For our sketch of the prison scene in the case of an accused Christian, we have chosen perhaps the most beautiful and graphic of all the records which have come down to us of these martyrdoms: the one contained in what is known as the Passion of S. Perpetua.
The circumstances related in the "Passion" in question took place, circa A. D. 202-3, some forty years later than the martyrdom of Felicitas and her sons. The Emperor Severus was on the throne, a Sovereign ill-disposed to the religion of Jesus, in whose reign a long and bitter persecution of Christianity raged in most districts of the Empire. The scene of the martyrdom and of the events which preceded it was the great city of Carthage, the capital of the province of North Africa.
The "piece," the authenticity of which is supported by contemporary authorities, is generally received by scholars "as a genuine" martyrology, largely the work of the heroine of the story.
The "Passion" in the form which we now possess is evidently written by three hands. By far the largest part is the prison memoir of Perpetua herself. A small section containing the relation of Saturus' vision in prison claims to have been written by Saturus himself. It is woven into Perpetua's narrative. A short introduction by the redactor, or original editor, prefaces the memoir of Perpetua, and an account of the martyrdom closes the piece. This touching narrative of the final sufferings of the little company was written in compliance with Perpetua's request, made shortly before she suffered.
The immediate cause of the outbreak of persecuting fury at Carthage seems to have been one of those frequent popular disturbances in large cities excited by Pagan fanatics against the Christian community.
The little company who made up the actors in the bloody drama, the subject of the "Passion," consisted of Vivia Perpetua herself, a young married lady of good family and position, and Saturus; two slaves, Revocatus and Felicitas and two young men, Saturninus and Secundulus.
The arrest of this little group of Christians, apparently quite unconnected by any link or family bond with each other, was due to the accusation of a delator, or informer. They were hearers or pupils of Saturus, and the information was probably laid against them owing to a recent rescript of the Emperor Severus sternly forbidding any Christian propaganda. The accused at first were simply confined to their own dwellings. They had not, when first arrested received the rite of baptism. This, however, after the danger of their position was recognized by them, was no longer delayed. And Perpetua, we read, made a special request at her baptism for strength to endure suffering. The prayer was granted. The father of Perpetua, who was a Pagan, in vain entreated his daughter to apostatize. The accused were soon removed to one of the common gaols of Carthage, where they were herded together with other prisoners in close and dark cells.
Saturus was a teacher of Carthage. He had been the instructor of Perpetua in the Christian faith, and suffered martyrdom at the same time as Perpetua and her companions.
It was the custom in Christian communities when an arrest was made of any of their number, at once to send deacons to the prison to comfort and assist the captives in the faith. Two deacons, Tertius and Pomponius, were appointed for this duty, and they paid the gaolers to allow the accused some relaxations from the stern prison treatment. Among other favors, Perpetua was allowed to have her child with her. She tells us in her narrative how the prison now became a pleasant abode. Her brother visited her too, and congratulated her on the privilege she enjoyed as a sufferer for the faith's sake, and suggested she should ask in prayer what would be the result of her captivity—would she be put to death or set at liberty? Perpetua prayed earnestly, and as an answer to her prayer she related to her brother how in the night as she slept a vision had been vouch-safed to her. She saw a great ladder, very steep, reaching up to Heaven, and on the sides of the ladder were swords and instruments of torture. A slip or a false step would at once expose anyone who should attempt to ascend the steep ladder rungs to being cut and maimed. At the foot of the ladder crouched a huge beast which she called a dragon.
Saturus, her teacher, climbed the ladder before her, and from the top he called to her: "I will support you, Perpetua; but beware of the dragon biting you." She answered: "He will do me no harm, in the name of Jesus Christ." She fearlessly put her foot on the beast's head and climbed up safely.
At the top she found a vast garden, and in the garden a white-haired shepherd milking his flocks; around him were gathered many thousands of white-robed forms. The shepherd looked up and spoke to her: "Thou hast well come, my child," then he gave her a little piece of curd which she received and ate, and those who stood by said "Amen." She awoke with the taste of something in her mouth she could not explain, but it was very sweet. Perpetua knew she had seen her Lord, and that He meant her to understand that her "Passion" was determined upon, and that there was no prospect of release for her.
This and her subsequent visions in prison are the only supernatural incidents in the narrative, nor need we question their reality. Such dreams were by no means uncommon in these supreme moments of martyrdom. Cyprian, for instance, among others, relates what he saw in a vision when his martyrdom was near at hand. It is besides by no means inconceivable that these visions of comfort were vouchsafed now and again to the faithful witnesses in their bitter trials; and, indeed, what we deem purely natural causes might well produce such dreams in the sufferers, who in their waking moments had been dwelling on what they had heard or read of Heaven, living in a feverish state of expectation of death, which they looked upon as the sure end of their trials and troubles and anguish, and at the same time as the gate of Heaven and eternal felicity.
