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Philology and Authorship in the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Thomas J. Heffernan
Thomas J. Heffernan*
Affiliation:
The University of Tennessee
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Extract

The martyrs whose suffering and death is recorded in the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis have been revered for almost two millennia. The Church has signaled its high regard with the inclusion of Perpetua and Felicitas in the canon missae. The praise for these young Carthaginian converts was immediate. Beginning with Tertullian and including luminaries like Augustine and Quodvuldeus, leaders of the African church acknowledged these youthful Christians as models of Christian self-sacrifice; their triumph, the courage of spirit over the dread of death. For Tertullian, their act of confident self-immolation was the apogee of Christian fortitude. In his discussion of the location of the eternal dwelling place for those who die in Christ, Tertullian, in De Anima, called the young Roman woman Vibia Perpetua “the most courageous martyr” of the Church. His comment, at least partly intended to stiffen the resolve of his threatened congregation, is difficult to reconcile with the normative status accorded at this time to the figure of Stephen in Acts (cf. Acts 6–7). His remark might be a flight of characteristic hyperbole. It might suggest, however, that the traditional role of the proto-martyr Stephen was not yet canonical in Carthage. Conversely, if Tertullian has already moved from orthodoxy, it might represent a deliberate attempt on his part to elevate the narrative of the Passio over the incident in Acts, thus privileging Montanist belief in the power of the Holy Spirit's continuing revelation. There is certainly evidence for the latter position in the anonymous editor's opening remarks in the Passio itself.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 50 , 1995 , pp. 315 - 325
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by Fordham University 

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References

1 van Beek, C. J. M. J., ed., Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis (Nijmegen, 1936), for all quotations from the Passio. As with virtually all ancient texts, surviving MSS are some remove from the date of composition. The earliest and most authoritative Latin MS of the Passio is Monte Casino 204 (ca. x/xi cent; sigil 1 in van Beek), while that for the Greek tradition is MS Jerusalem Holy Sepulcher 1 (ca. x in. cent.; sigil H in van Beek). See also van Beek, C. J. M. J., “Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis. Latine et Graece,” in Florilegium Patristicum 43 (1938). See the bibliography on the Passio in Peter Habermehl, “Perpetua und der Ägypter,” in Texte und Untersuchungen: zur Geschichte der Altchristlichen Literatur 140 (1992), 250–80. For more on the early Christian movement in Roman Africa, see Frend, W. H. C., The Donatist Church, A Movement of Protest in Roman North Africa (Oxford, 1952) and idem, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Oxford, 1965), esp. chapters 11, 12.Google Scholar

2 De Anima, in CCSL, 2: 55,4, “Quomodo Perpetua, fortissima martyr….”Google Scholar

3 The redactor of the Passio is not in the least reluctant to make this case for the importance of contemporary acts of heroism in his opening lines “… cum maiora reputanda sunt novitiora quaeque, ut novissimiora secundum exuperationem gratiae in ultima saeculi spatia decretam” (1:3). Tertullian certainly shared the sentiment of these lines.Google Scholar

4 Victor Vitensis (“Historia Persecutionis Africanae Provinciae,” ed. Halm, C., in MGH Auctores Antiquissimi, iii, pt.1 [1879], 1:3) notes that a substantial basilica was built over the place of their burial. See also Duval, Y., Loca Sanctorum Africae: le culte des martyrs en afrique du IVe au VIIe siècle (Rome, 1982), 1:7–17.Google Scholar

5 Augustine Sermones 280–82 in PL 38: cols. 1280–86.Google Scholar

6 Sermo 282, col. 1285: “De nominibus martyrum Perpetuae et Felicitatis … Sicut enim exemplo gloriosissimi certaminis ut imitemur hortantur; ita suis nominibus munus inseparabile nos accepturos esse testantur.”Google Scholar

7 De Natura et Origine Animae, in CSEL 60, I, 10: “… nec illa sic scripsit vel quicumque illud scripsit….” My italics.Google Scholar

8 Auerbach, E., “Sermo humilis,” in Literary Language and Its Public in Late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages (New York, 1965), 60.Google Scholar

9 See Heffernan, Thomas J., “The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas and the Imitatio Christi,” in Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1988), 185–230, and P. Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1984), chap. 1.Google Scholar

10 Plautner, M., The Life and Reign of the Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus (Oxford, 1918), 153; Stewart Perowne, Caesars and Saints (New York, 1962), 94–95; Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution, 238–42, but see Birley, A. R., Septimius Severus: The African Emperor (New Haven, 1989), 135.Google Scholar

11 “… munere enim castrensi eramus pugnaturi: natale tunc Getae Caesaris” (vii, 9).Google Scholar

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13 “… χρυσῆ φιάλη μεστή” (8:16).Google Scholar

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15 It is well to note that Septimius Severus, whose first language was Punic, and who was himself well versed in Greco-Roman authors, was married to Julia Domna, the daughter of a family of priest-kings from Emesa in Syria.Google Scholar

