Inside Story - Felicitas - The One Year Women in Christian History Devotional

CA. 180–203

In the early years, some Roman critics attacked Christianity as a low-class religion, welcoming slaves and women along with noblemen. “Guilty as charged,” responded the Christians, who continued to treat slaves and slave owners as equals despite the objections of snooty scribes.

So when some Christians were rounded up in Carthage around AD 200 for failing to offer a sacrifice in honor of the emperor’s divine spirit, the group included both the upper-class Perpetua (see yesterday’s entry) and her slave, Felicitas.

The slave girl had a problem: she was eight months pregnant. Since the Romans had a law against executing pregnant women, she worried that she might lose the opportunity to die along with her friends. Two days before their scheduled execution, the imprisoned believers prayed about this—and immediately Felicitas felt labor pains. The premature birth was difficult, but she successfully bore a daughter, who was then given to a Christian friend.

An assistant guard snidely commented on her painful delivery. “You think this is bad? Wait till you’re tossed to the beasts. Should have thought of that before you refused to sacrifice.”

The slave girl responded with dignity: “My current pain I suffer alone. But then, someone else will be inside me, and he will suffer for me, just as I’ll be suffering for him.”

Felicitas rejoiced that she could go with her friends into martyrdom, and she knew that Jesus would be with them—inside them—as they suffered. Yes, their experience in the arena was brutal, facing wild beasts and then gladiators, but these believers helped each other. The slave stood side by side with her mistress, and at that moment class and wealth were irrelevant. All that mattered was their devotion to Jesus.

Suffering can be a lonely ordeal, in the third century or the twenty-first. But Felicitas grasped a secret that helped her get through it, as it can help us today. Jesus suffers our sorrow with us, and he brings us ultimate joy.

My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2:20