A Young Mother at Carthage
Vibia Perpetua lived at Carthage, the great Roman city of North Africa. The account of her death describes her as well born, liberally educated, and honorably married, about twenty-two years old, with a father, a mother, two brothers, and an infant son still nursing. Her husband is never mentioned, and no one knows why. One of the two was also under instruction for baptism. A brother named Dinocrates had died of a disease of the face at the age of seven.
Early in 203, under the emperor Septimius Severus, she was arrested with several other catechumens: Revocatus and Felicity, both slaves, and Saturninus and Secundulus. Their teacher, Saturus, was not with them when they were taken, but he later gave himself up so as to share their fate. Felicity was eight months pregnant.
From a Greek word meaning one being instructed. In the early centuries those who professed faith were taught for a period before they were baptized, and their baptism followed their own confession. Infant baptism was only beginning to appear at Carthage, and Tertullian, writing there at about this time, urged that baptism be delayed for little children.
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