16 Bruce M. Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission, and Limitations (Oxford, 1977). In his Apologia, Tertullian celebrates the spread of Christianity claiming, “We are of yesterday, yet we have filled all that is yours, cities, islands, villages, free towns, market towns, the camp itself, tribes, town councils, the palace, the Senate, the forum …,” in Susan Raven, Rome in Africa (London, 1969), 118. Albrecht Dihle, Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire from Augustus to Justinian, trans. Manfred Malzahn (London, 1994), 350.Google Scholar

17 It may be that women, even well-born, were not expected to have a mastery of educated Latin and hence were more liable to accommodate more colloquial and idiomatic forms. For example, Septimius Severus's sister never mastered Latin and her Punic-Latin patois was said to have been a great embarrassment to him.Google Scholar

18 Thomas J. Heffernan, “History Becomes Heilsgeschichte: The Principle of the Paradigm in the Early Christian Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis, in Interpreting Texts from the Middle Ages, eds. Goebel, Ulrich and Lee, David (Lewiston, 1994), 119–38.Google Scholar

19 See Metzger, Bruce M., The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission, and Limitations. The Vulgate uses the form fiala throughout. The remarks of C. Mohrmann are worth quoting in this regard: “Most of the Christian Greek loan words are very old and they are almost always the result of the vulgar or rather ‘pre-literary’ borrowing….” in L. R. Palmer, The Latin Language (London, 1954), 186.Google Scholar

20 See Misch, G., A History of Autobiography in Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass., 1951), 1: 186; Roy Pascal, Design and Truth in Autobiography (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), 21; Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, “Faszinationstyp Hagiographie: Ein Historisches Experiment zur Gattungstheorie,” in Deutsch Literatur im Mittelalter Kontakte und Perspektiven, ed. Cormeau, Christoph (Stuttgart, 1979), 57–61, section “2 Antike”; Patricia Cox, Biography in Late Antiquity: A Quest for the Holy Man (Berkeley, 1983), and Heffernan, Sacred Biography, passim.Google Scholar

21 Gusdorf, Georges, “Conditions and Limits of Autobiography,” trans. James Olney in Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical (Princeton, 1980), 37.Google Scholar

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23 Der Kleine Pauly Lexikon Der Antike, ed. Ziegler, K. and Sontheimer, W. (Stuttgart, 1967), 2: cols. 1282–83, “Hypomnema habe schlechthin als t.t. für eine literar. Gattung, für Prosa ohne stilist. Ansprüche, gedient.”Google Scholar

24 Misch, , A History of Autobiography, 1: 5–6.Google Scholar

25 Idem, 186; see Cicero's, Brutus 92: 318.Google Scholar

26 Gusdorf, “Conditions and Limits,” 33; Pascal, Design and Truth in Autobiography, 21. See also the bibliography in Philippe Lejeune, Le pacte autobiographique (Paris, 1975), 345–54.Google Scholar

27 Passio, “Tunc paucis diebus … In ipso spatio paucorum dierum … Post paucos dies … uti paucis horis” (3:4, 5, 7); “Crastina die tibi renuntiabo.” (4:2); “Post paucos dies….” (5:1); “Alio die….” (6:1); “Post dies paucos … ipsa nocte … et experrecta sum … pro eo omnibus diebus … pro illo orationem die et nocte….” (7:1, 3, 9, 10); “Die quo….” (8:1); “Deinde post dies paucos … Ut autem proximavit dies….” (9:1, 2); “Pridie … et experrecta sum.” (10:1, 14).Google Scholar

28 Oxford Latin Dictionary, see “nervus,” 4.Google Scholar

29 Here are all the instances of the present tense in the 8 chapters from the hand of Perpetua: “inquam … vides… (3:3); “Video…(3:4); “potest¨ ¨” (3:5); “Est…. ait” (3:6); “Possum … sum….” (3:7); “mittit….” (3:8); “recipimur….” (3:14); “es….” (4:2); “… sustineo….” (4:6); “Video….” (4:7); “facio … es….” (6:11); “sum….” (6:12); “mitto….” (6:19); “oramus….” (7:1); “Video….” (7:4); “Video….” (8:2); “Video….” (10:1); “aspicio….” (10:5).Google Scholar

30 Basil L. Gildersleeve, Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar (London, 1895; reprt. 1974), 157.Google Scholar

31 Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History, trans. Kirsopp Lake (Cambridge, Mass. 1949, 1: 3.39, 292. “ού γὰρ τὰ ἐκ τῶο Βιβλίον τοσοῦτον με ὠφελεῖν υπελάμβανον ὅσυν τὰ παρὰ ζώσησ φωνῆσ καὶ μενούσησ.”Google Scholar

32 Estelle C. Jelinek, Women's Autobiography: Essays in Criticism (Bloomington, 1980), 6–8; see also her The Tradition of Women's Autobiography: From Antiquity to the Present (Boston, 1986), 14, although her statement is mistaken: “We have no record of autobiographical works by a woman during the early Christian period…. The earliest [autobiographies by women date] from the late Middle Ages….”Google Scholar

33 Confessions 1:6 “… et dedisti ea homini ex aliis de se conicere et auctoritatibus etiam muliercularum multa de se credere.” See also Cox Miller, Patricia, Dreaming in Late Antiquity: Studies in the Imagination of a Culture (Princeton, 1994).Google Scholar