The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity by Thomas J. Heffernan

Perpetua recognized that her father acted “as a father would, out of his love” for his daughter. These weren’t one father’s extraordinary actions. Weeping, he no longer called me daughter, but lady. My father said these things to me, as a father would, out of his love for me, kissing my hands and throwing himself at my feet. Perpetua noted that her father acted as a suppliant to her: For, if you are punished, none of us will be able to speak freely again. Give up your pride do not destroy us all. Think about your brothers, think about your mother and your mother’s sister, think about your son who will not be able to live without you. He also reminded her of her importance to other members of their family: My daughter, have pity on my gray hair, have pity on your father, if I am worthy to be called father by you, if with these hands I have raised you to this flower of youth, if I have preferred you to all your brothers, do not shame me among men. Rather than attempting to argue with his daughter, he sought her pity: Perpetua’s father tried again to save her. She wrote that she was “refreshed by my father’s absence.” In reality, daughters often don’t appreciate their father’s love. She seemed to have been pleased with her success in turning away her father’s love. He stopped coming to her in prison for the next few days. Then he left, having failed to dissuade his daughter from getting herself killed. He got angry, got in her face, and glared at her furiously. Perpetua wrote, “my father, because of his love for me, wanted to change my mind and shake my resolve.” He tried to argue with her. Her father knew that she was planning to declare herself a Christian and be killed. The first words of Perpetua’s prison diary describe her father’s love for her. Unable to write about her own execution, she wrote “let whoever wishes to write about it, do so.” Her writing should be taken seriously.

She understood the public importance of what she was doing. She left a precious, first-person diary of her experiences in prison and on trial. She was “well-born, liberally educated, and honorably married.” Although breast-feeding a child, she made time to write. When she was arrested on suspicion of being a Christian, Perpetua was about twenty-two years old. In it, Perpetua described the socially marginalized reality of a daughter’s relationship with her father. The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity was such a challenge. Yet occasionally a transgressive challenge has appeared at the margins of public discourse. Dominant public discourse has largely worked to support falsehoods functional for disparaging fathers. The formal Roman law of pater familias, like the social construction of belief in patriarchy, suppresses and silences the lived experience of almost all fathers.

The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity by Thomas J. Heffernan