The Day of Their Victory

Saturus, who was also blessed, told a vision of his own, which he wrote down himself. We had suffered, and we had gone out of the flesh, and four angels began to carry us eastward, though their hands never touched us. We were not floating on our backs with our faces turned up, but going up as if we were climbing a gentle slope. And when we had been set free, we saw at last a light without any end to it, and I said to Perpetua, who was at my side, “Perpetua, this is what the Lord promised us. We have received the promise.” [a]

And while those same four angels were carrying us, a wide open space appeared, like a garden, with rose bushes and every kind of flower. The trees were as tall as cypresses, and their leaves fell without stopping. Then four other angels appeared in that garden, brighter than the first ones, and when they saw us they paid us honor and said to the rest of the angels, in wonder, “Here they are! Here they are!” And the four angels who were carrying us were struck with fear and set us down, and we crossed about six hundred feet on foot along a broad path. There we found Jocundus and Saturninus and Artaxius, who had been burned alive in the same persecution, and Quintus, who had also died a martyr in prison. We asked them where the rest were, and the angels said to us, “Come in first and greet your Lord.”

And we came to a place whose walls seemed to be built out of light. In front of the gate of that place stood four angels, who dressed everyone who went in with white robes. So we were clothed, and we went in, and we saw the light that had no end, and heard voices joined together saying without stopping, “Holy! Holy! Holy!” And in the middle of that place we saw what looked like a white-haired man sitting down, his hair like snow and his face young; and his feet we could not see. On his right hand and on his left were twenty-four elders, and behind them a great many others standing. We went in full of wonder and stood before the throne, and the four angels lifted us up, and we kissed him, and he passed his hand over our faces. And the rest of the elders said to us, “Let us stand.” And we stood and gave the kiss of peace. And the elders said to us, “Go and play.” And I said, “Perpetua, you have what you wanted.” And she said to me, “Thanks be to God. I was glad in the flesh, and I am gladder here.”

And we went out, and in front of the entrance we saw Optatus the overseer on the right hand and Aspasius the elder, a teacher, on the left, standing apart from each other and sad. They threw themselves at our feet and said to us, “Make peace between us, because you have gone away and left us like this.” And we said to them, “Are you not our father, and you our elder? How can you throw yourselves at our feet?” And we bowed down ourselves, and embraced them; and Perpetua began to talk with them, and we drew them aside in the garden under a rose bush. And while we were speaking with them, the angels said to them, “Leave them alone; let them rest. And if you have quarrels between you, forgive one another.” And they drove the two men away. And they said to Optatus, “Correct your people. They gather around you like a crowd coming home from the races, arguing about the factions.”

And then it seemed to us as though they meant to shut the doors. And in that place we began to recognize many of our brothers and sisters, and martyrs among them. A fragrance beyond describing fed us all, and it satisfied us. Then I woke, full of joy.

Those were the more remarkable visions of the blessed martyrs Saturus and Perpetua, written down by their own hands. As for Secundulus, God called him out of the world sooner, while he was still in prison — and not without a favor in it, since it cheated the beasts of him. Even if his soul found no reason to give thanks, his flesh certainly did. [j]

As for Felicitas, the Lord’s favor came to her in the same way. She was already eight months gone with child — she had been pregnant when she was arrested — and as the day of the games came near she was in great distress that her pregnancy would hold her back, since a pregnant woman may not be put to death in public; she was afraid she would shed her holy and innocent blood later on, among common criminals. Her fellow martyrs were painfully sad as well, at the thought of leaving so good a friend, a traveling companion really, alone on the road of the same hope. So three days before the games they joined their voices in one cry and poured out their prayer to the Lord. Her pains came on her the moment they had prayed, and as she struggled with the hard labor of an eight-month delivery and was crying out in it, one of the prison guards said to her, “If you suffer like this now, what will you do when you are thrown to the beasts? You thought little enough of them when you refused to sacrifice.” She answered, “What I suffer now, I suffer myself. But then there will be another in me who will suffer for me, because I too am going to suffer for him.” So she gave birth to a baby girl, and one of the sisters brought her up as her own daughter.

Since the Holy Spirit allowed — and by allowing willed — that what happened at those games should be written down, we obey what amounts to a command from the most blessed Perpetua, her sacred trust to us, and add one more piece of evidence of her steadiness and her greatness of mind; though we are not worthy to finish the account of so great a glory. The tribune had been treating them harshly, because certain liars had put it into his head that they might be spirited out of the prison by some kind of magic spell. Perpetua answered him to his face: “Why do you not at least let us have some comfort? We are the condemned of the most noble Caesar, and we are to fight on his birthday. Is it not to your credit that we are brought out looking better fed?” The tribune shuddered and turned red, and gave orders that they be kept more humanely, so that their fellow Christians and others were allowed in to be refreshed with them. By now even the head jailer had come to trust them.

And on the day before, at that last meal which they call the free supper, they ate what they could of it — not as a free supper but as a love feast. With the same firmness they were saying things like this to the people, warning them of the Lord’s judgment, insisting on the happiness of their suffering, laughing at the curiosity of the crowd that had gathered to look. Saturus said, “Is tomorrow not enough for you? Why look with pleasure today at people you hate? Friends today, enemies tomorrow. But take a good look at our faces, so that you will know us again on the day of judgment.” So they all went away astonished, and out of all this many came to believe.

