I Cannot Be Anything Other Than Me, St. Perpetua 2-3.2

I Cannot Be Anything Other Than Me: Perpetua’s Simple But Profound Declaration

Name:  St. Perpetua Date:  203 CE Region:  Madaura [modern Algeria] Citation:  The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas 2.1 – 3.2

Perpetua was a Christian woman who was imprisoned and executed for her faith in 203 CE. In this passage, she uses an analogy about a water pitcher to explain to her father that her faith was an integral part of her being.

Some youths were arrested before they could get baptized. They were Revocatus and Felicitas (his co-worker), Saturninus and Little Secundus. Among them was also Vibia Perpetua, a well-born lady, well educated, married and a mother. She had a mother, a father, and two brothers (one of whom was also an unbaptized Christian), and an infant son who had not yet been weaned. She was about twenty-two years old. This is a story of her martyrdom, written by her own hand, that she has left to us based on her own experience: 

When we were still among our prosecutors, my father tried to talk me out of it, out of his love for me. I told him, “Dad, do you see that vase lying over there? Is that a water jug or something else?”

He said, “I see it.”

And I told him, “Can you call it something other than its name?”

And he said, “Nope.”

And I said, “And I, too, cannot be called anything except what I am; a Christian.”

Latin Text: 

Apprehensi sunt adolescentes catechumeni, Revocatus et Felicitas, conserva eius, Saturninus et Secundulus. Inter hos et Vibia Perpetua, honeste nata, liberaliter instituta, matronaliter nupta, habens patrem et matrem et fratres duos, alterum aeque catechumenum, et filium infantem ad ubera. Erat autem ipsa circiter annorum viginti duo. Haec ordinem totum martyrii sui iam hinc ipsa narravit sicut conscriptum manu sua et suo sensu reliquit:

“Cum adhuc, inquit, cum prosecutoribus essemus et me pater verbis evertere cupiret et deicere pro sua affectione perseveraret: “Pater,” inquam, “vides verbi gratia vas hoc iacens, urceolum sive aliud?”

Et dixit: “Video.” 

Et ego dixi ei: “Numquid alio nomine vocari potest quam quod est?”

Et ait: “Non.”

“Sic et ego aliud me dicere non possum nisi quod sum, Christiana.”

Saint Perpetua [Vibia Perpetua; 203 CE, modern Algeria] was a Christian woman who was imprisoned and executed for her faith in 203 CE. In the Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, she tells of her arrest, imprisonment, and execution.