A third-century martyr account tells of the arrest and execution of five men and two women from Carthage. The editor of the text purports to preserve the ipsissima verba of two of the martyrs; thus, the majority of the account is told in first-person. In one part, a young woman writes of her difficult encounters with her father, her love for her young son, and her four visions—two about her beloved, but deceased, young brother and two foretelling her martyrdom. The other first-person account is written by one of the male Christians. In his vision, he and one of the female martyrs ascend to heaven—being carried by angels—to join martyrs who had preceded them in death. They enter into the divine throne room, where they hear angels chanting the Trisagion—“Holy, Holy, Holy”—eternally. In heaven, the martyrs are also witnesses to—and mediators of—discord among church clerics.
The editor frames the martyrs’ words with his own introduction and conclusion, including the details of their deaths: all of the Christians were thrown to the animals in the Carthage amphitheater, but none were killed in that manner. Rather, they reentered the arena of their own accord where they were killed by a novice gladiator. The editor assures us that all of the Christians—save one of the women—took the sword in stillness and silence. That young woman's death, however, is described in more detail: the gladiator's wavering hand caused him to miss his mark. She screamed in pain but then, taking control of the situation, she steadied the gladiator's hand and guided the sword to her own throat. Perpetua was so great a woman, the editor exclaims, that she “could not have been killed in any way other than that she willed it herself.”Footnote 1
Scholars of early Christianity will recognize this as a summary of the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas. Many late ancient and medieval Christians, however, would likely not recognize it and, thus, would be confused—perhaps even outraged—when told it was the Passio. This is the case because the Latin Passio—the third-century text so beloved by modern scholars—was most likely not the story that was best known in the late ancient and medieval worlds. From perhaps as early as the fifth century, it was the shorter Acta Brevia Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis—so named by C. J. M. J. van Beek—that transmitted the story of the Carthaginian martyrs throughout the Latin-speaking world.Footnote 2 And those accounts are dramatically different from the Passio. Christians who learned about the Carthaginian martyrs via the Acta knew that the narrative was presented, by and large, in the third person and that Perpetua had two visions. They would have known nothing of Perpetua's brother Dinocrates or of Saturus's vision. And they would be utterly perplexed by the manner of the martyrs’ deaths because, for those late ancient Christians, Saturus and Perpetua were killed by lions, Saturninus was killed by the sword, and Revocatus and Felicitas were killed by leopards.Footnote 3 J. Armitage Robinson explains this surprising change in this way:
Towards the end [the author of the Acta] most strangely deserts the authority which should have kept him right and says that Saturus and Perpetua were devoured by lions. The brevity of the account of the scene in the amphitheatre may have been due to his having already exhausted the space allotted to him; but the error is hard to explain, for it does not seem that his copy of the original martyrdom was defective at the close.Footnote 4
Since death is the sine qua non of martyr stories, it stands to reason that death scenes would be the most resistant to change. Can we imagine Socrates being beheaded? Cato strangled? Jesus drinking poison? The stories of these heroic men are inextricably linked to the manner—not the mere fact—of their deaths. Socrates drinks hemlock. Cato stabs and disembowels himself. Jesus is crucified. And Perpetua draws the sword to her throat. But if the stability of death traditions is the rule, the Acta are an exception.Footnote 5 For over a thousand years, Christians hearing the story of Perpetua's death did not imagine her volitional virility in the last moment of life. Her death was not a final claim to self-actualization and power in defiance of her victimhood at the hands of the Roman Empire. She most certainly was not complicit in her death. Rather, according to the Acta, Perpetua was a victim—like so many others in amphitheaters across the Empire—of the venationes, the wild beast games.
Why would the authors of the Acta change the manner of Perpetua's death? We cannot answer this question if we assume, with Robinson, that the author made an error. Rather, our answer will be found by taking account of the historical context and how that context might motivate such an unexpected change to the story. There is much that can and should be studied about the Acta, but here I seek to rehabilitate Acta A for modern scholarship by illustrating the exegetical possibilities within the text's specific historical and ecclesiastical context.Footnote 6 I am primarily interested in understanding the modifications the author of Acta A made to the final scene of martyrdom—in particular, its account of Perpetua's death. In order to make sense of that change, however, I endeavor to establish a larger pattern of ideological revisions in the text.Footnote 7 Building on the work of Petr Kitzler and others, I posit that the fifth-century Acta A was composed to wrest the Passio from the Donatists’ hands and, thereby, to claim the Carthaginian martyrs exclusively for the Caecilianist Church.Footnote 8 It is within this historical and ecclesiological setting that we can best explain the changes to the death scene.
I. Acta: History and Context
The Latin Passio had been largely forgotten until 1663 when Lucas Holstenius discovered it in the Benedictine Monte Cassino monastery;Footnote 9 his edition of the longer text was published posthumously (edited by P. Poussin) that same year.Footnote 10 In 1664, Henri de Valois published another edition of the Monte Cassino manuscript, this time accompanied by an abridged version of the Passio in Latin, the texts that we now know as the Acta. Footnote 11 Despite the almost simultaneous rediscovery of these texts, the vast majority of scholars between the mid-seventeenth century and today have ignored or dismissed the witnesses of the Acta. This seems to be the case because the scholarship on early Christianity—particularly that of martyrdom—has for too long focused on the historicity of accounts and, thus, privileged what scholars deem the “original” text.Footnote 12
But surely scholars today can agree that how a text was received for most of its history is important. Surely it matters what traditions were accepted as “authentic” or “historical” for over a thousand years. When the Acta are discussed in scholarship—and they rarely are—it is almost always negatively.Footnote 13 J. Armitage Robinson complained that the author “made a very bad use of the longer form” and “marred everything he has touched.”Footnote 14 Brent Shaw called the narratives “schizoid” and argued that their portraits of the female martyrs were “unnatural.”Footnote 15 To their credit, despite their negative views of the Acta, both Robinson and Shaw discussed the texts at some length. Walter Shewring, in contrast, not only issued a damning indictment of the Acta Brevia Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis, but he also refused to consider their witnesses altogether: “During the Middle Ages all MSS of the authentic Passion had disappeared, and their place had been taken by the abbreviated and corrupted Latin Acts of the Martyrs, to which I shall not again refer.”Footnote 16 For Shewring, because we have identified the “authentic Passion,” any alternative witnesses—regardless of their roles in the transmission of the tradition—must be summarily dismissed.
