The Noblewoman and the Slave Who Walked Together

In the spring of 203 AD, two women sat in a Carthage prison cell waiting to die. Vibia Perpetua was twenty-two, educated, from a respected Roman family. Felicity was her slave, eight months pregnant, trembling not from fear of death but that her pregnancy might delay her execution and separate her from her companions.

They could not have been more different. One had every privilege the Roman world could offer. The other had none. Yet when Perpetua's father begged her to recant — weeping, kissing her hands, throwing himself at her feet — she answered simply: "I am a Christian. I cannot call myself anything else." And when Felicity gave birth in her cell just three days before the sentence was carried out, she handed her newborn daughter to a fellow believer and prepared to walk into the amphitheater beside her mistress.

On the day of their martyrdom, they entered the arena hand in hand. Not as noblewoman and slave. Not as Roman and African. But as sisters, robed in faith, passing through tribulation together.

John saw this very thing from the island of Patmos — a great multitude no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing together in white robes before the throne. Perpetua and Felicity were among the first to prove what that vision would look like: every earthly distinction stripped away, every soul washed clean, every voice lifted in one cry — "Salvation belongs to our God."