Perpetua by Barbara K. Gold;

Author:Barbara K. Gold;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OUP Premium
Published: 2018-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Men in the Passio: The First Containment of Perpetua

Of the twenty-seven people mentioned in the Passio, twenty-three are men.26 Four of these were fellow martyrs: Revocatus, Secundulus, Saturninus, and Saturus; Saturus, who gave himself up later, was probably Perpetua’s teacher and is said to be the author of Passio 11.2–13. Perhaps the most important man in her narrative, though not one of the twenty-seven characters and not named, was her editor. We may imagine that Perpetua dictated her visions and thoughts to one of her visitors in prison, perhaps this editor, who then rewrote what she had conveyed to him and subsequently added the framing narrative. This editor thus had the opportunity to shape Perpetua as he wanted to in his sections of the narrative; it is he who has the final word on her martyrdom and death.

Several male figures occur in the four visions that comprise most of her portion of the narrative. In the first vision (Passio 4), in which she steps on the head of a serpent and climbs a ladder, she sees in an immense garden a godlike figure; her next two visions (Passio 7–8) concern her dead younger brother, Dinocrates; and her final and fourth vision (Passio 10), on the day before her execution, features several male figures. Pomponius, a deacon who had visited her in prison (Passio 3), comes in this vision to fetch Perpetua and bring her to the amphitheater.27 He leads her there, pledges that he will assist her, and then departs. Perpetua then sees an Egyptian “hideous in appearance” (Aegyptius foedus specie, Passio 10.6) with whom she is to do battle; this Egyptian presumably stands for the Devil, who was, she claimed, to be her true opponent the next day in her actual contest.28 Then another man appears, a paternal figure as in her first vision, so tall that he stood above the highest point of the amphitheater. He was clothed in purple robes and carrying a rod like an owner and trainer of gladiators (lanista, Passio 10.8). This man is a Christ figure, there to present her to die in the amphitheater just as an agônothete or director of the games might present gladiators in the pagan games. After Perpetua wins her fight against the Egyptian and takes the prize, the lanista says to her, “Peace be with you, daughter” (Passio 10.13).

The narrative also contains a number of other male figures who operate outside of her visions and control Perpetua’s actions in various ways, although she often fights back and holds her ground. The most important figure, and the one who appears most often, is her father, who visits her four times (three of those in prison) in an attempt to get Perpetua to recant her faith (Passio 3.1–3, 5; 6.1–5, 9). Perpetua firmly resists his pleadings, even engaging him in a philosophical debate (Passio 3) and watching him be beaten by the procurator’s guards (Passio 6) without yielding her resolve.

Perpetua is clearly a leader among her group of fellow martyrs.

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