Families Reconstituted

The rejection of legal and biological ties should not be understood as an absolute rejection of family altogether. As I have argued elsewhere, the re­placement of the rejected biological family with an adopted Christian fami­ly is prevalent in the acts of the martyrs.^[599] Elements of this can be seen in the beginning of the Testament of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, which ex­pands the concept of family:

For the invisible God is revered in our brothers whom we see;^[600] and though this saying refers to our biological siblings, the meaning is extended to all those who love Christ.

This passage in the Testament of the Forty Martyrs is in some ways rather pedestrian. It extends the familial relationship to members of the Christian congregation. While the Testament of the Forty Martyrs seems happy to construct the Christian family as a “brotherhood of all believers,”^[602] other martyr acts attempt to restrict membership even further. The Latin version of the Acts of Phileas, as we have already seen, places the martyrs within a special family of martyrs and apostles. Phileas’s rejection of his family fol­lows the pattern of Socrates and grounds itself in a particular kind of bibli­cal interpretation. There is also, however, the acquisition of a new family of martyrs and apostles to which, through martyrdom, Phileas will be joined.

Phileas is not alone in narrowing the martyrs’ family to a select few. Or­igen, in his Exhortation to Martyrdom, tentatively reinterprets Matt 10:29­30 so that the martyrs become heads of their own families of believers:

And if there are fathers about whom it was said to Abraham, “You shall go to your fa­thers in peace when you have been buried in a good old age,” someone might say (though I do not know whether he would be speaking the truth) that perhaps those fa­thers are those who were once martyrs and left children behind, in return for whom they have become fathers of the fathers, the patriarch Abraham and the other patriarchs.

Origen’s vision of the martyr’s family offers an interesting interpretation of the rejection of family motif.^[604] The rejection of children is a strategic af­fair: earthly children are given up in favor of mature patriarchal offspring. Once again, we see the creation of a better kind of family, this time of pa­triarchs and martyrs, in which the martyrs head up the super-family in the heavens.^[605] Given the patriarchal structure of the Roman household, the promotion to the head of a family of patriarchs underscores the elevated position of the martyr in the Christian hierarchy. Whereas ordinarily God would serve as the father of the Christian family, the martyr is repositioned as “father of fathers.”

The evidence for the widespread rejection and reconstruction of family in the Christian martyr acts suggests that the rejection motif in Perpetua (and also Agape, Irene, and Chione and Carpus, Papylus and Agathonike) is not just a question of gender.^[606] Both men and women abandon their fam­ily to pursue martyrdom. While the rejection of family theme serves to masculinize female martyrs, it is not, as some have argued, exclusive to the presentation of women.^[607] The masculinization of female martyrs overlaps and intersects with the broader construction of the Christian family in the martyr acts.

Given the ways in which martyr acts deconstruct and reconstruct the idea of family, it is worth reconsidering the case of Perpetua and Felicity and the ways in which the heroines relate to their families. How does this model of rejection and acquisition alter our interpretation of Perpetua? In the case of Perpetua, attitudes to family are more complicated than they first appear. She is, as is frequently noted, close to the Christian members of her family.^[608] Perpetua has two brothers (excluding Dinocrates who died young) but only mentions contact with her Christian brother, who was also a catechumen (2.2).

In contrast to Perpetua, the author sketches Felicitas’s separation from her child in only the vaguest terms. Pregnant when arrested, Felicitas’s on­ly concern is that her pregnancy will prevent her from being executed with her fellow Christians. Her premature delivery is met with joy, and her child is summarily dispatched to live with a Christian woman: ita enixa est puellam, quam sibi quaedam soror in filiam educauit (15.7). The use of the term soror for a fellow Christian once again invokes the idea of the Chris­tian family.^[609] It also generates a subtle double entendre: Felicitas’s child will be raised as if she were part of the woman’s “family,” i.e., as a Chris­tian child. Like Perpetua, Felicitas passes her child to her family, one formed by Christianity rather than biology. Felicitas does not discard her child, she entrusts her to her Christian sister safe in the knowledge that she will be raised appropriately as a spiritual child.

The question of Perpetua’s husband is repeatedly raised by scholars cu­rious about the absence of such a notable figure in her life.^[610] In a recent ar­ticle, Carolyn Osiek has argued that Perpetua’s absentee husband may in fact be Saturus, one of the other martyrs mentioned in the account. Osiek’s argument, while controversial, can be further supported by the recognition that in other, albeit later, martyrdom accounts, married martyrs refer to one another as brother and sister. The Diocletian Coptic Martyrdom of Timothy and Maura portrays the joint crucifixion of a newlywed deacon and his wife.

E.