Copyright

by

Ross Philip Ponder

2014

This report committee for Ross Philip Ponder certifies that this is the approved version of the following report:

Visions of the End:

The Dreams and Death of Vibia Perpetua

APPROVED BY

SUPERVISING COMMITTEE:

Supervisor: ______

Steven J. Friesen

______

L. Michael White

Visions of the End:

The Dreams and Death of Vibia Perpetua

by

Ross Philip Ponder, B.A., M.Div.

Report

Presented to the Faculty of

The Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin

in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Master of Arts

The University of Texas at Austin

December 2014

DEDICATION

To Fred L.

in honor of his life of service

ְו ִשׁ ַ֤בּ ְח ִ ֽתּי ֲאנִ ֙י ֶאת־ ַה ִשּׂ ְמ ֔ ָחה ֲא ֨ ֶשׁר ֵאֽין־ ֤טוֹב ָלֽאָ ָד ֙ם ַ֣תּ ַחת ַה ֔ ֶשּׁ ֶמשׁ ִ֛כּי ִאם־ ֶל ֱא ֥כוֹל ְו ִל ְשׁ ֖תּוֹת ְו ִל ְשׂ ֑מוֹ ַח

ְו ֞הוּא יִ ְלֶ֣ונּוּ ַב ֲע ָמ ֗לוֹ יְ ֵ֥מי ַח ָיּ֛יו ֲא ֶשׁר־ ָנֽ ַתן־ ֥לוֹ ָה ֱאל ִ֖הים ַ֥תּ ַחת ַה ָ ֽשּׁ ֶמשׁ

And I commended mirth, because a person has no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry; for this will go with them in their labor

during the days of their life that God has given them under the sun.

Qohelet 8:15

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Professors Steven J. Friesen and L. Michael White for their careful guidance and support at all stages of this project. Their insightful feedback greatly improved the quality of this report. All errors and shortcomings are my own.

My family deserves a special note of gratitude. My wife, Sarah Pratt Ponder, inspires me with her boundless and generative capacity of love. My parents, Drs. Karen and Wendell Ponders, taught me the way to ask questions and instilled in me the curiosity to wind up in a doctoral program. My brothers, Dr. Warren Ponder and Alan Ponder, also provided support in their one ways: whether a quick conversation on the phone or a special package in the mail. They all deserve my unending gratitude and love.

All abbreviations and formatting conventions in the bibliography as well as the remainder of the report follow Patrick H. Alexander, The SBL Manual of Style: For

Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical and Early Christian Studies (Peabody, Mass.

Hendrickson, 1999).

v

Visions of the End:

The Dreams and Death of Vibia Perpetua

by

Ross Philip Ponder, M.A.

The University of Texas at Austin, 2014

Supervisor: Steven J. Friesen

After being arrested and jailed with other Christians in 203, Vibia Perpetua, a young matron, requests a dream-vision (visio—a technical term for a prophetic dream) to determine their fate. Perpetua sees a bronze ladder reaching up to the sky where a gray- haired man offers her cheese in a paradisal garden. Scholars often use this so-called stairway to heaven in order to characterize early Christian martyrdom in North Africa as apocalyptic ascent (Balling 1994, Frankfurter 1998, Moss 2012) or to attribute such phenomena, however tangentially, to the renewal movement of the ‘New Prophecy’

(Butler 2006). While not disputing the presence of apocalyptic features in the martyrologies of North Africa, this reports contends that such descriptions tend to be homogenizing and imprecise. Instead, the present study further nuances the debate by analyzing the function of dream-visions in the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis and the oneirology—i.e., the study of dream interpretation—in Tertullian’s De anima.

Both documents, composed in the first fifteen years of the third century, reveal discursive

vi

practices marking boundaries around Christian identity in Roman North Africa (Rebillard

2012). Dream-visions in the Passio lend authority to the text—placing it alongside the

“examples of ancient faith” (vetera fidei exempla; 1.1)—and train martyrs to die for God in the arena. The present study argues that dream-visions in the Passio, rather than fitting a form-critical definition of apocalypse or adherence to a single group identity, illuminate some third century debates of Christians with their many identities regarding prophecy, death, and dreams.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………..ix

List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………..x

I. Introduction..……………………………………………………………………………1

II. A Sketch of the Passio’s Narrative……….…….…….…….…….…….…….………..4

III. Method in the Madness: On Narrative, Negotiation, and Charismata……….………12

IV. Dreaming Dreams and Seeing Visions as Authoritative..…………………………...21

V. The Dream-Vision as Preparation for Martyrdom………………………………...... 26

First Dream-Vision…………………………………………………………...... 29

Second and Third Dream-Visions………………………………………………..41

Fourth Dream-Vision…………………………………………………………….46

VI. Perpetua’s Fifth Dream-Vision? The Narrator’s Conclusion..…………………...... 52

VII. Conclusions.………………………………………………………………………...56

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………..59

Vita……………………………………………………………………………………….72

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Major Events in the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis……………….11

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Perpetua’s Ladder Vision from the Acrosolium of Peter and Marcelinus…….37

Figure 2: Perpetua’s Ladder Vision from Quintana de Buerba………………………….39

Figure 3: Detail of Perpetua’s Ladder Vision from Quintana de Buerba………………..41

x

I. Introduction

This paper explores two interrelated questions about the way that we read the dream-vision reports of Vibia Perpetua in the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis

(henceforth Passio), given that Perpetua spends almost half of the written account experiencing dream-visions.1 Why would the narrative of the Passio portray the divine call to martyrdom by means of sleep and trance episodes? What kind of benefit did the dream-vision report bring to the narrative over other modes of divine communication? In general, scholars of early Christianity have answered both questions by asserting that the

Passio is, in some sense, apocalyptic, an answer that I will argue stands in tension with the way that Perpetua’s dream-visions function in the overall narrative. 2 One reason that

1 Hereafter cited as the Passio. Also note that in all cases I use the Latin and Greek as presented in Thomas J. Heffernan, The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). English translations of the Passio are my own. I use the term “dream-vision” rather than “vision” and/or “dream” based on the work of John S. Hanson (“Dreams and Visions in the Graeco-Roman World and Early Christianity,” ANRW 23.2 [1980]: 1395-1427). Hanson noted that Greek texts mainly feature, “a fairly loose application of a variety of terms that can mean “dream” or “vision” or both…[demonstrating] the difficulty, if not impossibility, of distinguishing between a dream and a vision” using terminology alone (“Dreams and Visions,” 1408). 2 “Apocalyptic” in secondary literature takes on two usages: 1) as an adjective describing a broader category of literature than the literary genre of the “apocalypse” (E.g., John J. Collins, “What is Apocalyptic Literature?” in Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature [ed. John J. Collins; New York: Oxford University Press, 2014] 1- 16, esp. 6-8); and 2) to describe a worldview that there will be an imminent and catastrophic end to this world. The latter usage conflates some more classic definitions of apocalypticism with apocalyptic (e.g., Lorenzo DiTommaso, “Apocalypses and Apocalypticism in Antiquity (Part I),” CBR 5 [2007]: 235-286; and idem, “Apocalypses and Apocalypticism in Antiquity (Part II),” CBR 5 [2007]: 367-432). These two usages are helpful for understanding the purpose and function of the Passio. For an overview of scholarly trends on dreams and visions in ancient Christianity and early Judaism, consider Frances Flannery, “Dreams and Visions in Early Jewish and Early Christian Apocalypses and Apocalypticism,” in Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature (ed. John J. Collins; New York: Oxford University Press, 2014) 104-120. 1

scholars turn to the Passio is that its dream-vision reports can offer the voice of a late antique woman, the dream-vision reports being a locus classicus for her subconscious desires.3 What David Frankfurter has termed “the legacy of Jewish apocalypses in early

Christianity” tends to render the dream-vision reports as miniature adapted apocalypses.4

However, in focusing on subconscious desires of the martyrs and on apocalyptic features, this work has overlooked what the dream-vision reports do for the story of the Passio. In the pages below, I argue that the dream-vision reports prepare Perpetua to become a martyr, a role that promises her an elevated status. By plotting the narratological function of the dream-vision reports, I propose that dream-visions, preserved in ancient literature, highlight a text’s divine origin, and ascribe both legitimacy and immediacy not only to the dreams themselves but also to a text’s larger narrative arc.5 Dream-vision reports

3 Peter Dronke (Women Writers of the Middle Ages, 6-7) argue passionately that the dream-visions are genuine to the historical Vibia Perpetua, employing a psychoanalytic method. However, the historicity of the dreams are less important for the present study. Whether Perpetua dreamt the dreams or saw the vision is not the point; rather, the goal of the present study is to read the dreams as Elizabeth Clark suggests, “as literary productions before they are read as sources of social data” (History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004] 159). This point is relevant in light of the fact that Perpetua’s diary is framed within a narrative designed by later individuals. 4 David Frankfurter, “The Legacy of Jewish Apocalypses in Early Christianity: Regional Trajectories,” in The Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage in Early Christianity (ed. James C. VanderKam and William Adler; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999) 129-200. 5 Several studies have addressed how the literary trope of dreaming served as a tool of authentication in ancient sources across the Mediterranean. Bart J. Koet, Dreams and Scripture in Luke-Acts: Collected Essays (CBET 42; Leuven: Peeters, 2006); Derek S. Dodson, Reading Dreams: An Audience Critical Approach to the Dreams in the Gospel of Matthew (LNTS 397; London: T&T Clark, 2009); John B. F. Miller, Convinced that God had Called Us: Dreams, Visions, and the Perception of God’s Will in Luke-Acts (Bib.Int. 85; Boston, Mass.: Brill, 2006) 444-48. An ancillary development in scholarship, assisted by aspects of literary and cultural theory, attempts to move 2

within the Passio, I argue, not only authorize it as a holy document, but also that

Perpetua’s dream-visions in particular prepare the martyrs to die well for God in the arena.

I make my argument in six sections. The first section (II) provides an overview of the Passio’s complicated textual history and briefly summarizes the events of the narrative. The next section (III) details the literary model of negotiation which informs the present study. Another section (IV) analyzes the preface to the Passio, demonstrating that the inclusion of dreams in the narrative was used to authorize the Passio as a holy document. Assessing its so-called Montanist character, the same section shows that dream-visions lend authority to the text, placing it alongside the “examples of ancient faith” (vetera fidei exempla; 1.1). The longest section of the paper (V) covers the preparatory function of Perpetua’s series of four dream-visions which train martyrs to die for God in the arena. Then, in an examination of the narrative’s conclusion (VI), I demonstrate that Perpetua is portrayed as a commanding figure, who is characterized as

“in the Spirit” or “in ecstasy.” In a conclusion (VII), I summarize my argument that the dream-visions of Perpetua, rather than fitting a form-critical definition of apocalypse or adherence to a single group identity, illuminate some third century debates of Christians with their many identities regarding dreams, visions, and death.

beyond the “apocalyptic approach” to dream-visions to look for action—what the dreams and visions do in literary texts. 3

II. A Sketch of the Passio’s Narrative

The Passio preserves in narrative format how the local governor of Africa

Proconsularis tried, sentenced, imprisoned, and ordered the execution of Vibia Perpetua

6 and four companions in 203 CE. Many have contextualized the Passio within the religion

6 Scholars generally agree that the martyrdoms occurred during the reign of Septimius Severus: Timothy D. Barnes, “Pre-Decian Acta Martyum,” JTS 19.2 (1968): 522-23; W. H. C. Frend, “Blandina and Perpetua: Two Early Christian Heroines,” in Women in Early Christianity (ed. David M. Scholer; New York: Garland Press, 1993) 87- 97; Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (203) to Marguerite Porete (1310) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) 1; Jacqueline Amat, Passion de Perpétue et de Félicité suivi des Acts: Introduction, Texte, Critique, Traduction, Commentaire et Index (SC 417; Paris: Éditions du Cerf., 1996) 20-21; Henri LeClereq, “Perpétue et Félicité (Stes),” in Dictionnaire d’Arcbiologie Chrétienne et de Liturgie 14.1 (ed. F. Cabrol and H. LeClereq; Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1939) 421; and C. J. M. J. van Beek, Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis. Latine et Graece (Florilegium Patristicum 43; ed. B. Geyer and J. Zellinger; Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1938) 3. Ross S. Kraemer and Shira L. Lander provide a discussion on the difficulties surrounding the dating of this text (“Perpetua and Felicitas,” in The Early Christian World [2 vols.; ed. Philip F. Esler; London: Routledge, 2000] 2.1051-58 at 1051). Scholarship debates the cause for the arrest: was the arrest linked to ancient Carthaginian practices? Or did the arrest stem from disobeying the edict of Septimius Severus which forbade conversion to either Judaism or Christianity? On the transgression of an actual law by ancients, see, for instance, Thomas J. Heffernan, “Philology and Authorship in The Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis” Traditio 50 (1995): 317; Joyce Salisbury, Perpetua’s Passion: The Death and Memory of a Young Roman Woman (2nd ed.; New York: Routledge, 2013) 82; W. H. C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2008) 238-42; Brent Shaw, “The Passion of Perpetua,” Past and Present 139 (1993): 10; Marta Sordi, The Christians and the Roman Empire (trans. A. Bedini; Norman: Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986); and Paul Keresztes, Imperial Rome and the Christians, Vol. I: From Herod the Great to about 200 A.D. (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1989) esp. 111-20. Critics of this theory target the evidence of those just cited, namely the unreliability of: 1) a statement in Scriptor(es) Historia Augusta (Vita Septimii Severi, 17.1) stating that Severus prohibited conversion to Christianity; and 2) a literary reference to persecution around 202 CE in Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiae, 6.1.1). Cf. Rives’s description of Hilarianus’s idiosyncratic view of Christianity—that Christianity was an illicit cult that threatened the power structure of Rome—as a justification for his harsh punishment of Perpetua and her fellows (James B. Rives, “Piety of a Persecutor,” JECS 4 [1996]: 10, 18-19; Kraemer and Lander “Perpetua and Felicitas,” 2:1052; and 4

and politics of 3rd c. North Africa.7 Interpreters tend to focus on their favorite features of this interesting story, like specific historical parallels,8 or possible literary influences.9

