These are some of my favorite quotes from the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas.
“And Hilarian the procurator – he that after the death of Minucius Timinian the proconsul had received in this room the right and power of the sword – said: ‘Spare your father’s grey hairs; spare the infancy of the boy. Make sacrifice for the Emperor’s prosperity.’ And I answered: ‘I am a Christian.’”
“And when they had been brought to the gate and were being compelled to put on, the men the dress of the priests of Saturn, the women the dress of the priestesses of Ceres, the noble Perpetua remained of like firmness to the end, and would not. For she said: ‘For this cause came we willingly unto this, that our liberty might not be obscured.’”
‘The said he [Saturus] to Pudens the soldier: ‘Farewell; remember the faith and me; and let not these things trouble you, but strengthen you. And therewith he took from Pudens’ finger a little ring, and dipping it in his wound gave it back again for an heirloom, leaving him a pledge and memorial of his blood.’”
“But Perpetua, that she might have some taste of pain, was pierced between the bones and shrieked out; and when the swordsman’s hand wandered still (for he was a novice), herself set it upon her own neck. Perchance so great a woman could not else have been slain (being feared of the unclean spirit) had she not herself so willed it.”