PERPETUA, Felicity and Companions, Saints, Martyrs. - The Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis recounts the martyrdom of three catechumens: Saturus, Saturninus and Revocatus, of P., a young woman of high family, and of her slave F., which took place in the arena of Carthage on 7 March 202.
During the persecution of Septimius Severus, while the procurator Hilarianus was governing the proconsular province of Africa after the death of the proconsul Minucius Timinianus, at Thuburbo minus were arrested Vibia P., a noblewoman of 22, already married and with an infant child, F., a slave, in an advanced state of pregnancy, Revocatus, Saturninus, Secundulus, all five catechumens; a few days later Saturus, who had been absent at the time of the arrest and was the catechist of the preceding, was associated with them as well. While they were still in private custody, the five catechumens received Baptism and P. had to endure the first affectionate assault of her father who, the only pagan in her whole family, sought to make her apostatize. Transferred to prison, P. had there a vision in which there appeared to her a ladder guarded by a great dragon and strewn with every kind of weapon that hindered and obstructed the ascent; P., treading upon the dragon, managed to climb up and found herself in a most beautiful place: she understood that they would suffer martyrdom. Once again P.'s father repeated his attempt to persuade her, and he renewed it for the third time during the interrogation held in their presence before the people: despite her immense love for her father and her grief at his distress, she nevertheless remained always strong in the faith. The trial concluded with the sentence to the beasts, to be carried out in the spectacles celebrating the anniversary of Caesar Geta; in the meantime they were therefore led back to prison. P. then had other visions which revealed to her that her little brother Dinocrates, who had died at the age of seven of a cancer of the face, was happy in heaven. A few days before the spectacle the martyrs were transferred to the military prison where P. had the last vision which confirmed her in the imminent final victory, while to Saturus the imminent eternal beatitude appeared in the figure of a most shining and fragrant building in the midst of a most beautiful garden. As the day of the spectacle drew near, although rejoicing in the imminent victory, the martyrs were sad because they would not be able to have F. with them, since the law forbade exposing women in her condition; all together then they prayed for her who, three days before the execution, although in the eighth month of pregnancy, gave birth to a little girl and, while she was lamenting the natural pains, to a guard who mocked her she replied: «Modo ego patior quod patior; illic autem alius erit in me qui patietur pro me, quia et ego pro illo passura sum». Finally led into the amphitheatre, the five (Secundulus had already died in prison), after being scourged, P. and F. were exposed to a enraged cow, Saturus, Revocatus and Saturninus to the bites of a leopard and a bear; all were then beheaded in the presence of the crowd. In the Passio four other martyrs are also remembered: Jocundus, Saturninus, Artaxius and Quintus, who had perished previously in the same persecution, from which it has sometimes been erroneously asserted that the martyrs were ten.
Chapters 3-10 are written by P. herself, 11-13 are from the hand of Saturus. The first and the last chapters, that is, the edition of the Passio, are with great probability to be attributed to Tertullian. It appears that the Latin text is the original, the Greek text a translation, which it is not certain is the work of Tertullian. The Passio is famous for the account of the visions (ladder of paradise; the good shepherd, etc.) and is important also for the ideas of ancient Christianity on martyrdom. The Passio was known in the African Church. Tertullian makes mention of it (De anima, 55, 4); Augustine (Sermons, 280, 281-82; De natura et origine animae, 1-10, 12, etc.; Enarrationes in psalm., 47, 13); Ps. Augustine (Sermo, 394); Quodvultdeus (Sermo de tempore barbarico; Sermo de IV feria; Tractatus de natale sanctarum P. et Felicitatis); Ps. Fulgentius (Sermo 70).
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CULT
The group was greatly venerated in antiquity, especially at Carthage, where their tomb was located and over which the "basilica Maiorum" was erected, as Victor of Vita attests (De Persecutione Fundalica, 1, 3); the site was identified by Fr. Delattre, who in 1907 found there the inscription "hic sunt martyres Saturnus Saturninus Rebo-catus Secundulus Felicitas Perpetua, Bas..., Maiulus" (Comptes-rendus de l'Académie des Inser. et Belles Lettres, 1907, pp. 176, 193-95) and in 1929 the "confessio" of the Basilica itself (La confessio della Basilica Maiorum, in Risc. di arch. crist., 7 [1930], p. 303). St. Augustine delivered many homilies in that Basilica (Sermones, 34, 165, 258, 294); against the abuse of reading their Passio at liturgical assemblies he warned that it was not a liturgical book (De anima et eius origine: PL. 44, 481). The two martyrs P. and F. are commemorated in Rome in the middle of the 4th century in the "depositio martyrum" on March 7, and their names were inserted into the canon (V. L. Kennedy, The Saints of the Canon of the Mass, Rome 1938, pp. 162-164). They were depicted at Ravenna in the chapel of St. Andrew, today called the archiepiscopal chapel, and among the martyrs in St. Martin "in caelo aureo," today St. Apollinaris the New; furthermore in the basilica of Parenzo.
Enrico Josi