The Martyrdom of Perpetua
Thursday, March 7, marks the day that some church traditions remember the violent martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas. There is a great benefit in remembering the deaths of heroic and humble Christians throughout church history. You and I can learn and take great encouragement from the example of Perpetua.
Last Thursday, March 7, marks the day that some church traditions remember the violent martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas. Having been a Baptist all my life, I have not usually paid much attention to such days. But there is a great benefit in remembering the deaths of heroic and humble Christians throughout church history. You and I can take great encouragement from the example of Perpetua.
Perpetua was a young woman in the year 202 when the Roman emperor Severus began persecuting Christians throughout his empire. His violence reached Africa in 203 when Perpetua was arrested at Carthage with four other recent converts. We are fortunate to know the details of Perpetua’s life because her family had taught her to read and write, and she recorded the events surrounding her imprisonment and martyrdom in a diary.
In prison, Perpetua’s father came repeatedly to her and begged her to give up her faith. By all accounts, he cared for his daughter and did not want to see her suffer at the hands of the Romans. For him, it must have seemed so simple. Just disown your faith in Jesus, and you will not have to die! But hear the faith in Perpetua’s response: “Father, grieve not; nothing will happen but what pleases God; for we are not at our own disposal.” Another interaction shows her resolve and devotion to Jesus as well:
“Father, do you see this vase here?” Perpetua asked. “Could it be called by any other name than what it is?”
“No,” he replied.
“Well, neither can I be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.”
One reference regarding Perpetua’s martyrdom alongside others describes the day of their death as “the day of their triumph.” And certainly it was. Perpetua and the other four martyrs were brought to the amphitheater. There, they were released into the stadium where wild animals and gladiators were patrolling the grounds. Perpetua was attacked by a raging cow, while her fellow martyrs were set upon by a leopard. The animals proved too slow for the bloodthirsty crowd, who cheered for the martyrs to be put to death quickly by the sword. And so the remaining Christians were lined up in the middle of the grounds and slain.
Prior to her death, Perpetua recounts a vision in which she fought an Egyptian gladiator. In her vision, she conquers the gladiator and receives a reward, and hears the cheers of the crowds. As she awoke from the vision, she found that she “was not so much to combat with wild beasts as with the devils.”
I have been teaching through the book of Revelation with our young adults for several months. This book is meant to be a book that puts courage in the hearts of suffering Christians, and resolve in their spines. Christians who persevere through suffering, who are faithful to Jesus unto death, are pictured in chapter 15 as conquerors standing on a sea of glass. These conquerors sing a song of victory to the Lord. Perpetua died in the amphitheater a martyr. But she had a vision of victory in the amphitheater as a conqueror. In the book of Revelation we see that both of these things can be true.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say,
The salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Christ have now come,
because the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been thrown down.
They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
for they did not love their lives to the point of death.
References:
The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints by Alban Butler