ABSTRACT
Within a series of profiles of prominent early Christians, Perpetua and Felicitasdiffer from the others considered in this volume for several crucial reasons. First, and perhaps most obviously, they are the only women. Second, and perhaps more importantly, whereas all the men profiled here are well-known through their own extensive writings, or through the detailed writings of others, Perpetua and Felicitas are essentially known only from a work narrating their gruesome martyrdom in North Africa in the early third century ce that claims to incorporate Perpetua’s own account of her imprisonment and divinely inspired visions.1 Third, both women are said to have been extremely young when they died: the so-called Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis (hereafter Passio) cares chiefly about their recent conversion to Christianity, their exemplary deaths, and in the case of Perpetua, but not Felicitas, her various visions. It offers only a modicum of biographical data for Perpetua, and virtually none for Felicitas. Thus, writing their ‘profiles’ becomes a substantially different endeavour from writing a profile of an Origen, an Augustine or an Athanasius.
