Hello and welcome to Literature and History, Episode 91, the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity.

This program will focus on one of early Christianity's most famous martyr stories, a narrative

about the public execution of a Roman noblewoman and some of her household that took place in the

city of Carthage in the spring of 203 CE, a text called the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity.

The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity isn't the first Christian martyr story to have come down to us,

but nonetheless it's a historically important one for reasons we'll soon learn.

Let's begin today's show by thinking about martyrs in general for a moment.

When we picture martyrs, whoever they are and whatever their reason for being persecuted,

we imagine vulnerable individuals pitted against the predations of a powerful group or organization.

In early Christian history, the individuals are the followers of Christ and the prosecuting authority

generally various officials appointed by the Roman Empire.

But Christian martyr tales continued to be written centuries after the Western Roman Empire

collapsed during the 400s. In scene after scene of Christianity's martyr tales,

from the 2nd century onward, brave, devout men and women refuse to recant their faith in the

face of execution, humiliation and torture, facing punishment with courage, attaining posthumous

rewards and justice unavailable to them in the world of the living, and sometimes inspiring others

to adopt their faith precisely due to the fortitude and certainty with which they embrace death.

There are many variants of the Christian martyr tale. Some chronicle the tragic fates of heroic

individuals, apostles, bishops and church and community leaders. Others record the incarceration

and abuse of whole Christian communities. Out of the sizable body of early Christian martyr tales,

spanning over a thousand years, a few, for various reasons, are standouts. And one of these is

our story for today, the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, a text compiled and set down

...