Perpetua The Spread Of Christianity Analysis

Perpetua is a Christian martyr from the days of early christianity, when it was still illegal to be a Christian. She writes about her experiences, about being arrested and having visions about heaven, as well as what her time in prison was like, because it was more similar to house arrest. When her story ends, it tells about her getting trampled by a female cow in the arena, and when she doesn’t die from that, where she guides the hand of the soldier who executes her. Throughout all of her writings she feels that she is being called by God to be a martyr of christianity. She believes that it is the greatest honor for her to give up her life, so that others may live, and that “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that …show more content…
So for Perpetua’s father he might think that she is joining the Christian faith because in Christianity the women have more power over what they believe, then they do when they are staying at home. In the Christian faith women are allowed to take control of the household and are recognized for being leaders, and that isn’t so much the case in the traditional faith that Perpetua had grown up with (Women in Ancient Christianity). So in the case of Perpetua and her father, he would have seen her leaving his house and the way that she was brought up as a way of her shunning her family, and wishing that she wasn’t apart of them. “This [means] that potentially women (and men) could exercise leadership on the basis of spiritual achievement apart from gender status and without conformity to established social gender roles” (Women in Ancient Christianity). Perpetua may have wanted to break free from the stereotypes of tradition, and may have wanted to follow Jesus because of this, but that also meant that she left behind the beliefs of her family, and the authority of her father, and for him it would be like a slap in the face. In one of the chapters in the “Passio of Perpetua” he gets on his knees and begs her to give up Christianity (Passio). He is doing everything in his power to convince her to renounce christianity in order that she may stay alive. The fact that he is ready to shame himself in order that his daughter may live, shows the true love only a father can have. He will do whatever it takes to have her live, even shaming himself and the whole family. In my translation of Perpetua’s journal, I wrote that “father said these as if for his own responsibility”(Passio). He was doing because he felt as if it was his duty as a father to save his daughter, willing to humble himself as the head of the