Description

Perpetua, a young, well to do woman, lived in Carthage in 200 A.D.
Carthage, modern day Tunis in north Africa, had a vibrant Christian
community living amongst a pagan people, and Perpetua had come to
believe in Jesus as the Christ. She was attending a Catechism class to
prepare her for public profession and baptism, when she and five others were
arrested by the Roman authorities. Septimius Severus, the Roman emperor at
the time, was cracking down on Christians who refused to worship him as
god. He feared that Christianity undermined allegiance to the government
and he would have none of it. While awaiting trial Perpetua’s father, a
prominent member of Carthage society and a pagan, came to her jail cell,
begging her to recant her new faith.