Evaluations on the Diary of Vibia Perpetua, One of the First Female Martyrs of Christianity
Year 2025,
Volume: 36 Issue: 1, 191 - 211, 09.05.2025
Ufuk Arslan
,
Murat Öntuğ
Abstract
This article focuses on the diary of Vibia Perpetua, one of the first female martyrs of Christianity and also the first female auto-biographer in history. Perpetua was martyred with her friends in the Carthage amphitheatre on March 7, 203, because she did not renounce Christianity and refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods for the sake of the well-being of the Roman emperor Septimus Severus. Perpetua kept a diary during her imprisonment and recorded all her experiences and dreams from the time she was detained until her martyrdom. We can access basic information about Perpetua and her experiences through the editor who published the diary. Many researchers from Antiquity to the present have examined this diary and made various comments. The inspiration for Perpetua’s dreams has particularly caused controversy among researchers. Additionally, theories have been produced about why Perpetua never mentioned her friend and slave Felicitas and her husband in her diary. In our study, ancient and modern sources were analysed and it was concluded that Felicitas was included in the story by the editor and Perpetua’s husband was removed from the diary as a result of the editor’s intervention. Accordingly, we tried to bring a new and different perspective to the field.
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Hıristiyanlığın İlk Kadın Şehitlerinden Vibia Perpetua’nın Günlüğü Üzerine Değerlendirmeler
Year 2025,
Volume: 36 Issue: 1, 191 - 211, 09.05.2025
Ufuk Arslan
,
Murat Öntuğ
Abstract
Bu makale, Hıristiyanlığın ilk kadın şehitlerinden ve aynı zamanda tarihteki ilk kadın otobiyografi yazarı olan Vibia Perpetua’nın günlüğüne odaklanmaktadır. Perpetua Hıristiyanlıktan vazgeçmediği ve Roma imparatoru Septimus Severus’un esenliği adına pagan tanrılarına kurban sunmayı reddettiği için arkadaşları ile 7 Mart 203 tarihinde Kartaca amfi tiyatrosunda şehit edilmiştir. Perpetua mahkûmiyet günlerinde bir günlük tutmuş ve göz altına alınmasından şehit edilişine kadar geçen sürede tüm yaşadıklarını ve gördüğü rüyaları bu günlüğe kaydetmiştir. Perpetua ile ilgili temel bilgilere ve onun yaşadıklarına, günlüğü yayımlayan editör aracılığıyla erişebiliyoruz. Antikçağdan günümüze birçok araştırmacı bu günlüğü incelemiş ve muhtelif yorumlarda bulunmuştur. Araştırmacılar arasında özellikle Perpetua’nın gördüğü rüyaların esin kaynağı tartışmalara neden olmuştur. İlaveten Perpetua’nın günlüğünde arkadaşı ve kölesi olan Felicitas’tan ve kocasından neden hiç bahsetmediği ile ilgili de teoriler üretilmiştir. Çalışmamızda antik ve modern kaynaklar tahlil edilmiş, neticesinde de Felicitas’ın hikâyeye editör tarafından dahil edildiği ve Perpetua’nın kocasının da editörün müdahalesi sonucu günlükten çıkarıldığı sonucuna varılmıştır. Buna bağlı olarak da alana yeni ve farklı bir bakış açısı kazandırmaya çalışılmıştır.