The day of their victory dawned, and they came out of the prison into the amphitheater as though they were going to a public gathering, glad, with shining faces; if they flinched at all, it was with joy and not with fear. Perpetua followed with a calm look, and with the step and bearing of a matron of Christ, loved by God, lowering the brightness of her eyes away from everyone’s stare. And Felicitas came glad that she had given birth safely and could now fight the wild beasts — from the blood and the midwife to the gladiator, to wash after childbirth with a second baptism. And when they were brought to the gate and were being forced to put on costumes — the men those of the priests of Saturn, the women those of the women dedicated to Ceres — that noble-minded woman held out against it to the end. For she said, “We came this far of our own will, and for this reason: that our freedom would not be taken from us. We handed over our lives so that we would not have to do anything like this. That was our bargain with you.” Injustice acknowledged justice: the tribune gave way, and they were brought in just as they were. Perpetua was singing psalms, already treading on the head of the Egyptian. Revocatus and Saturninus and Saturus were shouting warnings at the crowd that stared at them. And when they came within sight of Hilarianus, they began to say to him with gestures and nods, “You judge us, but God will judge you.” At this the people, furious, demanded that they be tormented with whips as they passed down the line of the beast-fighters. And the martyrs were glad of it, because they had been given a share in one of their Lord’s own sufferings. [p]

But the one who had said, “Ask, and you will receive,” gave each of them, when they asked, the death he had wished for. For whenever they had talked among themselves about what they wanted in their martyrdom, Saturninus had said that he wished to be thrown to every kind of beast — no doubt so that he might wear a more glorious crown. So at the beginning of the games he and Revocatus were tried against a leopard, and then on the platform they were mauled by a bear. As for Saturus, there was nothing he dreaded more than a bear; he expected to be finished off by one bite from a leopard. So when a wild boar was brought out, it was the beast-fighter who had supplied that boar who was gored by the same animal, and he died the day after the shows; Saturus was only dragged. And when he had been tied down on the floor near a bear, the bear would not come out of its den. And so Saturus was called back a second time, unhurt.

For the young women the devil got ready a very savage cow, provided for that purpose against all custom, so as to match their sex even in the animal. So they were stripped, wrapped in nets, and led out. The crowd shuddered when they saw that one was a girl of delicate build and the other a woman with her breasts still dripping from her recent childbirth. So they were called back and unbound. Perpetua was led in first. She was tossed, and came down on her back; and when she saw that her tunic was torn along her side, she pulled it over herself to cover her thigh, thinking of her modesty rather than her pain. Then she was called for again, and she pinned up her loosened hair, since it was not fitting for a martyr to suffer with her hair hanging loose, in case she should look as if she were mourning in the hour of her glory. So she got up; and when she saw Felicitas crushed on the ground, she went over, gave her her hand, and lifted her up. The two of them stood there together; and now that the crowd’s cruelty was satisfied, they were called back to the Gate of Life. There Perpetua was taken in hand by a certain man who was still a catechumen, Rusticus by name, who stayed close beside her. And she was like someone roused out of sleep — so deeply had she been in the Spirit and out of herself — and she began to look around her and to say, to everyone’s astonishment, “I have no idea when we are to be led out to that cow.” And when she heard what had already happened, she did not believe it until she had made out certain marks of injury on her body and on her clothes, and had recognized the catechumen. Then she called that catechumen and her brother over to her and said to them, “Stand firm in the faith, and love one another, all of you, and do not let what I suffer shake you.”

At the other gate the same Saturus was urging on the soldier Pudens: “Here I am, exactly as I promised and foretold, for up to this moment I have not felt a single beast. Now believe with your whole heart. Look — I am going out to that animal, and one bite of the leopard will finish me.” And at once, at the close of the games, he was thrown to the leopard, and with a single bite of it he was so drenched in blood that the people shouted after him as he came back, in testimony of his second baptism, “Saved and washed! Saved and washed!” Plainly he was indeed saved, who had been glorified in such a spectacle. Then he said to the soldier Pudens, “Goodbye. Remember my faith, and let all this steady you rather than shake you.” At the same time he asked for the little ring off Pudens’ finger, dipped it in his own wound, and gave it back to him, leaving him a keepsake to inherit and the memory of his blood. And then, lifeless, he was thrown down with the rest to be killed in the usual place. And when the people called for them into the middle, so that their eyes could share in the murder as the sword went into the bodies, the martyrs got up of their own accord and moved themselves to where the crowd wanted them; but first they kissed one another, so that they might finish their martyrdom with the kiss of peace. The rest took the sword-thrust without moving and without a sound — Saturus most of all, who had also gone up the ladder first, and gave up his spirit first, since he was waiting for Perpetua again. But Perpetua, so that she might taste some pain herself, was run through between the ribs. She cried out loudly, and took the young gladiator’s unsteady right hand and guided it to her own throat. Perhaps such a woman could not have been killed unless she herself was willing, since the unclean spirit was afraid of her.

Bravest and most blessed martyrs! Truly called and chosen for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ! Anyone who makes him great, who honors and worships him, ought certainly to read these examples for the building up of the church, no less than the old ones, so that new acts of courage may bear witness as well that one and the same Holy Spirit is at work even now, and God the Father Almighty, and his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, whose is the glory and the boundless power forever and ever. Amen.