What distinguishes this study, however, is its focus on the narrative function of

Perpetua’s dream-visions in the Passio.10

Geoffrey Ste. Croix, Christian Persecution, Martyrdom, and Orthodoxy (ed. Michael Whitby and Joseph Streeter; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) 105-152. 7 For a general overview of persecution in the North African church, see Éric Rebillard, “The West (2): North Africa," Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies (ed. Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David G. Hunter; New York: Oxford, 2008) esp. 309- 11. M. Porier, “Note sur la Passio sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis: Félicité, étaitelle vraiment l’esclave de Perpétue?” StPatr 10. 1 (1970): 306-9; Rudolf Freudenberger, “Probleme römischer Religionspolitik in Nordafrika nach der Passio SS. Perpetua et Felicitatis,” VC 34 (1980): 105-19; Rosa Mentzaka, “La persecution du christianisme à l’époque de Septime Sévère: Considérations juridiques sur la Passion de Perpétue et Félicité, in Églises et pouvoir politique: Actes des journées internationals d’histoire du droit d’Angers, 30 mai-1er juin 1985 (Angers: Presse de l”université, 1987) 63-82; Alvyn Pettersen, “Perpetua: Prisoner of Conscience,” VC 41 (1987): 139-53; Teresa Sardella Strutture temporali e modelli di cultura rapport tra antitradizionalismo storico e modello martiriale nella Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis,” Augustinianum 30 (1990): 259-78; James B. Rives, “The Piety of a Persecutor,” 1-25. 8 Franz Joseph Dölger, “Antike Parallelen zym leidenden Dinocrates in der Passio Perpetuae,” Antike und Christentum 2 (1930): 1-40; Franz Joseph Dölger, “Gladiatorenblut und Martyrerblut, Eine Szene de Passio Perpetuae in kultur- und religionsgeschichtlicher Bedeutung,” Bibliothek Warburg, Vorträge 1923-24 (1926): 196-214; Franz Joseph Dölger, “Der Kampf mit dem Aegypter in der Perpetua Vision: Das Martyrium als Kampf mit dem Teufel,” Antike und Christentum 3 (1932): 177-88; Jaakko Aronen, “Pythia Carthaginensis o immagini cristiane nella vision de perpetua?” in Lafrica romana VI: Atti del VI convegno di studio, Sassari 16-18 dicembre 1988 (2 vols.; ed. Attilio Mastino; Sassari: Dip. Di Storia dell’Università degli studi di Sassari, 1989) 2:643-48. 9 Renzo Petraglio, “Des influences de l’Apocalypse dans la ‘Passio Perpetuae’ 11- 13,” in L’apocalypse de Jean: Traditions exégetiques et iconographies, IIIe-XIIIe siècles, (ed. Renzo Petraglio; Geneva: Droz, 1979) 15-29; Renzo Petragilio, Lingua latina e mentalità biblica nella Passio sanctae Perpetuae: Analisi de caro, carnalis, e corpus (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1976). 10 It would be a worthwhile project to include the vision of Saturus into a longer study, but time and space prevent me from including it here. On Saturus’s vision, see Jan N. Bremmer, “The Vision of Saturus in the Passio Perpetuae,” in Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome. Studies in ancient cultural interaction in honour of Ton Hilhorst (Leiden: Brill, 5

The narratological and textual issues of the Passio remain a source of consternation for many, as they are particularly complicated.11 The account is extant in two languages, Greek and Latin. The Latin materials preserve both a longer Passio and an Acta minora. Scholarly consensus maintains the priority of the Latin Passio as the earliest version, which later generations translated and redacted. The Greek Passio not only appears to be a loose translation of the Latin Passio, but also provides greater details for the gladiatorial combat and blurs the distinction between angels and martyrs in

2003), 55-74; and Peter Habermehl, Perpetua und der Ägypter oder Bilder des Bösen in frühen afrikanischen Christentum: Ein Versuch zur Passio sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis (2nd ed.; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2004) 206-237. On dream-visions in the Passio generally, see Michael Meslin, “Vases Sacrés et Boissons d’Éternité dans les Visions des Martyrs Africains,” in Epektasis: Mélanges Patristiques Offerts au Cardinal Jean Daniélou (ed. Jacques Fontaine and Charles Kannengiesser; Paris: Beauchesne, 1972) 139-53; Louis Robert, “Une vision de Perpétue Martyre à Carthage en 203,” CRAI (1982) 227-76; Cées Mertens, “Les premiers martyrs et leur rêves dans quelques ‘Passiones’ de l’Afrique du Nord,” RHE 81 (1986): 5-46; Jacqueline Amat, “L’authenticité de songes des la Passion de Perpétue et de Félicité,” Augustinianum 29 (1989): 177-91; Franca Ela Consolino, “Sogni e visioni nell’agiografia tardoantica Modelli e variazioni sul tema,” Augustinianum 29 (1989): 237-56; R. Perratmond, “Alcune visioni nell’arte Cristiana antica: Abramo Giacobbe, Ezechiele, pastor d’Erma, Felicita e Perpetua,” Augustinianum 29 (1989): 549-63; A. P. Orbán, “The Afterlife in the Visions of the Passio SS Perpetuae et Felicitatis,” in Fructus Centensimus: Mélanges Offerts à Gerard J.M. Bartelink à l’Occasion de son Soixante-cinquième Anniversaire (ed. A. A. R. Bastiaensen, A. Hilhorst, and C. H. Kneepkens; Instrumenta Patristica 19; Steenbrugis: Abbatia S. Petri, 1989) 269-277. Elizabeth Castelli, “Visions and Voyeurism: Holy Women and the Politics of Sight in Early Christianity,” in Protocol of the Colloquy of the Center for Hermeneutical Studies, 6 December 1992 (NS 2; ed. Christopher Ocker; Berkeley: Center for Hermeneutical Studies, 1994) 1-20; Patrica Cox Miller, “Perpetua and Her Diary of Dreams,” in Dreams in Late Antiquity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994) 148-83; Christine Trevett, Montanism: Gender, Authority, and the New Prophecy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 176- 83. 11 For a recent introduction to the text of the Passio, see Jan N. Bremmer and Marco Formisano, “Perpetua’s Passions: A Brief Introduction,” in Perpetua’s Passions: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis (ed. Jan N. Bremmer and Marco Formisano; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) 1-13. 6

visionary scenes.12 The Latin Acta minora, which was more popular in the medieval period with more than sixty extant manuscripts, tends to marginalize Perpetua’s visions.13

The Latin text of the Passio will be the focus of the present study.

The narrative structure of the Passio contains three divisions. An anonymous narrator opens the Passio in two chapters (1-2), speaking of the power of the new

12 For the priority of the Latin version, see its most recent incarnation by Heffernan, The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, 79-99. It was Pio Franchi de' Cavalieri, who settled this scholarly debate (Scritti agiografici [Rome: Tipografia Vaticana, 1962] I.41-155). Most scholars concede the priority of the Latin version except for Robert, "Une vision Perpetue,” 229-76. See also Ake Fridh, Le probleme de la Passion des Saintes Perpetue et Felicite (Gothenburg: Acta Universitatis Gothenburgensis, 1968); A. A. R. Bastiaensen, "Heeft Perpetua haar dagboek in het Latijn of in het Grieks geschreven?" in De heil igenverering in de eerste twee eeuwen van het Christendom (ed. A. Hilhorst; Nijmegen: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1988) 130-35; and Jacqueline Amat, Passion de Perpetue, 51-66. While it may be later, the Greek version represents an early tradition, likely by 260 C.E., since it provides the basis of the Martyrdom of Marian and James and the Martyrdom of Montanus and Lucius. 13 Perpetua’s second and third dream-visions are eliminated from the Acta minora. Authorship was attributed to Tertullian as the final editor of the martyrdom, but Rene Braun’s work has demonstrated the argument’s main problems—see Rene Braun, Approches de Tertullien (Paris: Institut d'etudes augustiniennes, 1992) 287-99; idem, “Nouvelle observations linguistiques sur le rédacteur de la Passio perpetuae,” VC 33 (1979): 105-117. For a brief summary of debate, see Rex D. Butler, The New Prophecy and New Visions,' Evidence of Montanism (Washington: Catholic University of America, 2006) 49-52. Jacqueline Amat and Åke Fridh argue, given the martyrdom occurred in 203, that two early versions existed, one Latin and the other Greek. Additionally, two Acta contain a shortened trial and arena scene including a single third-person account of Perpetua’s vision of the bronze ladder likely dating from late fourth or the early fifth century. These two Acta supply interesting filler data: Felicitas has a husband, whom she hates, and a brother; and Perpetua’s husband appears in the narrative. For the text of these two Latin Acta, see Amat, Passion, 207-303. In both versions, Revocatus becomes Felicitas’s brother, although she was a “fellow slave” in the earlier Latin Martyrdom; the Roman judge appears more sympathetic, Perpetua more unwavering (she "throws off” her infant son), and Saturus plays a leading role, acting as a stand in for all Christians at the initial trial. While Amat does not buy P. Monceaux’s editing argument that the models of the Passio removed “Montanist” references, she acknowledges that they include written and oral elements which represents an ongoing revision of the martyrdom. 7

prophecies and new visions alongside ancient examples of faith. Perpetua is thought to have written an account of four visionary experiences “in her own hand” (2.2), totaling eight chapters of the Passio (3-10). Another visionary account said to be by Perpetua’s fellow martyr and catechist, Saturus, immediately follows in three central chapters (11-

13). 14 A narrator, who provides several interpretations and interjections regarding the visionary chapters and the martyrdom event (1-2, 3.1, 11.1-2, 14-21), inserts the chapters of the martyrs in the middle of the Passio. This literary technique is called an embedded narrative.15 After the dream-visions of Perpetua and Saturus, a so-called eyewitness account of the death scene (chaps. 14-21) completes the Passio in language not unlike the text’s introduction. The similarities in language between the two framing narratives strongly suggests that one editor finalized the Passio as a composite work.16

The following table, illustrating the embeddedness of the sections of Perpetua and

Saturus into the Passio’s overall narrative, offers a chapter by chapter summary of key events in the narrative of the Passio. The anonymous voice of a narrator simultaneously introduces and concludes the text in a literary technique known as a framing narrative.

14 Halporn identifies the embedded pieces—that of Perpetua and Saturus—from an anonymous narrator; J. W. Halporn, “Literary History and Generic Expectations in the Passio and Acta Perpetuae,” VC 45 (1991): 226. Shaw offers a helpful table outlining the structure of the Passio and its “three voices”; “Passion of Perpetua,” 21. On differences between the dream-visions of Perpetua and Saturus, see Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972) 119-123. Salisbury remarks that Saturus’s portion appears to function didactically for the community (Perpetua’s Passion, 112-115). 15 Valeria Lomanto, “Rapporti fra la Passio Perpetuae e Passiones africane,” in Forma future: Studi in onore del Cardinale Michele Pellegrino (Toronto: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1975) 566-86; Halporn, “Literary History,” 223-41; Heffernan, “Philology and Authorship”. 16 On the editing of the Passio, see note 13. 8

The embedded narratives of Perpetua and Saturus present an interpretive lens through which to understand the sections attributed to each of them.17 Within the table below, the lines in between sections separate the portions of the framing narrative (1-2, 14-21) from the embedded narratives of Perpetua (3-10) and Saturus (11-13).

Indeed, while the Passio was not the first account to narrate the Christian experience of martyrdom, it was exceptional in that large portions of it claim to be written by Perpetua’s own hand while imprisoned. Perpetua, according to the narrative, kept a “prison diary” account of her last days, which potentially offers a window through which later Christian communities could see, understand, and remember Perpetua’s passions.18 The narrative tensions within the Perpetua’s so-called prison diary and the rest of the narrative reflect tactical negotiations within early Christian communities about how to remember Perpetua. The Passio, in addition to providing information about

17 “Embedded narrative” means a “story within a story.” Framing narratives function as an interpretive window through which to examine the narratives they frame. Cf. H. Porter Abbott, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative (2nd ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) 28-30, 232. I am grateful to Jin Y. Kim who first pointed out the embeddedness of the Perpetua and Saturus narratives to me. 18 Some scholars like Heffernan question the explanatory power of describing the Passio as a diary for the prison narrative primarily on grammatical and linguistic grounds; rather, it should be called hypomnemata or commentaries or “a self-conscious journal-in-time, a genre that includes a variety of non-rhetorical writings (e.g., memoir, note diary, etc.)”; Philology and Authorship,” 320-324. The phrase “prison diary” appears in E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety: Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) 48 as well as in Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (New York; Knopf, 1987) 401. This language of prison diary is further elaborated by medieval historians; cf. Judith A. Scheffler (ed.) Wall Tappings: An International Anthology of Women’s Prison Writings, 200 to the Present (New York: Feminister Press at City University of New York, 2002) 42-47; Rita Copeland, “Violent Representations: Intellectuals and Prison Writing,” Pedagogy, Intellectuals, and Dissent in the Later Middle Ages: Lollardy and Idea of Learning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) 141-50. I find it unlikely that the historical Vibia Perpetua wrote the account. 9

Perpetua’s familial role as a mother and a daughter, describes her Christian identity in terms of prophetic activity of seeing four dream-visions.19 The manner in which the dream-visions prepare Perpetua to die well for God in the arena shall be further explored below. 20

