pseudo-Augustine, Sermo,394. Augustine, De natura et origineanimae, 4.18.26. 86 I have used the text as edited by R. Braun, Opera QuodvultdeoCarthaginiensi episcopotributa(Corpus Christianorum, series latina, no. 60, Turnhout, 1976).
84 85

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ever, wasrather morepressing thanthatof Augustine in distant HippoRegius.The bodiesof the two womenhadbeeninterred at Carthage in the greatfunerary church,the massiveBasilica Maiorum, locatedon the plateau of Mcidfathat overlooked the whole city to the north.87 If Pere Delattre'sexcavations and identifications areto be trusted, the tombsof Perpetua andFelicitas have actuallybeen discovered, locatedin the greatapsidal end of the basilicain conjoined sacrophagi beneathone large mensa martyrum.88 A place,therefore, of quintessential publicand religiousimportance a locationin hierarchy of space and displaythatwouldbe regularly witnessed by African Christians. The placewasmarked by memorial inscriptions thatmadeclear the sanctity of the location.89 Perpetua andFelicitas haddiedon the diesnatalisof GetaCaesarn but their own true "birthday", the anniversary of theirmartyrdom, was celebrated with much greater popular feelingandintensity, andfor farlongerthanthat of the temporal emperor. The celebrations of the "birthdays" of martyrs weregreatfestivepublicoccasions involving muchpopularparticipation, wildmerriment, the staging of spectacles, and thereplaying of thestories of themartyrs.90 Suchfestivals, especially those at the decorative banquet"tables"that coveredthe graves of themartyrs (theso-called mensa martyrum), wereceleb87 Known by the witness of Victor Vitensis, Historiapersecutionis Africanaeprovinciae, 1.3.9. 88 The problems of identification persist. For commentary and discussion, see N. Duval, Les e'glises africainesa deux absides(Paris, 1973), no. 10, pp. 69-73, esp. p. 72; Duval, Loca sanctorum Africae, ii, p. 682 f.; Saxer, Morts, martyrs,reliquesen Afrique chrettienne, pp. 182-3, "basiliques martyriales de Carthage" (dubious). The basic problem is the great "faith" that informed Pere Delattre's discovery of the tombs of the two saints, and his readiness to identify the site as the Basilica Maiorum. H. Leclercq, "Carthage", Dictionnaired'archeologie chretienne et de liturgie,ii (1910), cols. 2233-52, gives clear reportage of Delattre's excavations at the site. They convinced no less an authority than Gsell that Delattre had indeed discovered the tombs of the women; on the whole I too am convinced, despite the ambiguities of the evidence. 89 R. P. Delattre, "Sur l'inscription des martyrs de Carthage, sainte Perpetue, sainte Felicite et leurs compagnons", Comptesrendusde l'Acadetmie des Inscriptionset Belles-Lettres(1907), pp. 193-5 (CIL, viii, 25038) (cf. Duval, Eglises africainesa deux absides,no. 6, pp. 13-16). The inscription was heavily restored by Delattre and his workers: see the reports in Leclercq, "Perpetue et Felicite", cols. 433-5, and the two photographs in Leclercq, "Carthage", col. 2241, figs. 2123-4, and Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae veteres, ed. E. Diehl et al., 4 vols. (Berlin, 1924-67), i, no. 2040 (cf. Duval, Eglises africainesa deux absides,no. 3, pp. 7-10). 90S. Poque, "Spectacles et festins offerts par Augustin d'Hippone pour les fetes de martyrs", Pallas, xv (1968), pp. 103-25.

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ratedwithgreatzealby the Africans.9l It wason the anniversary of Perpetua andFelicitas, andin theirgreatbasilica at Carthage, in the midstof an immensely popular fanfare, thatthe bishopof Carthage wouldbe constrained to comment on theirdeaths.92 On the anniversary replay of Perpetua'swords, therefore, Quodvultdeus facedproblems of a peculiar density.He phrases part of this problemratherbluntly:since there were so many men who were martyred at that time, how is it that the names of thesetwo womenare placedbeforethoseof men?Why does the day celebrate theirdeaths? Couldit be because "the weaker sex" actually equalled, or evensuperseded, the bravery of males? But one of the womenwas pregnant, and the otherwas breastfeeding.Felicitaswas givingbirthand Perpetua was producing milk for her infant.Quodvultdeus cannotget over these overpoweringimagesof womanlyinfirmity.He graspsat images. First,the milk. SincePerpetua accepted a cup of milk fromthe "GoodShepherd" in her vision,it is thismilk that enablesher to rejectherchildandherfather on behalfof Christ. Thatneatly andsymbolically counters, andtrumps, the "weakness" of motherhood.93 Stillthe bishopcannot quiteacceptthe facts.He breaks into exclamations:
What virtue in females!What sort of graceis this, which, when one is filled with it, judgesno sex to be unworthy!Praisebe to this grace!It even restoresthe female sex! Woman,of course, remainsin great disgrace fromthe beginning therewasthe womanish sin because of which we all die. The Devil conquered one Eve. But Christ,bornfroma virgin, raisesup manywomen.Perpetua and Felicitaswere able to treadon the head of the snake,becauseEve had not been admittedinto the core of theirhearts.94

Finally,unableto do muchmore,Quodvultdeus, like his predecessors,lapsesinto Paulinedoctrine: "For in Christ Jesusthere will be no slaveor free,no masculine or feminine, but all will be runtogether into one perfected man".
91Augustine, Contra epistulamParmeniani libri tres, 3.6.29; cf. W. H. C. Frend, The Donatist Church:A Movementof Protest in Roman North Africa (Oxford, 1952;
repr. 92 1971), pp. 54-5.

