Concerning the Perpetua-Text: It represents a new genre in Classical writing, a Passio. A Passio is a Christian narrative with the death, or "passing" of the main characters as the theme. The genre shows hatred, greed, blood-lust, power in stark opposition to spiritual passions of love, joy, peace, generosity, tolerance and service/ministry to others. What puts this opposition of spirit vs world into the strongest contrast is the persecution and murder of the innocent spiritual characters, often with an unusually dramatic dying-scene. The Passio-Genre tended to (over?) emphasize these differences between spirit and world so that readers would keep this dichotomy in mind, front and center. But be aware: this introduction exists to alert you to a strange, violent and to some, objectionable, narrative!

      The Passio of Perpetua was very influential in the Late Classical Period and through the Middle Ages, but fell off in popularity during the Enlightenment and Early Modern Period because of skepticism about this document. Scholars at that time rejected the authenticity of Perpetua's Passio because 1.) a woman was writing; 2.) she wrote in the first person; 3.) she wrote as the leader of a band of Christians, even though she was a woman and a new convert. Well! Scholarship in years past just could not admit that a young, literate woman could think, lead, or even exist!

      So for a couple centuries, scholars were quite sure that the Passio of Perpetua was a fabrication. But, in the early 20th century, a building project in Carthage turned up her tombstone. It was genuine in terms of date, style, and right where it should have been. The clincher was that the stone had the names of her whole band of Christians. Now the Passio of Perpetua is not only seen as authentic, but often cited as a piece of evidence for the rising status of women in the Roman Empire -- a change due to Christianity.

        Much of the approach to life in this account runs counter to what many of us think.  It was an ancient Christian saying, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Dying to live! Both the narrative and personal example of Vibia Perpetua, a young Roman woman, had this affect on people. Dying to live. She was executed in the arena at Carthage on March 7, 203.

      Perpetua herself wrote sections 3-10 shortly before her death. In the Roman prison, the most fearful setting of present and future hatred, her love and joy shine through the text. Peace? In the face of violent death she actually had peaceable things on her mind! Her kindness to the rough jailer, even to the executioner and the jeering crowd, prodded people to reconsider much over the course of ages.

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