19 Mary R. Lefkowitz, “Motivations for S. Perpetua’s Martyrdom,” JAAR 44 (1976): 417-21; Marie-Louise von Franz, Passio Perpetuae: Das Schicksal einer Frau zwischen zwei Gottesbilden (Zurich: Daimon, 1982); Marry Ann Rossi, “The Passion of Perpetua, Everywoman of Late Antiquity,” in Pagan and Christian Anxiety: A response to E. R. Dodds (ed. Robert C. Smith and John Lounibos; Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1984) 53-86; Rebecca Lyman, “Perpetua: A Christian Quest for Self,” Journal of Women and Religion 8 (1989): 26-33; Margaret R. Miles, “‘Becoming Male’: Women Martyrs and Ascetics,” in Carnal Knowing: Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian West (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989) 53-77; Mieke Bal, “Perpetual Contest,” in On Storytelling: Essays in Narratology (ed. David Jobling; Sonoma, Calif.: Polebridge Press, 1991) 227-41; Elizabeth A. Castelli, “Visions and Voyeurism,” 1-20; Edward Peter Nolan, “Vibia Perpetua Martyr and a Feminine Style of Revelation,” in Cry Out and Write: A Feminine Poetics of Revelation (New York: Continuum, 1994) 32-45; Maureen A. Tilley, “The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity,” in Searching the Scriptures, vol. 2, A Feminist Commentary (ed. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza; New York: Crossroad, 1994) 829-58; Gillian Clark, “Bodies and Blood: Late Antique Debate on Martyrdom, Virginity, and Resurrection,” in Changing Bodies, Changing Meanings: Studies on the Human Body in Antiquity (ed. Dominic Montserrat; London/New York: Routledge, 1997) 99-115; M. Eleanor Irwin, “Gender, Status, and Identity in a North African Martyrdom,” in Gli imperatori Severi, Storia, archeologia religion (ed. Enrico Dal Covolo and Giancardo Rinaldi; Rome: LAS, 1999): 251-60; Kraemer and Lander, “Perpetua and Felicitas,” 2:1048-68. 20 On Perpetua’s growing self-confidence and willingness to die in each subsequent dream-vision, see Jan N. Bremmer, “Perpetua and Her Diary: Autehnticity, Family, and Visions,” in Märtyrer und Märtyreratken (ed. Walter Ameling; Stuttgart: Steiner 2002) 77-120, esp. 95-120. 10

Table 1. Major Events in the Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis21

1 Scriptural Exordium Framing 2 Introduction of Arrested Christians Narrative 3 Perpetua’s First Argument with Father, Baptism and Imprisonment Perpetua 4 Perpetua’s First Vision: Ladder, Dragon, Saturus, and Shepherd Embedded 5 Perpetua’s Second Argument with Father Narrative 6 Trial before Hilarianus, Perpetua’s Third Argument with Father 7 Perpetua’s Second Vision: Dinocrates Suffers 8 Perpetua’s Third Vision: Refreshment of Dinocrates 9 Prison Guard Honors Christians, Perpetua’s Fourth Argument with Father 10 Perpetua’s Fourth Vision: Metamorphosis in the Amphitheater Triumph 11 Saturus’s Vision: Angels Carry Saturus and Perpetua Saturus 12 Saturus’s Vision (continued): Blessing before God’s Throne Embedded 13 Saturus’s Vision (continued): Ecclesiastical Bickering Narrative 14 Authenticity of Visions Framing 15 Felicitas’s Delivery Narrative 16 Conversion of Guard, Perpetua’s First Persuasion of Tribune 17 Eucharist, Prophesying to the Masses 18 Parade to Amphitheatre, Perpetua’s Second Persuasion of Tribune, More Prophesying 19 Male Contests with Beasts 20 Female Contests with Beasts, Perpetua’s Fifth Vision (?) 21 Saturus Honors Guard, Death of Christians, Final Exhortation

21 Table adapted from Erin Ronsse, “Rhetoric of Martyrs: Listening to Saints Perpetua and Felicitas,” JECS 14 (2006): 290. 11

III. Method in the Madness: On Narrative, Negotiation, and Charismata

Rather than handing down the actual experience of Perpetua’s dreams, the cultural artifacts of ancient Christianity offer a discursively shaped portrait of Perpetua and her dreams. The narrative within the Passio itself describes how local communities of

Christians gave meaning to Perpetua’s dreams, because the text claims that she related the dream to a Christian brother (4.10) as well as other martyrs before writing them down. Even as Perpetua’s actual dreams are beyond our grasp, we can view how some ancient Christians understood them by attending to the formal features of the narrative.22

The method employed in this study interprets how the Passio describes Perpetua’s dreams and death in terms of narrative criticism. Analyzing the formal features of the

Passio enables one to see how the text itself shapes a reader’s understanding of a story’s meaning. Such formal features include tone, setting, characters, plot, irony, narrator, and

22 Bremmer similarly notes that scholars cannot grasp Perpetua’s actual dreams, but rather how the Passio’s text describes the dream-visions. However, Bremmer still seems to think that dream-visions are just phenomena occurring in one’s head, for he writes “any interpretation, therefore, should connect the dreams to the material and mental world of Perpetua” (“Perpetua and Her Dreams,” 97). Bremmer bifurcates dreams between matter and mental, as if dream-visions only occurred in one’s head rather than going out to encounter the world. Building from the work of a very early Michel Foucault (“Dreams, Imagination, Existence: An Introduction to Ludwig Binswanger’s “Dream and Existence,” in Dream and Existence [ed. Keith Hoeler; Atlantic Highlands; N.J.: Humanities Press, 1986] 31-78), I make two notes: 1) dream experience conditions the meaning of the dream which functions within a person’s cosmology, epistemology, and social networks of people common to a given society; 2) people can interpret one another’s dreams by sharing them as portents of future events (a common way to interpret dreams in the ancient world). I view dreams as an encounter between an individual and the world, where the space between dreams and imagination are blurred. Cf. the description of “the anthropology of the imagination” by Amira Mittermaier, Dreams that Matter: Egyptian Landscapes of the Imagination (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011) 1-30. 12

point of view. In this study I attend to a short number of these features like implied author, narrator, embedded narrative, plot, and characters.

Implied author refers to the author assumed by the text. Wayne Booth in his

Rhetoric of Fiction first popularized the idea of the implied author, which since then continues to be much debated in literary circles. Booth’s original description of the implied author emphasizes the instances in which the real author differs from the vision of the author that the text creates for the reader.23 This concept is useful for analyzing the

Passio itself, for it directs an interpreter’s attention away from speculation about redaction and compositional issues, and onto the text itself.

Implied reader, counterweight of the implied author, is the reader assumed by the text. The readerly competencies and linguistic schemas assumed by the text guide the implied reader. James Resseguie insists, “The reader can interact with a text only to the extent that conventions are shared by both text and reader.”24 Such conventions are, in

Wolfgang Iser’s words, an extratextual “repertoire of familiar literary patterns and recurrent literary themes, together with allusions to familiar social and historical contexts.”25 Within the Passio, it will be shown below that the implied reader views the dream-vision report of Perpetua as a technology through which her character is prepared to die well for God.

23 For Booth, the “implied author” is a creation of the real author, a character who has “chosen” the diction, the vocabulary, the structure of a text, and who personifies the gestalt, or ethos, of the narrative (Rhetoric of Fiction [2nd ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983]). 24 James Resseguie, “Reader-Response Criticism and the Synoptic Gospels,” JAAR 52 (1984): 309. Emphasis added. 25 Wolfgang Iser, The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974) 288. 13

The narrator is the person (or persons) who tells the story. The relationship between the narrator and implied author, while related, differ in some substantial ways.

The narrator does the work of telling the story, reciting dialogue, and relating events; whereas, the implied author remains present through the style, ideology, and aesthetics of a text. The implied author can be considered as the person working behind the scene.26

The narrator in the Passio switches at various points. The story opens and closes anonymously: in the beginning the narrator expounds on the majesty of the events about to take place, and closes relating the story of the martyrdom. However, Perpetua and

Saturus also work as narrators at various points in the Passio within embedded narratives.

Embedded Narrative is a narrative contained within a frame by an overarching narrative. Embedded narratives are sometimes called a “story within a story.”27 Within the Passio, both the sections attributed to Perpetua (3-10) and Saturus (11-13) function as embedded narratives within the narrative of martyrdom of saints Perpetua and Felicitas.

Plot refers to the events which take place, including the consideration of literary devices (i.e., turning points, foreshadow, etc.). E.M. Forster argues that in order to be a proper plot, there must be a causal dimension to the events. Forster’s famous example distinguishes between “story” as a descriptive list of actions, and “plot”: “The king died

26 Mieke Bal, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (3rd ed.; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009) 15-30. 27 See notes 14 and 17 above. This theory is perhaps most famously elucidated within the discussion of framing narratives by William Nelles, Frameworks: Narrative Levels and Embedded Narratives (New York: Peter Lang, 1997). See also Mieke Bal, “Notes on Narrative Embedding,” Poetics Today 2 (1981): 41-59. 14

and then the queen died” is a story, whereas, “The king died and then the queen died of grief” is a plot.28

Characters refer to those who carry out the actions in a story. An author can achieve characterization through various literary tools, including physical description, physical action, the use of proper names, direct speech, a character’s profession, comparison with other characters (i.e. parallelism and literary foils), and overt statements of traits and attributes.29 Names even can provide characterization for ancient as well as modern interpreters.

Attending to narratological features just outlined above allows one to interrogate the ways in which the ideology of the Passio adapted and appropriated the discourse of dream-visions common to the Roman world.30 To begin imagining the reception of the

Passio in late ancient Christianity requires understanding how the local environment of

28 E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (London: Edward Arnold Publishers, 1927). 29 In 1927, E.M. Forster published Aspects of the Novel, in which he introduced his now-famous distinction between flat and round characters. Flat characters are those who do not change over the course of a narrative; they are predictable, simple, and often have only one central trait. By contrast, round characters are unpredictable, complex, and multi-dimensional. In most current studies, the designations flat and static are used synonymously, as are the terms round and dynamic. A third common category is the stock character, or functionary, one who has no personality but merely moves the plot along. Debates continue over the best way to characterize biblical characters. In ancient narrative, “one’s character (ethos) is revealed through one’s action (praxis).” Fred Burnett, “Characterization and Reader Construction of Characters in the Gospels,” Semeia 63 (1993): 11. 30 Discourse and ideology get thrown around haphazardly in scholarship. See, for instance, Terry Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction (London: Verso, 1991) 1-2. Discourse here functions as a broad category, referring to things thought and spoken about a topic in a particular setting; hence, the discourse of dream-visions in the Roman world is the focus here. In a taxonomy ideology, under the umbrella of discourse, functions as the justifying principles behind a particular discourse in the form of thoughts, deeds, and speech acts. Ideology, then, refers to the justifications within the Passio for the dreams dreamt and the visions seen. 15

Roman Carthage participated in broader Roman discourses about dreams and visions.

How do we understand the recurrent references to ecstatic moments—that is, the articulation and production of dream-visions, phantasms, spirit-filled prophecies, and moments of standing outside of oneself––in the literature from ancient Christianity?

Which ways of knowing and modes of social relationships are in negotiation throughout such a process?

The predominant model for the study of dream-visions and prophecy in ancient

Christianity generally assumes a developmental model of charismatic origins followed by a decline into institutions and routines. Scholars of early Christianity for almost a century followed the intellectual foot-steps of the great sociologist Max Weber, in no place more closely and problematically than in the study of dreams and visions.31 Weber’s model for the routinization of charisma argues that a decline in prophecy or charismata is readily transparent as institutions grow in complexity. Historians of ancient Christianity still adhere to Weber’s model for the routinization of charisma, serving as a guiding principle in David Aune’s Prophecy in Early Christianity.32

Nevertheless, serious problems exist within Weber’s model for the routinization of charisma to reconstruct the complex lives of ancient Christians. Attempts to describe

31 Max Weber, On Charismata and Institution Building: Selected Papers (ed. S. N. Eisenstadt; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968). 32 David Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983) 189. Nasrallah also cites Adolf von Harnack’s Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries (orig. 1908; trans. James Moffatt; repr. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1972, 431-486) as an example of of Weber’s influence. However, Weber published his work on the routinization of charisma in his two volume work Economy and Society (1912-1913), after Harnack’s work had been published. 16

the historical progression of Christianity from an initially charismatic movement to a routinized bureaucracy have been used in some unsettling ways to marginalize dissenting voices. In some configurations, it has been used to privilege “orthodoxy” over “heresy,” describing ancient Christian ecstasy as maddening excess in desperate need of sobriety and rationality embodied by the institutional church.33 Such a model tends to interpret ancient evidence of prophecy and visions uncritically, rather than considering the rhetorical context for polemic and debate about dreams and claims to knowledge.

Studies of early Christian oneiric techniques and their relationship to dream- visions often provide diachronic analyses and generalizing conclusions. Such grand narratives are not unlike the Irenaean model for Christianity’s development as a single, fairly uniform religion which then became more diverse and more heretical.34 The shortcomings of this approach and its presupposition of a single, originally orthodox form of Christianity are well documented.35

33 Laura S. Nasrallah has documented such usages, esp. with regard to providing fodder for Protestants to criticize and sometimes act out violence against Catholics. Cf. “‘Now I Know in Part’: Historiography and Epistemology in Early Christian Debates about Prophecy,” in Walk in the Ways of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (ed. Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre, Cynthia Kittredge, and Shelly Matthews; Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003) 244-65; and “Prophecy, the Periodization of History, and Early Christian Identity: A Case from the So-Called Montanist Controversy,” in Religious Identity in Late Antiquity, (ed. Elizabeth Digeser and Robert Frakes; Toronto: Edgar Kent, Inc., 2006) 13-35, at 23, n. 29. 34 Even Hans von Campenhausen intervened in the discussion, only to contradict himself. See statements made on p. 2 versus p. 221 regarding whether Montanism was a renewal movement (Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power in the Church of the First Three Centuries [orig. 1953; rep. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969]). 35 For criticism of this approach to history, see Laura S. Nasrallah, An Ecstasy of Folly: Prophecy and Authority in Early Christianity (HTS 52; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004) 18-19. 17

By contrast Laura Nasrallah advocates a model of struggle, based on the work of

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, in order to highlight diversity within early Christianity.36

Nasrallah, using some texts from the time of the Passio early third century North Africa

(Tertullian’s De anima and the Anti-Phrygian Source in Epiphanius’s Panarion), reconstructs early Christian debates about prophecy. Nasrallah’s model for struggle, instead of reifying a binary between the so-called proto-orthodoxy and the New

Prophecy, argues that early Christian debates about visionary experience and the taxonomies applied to such ecstatic experiences functioned as modes of political calculation between group boundaries and identities. Nasrallah documents the establishment of social and religious authority in the rhetoric of prophecy. Her model of struggle works against the notion of rational development toward a telos, as is often the case when using Weber’s routinization of charisma.