There is no reason to doubt that Perpetua and Saturus, who also tells a strange dream which came to him as he waited for death, truly and faithfully relate their own experiences in the dreary Carthage prison.
The day of trial drew near. The father of Perpetua again came to see his daughter in her hard captivity, and entreated her as before to have compassion on his white hairs, remembering how in times past he had loved her best of all his children; he prayed her not to disgrace him now by dying a public death of shame, beseeching her to think of her mother, her brothers, her baby boy.
"I was very, very sorry for him," wrote Perpetua, "and I tried to comfort him by telling him God would decide the issue for us all, for we belonged not to ourselves but to Him; but my father left me alone, very sad."
The public trial soon came off. In the court the Procurator Hilarianus presided in the room of the proconsul lately deceased. The Acts of the Passion are very brief here. They simply relate the advice of the judge to Perpetua to have pity on her grey-haired father and her baby boy, and to sacrifice for the safety of the Emperor. Perpetua refused. Then the magistrate directly asked her whether she was a Christian.
"I am a Christian," replied the accused. Forthwith the little group was condemned to the wild beasts, and the condemned ones, all joyful, went back to their prison.
The last scene, however, was delayed. The victims were to be reserved for the public games in the Amphitheatre which were fixed for the anniversary of the Caesar Geta, the Emperor Severus' son. The prison life went on much as before with the doomed companions; they prayed much together. One day as they were thus praying the name of Perpetua’s little brother, Dinocrates, suddenly occurred to her. Dinocrates had been long dead. The child had been afflicted with a malignant cancer in the face, which had proved fatal. The sudden remembrance of her little brother seemed to Perpetua an intimation that she was accounted worthy to intercede for him; so she at once prayed long and earnestly to the Lord for the dead child. In the night she had another vision. We relate it in her own touching, simple language.
"I saw Dinocrates coming out of a dark place where there were many others. The child's face was sad, pale, scarred by the fatal cancer which had been the cause of his death. The death had been a sad one to witness.
"Between me and my brother lay a gulf (space) which was impossible to cross. Near Dinocrates there stood a piscina (or tank) full of water, but the rim of the tank was too high for a child to reach. Dinocrates was thirsty, and kept stretching up to it as though he wished to drink. I awoke, and understood at once that my brother was in suffering."
In the meanwhile the captives were removed into another prison, and the conditions of their imprisonment became harsher. Perpetua, however, kept on praying at all hours for Dinocrates. As she prayed (no doubt again while she was sleeping), once more she saw her little brother; but now the terrible cancer scar seemed quite healed; he appeared to have been tenderly cared for, and seemed quite happy; the piscina she had noticed in her first vision was lowered, and out of a golden cup which never failed he drank as he pleased. "I saw him now playing quite happily as children play. Then I understood that he was released from punishment."
As the day of the deadly combat in the Amphitheatre drew nearer and nearer, crowds of Christians visited the condemned in their prison, the guards on duty freely allowing these visitors to pass in and out. Amongst others, the father of Perpetua kept coming, hoping still to induce his dear daughter to recant.
Perpetua relates another vision before the end came; by no means an unnatural one considering the fate that lay before her, upon which she was continually brooding by night and by day. She dreamed that the day of the combat had at length arrived, and Pomponius, the Deacon, who had often visited her, had arrived to accompany her to the dread scene in the theatre. He was arrayed in a white robe. He took her to the place of combat and then left her, with the words, "Fear not, I am here with thee and suffer with thee." She describes vividly her fighting with a hideous Egyptian and his attendants; she tells how a great form shod with shoes of gold and silver, carrying a green bough on which were golden apples, stood by. She was the victor in the sore conflict; the form that stood by gave her the green bough, and she left the Amphitheatre with glory. "And I awoke," wrote Perpetua in her story, "and understood that it was not with beasts but against the devil that I was to fight. But I knew the victory was mine."