Shewring is correct that the Acta are abbreviated versions of the Passio and that, therefore, they are derivative of it. But I reject his claims regarding textual corruption—at least as far as it implies a pejorative assessment of their worth. Such a judgment does not take account of the contexts within which these alternative narratives were written and what communities and needs they served. We must no longer work in tacit agreement with biases against the Acta that fetishize the Passio. Rather, in this essay I intend to offer the other side of Shewring's coin by picking up precisely where he left off: a careful study of Acta A not as corrupt but as a literary production in its own right that reflects a particular historical context and its related ecclesiastical concerns. Rather than disparaging the authors of the Acta for what their texts are not—namely, the Passio—I read them as aiming to preserve and make relevant the tradition about Perpetua and Felicitas within a vastly different world. While the Passio predates Constantine's conversion and the Edict of Milan, which made Christianity a legal religion, for instance, the Acta were produced within a Christian empire—more specifically, in North Africa, at an especially contentious moment in time—which necessarily had different concerns and needs than those that informed the Passio.
There had long been agreement that the Acta were products of the mid-fifth century because, it was argued, neither Augustine nor other fifth-century writers reference them. But in 2007, Augustine's Serm. 282auct was discovered, which seemed to cite Acta B, the latter of the two epitomes.Footnote 17 Jan Bremmer has argued that several phrases in Serm. 282auct must draw from Acta B because they are found nowhere else in classical Latin literature.Footnote 18 Thus, he concludes, Augustine knew and used the shorter versions of the martyr account. On this basis, then, Bremmer proposes that the Acta are fourth-century accounts.Footnote 19
Éric Rebillard, however, has raised questions about Bremmer's hypothesis, noting that the phrases Bremmer claims are unique to Augustine and Acta B are, in fact, not wholly absent from Latin literature: one can be found in both Ovid and Ambrose and the other in Paulinus of Nola. He also argues that the Acta are dependent upon the Liber Genealogus—a Donatist chronicle dating to 427 CE—which rules out the Acta as fourth-century compositions.Footnote 20 While Rebillard concedes a relationship between the Acta and Augustine, he follows Kitzler in positing that the Acta draw from Augustine rather than the other way around.Footnote 21 Kitzler sees in the Acta an attempt to “normalize” the Passio according to Augustinian interpretations.Footnote 22 In the analysis that follows, I follow Kitzler and Rebillard in assigning a fifth-century date for Acta A, whose author writes from the perspective of Augustinian Christianity.Footnote 23
In 393 CE, the Synod of Hippo gave permission for martyr accounts to be read as part of the liturgy. Scholars typically account for the production of the Acta in light of the Synod's decision: the Passio, they suggest, was too long for liturgical use.Footnote 24 Augustine, Quodvultdeus, and other North African sermon writers attest to the reading of the account of the martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas in services. But, with the possible exception of Augustine's Serm. 282auct, they do not appear to be based on the Acta. Thus, the common assumption that the Acta are a product of liturgical necessity is not clear from our evidence of the Perpetua tradition.Footnote 25 But we need not become mired in questions relating to the texts’ origins in order to highlight the ideological and doctrinal concerns evident in their composition. In other words, to say that the Acta are a product of time efficiency (or not) does not explain the particular changes the authors made to the story. E. Prinzivalli suggests that the “ideological slant of these changes cannot be denied, even though they were probably dictated by the need for brevity.”Footnote 26 But this explanation does not answer the fundamental question of “why?” If the authors of the Acta were primarily concerned with brevity, they could easily have condensed the Passio without changing major elements of the account, but they did not do so. Something motivated these authors to alter the story rather dramatically, and that is, I propose, worth investigating more fully.
In fifth-century North Africa, controversy raged between Caecilianists and Donatists regarding clerical, sacramental, and martyrological concerns. The ecclesiastical battles of fifth-century Carthage—and North Africa more generally—are salient to any discussion of the Acta because Perpetua, Felicitas, and their companions were claimed as exemplary martyrs by both Caecilianists and Donatists. The Caecilianist claims to the martyrs are well known: Augustine and Quodvultdeus both give sermons on the martyrs in North Africa.Footnote 27 But, as mentioned above, the Carthaginian martyrs were included in the Liber Genealogus, a fifth-century Donatist chronicle of persecutions spanning history, from creation to the fifth century.Footnote 28 Although the Liber Genealogus primarily focuses on the biblical period, it also includes entries for persecutions under Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Decius, Valerian, Diocletian, and Maximian. The martyrs Saturus, Saturninus, Revocatus, Felicitas, and Perpetua are included under the entry for Trajan. The Donatist origin of the Liber Genealogus is unquestioned since it includes the founding event of the Donatist schism: Mensurius's surrendering of scripture to imperial authorities. In addition, it ends with a reference to Honorius's legislation—the so-called “Unity Edict”—against the Donatists of 405.Footnote 29 The textual evidence from fifth-century North Africa, therefore, demonstrates the contested claims to the third-century Carthaginian martyrs.
II. Acta A as Anti-Donatist Composition
The elements that were to become central to the Donatist controversy were present long before the Acta were written. Diocletian's persecution hit North Africa hard and—as earlier under Bishop Cyprian—the varied Christian responses proved difficult for the church. During Cyprian's time, the challenge was how to handle “the lapsed”—those who had offered sacrifice rather than face death—while in the fifth-century, it was the problem of the traditores—those clerics who had handed over scripture in order to avoid persecution.
From the Donatists’ perspective, the schism began in 304 CE, when a group of Christians visited the prison in Carthage to deliver food and emotional support to their fellow-Christians who had been arrested.Footnote 30 Their attempts at Christian charity were thwarted not by the Roman authorities but by a local bishop, Mensurius, and his deacon, Caecilian. If the account is historically accurate, Mensurius's reasons for this act are unclear, but it marked the beginning of over a century of schism in the North African church that pitted Christian against Christian. The rift between the two groups deepened in 311 when Caecilian was ordained bishop after Mensurius's death. Donatists claimed Caecilian was unfit to hold the office for two reasons: first, they believed he had refused to allow Christians to care for those who had been arrested during the persecution; second, he served as deacon under a suspected traditor, Mensurius, and was consecrated bishop by yet another, Felix of Apthugni. Thus, for the Donatists, Caecelian's ordination was nullified because he had been chosen and ordained by traitors to the faith.Footnote 31 Those who rejected Caecilian elected as bishop, instead, Majorinus, a lector in the church at Carthage. Majorinus was shortly thereafter succeeded by Donatus. Rejecting Caecelian's claims to the episcopal seat, the Donatists appealed directly to Constantine to intervene in the election. Through a commission of bishops at Rome (313 CE), as well as a subsequent appeal at Arles (314 CE), the emperor upheld Caecilian's election.
