Perpetua’s relationships with her family
https://doi.org/10.28995/2658-4158-2024-1-93-108
Abstract
The article describes relationship in the family of Christian martyr of the 3rd century St. Perpetua. Author analyses how conflict between a Christian and his/her non-Christian relatives, typical moment in the Lives of Christian martyrs, is reflected in “The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas”. The uniqueness of this document is that the family conflict is described on behalf of the martyr herself in Perpetua’s prison diary, where the problem of relations with her household and, in particular, the conflict with her father, pushing her to apostasy, is the central motif. If we compare “The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas” with more recent “Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas”, one can see how a realistic description of the relations in the family of a newly converted Christian woman in all its diversity, from like-mindedness with a catechumen brother to an acute conflict with her father, is replaced by the tradition in “Lives of saints” in which the non-Christian household becomes an indistinguishable crowd of “just pagans” whom a newly converted Christian identifies with his/her sinful past and often perceives as enemies.
About the Author
Olga I. Yaroshevskaya
St. Philaret’s Institute
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Olga I. Yaroshevskaya, Cand. of Sci. (Medicine), associate professor,
11, Tokmakov Ln, Moscow, 105066.
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Review
For citations:
Yaroshevskaya O.I. Perpetua’s relationships with her family. Studia Religiosa Rossica: Russian Journal of Religion. 2024;(1):93-108. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.28995/2658-4158-2024-1-93-108
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