Vibia Perpetua, age 22, a recently widowed, young mother, her slave Felicity, and 3 other young Christians, were executed - thrown to wild beasts in the amphitheatre in Carthage, North Africa in March 203.

Perpetua and her companions were articulate followers of the Christian way. A contemporary diary, edited and published soon after their deaths, gives an insight into this group of faithful Christians who were prepared to defy the authorities, family, and Roman tradition for Christ.

In Perputua's time, loyalty to the Roman Empire had come to be symbolised by cult worship of the emperor, and an unfortuneate misunderstanding occured. The Roman state thought Christians were practicing cannabalism with the taking of communion. They had stamped down hard on any religion involving human sacrifice, and also found Christians disturbingly non-conformist. This made Christians convenient scapegoats, conflict was inevitable, and early in the 3rd century there were sporadic outbreaks of violence and state action against Christians.

Perpetua’s father argued and begged her to change her mind, and give up her faith, in order to save her life. The diary shows, they were new believers when they were arrested, baptised in prison, but determined to follow their Lord in the hope of being with him in paradise. Perpetua suffered most the loss of her baby, who was eventually brought to the prison and allowed to remain with her and feed until her sentence was carried out in the arena.

Perpetua's companion, Felicity, was afraid that she would not be able to die with the others and would suffer alone, as they would not kill a pregnant woman. But she went into early labour and gave birth in prison to a healthy child, the day before the sentence was due to be carried out. Taunted by her jailer about her labour pains, she said, “What I am suffering now, I suffer by myself. But then [in the arena] another will be inside me who will suffer for me, just as I shall be suffering for him.”

The attempt to stop the spread of Christianity, failed. Many sickened by the brutality of the persecutions, increasingly questioned, that if Christians were willing to die, rather than give up their belief, it must be something different, something real. By 212 the pressure had eased, and Christians were “allowed to exist”, at least for the time being. We remember today, the courage of Perpetua and her companions and others like them, who bore witness to the power of the gospel.

BORN: c.180.A.D.

DIED: 7 March 202, Carthage Arena, Africa (Modern day Tunisia on the Mediterranean Coast.)