The Donatist controversy continued to rage into the fifth century. At the Council of Carthage in 411 CE, the Donatist Petilian insisted that all African Catholics were the children of Caecilian and that his sin stained their souls as much as it had his.Footnote 32 Even more damning was the Donatist argument that the Caecilianists were the heirs of all previous persecutors, while the Donatists were the heirs of God's persecuted faithful: Israel and the early Christian martyrs.Footnote 33 Indeed, for Petilian, Christianity itself was defined by enduring persecution: “For Catholic truth is with us who suffer persecution, not who creates it.”Footnote 34 He accuses the Caecillianists of being “executioners” and murderers.Footnote 35 In Donatist thought, then, the same history was at play in the fifth century that God's people had endured throughout history. Rather than being persecuted by external forces, however, the faithful were now persecuted by those who claimed to be Christians.
It is in this context that the Acta Brevia Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis were written. Although some of the history of their production remains obscure, we can be certain of two things: (i) the Acta were composed in the midst of the Donatist controversy in North Africa (whether in the fourth or fifth century) and (ii) their subjects—the Carthaginian martyrs—were venerated by both Donatists and Caecilianists. My interpretation of Acta A builds upon these two foundational observations. A number of Acta A's differences—omissions, additions, and revisions to the Passio—appear to be interventions in the dominant religious controversy of the day. While it is unlikely that all the changes made to the Passio in Acta A were motivated by an anti-Donatist position, on the whole, an analysis of the ways the author of Acta A utilized the Passio lends itself to the hypothesis that his work supported a Caecilianist position. The theological significance of this reworking of the Passio should not be undervalued. In addition to claiming the text for the Caecilianist church, an anti-Donatist edition of the Passio—coupled with Augustine's anti-Donatist interpretation of Cyprian—removed an important aspect of the group's claims to represent the ancient, “true,” church.Footnote 36
Acta A and the Passio’s Liturgical Preface and Conclusion
The first thing a reader familiar with the Passio will notice when picking up Acta A is the absence of the liturgical preface. The editor of the Passio begins his account of the martyrdom with an admonition to his audience that claims the examples given by the Carthaginian martyrs were equal to the testimonies given in ancient times: “If the former examples of faith, which testify to the grace of God and work for the strengthening of humans, were, for that cause, distributed in written accounts so that by reading them aloud—as if a re-creation of the events—God should be honored and humans comforted, should new instances that are suitable for each purpose equally not also be set forth?” (1.1). Contemporary deeds, after all, the author argues, will someday be ancient. There is one Spirit that moves people of faith and that Spirit is as active in the world now as it was in earlier times. Thus, new martyrs should be esteemed as highly as any who preceded them.
The preface is only transmitted in one of our extant Latin manuscripts of the Passio (MS. 1).Footnote 37 Thus, it is, in theory, possible that the author of Acta A did not omit the opening portion but, instead, simply did not have it. This is improbable, however, because both the Acta and MS. 1 appear to derive from an earlier Latin exemplar that is close to the Greek translation found in MS. H.Footnote 38 That both manuscripts H and 1 contain the preface suggests that their no longer extant exemplar—used also by the authors of the Acta—did, as well, but the author of the Acta did not transmit it. If the author of Acta A did, indeed, omit the preface, we can recognize ways that this portion of the Passio could have supported a Donatist position and, thus, identify possible motives for how the author handled his source. As we shall see, it is not the case that the themes of the Passio’s preface are entirely missing in Acta A. Rather, key ideas from the preface are resituated in the Acta’s account and, thus, reinterpreted for a Caecilianist audience.
The Passio detailed an early episode of persecution in Carthage and faithful Christian responses to it. Any group wishing to align itself with the “true” church of the martyrs in Carthage, as the Donatists did, would want to claim this text for themselves. In addition to constructing their identity against traditores, Donatists understood their church to be “following in the footsteps of the original martyr-dominated church of the third century and furthering its agenda.”Footnote 39 Perpetua and Felicitas—in addition to Cyprian—were the most popular of the North African martyrs, and Cyprian was already claimed by the Donatists as a staunch defender of the purity of the church in the aftermath of the Decian persecution.Footnote 40
At the beginning of De Baptismo, Augustine lays out the Caecilianist claims to Cyprian: the treatise, he explains, will refute Donatist accusations against Caecilianists and, also, demonstrate—with God's help—the Donatist's perverse claims to Cyprian, whom they use as a “prop” for their schism. Any reader who is not “blinded by factional zeal” will come to see that Cyprian's authority refutes all that they stand for.Footnote 41 In addition to Cyprian, of course, Perpetua and Felicitas were claimed by Donatists (for example, the Liber Genealogus, which has already been discussed). The same claims that Augustine makes for Cyprian in De Baptismo are made, I suggest, by the author of Acta A for Perpetua and Felicitas. Augustine's rehabilitation of Cyprian was theologically required both because of Donatist claims to the bishop and the clear affinity between Cyprian's and the Donatists’ positions on baptism. But the Passio would also have been important both theologically and communally: the text establishes a theology of martyrdom that was vastly more influential in North Africa than any other text, and its popularity was widely acknowledged.
If the Passio, or parts of it, originally reflected Montanist leanings, by the fifth century, such associations were long forgotten. Aspects of the rigorist editor's theology, evident in his preface and conclusion, though, would continue to be relevant to the Donatist church.Footnote 42 The Passio served as a literary and theological model for later Donatist martyr texts.Footnote 43 The Passio’s and Donatists’ interests converged, for example, in holding up recent martyrs as equal to those of ancient times.Footnote 44 Like the Passio (1.2), later Donatist texts claimed martyrs as “new examples” of faith who were worthy of veneration alongside the old examples. The Donatist Martyrdom of Marculus, for instance, explains that “it is right and proper enough that the bravery of the more recent martyrs should be joined to the praise of the witnesses of old” (1).Footnote 45 Such “recycling” of the Passio and its usefulness for Donatist theological claims may have led the author of Acta A to omit the preface altogether.Footnote 46
At the same time, though, some of the key ideas of the Passio’s preface and conclusion were appropriated by the author of Acta A. By placing them within a new narrative framework, however, he refigured their meanings. Both authors, for example, imagine that their accounts edify (aedificatio, Passio 1.1, 21.11; Acta A 9.5) their audiences, and, thus, they exhort their audiences to “read” the account (lego, Passio 21.11; Acta A 9.5). But what “builds up” the Christian is quite different in each account. The key to understanding the edificatory nature of the two texts lies in how the authors imagine the martyrs functioning for the church. The Passio refers to the martyrs as exempla (1.1, 21.11). In a Donatist context, such terminology would contribute to their theology of martyrdom: the Passio offers Perpetua and the others as models or examples that teach contemporary (Donatist) Christians how to be martyrs. The author of Acta A, though, uses the language of acta rather than exempla; he refers only to the martyrs’ “deeds” (9.5). This illustrates well the difference between Caecilianist and Donatist positions: for Donatists, the martyrs’ stories remain models of enacted faith even for contemporary Christians, while for Caecilianists, they are remembered as historic deeds of faith.Footnote 47 Similarly, the Passio is concerned that contemporaries be found worthy (dignatio) of martyrdom (1.5)—a desire shared by Donatists—but Acta A asks that God deem Christians worthy (digno) of communion with the saints (9.5). The age of martyrdom was over for the author of Acta A, and the changes he made to the Passio’s preface and conclusion differentiated the works of faith in the third century from those of the fifth. By recasting the martyrs’ acts as historical deeds rather than as models of behavior, and by reconsidering what grace contemporary Christians may be found worthy of, the author of Acta A shifts the edificatory value of the Passio in such a way as to curb its relevance to Donatist ideologies.