Nasrallah’s model of struggle is not without problems, particularly in the relationship between orthodoxy and heresy. Varieties of early Christianity later deemed heretical predated what would later emerge as orthodox in places like North Africa.37 In

36 In addition to Nasrallah (An Ecstasy of Folly, 20-25), see, for instance, the essays in The New Cultural History (ed. Lynn Hunt; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), particularly the elegant discussion of the mentalités in the Annales division of social and economic history (“Introduction: History, Culture, and Text,” 1-22). I, too, largely follow Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s approach to rhetoric and language. Schüssler Fiorenza argues that both fiction and rhetoric obey certain principles such that they must be intelligible to an audience. A reader must be able to recognize enough of a text and its world, if a narrative possess the power to influence a reader to think or act a certain way. Cf. Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation (New York: Continuum, 2000) esp. 149-73; and Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999) 17-30, and 83-104. 37 Other models exist for reconstructing the varieties of ancient Christianity. Walter Bauer’s work (Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity [Philadelphia: 18

other words, orthodoxy did not always precede heresy; orthodoxy resulted from the process of negotiation.

Generally a model of struggle takes two forms in scholarship: those who view the relationship between orthodoxy and heresy as a horse race (proto-orthodoxy slowly inches ahead of the others) and those who see it as a battle between two opposing forces.

In both cases Christianity, orthodoxy––however one defines it––wins and the others are the losers, and both use hindsight to essentialize aspects of proto-orthodox Christianity as a core set of Christian beliefs that cause it to triumph over the other varieties.38

Nasrallah’s model of struggle, while trying to avoid battle imagery, nevertheless employs such language with regard to claims about knowledge and the periodization of history on a more micro-level.

Such language of struggle, nevertheless, overlooks social practice and the dynamics of ritual, exchange, and patronage, all of which have the tendency to atomize early Christianity into a series of individual projects. Instead, this study focuses on other features like identity formation, hybridity, ethnicity, and rhetoric. I use the language of

“tactical negotiations” rather than “struggle” in order to eschew constructions of rigid boundaries and reifications of categories in scholarly descriptions. Thus, individuals and

Fortress, 1971]) as well as the work James M. Robinson and Helmut Koester (Trajectories Through Earliest Christianity [Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2006]) has been influential. 38 See, for instance, the work of David Brakke on the problems with these two models (The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010] 1-28, esp. 5-18). Brakke’s criticism of Bauer is also helpful (ibid., 6 and 13). 19

groups are able to position and reposition themselves within the shifting power relationships of third century North Africa.39

Using the concepts defined here, I argue that ancient debates over visionary experience and prophecy reflect far more than just ordering principles and definitions. I show that such debates reflect tactical negotiations about the nature of death and the afterlife, the establishment of social and religious authority, and what it meant to be

Christian in a text from third century North Africa. Ancient people created communal identities and group boundaries around how to interpret dream-visions and moments of ecstasy. I reframe the story of Christianity’s development in terms of narrative and tactical negotiations over ideas about prophecy rather than a progression from prophetic frenzy to an orderly christology.

39 Michel de Certeau’s work on “tactics” with some minor adaptation serves as an analytical tool to study the way dream-vision reports worked within shifting power relations of the Roman world (The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988) 91-110). I prefer the phrase “tactical negotiation” over de Certeau’s contrast between “tactics” and “strategies,” for his work too rigidly dissects how power works for the analysis of the Roman world. De Certeau distinguishes between “tactics” and “strategies” by noting they operate in this manner: “strategies are able to produce, tabulate and impose these spaces, who those operations take place, whereas tactics can only use, manipulate, and divert these spaces” (ibid., 29). Tactical negotiation as a term allows me to analyze the way historical actors position and reposition themselves within the variegated power structures. 20

IV. Dreaming Dreams and Seeing Visions as Authoritative

The prologue to the Passio asserts the divine status of this martyr act not by the shedding of the martyrs’ blood, but rather through the work of the spirit in the dreams dreamt and the visions seen. The tactical negotiations of the Passio begin with an appeal that the Holy Spirit remains active in present history. A quote from LXX Joel 3:1 paraphrased from Acts 2:17-18 bestows authority onto the text of the Passio.40 This rhetorical move seemingly argues against people who think that the spirit’s authority operated only in previous times, for the narrative reads:

But let those who sentence (iudicent) the one power of the singularly Holy Spirit to past ages of time consider this: for the newer events ought to be considered the greater ones since they are more recent, according to the holy operation of grace within the final interval of time, which has been decreed: Then in the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh and their sons and daughters will prophesy and on my servant and maidservants I will pour my Spirit, and young people (iuuenes) will see visions and the old men will dream dreams.41

An appeal to the authority of divine revelations occurs in the Passio before any evidence that the Passio is a martyr act (i.e., themes of suffering, persecution, or victory). The text reads: “Let not anyone of weak or hopeless faith suppose that divine grace was present only among the ancient ones, whether in the honor of martyrdom or the honor of visions”

(siue in martyrum siue in revelationum dignatione; 1.5).42 Thus, the prologue to the

40 The phrase “in the last days” appears only in the Acts 2:17-18, not Joel. 41 Passio 1.3-4. Italics for a biblical quotation. 42 The Passio’s prologue excludes several hallmark features of martyr acts like the mention of suffering, persecution, and victory. The prologue sets an anxious tone regarding contemporary events. While neither proclaiming the courageous acts of the characters nor the villainous acts of those who persecuted the Christians. There is no mention of martyrs, suffering, victory, or even idolatry. This point appears relevant considering the dramatic brand of rhetoric at work in the Passio. I compare these specifically with the introduction to Perpetua’s Passio because in all cases the editor(s) 21

Passio reflects a tactical negotiation between those who would emphasize that the spirit had only been active in ancient times and those who would view the spirit’s work in present history. Dreaming dreams and seeing visions, according to the prologue of the

Passio, becomes essential to interpreting the text.

To garner a greater degree of authority, the prologue of the Passio anchors itself to older texts which were already authoritative. The events described in the narrative of the Passio were too fresh in memory to be accepted widely as authoritative. The fact that the martyrs did not perish in an ancient example of inspiration seems to have been a problem for some ancient Christians. The solution, then, for a young text lacking religious authority is to connect to an older voice, already accepted as holy prophecy which in turn attests to the former’s authenticity. The prologue to the Passio, therefore, cites the passage from the Pentecost event in Acts as a seal of legitimacy. The proof-text from Joel authorizes the actions recounted in the text as divinely inspired. Similar application of Joel’s prophecy occurs as a proof text elsewhere in early Christian literature.43 The remainder of the narrative of the Passio proves that such dream-visions

offers commentary before launching into the martyr act. The Passio introduction expresses distinctly different concerns. Consider, for example, the narrative introductions to other martyr acts: The Martyrdom of Polycarp, the account of Justin and companions (see esp. Recencion C, in Musurillo, Acts of the Christian Martyrs, 55), The Martyrs of Lyons, The Martyrdom of Potamiaena and Basildes, The Martyrdom of Pionius, The Martyrdom of Saints Marian and James, The Martyrdom of Saints Montanus and Lucius, The Martyrdom of Saints Agape, Irene, and Chione at Saloniki. 43 Peter cites it as evidence for those confused at the outpouring of spiritual gifts on the day of Pentecost in the canonical Acts of the Apostles 2:17-18. Likewise, Vibia Perpetua’s contemporary, Tertullian of Carthage, employs LXX Joel 3:1 to authorize a portion of his taxonomy of dreams. Passio 1.6. Origen similarly held to the belief that martyrs could intercede on behalf of Christian communities (Exhortation to Martyrdom, 30). 22

are from God by means of prophetic fulfillment, the presence of the divine, and through themes of suffering and martyrdom.

The divine power spoken of in the prologue to the Passio claims to manifest itself not only in previous times but also in the contemporaneous age.44 One of the stated objectives for the Passio is pedagogical: to bring those “who were present” (interfuistis) during the death of the martyrs and those “now learning” (nunc cognoscitis) of the deaths into partnership “with the holy martyrs, and by means of them, with Jesus Christ.”45 The narrator speaks in the first person plural, declaring: “We, who also acknowledge and honor the new prophecies and new visions, according to the promise, and [we] regard other virtues of the Holy Spirit as intended for the instruction of the church.”46 The narrator asserts that the authority of the Holy Spirit at work in present times, revealing a tactical negotiation about how and when a spirit might work in human history.

Some scholars view the emphasis on prophecy in the prologue to the Passio as having a “distinctly Montanist tone.”47 Robinson, for instance, principally advocated the view that the editor(s) of the Passio inserted a Montanist tone to the preface as well as technical language of Montanism to the account in the amphitheater: “she was caught up in the spirit an in ecstasy.”48 Since Robinson’s important work, many scholars merely

44 The phrase “in the last days” in the Acts 2 quotation implies that Perpetua and her companions are living in the last days. The spirit which had been active at the outpouring of the spirit at the Pentecost event still works up to this very day, according to the narrator at Passio 1.4. 45Passio 1.6. 46 Passio 1.5. 47 Frankfurter, “The Legacy of Jewish Apocalypses in Early Christianity,” 137. 48 adeo in Spiritu et in extasi fuerat; Passio 20.8. J. Armitage Robinson, The Passion of S. Perpetua (3 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891) 51-52. 23

assumed the Montanist character of the Passio.49 However, Rex Butler articulately defends the view that the Passio is Montanist in character, even though many scholars remain unconvinced of his arguments.50

Tabbernee, correctly in my view, notes that it is impossible for a careful scholar to prove definitively whether Perpetua and her companions belonged to a Montanist group.51 Other scholars such as Gonzalez argue that the prologue, rather than indicating

Montanist editing and redaction, “should be properly understood as indicating an apocalyptic mindset and community.”52 I return to the apocalyptic claim for evaluation below. Nevertheless, if someone in the redaction history of the Passio adhered to the

New Prophecy, this need not mean that the martyrs themselves were Montanists.53

Rather than just describing the Passio as Montanist or apocalyptic, a more fruitful research question considers the reception of the narrative’s tactical negotiation in antiquity. Many late ancient Christians, including north African bishops, readily accepted the authority of the Passio. Augustine of Hippo used the Latin Passio and not the Acta minora in his sermons on the feast day of the martyrs. In two sermons, Augustine appears

49 See, for instance, Andrzej Wypustek, “Magic, Montanism, Perpetua, and the Severan Persecution,” VC 51 (1997): 6; and Elaine Huber, Women and the Authority of Inspiration: A Reexamination of Two Prophetic Movements from a Contemporary Feminist Perspective (Lanham: University of America Press, 1985) 47. 50 Butler, New Prophecy, 58-61. For scholars who are unconvinced of Butler’s argument, see the following reviews: Laura S. Nasrallah (JR 88 [2008]: 103-104), Carole Straw (JECS 15 [2007]: 573-74), Maureen Tilley (CHR 94 [2008]: 320-321), and David Wilhite (JRH 32 [2008]: 475-77). 51 William Tabbernee, Fake Prophecy and Polluted Sacraments: Ecclesiastical and Imperial Reactions to Montanism (SVC 84; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 64. 52 Eliezer Gonzalez, The Fate of the Dead in Early Third Century North African Christianity, (STAC 83; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014) 25. 53 Tabernee, Fake Prophecy, 64-65. 24

to assume that his audience has knowledge of events preserved only in the dream-visions of Dinocrates.54 The use of the Passio in liturgy ought to be a primary concern when one ponders the alleged Montanist origins of the text.55 Even if Montanist or apocalyptic in tone, Christian leaders in the fourth century and beyond employed the Passio itself in

Christian worship as a source of teaching and inspiration. A model of tactical negotiation attends to how late ancient Christians were able to employ the Passio in the shifting power structures of their time period.

After such a theological introduction, the text of the Passio introduces the characters involved in the story which unfolds. The narrator switches from the first person plural (ch. 1) to the third person (ch. 2). The switch in the voice alerts the implied reader that the narrative proper has begun. The arrest of the Christians appears as an asserted fact:

Arrest was made in the town of Thuburbo Minus of the younger catechumens Revocatus and Felicity, his fellow slave, and of Saturninus and Secundulus. Among them was also Vibia Perpetua, who was well born, well-educated, honorably married, and who had a father, a mother, and two brothers, one of them also a catechumen, and an infant son at her breast. She herself was about twenty- two years old.56

The text provides no further comment regarding the circumstances of the arrest or the identity of the martyrs before their arrest.57

54 Halporn, “Literary History,” 241, n. 36. 55 For later bishops who use the Passio and Acta minora in liturgy, see Augustine, Serm. 280.1, 281.1; and Quodvultdeus, De Tempore Barbarico, Caput V/6, ed. Migne, vol 40. 56 Passio 2. 57 On employing early Christian memories of persecution and martyrdom against ideas of Roman power, see Elizabeth A. Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004) 33-68. 25

V. The Dream-Vision as Preparation for Martyrdom

Having established in the previous section that receiving dream-visions is holy and authoritative, it is critical to map the way that the dreaming of dreams and the seeing of visions prepares Christians for martyrdom. The narrative of the Passio employs some common rhetorical devices to martyr acts in order to prepare Perpetua and her fellows for their deaths in the arena. Some martyr texts call readers to focus on salvation, and others describe the martyrdom scene surrounded by an audience of heavenly viewership.58 In the Passio itself, examples of the reinscribed imperial arena within the narrative consist of: Christians marching to the arena for death transforms into a march to heaven for a martyr’s crown (18.2); and death in the arena becomes a second baptism (18.3; 21.2).