Woven into the beautiful tapestry of Perpetua's story is a short account written by Saturus, the Christian teacher, who was also condemned to the wild beasts, of a vision he saw when in prison with Perpetua and the others. The story of his vision is like the recital of the dreams we have been quoting from, simple, fervid, eloquent. It reads true, every line of it. It was a striking, even a wonderful experience, that of Saturus. We give a few extracts from his words. "We" (Saturus and Perpetua, his pupil) "had suffered and were no longer in the flesh. Four angels seemed to bear us up, but we were touched by no hands, we appeared to be gently ascending in an eastward direction, and before us lay a light incomprehensible. I said to Perpetua, who was at my side, 'This is what the Lord promised us. We have received the promise.' The four angels still bearing us, we found ourselves in a vast garden (viridarium) of roses, and of all manner of flowers. Four other angels were there yet more glorious than the first four, who greeted us with honor. We found there (in the garden) more martyrs known to us who had been burned lately in the course of the persecution, and we asked them questions, but the angels said, 'Come first and salute the Lord.' "
"So we passed on and came to a place the very walls of which were, as it were, built of transparent light, and the angels who stood before the gate put white garments on us as we went in, and we heard the hymn,' Holy, Holy, Holy,' being sung ceaselessly, and we saw One sitting all in white, with the face of a young man. Four elders were sitting on either side of Him, and behind were many other elders. All wondering with admiration we stood before the Throne; lifted up by the four angels, we kissed Him; when we had kissed the Lord the elders bade us go and play. I said to Perpetua, 'Now you have what you longed for.' She replied, 'I was glad when I was in the flesh, I am more glad now.' "
One of the group, the slave Felicitas, gave birth to a child when in prison. In her condition she would not have been allowed to have been exposed to the wild beasts, and the brave girl was sorely grieved at the possibility of being thus cut off from "witnessing to death" with her companions. So they all prayed with intense earnestness for her. Three days before the day fixed for the Amphitheatre show, the slave Felicitas, was delivered. One of the gaolers, as she suffered, heard her moaning, and said to her, "If you cannot bear these sufferings, how will you endure the rush of the wild beasts in the arena, you scoffer of the gods?" "today," replied Felicitas, "I am enduring my own sufferings, but then there will be another within me (my Lord) who will suffer for me, because I shall suffer for Him."
They were no somber group of gloomy fanatics, this Perpetua and her companions, ever with a smile on their lips, and a quiet half-humorous reproach for their guards when they behaved more harshly than usual. They had no dislike, no repugnance to the bright sunny life which possessed so fair a setting in that beautiful North African seaboard of the old historic Carthaginian land. In one of her striking prison visions, where the heaven-life plays so conspicuous a part, Perpetua told her companion in bliss, as he had been her companion in anguish, how happy she had been on earth, though she was then far happier in heaven. It was the intense reality of their faith which carried them all through their sufferings, which nerved them to meet the cruellest of deaths. It was no weariness of life which made them so glad to quit it. It was simply that they would not purchase life for an hour at the price of denying their Lord, who they knew would meet His brave confessors after the moment of the death agony, face to face. It was worth while to suffer for that.
It was the custom the evening before the Amphitheatre games for the condemned to be entertained somewhat liberally at the public expense. To this ghastly entertainment—this death supper—many of the public were admitted as lookers-on. A crowd of Pagan sightseers assembled in the prison of Carthage where the Christians, who were to prove one of the principal sights in the bloody games of the morrow, were confined.
They thronged round the table where Perpetua and her friends were sitting. "Is not to-morrow long enough," remonstrated Saturus, "for you to feast your eyes upon those you hate? Smiling on us this evening as curious friends, to-morrow you will be our deadly enemies." He was alluding to the fierce thirst for the blood of the victims which usually possessed the spectators of those awful games. (The accuracy of Saturus' on-look here was sadly verified by the behavior of the spectators in the Amphitheatre when Perpetua and the others were exposed to the beasts.) "Now mark well our I countenances, that you may know them again at the Day of Judgment." The half playful, half earnest words of the Christian teacher who was to die on the day following deeply impressed many of the bystanders, some of whom eventually became converts to the Faith they had been taught to hate. What happened on the "morrow" is related by another, a nameless Christian friend of Perpetua, who was specially asked by her to write down for the edification of others the story of the long looked-for death struggle with the wild beasts. It was "bound up," so to speak, in the little volume which contained the recital of Perpetua and the short bit by Saturus, the whole under the title of "The Passion of Perpetua." The same hand which wrote the little preface tells us the story of what happened in the Amphitheatre. He prefaces his supplementary recital with considerable solemnity. It is an admirable piece of composition, the work evidently of a trained scholar, but of a scholar, some think, belonging apparently to the Montanist school of Christian thought This, however, is by no means proved. It has been seriously ascribed to Tertullian himself.
The day of their victory dawned at last, and the condemned procession marched from the prison to the theatre as though the march was to Heaven; cheerful, with beaming countenances, excited somewhat, but with feelings of joy rather than of fear: the two women following their companions, Perpetua serene, but with the gravity of a young matron, Felicitas pale and weak owing to her recent suffering. At the Amphitheatre gate the officials wished to vest the men with the dress of the priests of Saturn, and the women with the insignia of the priestesses of Ceres, as the terrible show would gain in dramatic picturesqueness if the chief actors in it were thus arrayed. But the victims earnestly remonstrated against the injustice of such a mockery.