Saturus's Vision in the Passio
The history of Caecilianists and Donatists battling over clerical positions and authority may also have influenced the author of Acta A to omit Saturus's vision. In the Passio, this vision not only highlights ecclesiastical discord but also challenges the hierarchy of the church as it was developing in the third century. It clearly and repeatedly subordinates church leaders to martyrs, even going as far as narrating an angelic rebuke of the bishop. Given the Passio’s subject matter, moreover, it is unsurprising that martyrdom is presented as the exemplary Christian act.
The vision, which is found in Passio 11–13, naturally divides into two parts that, as Bremmer has noted, highlight the importance of the martyr, first in heaven (11–12) and then on earth (13).Footnote 48 When Saturus and Perpetua, for instance, are carried to heaven, their bodies are so pure, so incorruptible, that even the angels cannot touch them (11.2). Heffernan explains: “Since their souls are journeying toward a meeting with God, it is necessary that these souls are depicted as inviolate and pure, hence not touchable.”Footnote 49 The angels acknowledge the purity of the martyrs by not touching their souls, as well as by giving them honor (11.7) and escorting them into the presence of God (11.10). As they approach the throne room, the martyrs are dressed in white robes, further underscoring their purity (12.1). While in God's presence, the martyrs are swept up by angels to kiss God, who then strokes their faces with his hand (12.5). Given the intimacy of this scene, we are not left to wonder about the martyrs’ status in heaven.
When paired with the second section, we see that the vision's teachings about the martyrs is not independent of its teachings regarding the earthly church; rather, these two are intricately intertwined. After Saturus and Perpetua leave the divine throne room, they are exhorted to “go and play” (12.6). Eternal life, for the martyrs, is imagined as joyful and leisurely. But immediately afterwards, they see their bishop, Optatus, and presbyter, Aspasius, “separated and sorrowful” (13.2). The martyrs, who have been carefully carried to heaven, ushered into the divine presence, and who look forward to an eternity of leisure, are contrasted to the clerics who stand outside the throne room in discord and sorrow. Without doubt, the martyrs are envisioned as superior to the clerical hierarchy. The inversion of expected positions of power between the martyrs and the church leaders is physically enacted as the two feuding leaders “threw themselves” at the martyrs’ feet (13.2). The martyrs’ puzzled response—“how do you throw yourselves at our feet?” (13.3)—highlights the subordination and humiliation of the clerics.Footnote 50 Perpetua and Saturus then lead the priests to talk under a rose tree. That the martyrs mediate the discord is yet another sign of the vision's understanding of martyrs’ authority. Their power, furthermore, is not merely in heaven but also on earth. This is clear because the priests are nowhere said to be dead; thus, their earthly disagreement is understood to be disrupting heavenly joy.Footnote 51
The vision could have been problematic for a fifth-century Caecilianist author in multiple ways. First, that heaven would mirror earth in its fractured ecclesiology would have been unthinkable for a Caecilianist who saw unity as divine intent for the church.Footnote 52 The catholicity of the church was of paramount concern to Augustine in his struggles with the Donatist church. In the early fifth century, Augustine wrote to Crispinus, a Donatist bishop, arguing that the Donatists’ claims to represent the true Catholic church could not possibly be true since their practices were not found in other parts of the Empire: how could he who has dominion “from sea to sea,” Augustine wondered, possibly have “lost the entire world and been left with only Africa?”Footnote 53 Unity was such a constant refrain of Augustine's that Petilian could taunt him by claiming that he sought “unity through war.”Footnote 54
Second, since the age of martyrs had come to an end for the Caecilianist church—but not for the Donatists—the vision's teachings about the superiority of martyrs over the clerical hierarchy would be untenable. As Heffernan notes, in this vision “the power is not owned by the official clergy but by the charismatic few who profess their faith even unto death.”Footnote 55 Saturus's vision implies that the martyrs have the authority—and perhaps the responsibility—to adjudicate ecclesiastical affairs. As Maureen Tilley observes, “The Donatists themselves valued martyrs by either sex over male hierarchical leadership.”Footnote 56 The scene depicted in this vision reflects precisely this preference for martyrs over clerics.
Finally, Saturus's vision implies that martyrdom is the apex of the Christian life, a view certainly complementary to the reputation of Donatists.Footnote 57 Upon leaving the throne room, for example, Saturus turns to Perpetua and observes, “You have what you want” (12.7). He appears to be referring to Perpetua's desire for martyrdom.Footnote 58 In response, Perpetua confesses to Saturus: “in whatever way I was joyful in the flesh, I am more joyful here now” (12.7). The vision's preference for death over life—and its promises of the joy and intimacy with the divine that are the reward of martyrdom—would have been troubling for a fifth-century Caecilianist aware of Donatist thought.
Second Baptism in the Passio
The sacrament of baptism in late antique North Africa was fraught since it was at the heart of the ecclesiastical arguments between Donatists and Caecilianists. This conflict echoed the disagreements of Cyprian and Stephen I of Rome that took place in the third century. Cyprian rejected any baptism administered by a heretic, while Stephen argued that the efficacy of the sacrament was due to the work of the Trinity, not of a human. Since no one could be sure of the moral character of any other person, the resolution moved in Stephen's favor. When the controversy flared up again in the fourth and fifth centuries, the Donatists resumed Cyprian's stance and the Caecilianists took Stephen's.
Donatists appealed to biblical precedent for the repetition of baptism: in Acts 19, Paul baptized the disciples who had previously been baptized by John. Their primary arguments, however, remained fixed on the efficacy of the Caecilianist baptism. Since Donatists did not accept the ordination of Caecilianist priests, it follows that they also did not accept any baptism performed in the Caecilianist church. In support of this position, Petilian appealed to Jesus's sayings about fruit reflecting the condition of the tree: “Every good tree produces good fruits, but the bad tree produces bad fruits” (Matt. 7:17).Footnote 59 If, then, a former Caecilianist Christian joined a Donatist church, that person would be rebaptized. The Donatist bishop Petilianus defended this position on baptism against Caecilianist detractors: “when in guilt you practice what is false, I do not perform baptism twice, which you have not performed once.”Footnote 60 Thus, Donatists did not consider their baptisms “second” baptisms, since they did not recognize the efficacy of the original sacrament when performed by a Caecilianist priest (for example, Against Petilianus, II.2.4; II.25.58).
