ON ST. PERPETUA,
AT ROME.
First Century.
The cult, eulogies, deeds, burial, place and year of her death.
Perpetua at Rome (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. P.
The Acts of St. Nazarius the martyr, examined by us at the day XXVIII of July, record that Perpetua was the mother of that same Saint; Her memory in Ado, in the more recent Martyrologies, under which name she too is inscribed in the sacred Calendars, taken from the said Acts, or certainly from similar ones, as it at least seems to us. Ado at the XII of June inserts her into the eulogy of St. Nazarius in these words: The father of blessed Nazarius was Africanus; but his mother Perpetua, both baptized by blessed Peter the apostle. Molanus's edition of the year 1573, among the additions appended to his Usuard, has thus: At Rome, of blessed and holy Perpetua, mother of St. Nazarius, citing in the margin the Ambrosian Mass. Add other more recent writers, Galesinius, Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, Piazza in the Sacred Hemerology of Christian and Gentile Rome. The Roman Martyrology has thus:
[2] At Rome, of St. Perpetua, who, baptized by blessed Peter the apostle, and in the Roman Martyrology: led her son Nazarius and her husband Africanus to the faith of Christ, and buried many bodies of the holy Martyrs; and at last, heaped with the merits of all good things, passed over to the Lord. Baronius, in his notes on the said Martyrology at the day IV of August, assigns the source from which these things were drawn, namely the records of the church of Milan, and the Acts of Sts. Nazarius and Celsus, which Mombritius has in volume 2. Would that that most wise man had designated for us somewhat better documents concerning the deeds of this Saint: for as regards her public cult among the Milanese from time immemorial, and indeed a sufficiently solemn one, the Missal and Breviary of that church supply notices sufficient for asserting it, together with the Roman Martyrology — the latter printed indeed in the year 1539, the former in the year 1522.
[3] her cult and eulogy from the Milanese or Ambrosian Missal, In the said Missal a Mass from the common of matrons is noted for her, with proper prayers appended to it, over the people, over the winding-sheet, over the offerings; a preface, and a prayer after communion. That preface indeed praises her thus: O God, who … so illumined blessed Perpetua with the ray of your grace that, having execrated the error of heathenism, baptized by the Prince of the Apostles, she not only bent her son Nazarius to the worship of Christ, but also, a faithful Woman enriched with a double gain, joined to the fellowship of Christians Africanus, her unbelieving husband, a follower of the Jewish rite. She, abounding in works of mercy, comes to the aid of the needy, and consoles those afflicted by misery. She with pious zeal delivers the bodies of the blessed Martyrs to burial. She, shining with wondrous virtues, puts demons to flight: she frees the matron Servilia from the disease of cancer; she heals Julia, daughter of Nero, a lunatic; she preserves Rome unharmed from the burning of fire by the sign of the cross; she raises up the son of Mamurtinus.
[4] She at last, persevering in sincerity of faith and holiness of works, and from the proper lessons of the Breviary, leaving the enclosure of the flesh, joyfully passes over to Christ. The lessons already assigned narrate the same facts; but there is prefixed to them the announcement, At Rome, of blessed and holy Perpetua, mother of the holy martyr Nazarius — very like the Molanian one which we recited a little before. The proper prayers, which are set before those lessons, can be read in the same place. In the Ambrosian Breviary of the year 1635 nothing else is noted among the Offices for this day IV of August than a commemoration of St. Perpetua the matron, at First Vespers and at Lauds. And let these things be said as enough for proving the cult of St. Perpetua, both ancient and present-day. More uncertain are those things concerning her deeds which we have just produced from the Ambrosian Missal, and those which are briefly touched upon in the Acts of St. Nazarius in Mombritius. Let us weigh the matter.
[5] In the first place, those things which the lessons relate concerning the execrated error of heathenism, etc., which are discussed. do not sufficiently agree with the Acts of St. Nazarius in Surius, where their author, treating of his parents, says: God, as it were rewarding their piety … gave them a son, heir at once of their virtue and of their goods. In our Utrecht Manuscript of St. Martin, from which we gave the martyrdom of St. Nazarius at the said day XXVIII of July, he is related to have been the son … of Perpetua, a most Christian woman … and baptized by Peter the apostle; which baptism is also related in Peter de Natalibus in the Acts of St. Nazarius, book 6, chapter 147, and elsewhere; but whether she was a gentile or a Jewess before her baptism, we have not yet ascertained. The other things which the lessons record concerning St. Perpetua we can more easily believe, or at least suppose, than prove or disprove. Although to whom would that not appear suspect — she heals Julia, daughter of Nero, a lunatic? For Nero
the emperor had a daughter by Poppæa, Claudia Augusta, and lost her while quite an infant (as is found in Suetonius, book 6, chapter 35, page 566, of the Lyons edition of the year 1548), namely dying within the fourth month: as is noted in the annotations there. I could indeed wish that the things recorded about Servilia, about the city of Rome, and about the son of Mamurtinus were proved from suitable documents. Concerning Africanus, the Preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. Nazarius, at the day XXVIII of July, § XI, may be consulted; of whom mention will presently recur here.