Dying of their own free will because they would have no part in idolatry, they urged it was an illegal act to force them to put on vestments which belonged to rites they abhorred, and for the refusal to share in which they were about to die. The tribune in charge listened to them, and refrained from this last hateful insult.
Perpetua kept singing Psalms and spoke not a word. The men, when they passed before the seat of the Roman magistrate, thus apostrophized him, "You are our Judge; God will be yours." The people cried out that they should be scourged as a preliminary. This cruel request was complied with.
Then the wild beasts were loosed. Revocatus and Saturninus were attacked first by a leopard and eventually torn by a bear." Saturns lived longest. The beasts at first refrained from tearing him; a wild boar which, it was hoped, would cruelly gore him, even turned furiously on his keeper instead of on the defenseless Christian; a bear, when his cage was opened, sulkily refused to come out. Saturus, for a brief moment thus respited, in the interval spoke to one Pudens, a soldier on guard, who, moved by his words and conduct, had been kind and attentive to him in prison. "Be quick," said the fearless Christian, "and become a believer, for the leopard" (which was about to be loosed) "will soon kill me." Saturus was no doubt referring to conversations which had taken place in prison, and he longed to see the kindly soldier a Christian before his death agony. While speaking, the savage beast attacked him, giving him his death wound. Bathed in blood, but apparently heedless of pain, Saturus again spoke to Pudens. "Farewell," said the dying soldier of Christ to the soldier of the Emperor; "remember me." And he asked Pudens for his ring. Pudens gave it; Saturus dipped it in the life-blood streaming from him, and returned it. The martyr then fainted, and was dragged away into the solarium outside the arena where the victims, if not dead, were usually despatched.
We will turn to Perpetua and her companion, Felicitas. It had been decided to expose them in a net to be tossed and gored by an infuriated cow. The crowd, touched with a momentary feeling of compassion, cried out that these sufferers need not be stripped of their garments, which was the usual practice. Perpetua was attacked first, and tossed in the air. She fell to the ground and in her heavy fall her light garments were all torn, and her hair fell about her shoulders. The sufferer's first thought was to adjust her torn tunic and to fasten up her flowing hair; then, although sorely hurt, she turned to Felicitas, her "sister" in suffering, who, too, had been tossed, and raised her up. Again the crowd was touched with pity, and unwilling to look any longer upon the torments endured by the two brave women, insisted on their being removed from the arena. In the outer court of the Amphitheatre Perpetua found a young Christian named Rusticus, who had followed her to the games. The martyr was dazed with pain and the fearful shock she had experienced, and asked when she was to be exposed to the beasts. She had lost all remembrance of what had happened to her, but in a minute she saw her wounds, and the blood streaming, and her torn dress, and the horror of her situation all came back to her; yet she said to Rusticus, "Be strong m the Faith; love one another." But the pity of the spectators was short lived. Even while she was speaking her stammering words of faith and love, they shrieked again for the condemned wounded ones to be brought back into the arena; after all they would see them die!
Once more the victims were brought back, and in the sight of the crowd thirsting for their blood, the officials, whose duty it was to despatch those criminals who had not been killed outright by the beasts, proceeded to complete the ghastly work. Silent, motionless, they waited and received the stroke of the executioner's sword. Saturus died first. A young gladiator who was told off to kill Perpetua, trembled at his horrible task, and missed his stroke, and only wounded her in the side; she cried out, but in a moment, recovering herself, guided the hand of her slayer and pressed the point of the sword on her throat, and so died.
"It would seem," says the pitying narrator of the scene, "that such a woman could scarcely perish save by the exercise of her own will and consent."
The writer of the little account, which evidently was the work of an eye-witness, with its harrowing details, with nothing of the supernatural introduced, a simple plain record, well written, lucid and brief, here breaks into a noble peroration only a few lines long, beginning thus, "0 strong and blessed martyrs; 0 truly called and chosen into the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."
If the great Tertullian, who lived and wrote at Carthage in the first years of the third century, was not the author of the little introduction and of the recital of the last scene of the martyrdom epitomized above, he was at least intimately acquainted with the story; and in his celebrated treatise "De Patientia" draws the portrait of a "girl martyr," seemingly from the life. "Was he not thinking of her whose one prayer at her baptism had been at the Spirit's bidding for this very brave patience? Had he not in view the scene in the Amphitheatre when the martyrs shake their heads at the Judge whom God will judge, and the noble picture of Perpetua herself, the bride of Christ, the darling of God, with her bright step and flashing eye, soon to find herself enjoying in the spirit the beatific vision before the time, and only recalled to earth to taste of pain, and to point the clumsy sword of the executioner to her own throat?"