Perpetua

This book is an overview of the Christian martyr Perpetua’s life and the cultural, religious, political, literary, social, and physical contexts in which she lived. It does not attempt to be a full biography of Perpetua because we do not have enough information about her. It discusses the narrative work in Latin, the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis, composed by her and by her editor while she was awaiting execution, and its authenticity. It also discusses the descriptions of martyrs as athletes and the gendering of martyrs in early Christian writers; the social milieu in which Perpetua lived in ancient Carthage; the conditions in Roman Africa in the third century CE; the conditions for Christians and pagans in the third century CE; Perpetua’s family, education, and social status; the social and physical conditions of martyrdom in the third century CE; and the legacy of Perpetua and her text among later writers. The book aims to discuss in depth such contested issues as whether Perpetua herself wrote the part of the text attributed to her, how fictionalized the accounts of martyrdom accounts were, and what the status of these martyrs and their stories were during the pre-Constantinian period.