Another technique common to martyrdom literature subverts Roman imperial ideology

Tabbernee recently challenged the precise location of the martyrs’ arrest, advocating for Carthage over Thuburbo Minus (“Perpetua, Montanism, and Christian Ministry in Carthage c. 203 C.E.,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 32 [2005]: 424-7). 58 God replaces the imperial governor and singing angels take the place of a jeering crowd. On the politics of seating within the arena, see Erik Gunderson, “The Ideology of the Arena,” Classical Antiquity 15.1 (1996): 123-136. Karen L. King similarly remarks, “for both the Romans and the Christians, the drama of power and truth being performed was one in which the gods/God were understood not only as (or even the) prime audience, but as actors” (“Willing to Die for God: Individualization and Instrumental Agency in Ancient Christian Martyr Literature,” in The Individual in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean [ed. Jörg Rüpke; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013] 342-386, at 371), meaning that stakes and consequences are cosmically high: “at stake in the contest is whose gods/God are truly divine and what these gods/God demand” (375). Gunderson notes that within the spectacle, “in every case the Roman spectator has affirmed for him the ideology of the might of Rome, and of Rome as the opposite of barbarity” (“The Ideology of the Arena,” 134). The description of heavenly viewers in ancient Christian literature adheres to a similar ethos of their imperial counterpart—that is, death, suffering and humiliation recast the production in order to affirm the ideology of Christianity’s power, and are no longer replaced with contrasting principles and the savagery of the ‘other’. Cf. Pass. Perp. 10; Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom 158; Martyrdom of Polycarp 9:1-2; Tertullian, De Spectactulis, 30.1-3. 26

with an anti-imperial message. Feminine victims become hardened athletes, as Perpetua does in her fourth dream-vision report.59 Other texts even portray past martyrs as prototypes for emulation, which happens to be one of the principle concerns of the

Passio’s prologue.60 While some early Christians wrote martyr acts to prepare themselves for future sufferings, the Passio also depicts Perpetua’s preparation for godly suffering by means of dream-visions.

Perpetua is characterized in and outside of dreams, that of waking and dreaming time, in order to prepare her for death in the arena. When speaking of dream-visions and dreaming in this paper, I refer to the narrative reports in which Perpetua claims to see dream-visions. Dreaming and waking in the narrative are not mutually exclusive, but mutually constitutive.61 The narrative depicts Perpetua as seeing a series of four dream- visions to prepare her for godly suffering. Even in waking time, Perpetua receives some instruction: the spirit tells her (mihi spiritus dictatuit) to ask only for perseverance (3.5) and some members of her community visit occasionally (3.7). However, most of

59 See, for instance, Zaida Maldonado Pérez, The Subversive Role of Visions in Early Christian Martyrs (Lexington, Ky.: Emeth Press, 2011), or Castelli who wrote: “By turning the chaos and meaninglessness of violence into martyrdom, one reasserts the priority and superiority of an imagined or longed-for order and a privileged and idealized system of meaning” (Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory, 34). On feminized victims becoming more virile, see 4 Macc 6:9-10; 17:13-14; Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom 1-5, 18; Eusebius, Church History, 6.1-5, 8.7. On persecutors becoming the condemned, see Passio 18.9; Martyrdom of Polycarp, 11.2; Tertullian, De Spectaculis, 30.1-7. 60 Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom 22. 61 Dream and waking are literary terms and should not be seen as claims for the historical Perpetua. Dream time therefore should not be viewed as a claim that Perpetua experienced anything like rapid-eye-movement sleep or some such phenomenon. Cf. Peter T. Struck, “Viscera and the Divine: Dreams as the Divinatory Bridge Between the Corporeal and Incorporeal,” in Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Ancient World (ed. Scott Noegel and Joel Walker; University Park, Penn.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003) 125-36. 27

Perpetua’s waking time consists of waiting with days passing indiscriminately, even as the narrative concerns itself with other events (3.4-5; 4.2; 5.1; 6.1; 7.1; 9.1; 10.1).

Meanwhile, through the medium of dream-visions, Perpetua receives the most explicit training for imminent tribulation.

In the following subsections, I address the dream-vision reports sequentially: the oracular component of the first dream-vision, the reciprocal relationship between waking and dreaming time as exhibited by the second and third dream-visions, and how the fourth dream-vision prepares Perpetua for the battle of the arena. I treat the second and third dream-visions in the same section because they concern the same subject of

Perpetua’s deceased brother, Dinocrates. My discussion in each subsection principally employs narrative analysis, but I conclude some discussions exploring how some ancient

Christians dealt with problems within the narrative of the Passio. I demonstrate that ancient Christian debates about the narrative tensions in the Passio reveal tactical negotiations of late ancient Christian communities remembering Perpetua and her companions. I argue, over the course of Perpetua’s four dream-visions, the narrative of the Passio reflects tactical negotiations about Perpetua’s identity as a Christian and martyr.62

62 Treating the dreams sequentially important. The narrative events of the Passio occur in a specific order and build off one another. Contra Habermehl (Perpetua und der Ägypter, 74-115) who analyzes the dreams out of order, preferring Perpetua’s fourth dream-vision. Bremmer makes a similar point about reading the dream-vision reports sequentially (“Perpetua and Her Diary,” 95-120). 28

First Dream-Vision

Perpetua’s first dream-vision demonstrates the interconnectedness of death, dreams, and prophecy in the Passio. The narrative presents a brother, most likely a term for a male Christian rather than a blood relation, asking Perpetua to request a dream- vision (visio—a technical term for a prophetic dream) to learn their fate: will they be set free or die in the arena?63 Perpetua obliged her brother, knowing that she could “converse with the Lord” (fabulari cum Domino), and saw a dream-vision confirming their impending deaths: a huge serpent lying underneath a bronze ladder flanked with weapons stretching up to the sky (caelum), where a grey-haired man offered her cheese in a paradisal garden.64 Perpetua eats the cheese and awakens with the taste of something

63 Scholars describe the technical language for dream-visions in the Passio differently: Miller claims claims that what Perpetua called a visio is “a technical oneirological term designating a prophetic dream” (Dreams in Late Antiquity, 151); whereas, Joyce Salisbury calls them “visionary dreams” (Perpetua’s Passion, 92). However, both authors overly rely on the work of Dodds on Greek-technical terms for dreams (The Greeks and the Irrational [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1951] 105)—that is, Miller equates Artemidorus’s Greek terms (ὅραµα) with Latin ones (visio; Patricia Cox Miller, “‘A Dubious Twilight’: Reflections on Dreams in Patristic Literature,” CH 55 [1986]: 158). However, Artemidorus mentions ὅραµα only once, and the Passio’s Greek version only mentions ὅραµα, not other Greek terms for dreams like χρηµατισµός, ὄνειρος, φαντάσµατα, and ἐνύπνιον. What is more, the Greek and Latin versions of the Passio only use the terms ὅραµα and visio in reference to things which are viewed supernaturally, stressing the visual element. Hence, I use the term “dream-vision” to describe the visionary features of the Passio. 64 Miller astutely remarks on the verb fabulari: “The figurative quality of Perpetua’s vision is also conveyed implicitly by the word she uses to characterize her speaking. Fabulari, from fabulor, “to converse or “chat,” not only suggests that dreaming is a linguistic event, a kind of discourse; it also suggests that the dream is a particular kind of discourse, one associated with imaginative story-telling, with a “fabled” or poeticitized perspective. Again like Tertullian, who thought of dreams as parables, Perpetua’s language implies an understanding of dreams as imaginal events” (Dreams in Late Antiquity, 151). Peter Habermehl, importantly, documented the manner in which the phrase fabulari means to have everyday conversations with someone; for instance, the 29

sweet still in her mouth (4.10). Other features of the dream, particularly Perpetua treading on the head of the snake as she ascends the ladder, appear elsewhere in the

Passio (10.11; 18.7) to authenticate the prophetic aspect of the dream. Thus, Perpetua received a prophetic dream in order to prepare her for death, but she also remembers sensory elements of the dream-vision, particularly the sweet taste of the cheese in waking space.65

Indeed, much ink has been spilt on the symbolic, allegorical, or spiritual meaning of the ladder and the dragon. The reconstructions offered often depend on the interests and commitments of the scholar. The ladder, for instance, could refer to the biblical ladder of Jacob for theologians (Gen 28 vis-à-vis John 1:51), phallic symbols for psychoanalysts, or evidence of Perpetua’s status as a recent convert to ancient

Christianity for social historians.66 The ladder, I argue, functions as a symbol to pass between one world and another, and it possibly foreshadows the tribunal where Perpetua

speeches of Aelius Aristides employs such language in Or. 50.54 (Perpetua und der Ägypter, 77, n. 14). 65 In addition to the prophetic qualities of this dream-vision, Robert Wiśniewski argues that the practice of dream incubation for late ancient Christians began with martyrdom literature (Robert Wiśniewski, “Looking for Dreams, Talking with Martyrs: Internal Roots of Christian Incubation,” Studia Patristica 63 [2013]: 203-208). Others have noted the incubatory aspect of this dream-vision; for examples, see: Kelly Bulkeley, Dreaming in the World’s Religions: A Comparative History (New York: New York University Press, 2008) 173; and Candida R. Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom: Diverse Theologies, Practices, and Traditions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012) 134-35. On the presence of dream incubation in North Africa, see Gil H. Renberg, “Was Incubation Practiced in the Latin West?” ARG 8 (2006): 138-40. For some literary references to Asclepieia in Roman North Africa, see Aelian, On Animals, 16.39 for Alexandria; and Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.26.1 for Balagrai Village in Kyrenaia in Libya. 66 For an excellent overview of scholarly reconstructions, see Miller, Dreams in Late Antiquity, esp. 154-58. 30

and her companions are condemned. The image of the ladder is powerful and potentially influenced later representations.67 Furthermore, as many scholars have commented on this dream from many different perspectives, one could easily get distracted by the intertextual echoes from Genesis to Revelation or the rich symbolism used therein.68

While not questioning the utility of such approaches here, I contend that for our purposes it is more valuable to examine the dream elements as to how they function, rather than what they might represent, in preparing Perpetua and her companions to die for God. We shall focus on the techniques by which the Passio prepares the individual to die for God as well as for later Christian communities to celebrate such personalities.

Switching from an unidentified narrator to the authoritative voice of Perpetua’s first person narration, the first dream-vision recounts in dreaming time Perpetua’s liberation from constrained existence in waking time. The dream-vision consists of a bronze ladder flanked with instruments of death stretching to the heavens. Other characters populate Perpetua’s dream-vision: a large serpent lies beneath the ladder

(draco cubans mirae magnitidinis); Saturus, who played a role in Perpetua becoming a

67 Walter Cahn, “Ascending to and Descending from Heaven: Ladder Themes in Early Medieval Art,” in Santi e demoni nell’ alto medioevo occidentale (secoli V-XI) (ed. Ch. Pietri; Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1989) 697-724 (with pl. I-XVI), esp. 713-16. 68 The imagery incorporated into this dream-vision conflates diverse traditions from the Hebrew Bible (Gen 3:5, 28:12) and ancient Christianity (Matt 7:13; Rev 12:3) in order to express what it meant to be Christian in a North African idiom: martyrs go to heaven by climbing a perilous ladder. Yet, this is not entirely “apocalyptic ascent” or an “ascent of the soul.” Perpetua functions as a mediary on an axis between the earthly and heavenly realms: she as a human relates horizontally to other people; and, as a seer, she relates vertically to the heavenly realms. On different interpretation, see for example, Miller, Dreams in Late Antiquity, 155-158; and Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages, 7-10. 31

Christian, already ascending the ladder; at the top of the ladder in heaven (caelum), an old man milks a sheep surrounded by many thousands of thousands. One gets to heaven

(caelum) and its luscious garden (horti) by means of the tortuous ladder. The metal instruments of punishment commonly associated with suffering and death here link to the possibility of reaching a heavenly plane. Besides Perpetua herself, two classes of actors populate the dream-vision: that of invitation (Saturus and the old man), and that of opposition (the huge snake and the instruments of punishment). The oppositional elements threaten Perpetua away from the ladder, its metal weapons, and heavenly repose; whereas, the inviting figures of Saturus and the old man call her into the heavenly realm.69

Perpetua not only ascends the ladder by means of a verbal invocation (non me nocebit, in nomine Iesu Christu; 4.6), but she later also dominates an oppositional figure, the serpent, by stomping on its head. She dramatically avoids the metal instruments, when she climbs the ladder (et ascendi; 4.7). In this dreamscape the weapons, while present, are ineffective, merely threatening the careless. Perpetua acts as if they are not present. The vision ends with Perpetua partaking of the cheese offered by the old man.70

69 Each of the Passio’s dream-visions are fundamentally different from Polycarp’s vision in Mart. Poly. Perpetua has a degree of agency, whereas Polycarp’s dream-vision appears as though he is incapable of making decisions. Polycarp only has the option of being consumed by fire, like the pillow (προσκεφάλαιον αὐτοῦ πορὸς κατακαιόµενον; 5.2). Perpetua, by contrast, has a choice to make: ascend the ladder or flee. 70 Perpetua, partaking of a handful of cheese (caseo) in the oneiric landscape at the end of the first dream-vision, has contributed to the notion that Perpetua and her companions were adherents of the New Prophecy. Musurillo translates caseo as “milk,” tying it to the Latin mulgebat and to Tertullian’s treatment of drinking milk after baptism; cf. Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, 113, fn. 8. I, however, side with Heffernan who argues that it is cheese (“The Passion of Perpetua,” 182-83). The 32

As she remembers the taste of cheese when she awakens from the first dream- vision, the reciprocal relationship between dreaming and waking time emerges. Perpetua partakes of a handful of cheese (caseo) in the dream-vision. Meanwhile, the narrative reports her awakening: “And at the sound of the voice, I woke up, still chewing something sweet I know not what” (commanducans adhuc dulce nescio quid; 4.10).

