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“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”
- Tertullian (ca. 160–220), prolific early Christian author from Carthage
One of my beliefs is, so long as one is not too old to learn, one is probably not too old.
I recently learned for the first time about Perpetua and her fellow Christians. I readily admit to the possibility my education in such matters was deficient.
Or perhaps I had encountered her but had forgotten. I rather think not, however. I would not have easily forgotten her unusual name, nor that she was an early female Christian diarist; in fact the first.
Several aspects of her life are noteworthy.
Born 182 C.E. into a family of privilege in the city of Carthage (in what is now Tunisia), in North Africa, Vibia Perpetua was doted upon by her father, possibly even favored above her brothers in what was a patriarchal society. Well-educated, versed in Greek and Latin, she was literate — thus the diary. Breaking new ground, she recorded details of her imprisonment and trial. It would be up to others to write posthumously of her execution.
She married young and was the mother of a young child. Her husband and family members were not believers. It is surmised that, upon learning she’d become a Christian, her husband distanced…
