Passion of Perpetua and Felicity 5

These are the more remarkable visions of the most blessed martyrs Saturus and Perpetua, which they themselves wrote down. God called Secundulus out of this world with a more mature exit while he was still in prison — not without grace — so that he might gain the beasts. His flesh, if not his soul, certainly acknowledged the joy.

As for Felicity, the Lord's grace of this kind had also come upon her. She was already eight months pregnant when the day of the spectacle drew near, for she had been arrested while with child. She was in great grief, fearing that her pregnancy would cause a delay, since pregnant women are not permitted to face punishment, and dreading that she would have to shed her holy and innocent blood later among wicked people apart from her companions. Her fellow martyrs were also deeply saddened, lest they leave so good a companion, like a fellow traveler, alone on the road of the same hope. So they joined together in a united groan and poured out a prayer to the Lord three days before the games. Immediately after the prayer, labor pains seized her. As she suffered in childbirth from the natural difficulty of the eighth month, one of the prison attendants said to her, "If you groan like this now, what will you do when you are thrown to the beasts — you who despised them by refusing to sacrifice?" She answered, "Right now I am suffering what I suffer, but then another will be in me who will suffer for me, because I too am going to suffer for him." So she gave birth to a girl, and a certain sister of hers raised her as a daughter.

Since the Holy Spirit permitted it, and by permitting willed that the account of the spectacle itself be recorded — though we are unworthy to describe such great glory — we nevertheless carry it out as if by a mandate of the most holy Perpetua, or rather as a trust committed by her faith, adding one further testimony to her constancy and loftiness of spirit. When the tribune treated them more harshly because he feared, from the warnings of utterly worthless men, that they might be spirited out of prison by magical incantations, Perpetua looked him in the face and replied, "Why do you not allow the most noble Caesar's prisoners to be refreshed and to prepare for his birthday, the day on which they will fight? Or is it not to your credit if we are produced fatter for it?" The tribune shuddered and blushed, and so he ordered that they be treated more humanely, granting her brothers and the others permission to enter and refresh themselves with them — even the warden himself having come to believe.

On the day before, when they shared that last meal which they call a free supper, they made it not a free supper but a love feast, as far as lay in them. With the same constancy they spoke these words to the crowd, threatening the Lord's judgment, testifying to the joy of their passion, and mocking the curiosity of the onlookers. Saturus said, "The day after tomorrow will not be enough for you — you who gladly watch what you hate. Today friends, tomorrow enemies. But take careful note of our faces, so that you may recognize us on that day of judgment." And so all departed from there astonished, and among them many believed.