In the late fourth century, the Caecilianist bishop Optatus argued that the efficacy of sacraments did not depend on the moral character of the priest who conferred them because they were the work of the Holy Spirit not of the earthly priest. For this reason, no Christian should ever be rebaptized unless he had been baptized by a true heretic. Optatus devoted book 5 of his Against the Donatists to the issue of rebaptism, condemning the act as a profanation because it does a second time (iterare) “what Christ commanded to be performed a single time [semel].”Footnote 61 Arguing that circumcision typologically represents baptism, Optatus challenged his imagined interlocutor to consider the effects of a second circumcision: “when performed a single time it preserves health; if another time, it can cause ruin. And in this way, the baptism of Christians, having been accomplished by the Trinity, bears grace; if renewed, it causes life to be thrown away.”Footnote 62 Ultimately, Optatus argued, the person performing the baptism was of no consequence whatsoever: “it is not the workman of the deed who vouches for these things to each believer, but the faith of the one who believes and the Trinity.”Footnote 63 It is not the bishop, after all, who forgives sin and confers grace. This is done by God alone.
A few decades later, in the early fifth century, Augustine mounted arguments against Donatist rebaptism that were similar to Optatus's.Footnote 64 The first book of Against Petilianus, for example, is dedicated to dismissing the Donatists’ claim that the “conscience” of the giver determines the efficacy of baptism. Augustine refutes this stance in unsurprising ways: because we cannot know the conscience of the giver, it is impossible to be defiled by the one who baptizes since the origin of faith is Christ, not a minister.Footnote 65 Also like Optatus, Augustine drew parallels between circumcision for Jews and baptism for Christians. Imagine, he says, a Pharisee who wanted to leave behind his hypocritical Pharisaic ways and become like Simeon or Zacharias or Nathaniel.Footnote 66 “Would it be concluded,” Augustine asks, “that he should be circumcised a second time by them?”Footnote 67 Such a situation is absurd, he claims: if even that person—after being a child of hell as a Pharisee—is not circumcised a second time, then Christians should not be rebaptized. Elsewhere, Augustine accused the Donatists of impiety and of repudiating God's sacrament when they rebaptized Christians.Footnote 68 Unsurprisingly, throughout his anti-Donatist writings, the language of “rebaptism” or “another baptism” is always used negatively. Indeed, at one point, Augustine exclaims that he would rather his brothers be killed at the hands of the Circumcellions than to be rebaptized.Footnote 69 At another point, he muses about which is worse: to be rebaptized or not to be baptized at all.Footnote 70
Though the Caecilianists and Donatists argued over the necessity of rebaptism, all rejected the idea of a “second” baptism. As there is one church and one faith, so also there is only one baptism. The language of a second baptism presupposes a first baptism that was, in some way, incomplete or ineffective. Despite Donatists’ claims to the contrary, Augustine repeatedly condemns the group for precisely this: rejecting the true catholic sacrament by baptizing Christians a second time.Footnote 71
Given the controversy in fourth- and fifth-century North Africa over the sacrament of (re)baptism, it is interesting to consider the ways it may inform sacramental language in Acta A. According to the Passio, all the martyrs had been baptized: the catechumens were baptized after their arrest (3.5), and Saturus, as their teacher (4.5), would have been baptized earlier. In addition, the author of the Passio describes Felicitas's and Saturus's experiences in the arena as “second” baptisms. As we shall see, when working with his source in these narrative moments, the author of Acta A employed two different strategies: he revised the Passio’s description of Felicitas's second baptism but omitted Saturus's altogether. These changes to the Passio were, I suggest, informed by Augustinian theology and motivated by contestations regarding the sacrament of baptism in fifth-century North Africa.
In chapter 15 of the Passio, the editor describes Felicitas's parturition: she was eight months pregnant and worried she would not be allowed to enter the arena with her fellow Christians. Those imprisoned with her prayed for her to go into labor, and immediately she did. Her labor was difficult but successful and so, in chapter 18, she entered the arena with the other Christians. The editor describes Felicitas in this way: she “rejoiced that she had been preserved in parturition, so that she might contend with the beasts—from blood to blood, from the midwife to retiarius—bathing after childbirth in a second baptism [baptismo secundo]” (18.3).Footnote 72 In explicitly describing Felicitas's martyrdom as a second baptism, it seems unlikely that the editor was making a particular theological claim since the Passio predates the North African controversies about rebaptism. Rather, the comparison likely arose as a natural consequence of his description Felicitas's recent bloodshed in childbirth.
Though second baptism was evidently not theologically problematic for the editor of the Passio, it did engage very particular theological conversations for our fifth-century author. Acta A follows the Passio in recording Felicitas's pregnancy (5.7), her concerns about the way her pregnancy might affect her martyrdom (8.1), and the Christians’ prayers for her to go into labor (8.1). And, after she had given birth, she followed the other Christians into the arena (9.2). Acta A continues to follow the Passio in its description of Felicitas after childbirth, with slight—but important—departures: Felicitas “was led from the blood of the flesh to the blood of deliverance, from the midwife to the sword, and after the bath from her parturition, was worthy (meruit) to be washed clean (lavatione) by the pouring out of blood” (9.2).Footnote 73 This author follows carefully the language of the Passio, but, significantly, he removes the sacramental reference to baptism. For this author, Felicitas's martyrdom is not described as a second baptism. Instead the text focuses on Felicitas's worthiness for martyrdom.Footnote 74
Although it does not use the phrase, the Passio implies that Felicitas's martyrdom is a “baptism of blood,” a concept discussed by third-century North African authors. In his treatise On Baptism, for instance, Tertullian discussed a first baptism that was of water and a “second washing” (secundum lavacrum) that was of blood (sanguinis; 16). These two baptisms were in imitation of Christ's: he was baptized in water and glorified by blood. For Tertullian, a baptism of blood could substitute for water baptism in the case of a non-baptized believer; for baptized Christians who faced martyrdom, it could absolve them of postbaptismal sin. In Epistle 73, Cyprian addressed questions posed by Jubaianus concerning rebaptism of those considered heretics. In this context, he extolled the power of a baptism by blood, but even this, for Cyprian, was unable to save a heretic (73.21). Catechumens, however, who hold “sound faith and the truth of the Church” would receive the benefits of baptism when they were baptized with the “most glorious and greatest baptism of blood [gloriosissimo et maximo sanguinis baptismo]” (73.22).