The bishop would normally preach in the basilica located further to the south called the Basilica Restituta, which was the great episcopal cathedral of the city. But on this particular occasion, wher, the natalitia would be celebrated at the site of the mensamartyrum,it is difficult to believe that his location did not also shift to the locus of popular activity. 93 Quodvultdeus, Sermode tempore barbarico,1.5.1-9, emphasizing the same factors in this feminine fragility. 94 Ibid.

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In another tract,alsowrittenin response to a current celebration of Perpetua, eitherQuodvultdeus or, perhaps morelikely,a nearcontemporary, showsthat he cannotquite come to terms withPerpetua, or herbehaviour (in thiscaseherattitude towards herfather).95 He wonders why on earthshe actedin thispeculiar manner. Afterall, he says,she wasa youngwoman:
She was an adolescent, in the most fecundyears,in that age most prone to love (amor). She was only twenty-one,an age when the feversof the flesh are commonlythoughtto be greaterthan any divine charity.But, becauseof God's grace, she spurnedher new body, her new strength, and so was able to exercisethe powersof a youngman.

Thatis to say,the divinegraceof Godplusthe submission of the woman overcame otherwise permanent feminine fragilities. Even so, Quodvultdeus once againreturnsto the "womanlyweaknesses"-given this fundamental fault,how on earthweretheir deedspossible. Afterall, "a babyson clungto the breasts of this youngwoman: indeeda heavyburden of maternal careattached to herbreasts". Thisleadshimto dilateon thefeminine problems thatFelicitas suffered: "Felicitas wasseriously weigheddownby herpregnancy: her wombwasin its eighthmonth. . . nevertheless, aidedby her own prayers andthoseof her companions, she gavebirthsafely,sinceit wouldnot be possibleto abortwithout dying".He goes on to remark that Christcan hastenbirths,or delaythemto the ninthor tenthmonth,if necessary. Felicitas, in his eyes, only suffersas she should:"Felicitas in givingbirth paidoff the age-longdebt in suffering and painwhichEve had incurred". His finaljudgement to his parishioners is accordingly grudging andmean-spirited:
Let us then celebrate this festivaldayof the holy martyrs, famousfor the deathsof men,andmademoreillustrious by the namesof women.Women who, inflamed with the love of Christ,overcamenot only the harshness of their everydaylife, and all the allurements and terrorsof the world . . . but also the affection of a father,the trustof children,the weakness of their sex, the impediments of the womb and the terribledangersof givingbirth.

Suchreflections, fromthe firsteditorandredactor, to Augustine, Quodvultdeus and beyond,surelydo not have to be multiplied
95 Morinthoughtthis sermonhad once been part of Quodvultdeus' work;Dom Fransesthoughtnot and his views are reflected in the standard editions.See Braun, OperaQuodvultdeo Carthaginiensi episcopo tributa,who does not includeit among Quodvultdeus' genuineworks.

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in number, or analysed in anygreater detail,to drawthe obvious conclusion. Thereis a monotonous sameness to theirreactions. Theirpredictability stemsnot fromanymechanical copying,but ratherfrom a sameness in their perception of the problem.In thatprecisesensetheirwritings,sermons andcomments arenot particularly forcedor artificial. Given the irreducible feminine duritia of Perpetua's record,theirreactions seem as logicaland natural as antibodies surrounding a foreignviralinfection.It is, alas,a feature of thisrecord too, andperhaps not withoutits own ironies,thatthe presentwriterhasnot actedmuchdifferently. A final word. In rereading all these materials one is left, I think,withtwodominant impressions. Thefirst,shared by almost all those who have read or heardPerpetua's story, is of the overpowering singularity of herachievement. Thereis something so unusual,so directand uncompromising abouther reportage that it has evokeda whollyunusualorderof responses from a very wide rangeof modernreaders.They know that there is something, perhaps ineffable, that marksher wordsas different in kindfromanycomparable pieceof literature fromantiquity.96 Realities are reflected directlyin the rhetoric.Then thereis the second.Whenall the complexapparatus of scholarship has been set aside,it is a deeplydepressing feeling.This is one of the very rarepieceswritten by a female handthatis knownfromantiquity. It was, even in its own day, a smalland fragilething.Yet even this exiguousvoice couldnot be left alone.Fromthe very start it was buried under an avalancheof male interpretations, rereadings, anddistortions. Whatchance,one mustwonder,was therefor any Perpetua to tell her story?Despiteall this, thereis that other demon hope. Perpetua's wordsare still with us. Her experiences, her thoughtsand her visionshave, after all, survived. University of Lethbridge, Alberta BrentD. Shaw

96 Typical judgements, like thoseof Pio Franchide' Cavalieri ("thispricelessgem of ancientliterature") and Paul Monceaux("one of the jewels of early Christian literature"), have beenreiterated by manyothers.

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