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Perpetua of Carthage

c. 181 – 203 · b. Carthage
laymanmartyr

Young noblewoman of Carthage, c. 22 years old and a nursing mother, martyred in the amphitheatre during the persecution under Septimius Severus. The Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis preserves what is presented as her own first-person prison diary together with that of her companion Saturus and an editor's narrative of their deaths. It is one of the very few first-person texts attributed to a woman from Christian antiquity and a foundational document of Latin martyr literature.

Chain to Jesus

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Sources for biography

  • Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis primary
  • Augustine, Sermons 280-282 primary
  • ODCC s.v. Perpetua and Felicitas, SS. secondary

documented connections(1)

  • cited (incoming) Augustine of Hippo
    Augustine preached three surviving sermons (280-282) on the feast of Perpetua and Felicity at Carthage and Hippo.
    Augustine, Sermons 280, 281, 282

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