Perpetua remembers in her body the taste of the cheese; thus, the two worlds collide through Perpetua’s bodily senses as the line between dreaming and waking blurs.

Perpetua, in the narrative of the Passio, tastes food so affective that it can permeate her inner being. The end of Perpetua’s first dream-vision reveals that dreaming and waking have a reciprocal relationship affecting one another, speaking to the efficacy of

Perpetua’s dreams as a medium to prepare her and companions to die for God. The final sentence of chapter four further confirms how actions taken in dreaming time affect waking time. When Perpetua awakes, she realizes that she and her companion shall die, exclaiming: “And we know we would have to suffer, and we ceased to have any hope in this world” (4.10). Perpetua’s first dream-vision prophetically confirms Perpetua’s fate in waking time, and narrates in dreaming time a liberation that will hopefully be the case in waking time.

Scholars often use Perpetua’s so-called stairway to heaven in order to characterize early Christian martyrdom in North Africa as apocalyptic ascent or to attribute such consumption of cheese with “joined hands” (iunctis manibus) intimates a connection to eucharistic practices of Montanists, according to later Christian heresiologists like Epiphanius of Salamis (Panarion/Adversus 49.1.1). For a discussion on the connection of consuming cheese and Montanism, see Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom, 129, n. 40; and Butler, New Prophecy, 94-95. However, retrojections from later herisiologists onto the Passio remain speculative at best. 33

prophetic utterances, however tangentially, to the renewal movement of the New

Prophecy.71 The argument that the Passio is apocalyptic grew out of a renewed interest in apocalyptic groups and writings.72 One of the more recent and robust defenses of the apocalyptic ascent argument can be seen in Candida Moss’s work. In a discussion of the intertwining of Jewish apocalyptic literature and martyrdom, Moss makes the following comments:

As a text with a highly eschatological perspective containing visions of the afterlife and imagery of satanic interference in the world, the Passio shares many of the literary elements of this genre [apocalypses]. It is a text set under the awning of persecution that describes the heavens and the afterlife and deals with contrasting notion of judgment. The Christians of the Passio are removed from earthly affairs altogether. Perhaps a more productive question would be “How do the apocalyptic elements in the Passio function for the community utilizing the text?”73

Perpetua’s first dream-vision functions as the prime evidence to Moss’s argument for heavenly ascent in North Africa. Moss cites not only Perpetua’s four dream-visions which deal with eschatological and afterlife themes, but also Saturus’s vision displaying ecclesiastical bickering at the gates of heaven as evidence for the Passio being apocalyptic ascent. The presence of the dream-visions in the Passio, then, makes it apocalyptic.

71 On the link between apocalypticism and martyrdom, see Jakob Balling, “Martyrdom as Apocalypse,” in In the Last Days: On Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic and Its Period (ed. Knud Jeppesen, Kirsten Nielsen, and Brent Rosendal; Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1994) 41-48; Frankfurter, “Regional Trajectories,” 129-200; Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom, 122-44; and Eliezer Gonzalez, “The Passion of Perpetua as an Adapted Apocalypse,” Plura 4.1 (2013): 34-61. On Montanism and its relationship to the Passio, see Butler, New Prophecy; Christoph Markschies, “The ‘Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis’ and Montanism?” in Perpetua’s Passions, 277-90. 72 Habermehl, Perpetua und der Ägypter, 80-85. Petraglio, “Des influences de l’Apocalypse,” 15-29. 73 Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom, 134. 34

Moss in a footnote cites the two classic Semeia volumes where John Collins and others define apocalypse as a literary genre, and another group of scholars classify the early Christian apocalypses. Yet, Moss does not mention the fact that the Passio is not classified as an apocalypse, since “it is primarily an account of the behavior of a group of martyrs during their imprisonment, interrogation and execution.”74 Aune in a discussion of the apocalyptic genre clarifies that apocalypses can circulate as independent texts or as a derivative part of a host genre.75 What is more, only one of the dream-visions in the

Passio, that of Saturus, may fit some of the parameters of the work of the Apocalypse

Group. Nevertheless, Moss and other scholars employ Perpetua’s first dream-vision as an opportunity to inaugurate a discussion of apocalyptic ascent in North Africa. Such descriptions tend to be homogenizing and imprecise. Social historians working on the

Passio require an alternative model.

A model of tactical negotiation notes the mere presence of visionary accounts with satanic and angelic forces during a time of empire wide persecution does not in and of themselves classify the Passio as apocalyptic. The rhetorical context from which this narrative emerged demands attention. Therefore, I raise the question: how did some late ancient Christians remember Perpetua’s first dream-vision? Is there anything Montanist or apocalyptic regarding their uses of Perpetua’s first dream-vision?

74 Adela Yarbro Collins, “Introduction,” Semeia 36. Early Christian Apocalypticism: Genre and Social Setting (ed. Adela Yarbro Collins; Atlanta: SBL, 1986) 7. 75 David E. Aune (“The Apocalypose of John and the Problem of Genre,” Semeia 36 [1986]: 65-96) originally raises the point at 74, n. 4 and 80. 35

Two visual representations of this dream-vision attest to its cultural influence within early Christianity. The vision of a climbing ladder to attain something transcendent occurs cross-culturally from Jacob’s ladder to Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to

Heaven.”76 Nevertheless, visual representations of Perpetua ascending the ladder in her first dream persist in the minds of early Christians as the image appears in a fresco in the fourth-century catacombs of Saints Marcus and Marcellianus at Rome and in a fifth- century provincial sarcophagus in Spain.77

The earliest known visual representation of Perpetua’s first dream, a mural situated within a lunette (fig. 1) in the arcosolium of Marcus and Marcelinus in the

Domitilla catacomb, closely links her memory to her role as a prophet, a seer.78

Unfortunately the painting is in bad condition, but a large medallion in the center remains

76 On the cross-cultural presence of the ladder topos, see Fritz Graf, "The Bridge and the Ladder: Narrow Passages in Late Antique Religions," in Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions (ed. Ra'anan Boustan and Annette Yoshiko Reed; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 19-33. 77 The fresco in the catacomb shows "a man climbing a ladder beneath which appears a threatening dragon or serpent," one of the "two eponymous martyrs." (Johannes Quasten, Byzantion 15 (1940-41): 4-5; quoted in Stephen B. Luce, “Archaeological news and Disccussions: Early Christian and Byzantine,” AJA 47 (1943): 120; A. Amore, "Note di topomastica cimiteriali romana," Riv. Arch. Crist. 32 [1956]: 59-87). Contra Rossi, there are only two visual representations of Perpetua’s first dream. In her desire to provide background information for the Severan persecution, Rossi incorrectly identifies several images from the Via Latina catacomb as representing scene from the Passio. The Via Latina catacomb image, which Rossi cites, depicts scenes from the book of Daniel, not the Passio (“The Passion of Perpetua,” 73-74). 78 Guiseppe Wilpert, Le pitture delle catacombe romane (Descléee: Lefebvre, 1903) 1.c., Plate 152; 446, fig. 43. The figure that I supply in the appendix is Helmut Schlunk’s reconstruction, on which he comments: “For our sketch, fig. 7, which we made because of Wilpert's colourplate, but which presents the whole lunette as it appears in Wilpert's reconstructive drawing (Fig. 43), we depicted only the actual remaining paintwork and didn't include that which Wilpert arbitrarily added” (“Zu den frühchristlichen Sarkophagen aus der Burebe (Prov. Burgos),” Madriger Mitteilungen 6 [1965]: 158, n. 37). It is my own translation of the German. 36

visible. Wilpert completed and reconstructed the medallion as a bust of Christ, dividing the lunette into three parts. Unfortunately the left-hand side only survives, where we find the visual representation of Perpetua’s first dream-vision. There is a ladder, depicted at an angle and leaning on the picture edge, but without indication of the instruments that should impede the ascent.79 Indeed, the mural in this Roman catacomb depicts Perpetua’s first dream-vision, closely linking Perpetua to function as a visionary.

FIGURE 1: Perpetua’s Ladder Vision from the Acrosolium of Peter and Marcelinus

Location: Domitilla Catacombs in Rome, Acrosolium of St. Peter and St. Marcelinus Description: Focus on the left hand negative space of the lunette. Perpetua ascends the ladder to the heavens, while treading on the head of a serpent below the ladder. Source: Guiseppe Wilpert, Le pitture delle catacombe romane (Descléee: Lefebvre, 1903) 1.c., Plate 152; 446, fig. 43

79 Under the ladder is a snake and next to it a large but unclear figure, which Wilpert described as a man and spikes on the far left, reaching to the top of the picture. In a reconstruction of the picture Wilpert not only compared the composition with the figure of Christ but also with a second scene, remaining to the right of the medallion, but on the left of the whole of the part concerned, in which he repeats the picture of the ladder, snake and the figure in reverse. 37

As the mural from Domitilla catacomb depicts Perpetua’s first vision, so does a sarcophagus in Quintana de Bureba Spain possibly from the late fourth/early fifth centuries (figs. 2 & 3).80 While badly preserved, it too depicts Perpetua’s first vision of

Saturus and the ladder. The sarcophagus’s size is 1.8 x 0.65 x 0.5 meters. One side depicts scenes from biblical literature: (from left to right) Moses receiving the law; the

Good Shepherd, who is Jesus standing on a plinth; and Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. The other side, which is more pressing for our interests, depicts: Perpetua with Saturus to the right of the ladder; and to the viewer’s right God the father or Christ sits enthroned in glory. Unfortunately, the figures to the viewer’s left of Perpetua are unidentifiable, although it is likely that they represent saints. So, we can definitively identify the central figures on the sarcophagus as references to Perpetua’s first dream pictured alongside biblical literature.

80 Schlunk comments that the earliest possible date is the mid-fourth century based on the forming of the chi-rho (“Zu den frühchristlichen,” 165). Cf. Jaques Fontaine, “Quatre ans d’archéologie hispanique à L’Institute Archéologique Allemand de Madrid,” Bulletin Hispanique 69 (1967): 548-60. Unfortunately, the sarcophagus was not recovered in situ, which makes it next to impossible to determine whose coffin it served as. 38

FIGURE 2: Perpetua’s Ladder Vision from Quintana de Buerba

Location: Quintana de Bureba. Front and Back of Sarcophagus in Burgos Museum. Description: 1:10 ratio. The lower image depicts scenes from biblical literature: (from left to right) Moses receiving the law; the Good Shepherd, who is Jesus standing on a plinth; and Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. The other image on top, which is more pressing for our interests, depicts: Perpetua with Saturus to the right of the ladder; and to the viewer’s right God the father or Christ sits enthroned in glory. Source: Guiseppe Wilpert, Le pitture delle catacombe romane (Descléee: Lefebvre, 1903).

The model of tactical negotiation in the two visual representations of Perpetua’s first dream-vision far from being apocalyptic testifies further to the claim that Perpetua, in addition to being a martyr, is remembered in early Christianity for the dream-visions she received. The fact that the earliest known artistic depictions of the scene occur outside of North Africa in the city of Rome and in Spain is of some consequence for two

39

reasons. First, Perpetua was a popular figure acclaimed not only for her death, but also the visions she received. The visual materials do not represent Perpetua as apocalyptic, but rather as a dreamer of dreams and seer of visions. Second, the presence of this image at sepulchral settings in both the Domitilla catacomb of Rome and a Spanish sarcophagus provide ancient Christians powerful grounds for remembering Perpetua as a visionary who received dream-visions and negotiated death. It demonstrates that Perpetua’s dream- visions helped prepare other late ancient Christians, not just Perpetua and her companions, to grapple with the reality of death. This tactical negotiation between life and death, between dreaming and waking underscores the cultural memory of Perpetua as a dreamer of dreams. Thus, Perpetua is not an apocalyptic seer of the world’s end, but rather a prophetic visionary whose visions helped her and other late ancient Christians to negotiate life and death.

40

FIGURE 3: Detail Shot Perpetua’s Ladder Vision from Quintana de Buerba

Location: Quintana de Bureba. Description: Perpetua stands to the left of the ladder, Saturus to the right on a plinth. The large snake rests underneath the ladder with its instruments of punishment. Source: Pedro de Palol, Paleochristian Art in Spain (New York: Tudor, 1969).

Second and Third Dream-Visions

The healing of Dinocrates in the second and third dream-visions illumines how

Perpetua’s prayers bridge the porous line separating not just dreaming and waking, but also life and the afterlife. The ideology of the text concerns itself with the question of about the future and whether it can be divined. Thus, the dream-visions of Dinocrates reflect a tactical negotiation of ancient Christians concerning life, death, and the afterlife.

41

Perpetua, after two chapters in conversation with her father (5) and with questions from the Roman magistrate (6), exclaims the name of her deceased brother, Dinocrates, at a communal prayer in the middle of the day. The sudden jolt of inspiration leads Perpetua to pray on behalf of Dinocrates. Perpetua on that very night (ipsa nocte) receives her second dream-vision, where Dinocrates appears pale, wounded, and thirsty. Perpetua continues to pray for him in the midst of the dream (7.6), and for days after the second vision’s completion while Romans transferred the group of Christians to a military garrison (7.9-10). Dinocrates in the third dream-vision appears refreshed and able to quench his thirst by reaching a pool of water. Perpetua’s petitionary prayers for her dead brother prove so effective that they can effect change in and outside of dreams as well as reach into the afterlife. In other words, Perpetua’s second and third dream-visions in the narrative negotiate not just waking and dreaming realities, but even life and death.

Dinocrates, Perpetua’s deceased brother, experiences a transformation in between the second and third dream-visions. Perpetua in her second dream-vision sees a thirsty

Dinocrates with a wound on his face proceeding out of a crowded, dark place. A large gulf separates them. The narrative reads:

Moreover, where Dinocrates was, there was a basin full of water with a rim which was higher than the boy’s height. And Dinocrates stretched himself up, trying to get a drink. I was saddened because, even though the basin had water in it, he was never going to be able to drink from it on account of its rim being so high up. Then I woke up, and I realized that my brother was suffering. But I was confident that I could help him in his difficulty. So I prayed for him every day until we were transferred to the garrison military. For we were to fight in the military games on the birthday of Geta Caesar. I prayed for him day and night, groaning and weeping so that this gift might be given to me. (7).