Augustine, too, taught that suffering for Christ bestowed the forgiveness of sin equivalent to baptism. In the City of God, for instance, he argues that a deathbed confession of faith is equivalent to baptism (13.7).Footnote 75 None of these authors, however, thought of a baptism of blood as a literal second baptism. Rather, they go to great lengths to deny there are multiple baptisms. Perhaps if the editor had described Felicitas's martyrdom as a “baptism of blood”—rather than baptismo secundo—the author of Acta A would have retained the imagery. But given Augustine's repeated condemnations of rebaptism and his insistence on there being only one baptism—unum baptisma—any author familiar with his teachings would have found the explicit language of a second baptism troubling.Footnote 76
Interestingly, the author of Acta A was not the only one to emend the Passio on this point. MS 3b of the Passio (Einsiedeln 250) adds “of blood” (baptismo sanguinis secundo) to clarify that the “second baptism” was that of martyrdom.Footnote 77 The Greek translator also specified that the “second baptism” was “of her own blood” (βαπτισμῷ δευτέρῳ, τουτέστιν τῷ ἰδίῳ αἵματι; 18.3).Footnote 78 These textual emendations reflect different ways the “second baptism” of the Passio was theologically constrained in subsequent translations and recensions. For these later authors, the Passio’s “second baptism” could not stand unmodified. And so, the phrase was either omitted or qualified.Footnote 79
The editor of the Passio also describes Saturus's experience in the arena as a second baptism. According to the narrative, Saturus was first matched with a boar, but the animal gored not the Christian but the Roman gladiator instead (19.5). He was then placed in the stocks to be exposed to a bear, but the animal refused to come out from its cage (19.6). Finally, Saturus got his wish (19.4) and was thrown to a leopard. After just one bite, he was drenched in blood (21.2). At the sight of this, the crowd jeered: “Well washed! Well washed!” (saluum lotum, saluum lotum) as they witnessed “his second baptism” (secundi baptismatis) (21.2).Footnote 80 Thus, the editor again explicitly invokes the language of second baptism. As with Felicitas, it seems unlikely that the author was making a theological claim about second baptism. Rather, here the language of washing (lotum) recalls one of the ways late ancient Christians described baptism.Footnote 81
As we saw, the author of Acta A edited the story of Felicitas to remove the imagery of second baptism. The story of Saturus's death displays a similar silencing of the language of second baptism, although the method employed is different: whereas the author revised the description of Felicitas, he omitted the account of Saturus's encounter with the leopard altogether. I propose there may be at least two reasons for this approach.
The first reason for the omission may be the Passio’s description of Saturus's contest with the leopard as a “second baptism.” The difficulties of this language in fifth-century North Africa have been discussed above. The textual tradition of the Latin account does not include variant readings here, as it does in the Felicitas episode. The Greek translator, however, while keeping the language of second baptism, lessened its theological weight. Whereas the Passio reports that Saturus was “drenched in blood” (perfusus est sanguine; 21.2) the Greek account recounts that he was “sated with holy blood” (τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ ἁγίου ἐνεπλήσθη). The text does not specify whose holy blood this is: Saturus's or Jesus's. There was so much blood, the author continues, that the martyrdom could be considered as a second baptism (ὡς λογισθῆναι δευτέρου βαπτισμοῦ μαρτύριον). Thus, the Greek author emphasizes the analogy of the blood to the baptismal waters, but the language is less absolute than what we find in the Passio. Its possible reference to Jesus's blood also shifts the meaning away from the discourse of second baptism that was at the heart of fifth-century ecclesiastical battles.
Moreover, the Latin editor's comments in the Passio underscore the salvific nature of Saturus's second baptism: “certainly he was saved who was bathed like this” (plane utique saluus erat qui hoc modo lauerat; 21.3). The editor's insistence that anyone who bathes in this way (that is, endures martyrdom) will attain salvation could be read as undermining Augustine's mantra: it is not the punishment but the cause that makes a martyr.Footnote 82 The fact of death, for Augustine, does not a martyr make, and the Passio’s bald assertion could be seen as standing in tension with Augustine's definition. The Greek text, however, again softens these theological claims. It reads: “truly he was righteous [ὑγιὴς] who bathed in such a manner.”Footnote 83 The Greek text, then, may reflect similar concerns about the language of second baptism in fourth- and fifth-century North Africa as those found in Acta A. While one author altered the language to alleviate the problem, the other omitted the episode altogether.
There is a second possible explanation for Acta A's omission of this scene: it recounts Saturus's failed prophecy. In 19.1, the editor of the Passio applied Jesus's affirmation in John 16:24 (“Ask and you shall receive”) to the Christians’ preference for the manner of death. In 19.4, Saturus “believed he would be finished off by one bite of a leopard.” Saturus subsequently recalled this expectation in his conversation with the Roman soldier Pudens: “In short . . . certainly, just as I foresaw and foretold, as yet I have endured no beast. But now may you trust with your whole heart: behold, I will walk in there and with one bite of the leopard I will be finished” (21.1). As we know, Saturus was, indeed, bitten by the leopard; he is then described as exanimis and is thrown down “to have his throat cut in the customary place” (21.6). Both the obvious meaning of exanimis—“lifeless”—and amphitheatrical protocol—taking victims to the spoliarium to ensure they are dead—would imply Saturus did, indeed, die from his wound. If the story ended there, his prophecy concerning his death would have been fulfilled. But the story does not end there; instead, the Passio’s narrative takes a problematic turn. The martyrs, including Saturus, rose and “voluntarily” reentered the arena where they were finally killed by the gladiator's sword (21.7–21.8). Apparently Saturus was still alive and able to walk back into the arena unassisted. Perhaps the author of Acta A noticed the conflict between Saturus's prophecy and the mode of his subsequent death and chose to omit the account altogether.
If Saturus's death were the only time the Passio employed the terminology of second baptism, we could not argue for an anti-Donatist interest driving Acta A's omission. But given the change this author makes to the Felicitas episode and the contested doctrine of second baptism in North Africa at the time Acta A was written, I suggest the sacramental problem was at least as much in play as the prophetic one. The story of Felicitas was salvageable once the language of second baptism was addressed, but the removal of that language from Saturus's story would still leave behind the martyr's failed prophecy. Had the author of Acta A retained the phrase “second baptism,” his text would have engaged the very discourse he was working to reject, thereby preserving an entrée into the text for Donatists.
