Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Argument. Perpetua, When Besieged by Her Father, Comforts Him. When Led with Others to the Tribunal, She Avows Herself a Christian, and is Condemned with the Rest to the Wild Beasts. She Prays for Her Brother Dinocrates, Who Was Dead.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter
II.—Argument. Perpetua, When Besieged by Her Father, Comforts
Him. When Led with Others to the Tribunal, She Avows Herself a
Christian, and is Condemned with the Rest to the Wild Beasts. She Prays
for Her Brother Dinocrates, Who Was Dead.
1. “After a few days there prevailed a report that
we should be heard. And then my father came to me from the city, worn
out with anxiety. He came up to me, that he might cast me down, saying,
‘Have pity my daughter, on my grey hairs. Have pity on your
father, if I am worthy to be called a father by you. If with these
hands I have brought you up to this flower of your age, if I have
preferred you to all your brothers, do not deliver me up to the scorn
of men. Have regard to your brothers, have regard to your mother and
your aunt, have regard to your son, who will not be able to live after
you. Lay aside your courage,
and do not bring us all to destruction; for none of us will speak in
freedom if you should suffer anything.’ These things said my
father in his affection, kissing my hands, and throwing himself at my
feet; and with tears he called me not Daughter, but Lady. And I grieved
over the grey hairs of my father, that he alone of all my family would
not rejoice over my passion. And I comforted him, saying, ‘On
that scaffold8984
| 8984 “Catasta,”
a raised platform on which the martyrs were placed either for trial or
torture. | whatever God wills
shall happen. For know that we are not placed in our own power, but in
that of God.’ And he departed from me in sorrow.
2. “Another day, while we were at dinner, we
were suddenly taken away to be heard, and we arrived at the town-hall.
At once the rumour spread through the neighbourhood of the public
place, and an immense number of people were gathered together. We
mount the platform. The rest were interrogated, and confessed. Then
they came to me, and my father immediately appeared with my boy, and
withdrew me from the step, and said in a supplicating tone, ‘Have
pity on your babe.’ And Hilarianus the procurator, who had just
received the power of life and death in the place of the proconsul
Minucius Timinianus, who was deceased, said, ‘Spare the grey
hairs of your father, spare the infancy of your boy, offer sacrifice
for the well-being of the emperors.’ And I replied, ‘I will
not do so.’ Hilarianus said, ‘Are you a Christian?’
And I replied, ‘I am a Christian.’ And as my father stood
there to cast me down from the faith, he was ordered by
Hilarianus to be thrown down, and was beaten with rods. And my
father’s misfortune grieved me as if I myself had been beaten, I
so grieved for his wretched old age.8985
| 8985 [St. August. opp. iv.
541.] | The procurator
then delivers judgment on all of us, and condemns us to the wild
beasts, and we went down cheerfully to the dungeon. Then, because my
child had been used to receive suck from me, and to stay with me in the
prison, I send Pomponius the deacon to my father to ask for the infant,
but my father would not give it him. And even as God willed it, the
child no long desired the breast, nor did my breast cause me
uneasiness, lest I should be tormented by care for my babe and by the
pain of my breasts at once.
3. “After a few days, whilst we were all
praying, on a sudden, in the middle of our prayer, there came to me a
word, and I named Dinocrates; and I was amazed that that name had never
come into my mind until then, and I was grieved as I remembered his
misfortune. And I felt myself immediately to be worthy, and to be
called on to ask on his behalf.8986
| 8986 [The story in
2 Maccab. xii.
40–45, is there
narrated as a thought suggested to the soldiers under Judas, and not
discouraged by him, though it concerned men guilty of idolatry and
dying in mortal sin, by the vengeance of God. It may have occurred to
early Christians that their heathen kindred might, therefore, not be
beyond the visitations of the Divine compassion. But, obviously,
even were it not an Apocryphal text, it can have no bearing whatever on
the case of Christians. The doctrine of Purgatory is that nobody
dying in mortal sin can have the benefit of its discipline, or any
share in the prayers and oblations of the Faithful, whatever.] | And for him I
began earnestly to make supplication, and to cry with groaning to the
Lord. Without delay, on that very night, this was shown to me in a
vision.8987
| 8987
“Oromate.” [This vision, it must be observed, has
nothing to do with prayers for the Christian dead, for this
brother of Perpetua was a heathen child whom she supposed to be in
the Inferi. It illustrates the anxieties Christians felt
for those of their kindred who had not died in the Lord; even for
children of seven years of age. Could the gulf be bridged and they
received into Abraham’s bosom? This dream of Perpetua
comforted her with a trust that so it should be. Of course this story
has been used fraudulently, to help a system of which these times knew
nothing. Cyprian says expressly: “Apud Inferos confessio,
non est, nec exomologesis illic fieri potest.”
Epistola lii. p. 98. Opp. Paris, 1574. In the Edinburgh
series (translation) this epistle is numbered 51, and elsewhere
54.] | I saw Dinocrates
going out from a gloomy place, where also there were several others,
and he was parched and very thirsty, with a filthy countenance and
pallid colour, and the wound on his face which he had when he died.
This Dinocrates had been my brother after the flesh, seven years of
age8988
| 8988 [There is not the
slightest reason to suppose that this child had been baptized: the
father a heathen and Perpetua herself a recent catechumen.
Elucidation.] | who died miserably with disease—his
face being so eaten out with cancer, that his death caused repugnance
to all men. For him I had made my prayer, and between him and me
there was a large interval,8989
so that neither of
us could approach to the other. And moreover, in the same place where
Dinocrates was, there was a pool full of water, having its brink higher
than was the stature of the boy; and Dinocrates raised himself up as if
to drink. And I was grieved that, although that pool held water, still,
on account of the height to its brink, he could not drink. And I was
aroused, and knew that my brother was in suffering. But I trusted that
my prayer would bring help to his suffering; and I prayed for him every
day until we passed over into the prison of the camp, for we were to
fight in the camp-show. Then was the birth-day of Geta Cæsar, and
I made my prayer for my brother day and night, groaning and weeping
that he might be granted to me.
4. “Then, on the day on which we remained in
fetters,8990
this was shown to
me. I saw that that place which I had formerly observed to be in gloom
was now bright; and Dinocrates, with a clean body well clad, was
finding refreshment. And where there had been a wound, I saw a scar; and that pool which
I had before seen, I saw now with its margin lowered even to the
boy’s navel. And one drew water from the pool incessantly, and
upon its brink was a goblet filled with water; and Dinocrates drew near
and began to drink from it, and the goblet did not fail. And when he
was satisfied, he went away from the water to play joyously, after the
manner of children, and I awoke. Then I understood that he was
translated from the place of punishment.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