[6] Now to these I weave in a few things from Acts of St. Nazarius of whatever sort. Certain deeds of the Saint are reviewed from the same source, She is said, both in certain copies and in Mombritius, to have been a Roman citizen; and according to him, sprung from a noble lineage. Peter de Natalibus gives her the title of "most noble of the Romans"; the Utrecht Manuscript of St. Martin likewise adorns her with the prerogative of "most noble of the Romans." Her nobility is confirmed from St. Ennodius, to be cited below, when he says: Nazarius [was] of good stock. Mombritius has thus briefly comprehended the virtues of our Saint, saying that, Daily she would hasten to adore the Lord Jesus Christ in the place in which she had been baptized, and to pay the offerings of her prayers. In the same place you have this dialogue of the Saint with her son, which I thus abridge: Nazarius … went to his mother, saying: Do you not know, mother, what my father's promise was, that he would show me the worship of his religion? … His mother, wondering at these things which were said by him, said to him: May God almighty show you the mystery of his truth, that you may deserve to be enlightened by the baptism of Peter, in which I myself was baptized … Nazarius answered … Is he a king, in whom you were baptized, mother? And she said: Yes, my son, the Lord, King of kings, and creator of heaven and earth … Hearing these things, blessed Nazarius began now, like a wise architect, to construct within his breast eternal foundations for a building that should abide forever, etc.
[7] weighed against the Acts of St. Nazarius. Whence it is clear that these Acts agree with the often-mentioned lessons in this, that she bent her son Nazarius to the worship of Christ; but these differ from those in the baptism of Africanus, and say that he was joined to the fellowship of Christians by his wife, and accordingly converted to Christ. But that conversion is not ascribed to St. Perpetua in Mombritius, but to St. Peter the apostle. Let the text be heard: Nazarius is said to have hastened to Rome, where he learned from his father Africanus how blessed Peter the apostle had appeared to him in a vision, and had imbued him with the doctrine of the Christian religion … Therefore, terrified by the strangeness of so great a vision, I have determined, he said, that nothing else is now permitted me than that, admonished by that Apostolic precept to believe in Christ, I should purify myself in the water of baptism. The same Acts record an apparition of the Saint made to her son Nazarius: By night, his most blessed mother Perpetua … stood by him in a vision, saying: Pass now from this land; for you must preach the Gospel of Christ to the cities of Gaul also.
[8] Does her body exist anywhere? Since so few documents of St. Perpetua survive, it is no wonder that scarcely anything is found concerning her burial or her sacred relics. Puricelli in the Nazarian Dissertation, chapter 135, produces a book written in Italian and published in the year 1515, On the indulgences and holy bodies which are in the churches of the city of Milan, etc., drawn from ancient registers and authentic privileges; in which book he reports that among the relics kept in the Nazarian basilica this is indicated: There lies St. Nazarius the martyr; and after several other Saints, whose bodies are said to lie in the same place, St. Perpetua herself is also set down, the mother of St. Nazarius. But we do not believe that book in this matter, whatever ancient registers and authentic privileges it puts forward. Nor did Puricelli himself believe it: for in chapter 171, treating of the book which, under the title The Seven stational churches or basilicas of the city of Milan, the second Rome, John Baptist Villa published in the Italian tongue in the year, as he adds, 1627, Puricelli, on the authority of that author, reckons among the bodies buried in the basilica of the Apostles (which is the same as the Nazarian) the body of St. Perpetua, mother of St. Nazarius; whom some will have to be buried in that basilica. But Puricelli inserts into those words that he wishes this rather than believes it. We prefer the opinion of Piazza cited above, who says that of that sacred body there is thus far no notice.
[9] The place of her death and her age. As regards the place in which St. Perpetua put off her mortality, although we cannot establish it from any certain ancient monuments, we prefer nevertheless to think with the few and to speak with the many and with the Roman Martyrology, and to announce her at Rome. The things which have been said, both of her fatherland and of her manner of life, from documents at least of some sort, favor this: from which, if you also refer the age in which she lived and died to the times of Nero, we shall not object to speaking thus with the rest; since Baronius says at the year 69: In this persecution of Nero the zeal, among others, of two most holy women, Lucina and Perpetua, is commended. Meanwhile, for fixing the period of her age in some fashion, we have ready at hand St. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, who in the hymn which he composed on St. Nazarius, Poem XVIII, sings expressly of him: Happy under prince Nero, having endured diverse evils, he traversed the world. The Saint therefore lived, Ennodius being witness, under Nero; and thus it is established to what period the age of St. Perpetua is to be referred, on the same witness.