III. Martyrdom in the Passio and Acta A
Scholars regularly comment on early Christian martyr texts’ emphases on volition and choice. In the earliest martyr accounts, the language of volition served to underscore the power of the martyrs: they were not victims of Roman power but actors with agency. Power over oneself was central to Roman constructions of masculinity, and the earliest Christian martyr texts were concerned to depict the martyrs—both male and female—as masculinized.Footnote 84 Christians were portrayed as invulnerable to persuasion; like good Stoics, they chose death over compromising their values. In addition, many martyr texts portrayed Christian heroes as actively orchestrating their deaths. In the Martyrdom of Polycarp, for instance, Germanicus pulls a beast upon himself (3.1), and Polycarp goes out to meet the cavalry who have come to arrest him (7.2). In the Martyrdom of Carpus, Saturus, and Agathonike, Agathonike spontaneously converts to Christianity and immediately throws herself on the stake (44). Complicity in death assures the texts’ audiences that the martyrs were not victims but fully in control of their destinies.
Volition in the Passio and Acta
The language of choice and volition is found throughout the Passio. In particular, the Passio underscores the choice the martyrs made to die. Saturus, the catechumens’ teacher, for example, was not arrested with them but “gave himself up later” (4.5). He chose to be arrested and endure torture and death; he was not a victim of Roman power. Perpetua's fourth vision underscores her complicity in her death: she opened the gate for Pomponius the deacon and voluntarily followed him to the amphitheater (10.1–2). She not only defended herself in the fight with the Egyptian, she also took the offensive during a break in the action: “When I noticed a lull, I put my two hands together linking the fingers of one hand with those of the other and thus I got hold of his head. He fell flat on his face and I stepped on his head” (10.11). Following her victory, Perpetua walked “with glory” toward the Gate of Life (10.13), which, of course, signaled her death as a martyr. Upon waking, Perpetua realized that she would fight the Devil, and she would win (10.14). Throughout this vision, the emphasis is on Perpetua's free will in choosing to die as a Christian martyr. When the Christians were first taken to the amphitheater, they were commanded to put on the dress of the priests of Saturn and priestesses of Ceres. Perpetua refused, offering one of the clearest assertions of volition and agency in the Passio. She rebuked the soldiers for trying to make them dress in the costumes: “we came here voluntarily [sponte] that our freedom [libertas] not be compromised. We have pledged our lives: we do not have to do this. We had this contract [pacti] with you” (18.5). The language of Perpetua's admonition draws attention to the active role the martyrs took in determining their fates. A contract implies free and willing parties entering into agreement, and, so, it is a revealing term to use for martyrdom. Finally, in the death scene, the martyrs came out “voluntarily” to meet the gladiator (21.7).
The claims to power and volition fit well in the Passio’s third-century context, when Christian texts defended the martyrs against communal and imperial whims. By the fifth century, however, the language of choice and volition in North African martyr texts had quite different connotations because of the reputation—rightfully earned or not—of the Donatists.Footnote 85 According to Caecilianist Christians (who typically did not differentiate Donatists from circumcellions), the Donatists courted death in order to claim the title of martyr. Such acts, for Augustine, amounted to nothing more than suicide.Footnote 86 Regardless of the historicity of these claims, Caecilianist polemic was clear: Donatists were voluntary martyrs.Footnote 87 As Dearn has argued, according to Caecilianists, it was this aspect of the dissident church—self-killing—that defined Donatistism.Footnote 88 Thus, as unsurprising as it is to find claims of volition in the Passio, it is equally unsurprising that they are not found in Acta A. In this text, Saturus does not turn himself over to the Romans voluntarily but is arrested with the others (1.1). Perpetua's fourth vision is dramatically abbreviated in Acta A, comprising only one short sentence in which Perpetua takes no action at all. She does not go to the amphitheater or engage—defensively or offensively—with the enemy. Rather, she merely observes the Egyptian rolling under the martyrs’ feet. When she interprets her vision, Perpetua does not reference her fight or her victory. Instead, the lesson the vision imparts is that the Lord “having thrown the enemy of the human race to the ground, regarded them deserving of the glory of martyrdom” (7.3). It is not Perpetua's victory or even the victory of the Christians that we, the readers, are to anticipate. Instead, we are to reflect on the power of the prior triumph of the Lord. When the Christians arrive at the amphitheater, they are not commanded to dress as priests and priestesses, and so Perpetua does not insist on their free will. Instead, the death scene commences immediately, and it does not revolve around the martyrs volunteering to enter the arena.
The author of Acta A, however, did not merely omit language that implied the martyrs chose death of their own free wills; rather, he replaced it with explicit assertions about their obedience to God's will. If the Acta are influenced by Augustinian theology, this shift is revealing. Donatism's claims that its adherents who were killed by other Christians were “martyrs” posed a definitional challenge for Augustine that required nuanced argumentation to differentiate martyrdom from suicide. Augustine dedicated himself to this task with the aim of denying the Donatists martyrs to venerate. Part of Augustine's solution was that one could only be a martyr if one were affiliated with the “Catholic” (that is, Roman Catholic or Caecilianist) Church.Footnote 89 Therefore, anyone who died as a Donatist was, by definition, not a martyr.Footnote 90 Equally important however, and a refrain Augustine repeated in his writings and sermons, was that true martyrdom is determined not by the “punishment but the cause” (non facit poena sed causa).Footnote 91 That is, for Augustine, it is not death itself—or persecution and torture—that makes a martyr; only a just cause (namely, defense of Roman Catholic faith) can lead to a true martyrdom, and schismatics, by definition, cannot meet this requirement.
At first glance, the interrogation scene—added by the author of Acta A—appears to align with earlier martyr texts that emphasize volition. When asked if he speaks for all of the Christians, Saturus responded that they “are of one will” (4.3). When the proconsul pressed the other martyrs, they echoed Saturus's sentiment: “It is true, we have one will.” But precisely whose will with which they were allied becomes clear only as the interrogation continues. After having the female Christians removed, the proconsul interrogated the men further. When asked if he agreed with the others, Revocatus responded, “I entirely follow after their wishes because of God” (4.8). As it turns out, in affirming that they were all of one will, the martyrs were aligning themselves not with Saturus but with God. It was God's will—not their own—that drove them to resist the proconsul's pleas. As Cotter-Lynch observes, “the will which they share is not their own; ‘in nobis voluntas,’ ‘gerimus voluntatem,’ the will is in them, or borne by then; it is not of them.”Footnote 92 Similarly, When Perpetua's family pleaded with her to sacrifice, she asserted God's will as her defense: “I cannot regard you greater and better than God, who has deemed me worthy to lead me to this glory” (6.6). It was God who found Perpetua worthy and who led her to martyrdom. The martyrs testified to their allegiance to God's will rather than asserting their own volition in seeking death. The Christians in this fifth-century narrative are not, of course, shrinking from the prospect of martyrdom any more than they were in the original third-century account, but the author of Acta A returns again and again to the relationship between martyrdom and God's will. For this author, as for Augustine, the cause of death was as—or perhaps even more—important than the death itself.
