This episode is brought to you by Lux Coffee,

caffeinating the new Christendom with artisan roast coffee. Vivia Perpetua was a 22-year-old noble woman who lived in Carthage, North Africa.

Mother of a nursing infant, she had not been married long. Because her husband

is never mentioned in her diaries, many historians conclude that she had already been widowed. Perpetua

became a Christian in AD 203, despite major discouragement from her pagan father. When he begged her to

abandon Christianity, she asked him if he could call a water jug by any other name than what it was. When he begged her to abandon Christianity, she asked him if he could call a water

jug by any other name than what it was. When he said no, she said to him, well, so too I cannot

be called anything other than what I am, a Christian. Not much is known about Felicity, except that

she was a young slave woman who was eight months pregnant at the time of her arrest.

Perpetua and Felicity were arrested along with three other catechumans, Christians who had not yet been baptized.

Their teacher in the faith, Situress, chose to share in their punishment and submitted to the arrest as well.

The prison was hot and crowded, subjecting the believers to

intense suffering, the worst of which was the separation of perpetua from her baby. Two deacons in

Perpetua's church were eventually able to pay the guards to place the prisoners in a better cell.

The prisoner's faith, strength, and courage then convinced the warden to allow the

family to visit and perpetua could finally feed her child again. The testimony of these Christians

would eventually lead the warden to faith in Christ himself as well. The execution of the

prisoners was scheduled to take place during the military games celebrating the birthday

of Emperor Septimius Severus. Felicity was worried she would not be able to die with

her companions because it was illegal to execute a pregnant woman in the Roman Empire.

She did not want to give birth too late and die at a later date with common criminals.

Her fellow prisoners did not want to

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