42

Perpetua prays on behalf of Dinocrates during and well beyond the completion of the dream-vision. On the next day in the garrison prison, the intercession for Dinocrates proves successful when Perpetua receives another dream-vision about him. However, in contrast to the thirsty and sickly looking boy of her second dream-vision, the third dream- vision presents Dinocrates as refreshed and clean, with no sign of the facial wound but a scar. Dinocrates, in the third dream-vision, is able to reach the pool’s rim which was inaccessible to him. The narrative continues: “Dinocrates began to drink from it, but the goblet never ran out of water. Once he had quenched his thirst, he began playing in the water the way the little children do, gleefully. Then I woke up, and I knew that he was freed from his suffering” (8).

The content of the second and third dream-visions are linked. Dinocrates remains the subject of both dreams: first as an object of weakness and suffering; but later, as a result of Perpetua’s petition, he appears as peaceful and more able to access the water basin. In other words, the third dream-vision offers peace and rest as a sequel—that is, a response—to the theme of suffering in the second one. The language employed in both dream-visions underscores their interconnectedness. The introduction and conclusion to the second and third dream-visions, unlike the fourth, follow the same pattern. The vision begins with “this was shown to me” (ostensum esi mihi hoc; 7.3 and 8.1) and closes with the phrase “I awakened” (experta sum; 7.9 and 8.4).

43

A narrative gap leaves open the question of whether the dream-visions arose spontaneously, or if they were actively sought out.81 Uncertainty surrounds their status and occurrence. While the first dream-vision has a distinct feel of dream incubation, the second one appears to have happened spontaneously. A voice is said to have come to

Perpetua with the name of Dinocrates. The second dream-vision is explicitly set at night

(ipsa nocte; 7.3). The third one may have occurred at any time, as the narrative presents

Perpetua praying “for him day and night, groaning and weeping so that this gift might be given to me” (7.10). But the third dream-vision demonstrates the efficacy of Perpetua’s petitionary prayers: she sees a dream-vision confirming that Dinocrates experienced relief, as a result of her prayers in waking and dreaming time.82

The second and third dream-visions, similarly to the first, demonstrate the reciprocal relationship between waking and dreaming time with one affecting the other.83

81 A narrative gap refers to a void of information that invites readers to fill it in (Abbott, The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, 234). The Latin Acta minora do not contain dream-visions two and three. No clear and concise explanation exists; explanations are typically arguments from silence. Cf. Petr Kitzler, “Passio Perpetuae and Acta Perpetuae: Between Tradition and Innovation” Listy filologické 130 (2007): 15-16; Halporn “Literary History,” 226-235; and Jan Bremmer: “Het martelaarschap van Perpetua en Felicitas,” Hermeneus 78 (2006): 128-37; and idem, “Felicitas: The Martyrdom of a Young African Woman,” in Perpetua’s Passions, 36-53. 82 The dream-vision report bear striking similarities to some experiences detailed by the classic work of Ann Taves, Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999) 119-250; similarly Wypustek comments on the peculiarity of this dream- vision (“Magic, Montanism,” 282). 83 Although some differences exist between the first one on the one hand and the second and third on the other hand, I argue that all three dream-visions prepare Perpetua to die for God. Contra Hunink (“‘With the Taste of Something Sweet in my Mouth’: Perpetua’s Visions,” in Dreams as Divine Communication in Christianity: from Hermas to Aquinas (Studies in the History and Anthropology of Religion 3; Peeters: Leuven, 2012) 77-91 at 84-85), there is not a pronounced difference in Perpetua’s attitude toward 44

In the midst of a communal prayer (dum universi oramus), Perpetua appears to fall in a trance-like state in a sudden moment of inspiration: “suddenly…a voice came to me

(profescta est mihi vox) and I called out ‘Dinocrates’” (7.1). Perpetua interprets this as an occasion to pray for her deceased brother, and does. The second dream-vision begins with Perpetua seeing an image of her dead brother attempting ineffectually to reach water from a well out of his reach (7.4-8). Back in waking time, Perpetua interprets the meaning of her own dream: “I became aware that my brother was in distress; but I was confident that I could help his suffering” (7.9) The third dream-vision proceeds from

Perpetua spending days and nights (die et nocte) praying intensely (gemens et lacrimans) for her brother Dinocrates. While dirty and ragged in the second, Dinocrates now in

Perpetua’s third dream-vision becomes clean and washed. A scar appears over a wound on his face. The pool, which was once too tall for him, now lowers to meet the needs of

Dinocrates’s height. Perpetua, as Dinocrates starts to play, comes to know, “he had been cured from his sufferings” (8.4). Actions in waking time bear witness to changes in dreaming time; similarly the actions of Perpetua in dreaming time prepare her and her companions to die for God in waking time.

Some unclear points persist in the narrative gaps of the second and third dream- visions. From which malady did Dinocrates suffer? Did he die prior to baptism and does

Perpetua’s dream-vision somehow confer baptism on him? Augustine, for instance,

her family. For more on Perpetua and her family, see Candida R. Moss, “Blood Ties: Martyrdom, Motherhood, and the Family in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity,” in Women and Gender in Ancient Religions: Interdisciplinary Approaches (ed. Stephen P. Ahearne-Kroll, James A. Kelhoffer, and Paul A. Holloway; WUNT 263; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012) 183-202. 45

opined that Dinocrates committed a grievous sin after his baptism and that Perpetua’s vision in some fashion bestowed forgiveness on him.84 While the precise manner of the spiritual malady of Dinocrates is unclear, Perpetua in the narrative of the Passio at least seems to comprehend the nature and significance of the problem, and her prayers are so potent that they can fix it.

Fourth Dream-Vision

Perpetua’s fourth and final dream-vision redefines death as a victory over antagonistic forces, recasting the spectacular battle in the arena (19-20). The fourth dream-vision, like the first, further prepares Perpetua and her companions for martyrdom by going into certain detail to list the features of their future afflictions. Perpetua does battle with the devil in the form of an Egyptian. The stakes of the battle emerge: if

Perpetua defeats the Egyptian/devil, she will receive a bough of golden apples (ramum uiridem in quo errant mala aurea); conversely, if the Egyptian/devil wins, Perpetua dies.85 The narrative of the dream-vision effectively redraws the values and boundaries of death itself. The text tactically negotiates the themes of victory and loss as well as life and death: death capitulates to the devil in loss; life perseveres through bodily death in victory.

84 De origine animae 1.23. Cf. Musurillo, Acts of the Christian Martyrs, 115, n. 11. 85 Dronke appeals to Roman sources in order to cast light on what might have occurred in Perpetua’s mind to cobble together the elements of the dream-visions. Here, Dronke equates the golden appeals to “the immoral apples of Hesperides” (Women Writers of the Middle Ages, 14). 46

The Passio employs the two words, visio and horma, interchangeably to describe the Perpetua’s dream-visions, even though they words are different. An unusual Greek loanword into Latin (horama), signifying the dream’s predictive and significant qualities, inaugurates the dream-vision sequence.86 The first three dream-visions all involve the

Latin noun visio, which we noted above was a technical term for a prophetic dream; whereas, the fourth one employs a Greek loanword into the Latin: “I saw the following vision” (video in horomate hoc; 10.1). Ancient dream theorists like Artemidorus and

Macrobius posit that horama/visio refer to the “prophetic vision” of what will soon take place.87 The prophetic component of Perpetua’s dreams references how the dreams prepare her and her companions for death in the arena.

In her vision, Perpetua views a cosmic battle between her and the devil.

Pomponius the deacon, rather than a Roman, leads Perpetua to the arena from the prison, offering comfort and solidarity: “here I am with you and I co-labor with you” (hic sum tecum et conlaboro tecum; 10.4). A gigantic crowd surrounds the arena. Her opponent, not one of the beasts as she might have expected, appears as a terrifying Egyptian.

Attractive assistants arrive to assist Perpetua. Next an intriguing passage occurs:

Then I was stripped naked, and I became a man. And my assistants started rubbing me down with oil the way they do for a match. Over there I see him – the Egyptian – rolling in the dust. Next a man came out, huge, towering over the top of the amphitheater. He was wearing a loose robe, a purple garment framed by two stripes in the middle of the chest, and elaborate sandals made of gold and silver. He was holding a staff like a gladiatorial trainer, as well as a green branch

86 LSJ, s.v., ὅραµα. Cf. Heffernan, The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, 254-255. 87 Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, 1.2; Macrobius, Comm. in Somn. Scip. 3.2, 9. The fourth dream-vision does not contain any references to the time of day or night. The closing statement “then I awoke” (et experta sum; 10.13) in and of itself indicates no specific time, even if it appears obliquely to reference a nocturnal vision. 47

on which there were golden apples. He asked for silence and then said: If the Egyptian beats her, he will kill her with a sword. If she beats him, she will be given this branch.” Then he departed. (10).

The battle commences, and a mannish Perpetua hurtles through the air throwing punches.

She subdues the Egyptian before stepping on his skull, echoing the precise language of stomping on the snake’s head in the first dream-vision. She receives the prize of apples, a kiss from the trainers, and awakens. Her experiences in dream time effect changes in the waking time: “I knew…that I was going to fight against the devil, but I knew that the victory would be mine” (10.14). Indeed, the stakes of the battle between Perpetua and the

Egyptian are of cosmic proportions, and Perpetua knows that she will triumph in this battle as well as in the arena.

Perpetua’s transformation into a man in the fourth dream-vision illustrates the important feature of mastery—of oneself and of others as well—which affected not only the world of agonistic context in the arena, but also in the conception of gender. Gender by its very nature is performative and fails to possess one particular meaning.88 For instance, Stephen Moore and Janice Anderson have argued:

“Mastery—of others and/or of oneself—is the definitive masculine trait in most of the Greek and Latin literary and philosophical texts that survive from antiquity…This hegemonic conception of masculinity was less a dichotomy

88 Judith Butler’s work, for instance, challenges the notion of any pre-existing condition for defining “gender.” Butler argues the performance of gender, that is, the acts themselves constitute an illusion of stable gender identity (Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity [London: Routledge, 1990] 1-46). Particular organs of the body do not ensure “manliness” or “femininity.” Rather, each is associated with how an individual displays status; cf. Craig Williams, Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) 160-224. 48

between male and female than a hierarchical continuum where slippage from most fully masculine to least masculine could occur.89

Becoming masculine the fourth dream-vision is one of a series of performative moments that prepare her for death (i.e., deciding to ascend the ladder, dominating the serpent, not being distracted by instruments of death, overcoming the Egyptian).90 Perpetua’s transformation into a man who has mastered the Egyptian in the dream-vision also carries itself over to waking time. While not a man in literal terms, Perpetua expresses mastery over her body in the arena.

As one might imagine, scholarly interpretations differ widely as to what the phrase, “And suddenly I was a man” (et facta sum masculus; 10.7) means.91 However, there is a general consensus that an explanation for Perpetua’s transformation into a man must occur within the context of gladiatorial combat and Roman public spectacle.92

Perpetua would have to wrestle nude in the arena which is in essence exclusively masculine; thus, she becomes a man in order to prepare for her fight in the arena.93

89 Stephen D. Moore and Janice C. Anderson, “Taking It Like a Man: Masculinity in 4 Maccabees,” JBL 117 (1998): 450. 90 Stephanie L. Cobb, Dying to Be Men: Gender and Language in Early Christian Martyr Texts (New York: Columbia, 2008) 105-107. 91 On interpretations of this famous line, see Salisbury, Perpetua’s Passion, 108, Kitzler, “Passio and Acta,” 11, n. 37; Craig Williams, “Perpetua’s Gender: A Latinist Reads the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis,” in Perpetua’s Passions, 54-77. 92 For such a balanced description, see Miller, Dreams in Late Antiquity, 148-83, esp. 182-3. Robert views the scene as a pankration which Perpetua would have likely attended and have known. In addition, Robert has demonstrated that the Greek version of the Passio included technical language from wresting and pankration. My comments about wrestling should be considered in light of this (“Une vision de Perpétue,” 228-76; and Bremmer, “Perpetua and her Diary,” 113-115, 117). 93 Some interpreters nevertheless read much more into the dreams. Perpetua could signify a spiritual change where a woman transcends her feminine nature which is inherently sinful, or perhaps membership in the Jesus community will erase gendered 49

The fourth dream-vision bleeds into waking time in two significant ways. First, the dream-vision clarifies that the battle functions as a contest between Perpetua and the devil. Victory occurs even when Perpetua and her companions will lose their lives in the arena. The dream-vision redefines how she can view the events of the arena. Second, the dream-vision transforms Perpetua from an unworthy opponent (i.e., as an unarmed woman) into a formidable one (i.e., a trained male gladiator). Perpetua’s transformation, while not literal in form, carries over into waking life by redefining her body, its power, and her mastery over it.

In summation the succession of four dream-visions, which Perpetua receives in the narrative of the Passio, prepare her to die well and boldly for God. The dream-visions each reflect tactical negotiations about the role and function of martyrdom and dreaming.

The first-dream-vision, bearing striking similarities to dream incubation, carries the prophetic message that Perpetua and her companions shall die. The second and third dream-visions of Dinocrates further testify to the power of Perpetua’s dream-visions.