What is Martyrdom?
Having traced a pattern of anti-Donatist changes in Acta A, we can now turn to the episode that first piqued my interest: Perpetua's death. The editor of the Passio writes with admiration: Perpetua “herself brought the wandering hand of the novice gladiator to her own throat. Possibly so great a woman, who was feared by unclean spirits, could not have been killed in any way other than that she willed it herself” (21.9–10). Perpetua's complicity in her death was not problematic for the editor of the third-century text; indeed, it was a noble act. But this same act could have been a stumbling block in fifth-century North Africa, when the very definition of martyrdom was being adjudicated between Caecilianists and Donatists. Undoubtedly Donatists would label Perpetua's act of volition—by which she made her own death possible—as martyrdom, just as earlier Christians had. For them, it would serve as an example of resistance to the persecution of the “church of martyrs.”
Caecilianist Christians might read the story differently. In 348, Gratus convened the Council of Carthage—ostensibly to celebrate the end of the Donatist schism—and passed a canon that forbade Christians from venerating certain types of individuals as martyrs.Footnote 93 Included among those who could not claim the title “martyr” were those who killed themselves. The canon was aimed at Donatists who, in de Ste Croix's words, were “greedy for death.”Footnote 94 Almost forty years later, Optatus described Donatists as those whose “passion for spurious martyrdom” led them to “throw their worthless souls headlong from the peaks of high mountains.”Footnote 95 Augustine echoes Optatus's description: “It was their game every day to kill themselves by throwing themselves headfirst from steep places, or into the water, or into the fire.”Footnote 96 The most radical of the Donatists, the Circumcellions or agonistici—those who engage in battle/contests—as they preferred to call themselves, had a reputation for even more dramatic means to death.Footnote 97 Optatus reports that they forced others to kill them (3.4).Footnote 98 Similarly, Augustine states that they provoked pagans into killing them by breaking idols at religious ceremonies (Ep. 185.3). If the Donatists had the right cause—namely, ending idolatry—their actions might qualify them for the title of “martyr.” But, Augustine insists, their only wish was to be killed and, for this reason, they must be denied the designation. In other cases, Donatists would threaten travelers with death unless the travelers killed them; sometimes they threatened violence against judges unless they had them executed. If they did not come upon someone to “terrify so that he might be killed by his sword,” they would commit suicide (Augustine, Ep. 185.3).Footnote 99 In the hands of Caecilianist authors, Donatists’ (who were typically conflated with Circumcellions) desire for martyrdom made them little more than a suicide cult.Footnote 100 Such stories—whether true or fabricated—functioned within Caecilianist circles to strip the appellation “martyr” from Donatists. If, the argument goes, Circumcellions (and, thus, Donatists since they are coupled in this rhetoric) persecute innocent people in order to provoke their own deaths, then surely it is the Caecilianists not the Donatists who are suffering, being persecuted, and attaining to martyrdom.
It was also during the fourth and fifth centuries that the Church began to coalesce around teachings that rejected suicide as an option for Christians. Earlier Christian authors varied in their opinions. Some—for example, Ignatius, Tertullian, Eusebius, Ambrose—praised those who chose death (even at their own hands) over apostasy. But others, including Justin Martyr, Clement, and the Epistle of Diognetus represent a strain of Christian teaching that rejected suicide.Footnote 101 In North Africa, teachings on suicide appear to have been less fluid than elsewhere. Cyprian taught that one must not offer oneself to the Gentiles (On the Glory of Martyrdom, 29); Lactantius—originally from North Africa—argued that suicide was prohibited because the commandment against killing included oneself;Footnote 102 and, as we have seen, Canon 2 of the Council of Carthage stripped certain Christians of the honorific “martyr.” But the clearest and most thorough arguments against suicide in the late ancient world were those of Augustine. Book 1 of The City of God is devoted to careful argumentation against suicide.Footnote 103 His Letter to Gaudentius is more polemical than The City of God, aimed, as it was, directly against Donatist arguments in favor of suicide in times of persecution. These letters against Gaudentius addressed a specific—and acute—crisis: in 419, Gaudentius and some of his congregants (whom Augustine calls “hopeless” [perditis]) barricaded themselves in their basilica at Thamugandi in an attempt to fend off the enactment of anti-Donatist edicts that included confiscation of property. This act revealed the Donatists as “madmen” (furentibus).Footnote 104 Gaudentius threatened to set fire to the basilica if the state attempted to enforce the laws. Augustine, instructing Gaudentius's congregants, asserts that should these individuals wish to join the martyrs at Christ's altar, they must not sacrifice themselves to the fire that is fashioned by the devil. To participate in one's own death is “madness” (furore), Augustine continues, and it is the devil who will “delight in” (gaudet) the sacrifice.Footnote 105
It is in this historical and ecclesiastical light that we must interpret Acta A's revision of Perpetua's death. The text was composed during a particularly contentious time in North Africa, and the Passio’s account of her death would have been problematic for the Caecilianist church. The moving moment of bravery described in the Passio would, I suggest, be too close to Donatist suicide antics for a Caecilianist author's comfort since such a tactic (namely, drawing the sword to her own throat) could easily be understood as an early example of Circumcellion “martyrdom” in which the “victims” were complicit in their deaths. In this context, a Christian who died by her own hand would be unworthy to receive the title of “martyr.” Thus, the author of Acta A revised the Passio—its preface, its account of clerical dissent, its portrayal of the martyrs’ authority, its language of second baptism, and, finally, its narration of Perpetua's volition in her death—in order simultaneously to reclaim the martyrs for the Caecilianist Church and to restrict its usefulness for Donatists. Rather than her act reflecting masculine virtue and nobility in death, a fifth-century North African who adhered to Augustinian thought might more likely see Perpetua's death as suicide-by-gladiator.Footnote 106
IV. Conclusion
Acta A is not a defective, error-ridden, marred, or schizoid version of the Passio. While it is admittedly tricky to make arguments about an author's motivations for redaction, the cumulative effect of the changes in Acta A suggests a concern regarding Donatist theology. If my analysis of the text is correct, Acta A adds an important witness to the struggles over Christian heroes that have otherwise been traced in the Donatist schism. In this case, analyses of Acta A should stand alongside studies of the appropriation of Paul and Cyprian by the feuding North African ecclesiastical parties. The author of Acta A has carefully revised the Passio in order to articulate a theology acceptable to the fifth-century Caecilianist church, which, in turn, allows him to preserve the witness of Perpetua, Felicitas, and their companions for the Caecilianist cause. Acta A is not the “original” text, it is true. It is a subsequent attempt to preserve the martyrs’ memories within and for the church. And it is precisely for that reason that it should be taken seriously after centuries of neglect.
