1The editor explains why new acts of the Spirit, such as recent martyrdoms and visions, should be written down and read like the ancient examples.
2Perpetua, arrested as a catechumen, resists her father, is baptized and imprisoned, and in a vision climbs a ladder to heaven past a dragon.
3Perpetua resists her father's pleading, confesses before Hilarianus and is condemned to the beasts, and in two visions sees her dead brother Dinocrates relieved through her prayer.
4In her last vision Perpetua, made a man, wrestles and defeats an Egyptian in the arena and understands that her fight is against the devil.
5Saturus's own record of his vision: carried by angels to a heavenly garden and to the throne of God, the martyrs are asked by their quarreling bishop and presbyter to reconcile them.
6The editor records Secundulus's death, Felicity's premature childbirth in prison, Perpetua's rebuke of the tribune, and the martyrs' last meal as an agape.
7The editor narrates the martyrs' deaths in the arena: their refusal of pagan costume, the beasts, Saturus's last words to Pudens, and Perpetua's death by the sword.
About this work
Author
Anonymous
Attribution
disputed · A composite text: an editor's narrative frame around Perpetua's own prison diary (chs. 3–10, first person) and a shorter account by Saturus (ch. 11); the redactor is unknown (Tertullian has been proposed but is not generally accepted). Migne's PL 3 divides the whole into only 8 numbered sections, far coarser than the 21-chapter numbering used by later critical editions (e.g. van Beek 1936, not available pre-1931); refs here follow the PL division, chapter-only, as with the Tertullian precedent, so a finer numbering can be added later under the same URLs.
Standing
Not honoured as a saint or in a church calendar by the Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant traditions. Anonymous or pseudonymous work read and used in the church of its time.
Older English translation
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3 (1885) (public domain, at CCEL; for comparison: our translation is made from the original first and checked against it afterwards)
Date
203 (probable)
Written at
Carthage, Africa Proconsularis (probable)
Language
Latin
Genre
martyrdom
Reference system
section (Migne's PL 3 division, 8 sections; see attribution_note)
SBL abbreviation
Mart. Perp.Not yet checked
Clavis
CPL 32 (not yet checked)
Text from
J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, vol. 3 (Paris, 1844) (Printed edition in the public domain; digital text CC BY-SA 4.0)