They, not unlike the first dream-vision, demonstrate the reciprocal exchange between waking and dreaming time. Perpetua’s prayers for her deceased brother Dinocrates in waking and dream time cause him to look more refreshed, cleaner, and able to access a pool of water which had previously been inaccessible. The text reflects a negotiation of

differences. Other scholars, instead, focus on the way Perpetua throughout the story begins to assume the social role of a man, which means that she ultimately replaces her father, husband, and siblings. Cf. Cobb, Dying to Be Men, 105-7; and Antti Marjanen, “Male Women Martyrs: The Function of Gender-Transformation Language in Early Christian Martyrdom Accounts,” in Metamorphoses: Resurrection, Body and Transformative Practices in Early Christianity (ed. Turid Karlsen Seim and Jorunn Økland; Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2009) 231-47 at 246-7. 50

how Perpetua’s prayers could permeate the porous boundary between not just waking and dreaming, but also death and the afterlife. Further, Perpetua’s triumph over the Egyptian in the fourth dream-vision signifies the otherworldly reward which Perpetua and her companions will receive, once they become victorious as martyrs in the arena. Generally speaking, the fourth dream-vision remains linked to the first one, given that both passages predict future suffering. The connection exists as a result of several features: Perpetua being triumphant in both dream-visions; Perpetua’s treading on the head of adversaries, whether they are a draco or an Egyptian, employs precisely the same language.94 This tactical negotiation shows how dream-visions function as a technology through which

Perpetua and her companions prepare to die well in the arena.

Indeed, each of the four dream-visions of Perpetua prepares her to die well for

God. The cultural influence of Perpetua outside of North Africa in early Christian art remembers her as a medium who saw visions and dreamt dreams. She is not just a martyr, but becomes a martyr in part because her dream-visions prepared her to die well.

94 The Latin in both places is explicit and identical: calcaui illi caput at 4.2 and 10.11. Further, the length of both dream-visions is even roughly the same. 51

VI. Perpetua’s Fifth Dream-Vision? The Narrator’s Conclusion

Having explored the way Perpetua’s four dream-visions prepare her for martyrdom, we now turn to the dream-like quality of the narrator’s conclusion (14.1-

21.11). The narrative of the Passio depicts Perpetua as being in a trance like state, when the young women meet their end in the arena of Carthage. The narrative reads: “She

[Perpetua] awakened, as if from sleep—she was so deep in the spirit and in ecstasy (adeo in spiritu et in extasi fuerat)—and looked about her, and said, to the wonder of all: ‘When will we be thrown to the mad cow or whatever it is?’” (20.8). Perpetua appears to be unaware of her postmortem state, but realizes it after her wounds are pointed out to her.

The narrative of the Passio, I suggest, employs the language of ecstasy—the Latin speaks of being in extasi, whereas the Greek speaks of experiencing it (ἔκστασιν παθοῦσα)—to portray Perpetua as an ecstatic. Perpetua in a state of possession or moment of ecstasy awakens to her status as a martyr, just as she awakened from the previous dream-visions.

The Latin text of the Passio employs the same word for awaken (expergita; 20.8) in the arena scene, as in Perpetua’s awakening from her dream-visions (4.10, 7.8, 10.13, 13.8).

But here Perpetua awakens to the afterlife, not just from a dream-vision.95

The language of being “in ecstasy” or “in the spirit” evokes important similarities to some of Tertullian’s works. Tertullian, also writing in North Africa at the time of the

Passio’s composition, developed an oneirology anchored in the pairings of ecstasy and prophecy both of which proceed from the Holy Spirit. Ecstasy becomes the technology

95 Contra Waldner who sees the language of being in ecstasy and in the spirit as probable evidence of Montanist redaction (Katharina Waldner, “Visions, Prophecy, and Authority in the Passio Perpetuae,” in Perpetua’s Passions, 201-19 at 210-8). 52

through which prophecy occurs. Ecstasy is “the spirit’s operative virtue of prophecy.”96

While arguing earlier in same work that extasis is an invasive power working on the human soul, Tertullian nevertheless asserts that dream-visions occur during moments of ecstasy.97 Tertullian employs a variety of synonyms for such prophetic states as: being

“in the spirit” (in spiritu; 9.4), being “in an ecstasy” (in extasi; Contra Marcionem 5.8.12; cf. Passio 20.8), or as “madness” (amentia).98 Tertullian, even as he considered sleep a natural state which could be described as “a reasonable work of God,”99 argued that ecstasy causes an individual to lose a degree of their sensorial faculties.100 Such experiences cause a person to resemble someone who is mad because they seem to stand outside of themselves. Just as dreams come to a person while asleep, so also do prophetic utterances overtake a person who is in the spirit or in ecstasy. In other words, Tertullian’s anthropology of the soul views ecstasy as an out of body experience which proceeds from the Holy Spirit.

Tertullian’s oneirology illuminates the Passio’s narrative, explaining why one might depict Perpetua as tame and in control during her four dream-visions, and yet portray her as an ecstatic unaware of her physical body in her execution scene. Tertullian

96 “sanctu spiritus vis operatrix prophetiae,” De anima 11.4; 21.2; and esp. 47.3. 97 On Tertullian’s theory of dreams vis-à-vis prophetic revelation, see Jacqueline Amat, Songes et visions: L’au-delà dans littérature latine tardive (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1985) 94-95; and also J. H. Waszink, Quinti Septimi Florentis Tertulliani De Anima (rev. ed.; Leiden: Brill, 2009 [1949]) 62-65; Robeck, Prophecy in Carthage, 104-106; Nasrallah, An Ecstasy of Folly, 52-53, 138-40. De anima was also written about the same time as the Passio, sometime between 210 and 213 CE; cf. Wanszink, “Introduction,” 1-6. 98 On amentia as a synonym for ecstasy, see Nasrallah, An Ecstasy of Folly, 55, 137-140. 99 De anima 43.7; cf. 43.1 and Miller “A Dubious Twilight,” 157. 100 21.2; Contra Marcionem 4.22.5. 53

describes sleep and ecstasy as invasive forces acting on the human body. Once sleep and ecstasy arrive on a person, she dreams. A visionary or dreamer does not experience senses because ecstasy takes a person’s soul outside of the body during sleep.101

Similarly, Perpetua’s soul in the execution scene of the Passio could be standing outside of her physical body. Tertullian, illustrating the soul’s activity during sleep and dreams, cites the example of a gladiator: “it is one thing to shake, it is another thing to move; one thing to destroy, another to agitate.” (45.6; cf. 11.4). The Holy Spirit can cause all of those outcomes from shaking to utter destruction. Perpetua, a gladiator for the Christian faith, tactically negotiates the separation between body and soul, the line between dreaming and waking time. The narrative of the Passio does not just theologize the apparent shock from the blow of a mad cow to Perpetua, but also uses the language of being “in ecstasy” or “in the spirit” in order to stress her complete departure from corporeal existence. Thus, reading Tertullian’s oneirology alongside the narrative of the

Passio strongly suggests that Perpetua’s broken body in the execution scene matters no more, yet the dreams dreamt and the visions seen can bear witness to the soul’s activity on another plane.

The narrative culminates at Perpetua’s death scene. Transformed by the experience of the dream-visions, Perpetua appears more dominant for the remainder of the narrative.

Perpetua employs negotiation and reason to receive better living conditions for her and her companions by shaming the previously dominant military officer (16.2-4). While en route to the arena, Perpetua “strikes down with her lively gaze” (uigore oculorum

101 De anima 45.3. 54

deiciens) any who stare at the approaching damnati (18.2). Perpetua through guile and wit finds a way for her and the other damnati not to be shamed by wearing pagan ceremonial attire (18.4). Moreover, Perpetua appears manliest at her death when stoically she demonstrates mastery over an agent of the Roman Empire:

“Then Perpetua, in order to taste (perhaps even “enjoy”—ut…gustaret) something of pain, yelped (exululauit) when her bones were punctured, and she herself guided the wandering right hand of the juvenile gladiator to her own throat. Perhaps such a woman, who was feared by the unclean spirit, could not otherwise be killed, unless she herself willed it.”102

The final chapters of the Passio portray Perpetua as not one who simply dies; she dies well, actively and powerfully. The Passio commemorates Perpetua’s death as a bold continuation of her so-called prison diary, and employs the theologically loaded language of “being in the spirit” or “in ecstasy” at Perpetua’s execution scene. Such language characterizes Perpetua’s death as ecstatic, and the line between dreaming and waking remains difficult to discern.

102 Passio 21.9-10. Brent D. Shaw has highlighted the problem of the image of Perpetua’s participation in her execution. Shaw called it the “moral oxymoron” inherent in “passivity in resistance as a fully legitimized male quality”: “The elevation to prominence of the passive value of merely being able to endure would have struck most persons, certainly all those spectators, as contradictory and, indeed, rather immoral. A value like that cut right across the great divide that marked élite free-status male values and that informed everything about bodily behaviour from individual sexuality to collective warfare: voice, activity, aggression, closure, penetration, and the ability to inflict pain and suffering were lauded as emblematic of freedom, courage, and good. Silence, passivity, submissiveness, openness, suffering—the shame of allowing oneself to be wounded, to be penetrated, and of simply enduring all of that—were castigated as weak, womanish, slavish, and therefore morally bad. The equation of these two virtues— nobility (gennaia) and passive endurance (hypomonê) —would have struck the classic male ideologue of the city state as contradictory, a moral oxymoron” (“Body/Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs,” JECS 4 [1996]: 279-280). 55

VII. Conclusions

In this study, I have discussed dream-vision reports in early third century North

Africa as exhibited by the Passio. This project was shaped partially as a response to scholars who characterize early Christian martyrdom literature in North Africa as apocalyptic ascent. Although the apocalyptic trend points out important features of heavenly ascent and parallels to other early Jewish and Christian literature, it also has a fundamental problem of essentializing difference and being imprecise in its designation of how dream-visions function. I have argued that the insertion of Perpetua’s dream- visions in the narrative of the Passio imbues the work with spiritual authority, making the dream-visions themselves prophetic. Within the narrative of the text, such dreams work to prepare Perpetua to die for God. Experiences in dream time cause a change in waking reality, and vice versa.

With this in mind, I have labored to preserve and to expand some of the insights of the apocalyptic critics. Yet my project presents its own problems for nuanced criticism. I faced the primary problem of assuming continuity and difference from the start. Some scholars, for instance, argue that the Passio represents work of the popular masses, whereas other contemporaries like Tertullian’s writings purportedly represent more of an official or ecclesial authority.103 Thus, recapitulating the Weberian

“routinization of charisma,” a binary between a central authority and freelance charismatics emerges. To avoid this problem, I limited my focus by commenting on the

103 Eliezer Gonzalez marks such a dichotomy between the Passio and Tertullian’s writings by characterizing the former as “popular” and the latter as “official” (“The Afterlife in the Passion of Perpetua and in the Works of Tertullian: A Clash of Traditions” Studia Patristica 65 [2013]: 225-41). 56

discursive patterns marking the many identities of ancient Christians, not assuming an all or nothing approach for Christian identity.104 I also employed an adapted method from other scholars, like Nasrallah, who put texts into conversation with one another rather than opposition.105 This endeavor pays off with several conclusions about the way dream- visions in the Passio function.

My analysis results in two main conclusions. First, dream-visions function as preparation for martyrdom in the Passio. Dream-visions generally involve revelation, that is, the disclosure of a future event or ultimate concern to a human participant.

However, they do not adhere to a form-critical definition of apocalypse.106 Dream-visions in the Passio have a preparatory affect on the martyrs-to-be. Perpetua’s series of visions serve as the technology that prepares her to suffer and die well in the arena. The Passio employs the visionary accounts of Perpetua in order to show that martyrs could be trained to die actively, powerfully, and well through the technology of dreams.

Second, porous boundaries exist between waking and dreaming as well as death and afterlife. Waking and dreaming have a reciprocal relationship affecting the dreamer.

Scholars of religion employ terms like dreaming, sleeping, waking/non-waking as fruitful analytic categories for contextualizing the relationship between dream-visions and early

104 Éric Rebillard’s work demonstrates that ancient Christians in North Africa had many identities that could be activated depending on the social situation. Cf. Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity: North Africa, 200-450 CE (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2012) 9-33. 105 On the problem of Max Weber’s routinization of charisma within discussions of early Christian historiography, see Nasrallah, “Now I Know in Part,” 244-65; and eadem, “Prophecy, the Periodization of History,” 14-24. 106 By the standards of apocalypse for Semeia 14, dream-visions composed 83% of early Christian apocalypses (Yarbro Collins, “Introduction,” 1-12). 57

Christian identity. The use of dream-visions as a technology that prepares Perpetua for death not only makes her a martyr, but also a medium through whom the spirit works.

Perpetua’s double-duty as martyr and visionary reveals the porous boundary between the categories of dreaming and waking as well as death and the afterlife. Perpetua’s petitionary prayers in the second and third dream-visions make circumstances better for her deceased brother Dinocrates. Further, Tertullian’s conception of being “in the spirit” or “in ecstasy” illuminates parts of the Passio. Perpetua’s execution scene in the arena characterizes her in such technical language, depicting her as a disembodied ecstatic, but the four dream-visions that prepare her for death depict her as powerful and in charge.

Porous boundaries between concepts––i.e., orthodoxy and heresy, dreaming and sleeping, or life and death––indicate the need for contextualizing the cultural artifacts from antiquity within a spectrum rather than a binary. The literary model of tactical negotiation employed here allows us to view how ancient Christians reading the Passio were able to position and reposition themselves within the shifting power structures of late antiquity.

58

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VITA

Ross Philip Ponder was born in Grapevine, Texas. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007, majoring in Religious Studies and

Classics. In 2011, he received his Master of Divinity degree in the field of early Christian studies from the Boston University, School of Theology. He spent the 2011-2012 academic year reading Greek and Hebrew at the Graduate Theological Union and the

University of California in Berkeley. Since 2012, he has been a student in the doctoral program in Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where his primary field of study is New Testament and Early Christianity and his secondary fields are

Formative and Classical Judaism as well as Greco-Roman Religions. Ponder has presented his work internationally at the Enoch Seminar in Montréal and at the

University of Oxford. During summers, he participates in archaeological excavations at the synagogue in Ostia, Italy, or reconstructs early Christian papyri in the Oxyrhynchus

Papyri Project. He also serves as the Chair of the Student Advisory Board for the Society of Biblical Literature.

Email address: [email protected]

This report was typed by the author.

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