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- Historia Augusta. Translated by Samet Özgüler, vol. 1. İstanbul: Kronik Kitap, 2021. google scholar
- Tertullian, “On the Soul” in Fathers of the Church, Translated by Rudolph Arbesmann. Vol. 10. 179-309. Washington, DC: Catholic University ofAmerica Press, 1950. google scholar
- Auerbach, Erich. Literary Language & Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965. google scholar
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- Birley, A. R. “Persecutors and Martyrs in Tertullian’s Africa”. University of London Institute of Archaeology Bulletin 29 (1992): 37-68. google scholar
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- Divjak, Johannes and Wolfgang Wischmeyer. “‘Perpetua felicitate’ oder Perpetua und Felicitas? Zu ICKarth 2, 1”. Wiener Studien 114 (2001): 613-27. google scholar
- Dodds, E. R. Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety: Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. google scholar
- Dronke, Peter. Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (f 203) toMarguerite Porete (f 1310). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. google scholar
- Farina, William. Perpetua of Carthage: Portrait of a Third-Century Martyr. Jefferson, N.C, London: McFarland & Company, 2009. google scholar
- Gamble, Harry Y. Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History ofEarly Christian Texts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. google scholar
- Gardner, Jane F. Women in Roman Law & Society. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986. google scholar
- Gonzalez, Eliezer. The Fate of the Dead in Early Third Century North African Christianity: The Passion ofPerpetua and Felicitas and Tertullian. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. google scholar
- Grubbs, Judith Evans. Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: A Sourcebook on Marriage, Divorce and Widowhood. London-New York: Routledge, 2002. google scholar
- Heffernan, Thomas J. The Passion ofPerpetua and Felicity. (Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press), 2012. google scholar
- Heffernan, Thomas J. “Ius conubii or concubina: The Marital and Social Class of Perpetua in the Passio sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis”. Analecta Bollandiana 136/1 (2018): 14-42. https:// doi.org/10.1484/J.ABOL.4.2018023. google scholar
- Heffernan, Thomas J. “Philology and Authorship in the ‘Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae Et Felicitatis’”. Traditio 50 (1995): 315-25. google scholar
- Kitzler, Petr. “Passio Perpetuae and Acta Perpetuae: Between Tradition and Innovation”. Listy Filologicke 130 (2007): 1-19. google scholar
- Kraemer, Ross S. and Shira L. Lander. “Perpetua and Felicitas” in The Early Christian World, edited by Philip F. Esler, Vol. 2. 1048-68. London, New York: Routledge, 2000. google scholar
- McCarty, V.K. From Their Lips: Voices of Early Christian Women. Piscataway, NJnGorgias Press: Gorgias Press, 2021. google scholar
- McKechnie, Paul. “St. Perpetua and Roman Education in A.D. 200”. L ’Antiqmte Classique 63/1 (1994): 279-91. https://doi.org/10.3406/antiq.1994.1203. google scholar
- Miller, Patricia Cox. Dreams in Late Antiquity. Princeton, NJ; Princeton University Press, 1997. google scholar
- Musurillo, Herbert Anthony. The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford, Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1972. google scholar
- Osiek, Carolyn. “Perpetua’s Husband”. Journal of Early Christian Studies 10/2 (2002): 287-90. https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2002.0023. google scholar
- Perkins, Judith. “The Rhetoric of the Maternal Book-Body in the Passion of Perpetua”. in Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourses, edited by Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele, 313-32. Leiden: Brill, 2007. google scholar
- Perkins, Judith. Roman Imperial Identities in the Early Christian Era. 1st edition. London: Routledge, 2008. google scholar
- Pettersen, Alvyn. “Perpetua: Prisoner of Conscience”. Vigiliae Christianae 41/2 (1987): 139-53. https://doi.org/10.2307/1584106. google scholar
- Potthoff, Stephen E. The Afterlife in Early Christian Carthage: Near-Death Experiences, Ancestor Cult, and the Archaeology of Paradise. 1st edition. London New York: Routledge, 2019. google scholar
- Quasten, Johannes. Patrology. Utrecht: Spectrum, 1950. google scholar
- Robinson, J. Armitage. The Passion of S. Perpetua. Cambridge: University Press, 1891. google scholar
- Salisbury, Joyce E. Perpetua’s Passion: The Death and Memory of a Young Roman Woman. New York and London: Routledge, 1997. google scholar
- Shaw, Brent D. “The Passion of Perpetua”. Past & Present, 139 (1993): 3-45. google scholar
- Shewring, W.H. The Passion of SS. Perpetua and Felicity: A New Edition and Translation of the Latin Text, Together with the Sermons of St. Augustine Upon These Saints. London: Sheed and Ward, 1931. google scholar
- Steinhauser, Kenneth B. “Augustine’s Reading of the Passio sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis”. Studia Patristica 33 (1997): 244-49. google scholar
- Tilley, Maureen A. “The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity” in Searching the Scriptures, Vol 2: A Feminist Commentary, edited Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, 829-58. New York: Crossroad, 1994. google scholar
- Von Franz, Marie-Louise. The Passion of Perpetua: A Psychological Interpretation of Her Visions. Edited by Darly Sharp. Toronto: Inner City Books, 2004. google scholar