Was St. Perpetua Black? Race in Roman North Africa IMAGE GALLERY White Perpetua & Felicitas St. Perpetua (Nicholas Papas, 20th Century Iconographer, St. Philip's Antiochian Orthodox Church in Souderton, PA) St. Felicitas (Nicholas Papas, 20th Century Iconographer, St. Philip's Antiochian Orthodox Church in Souderton, PA) Late Antique Perpetua (Sixth-Century CE Wall Mosaic at the Eufrasiana Basilica in Porec) Late Antique Felicitas (Sixth-Century CE Wall Mosaic at the Eufrasiana Basilica in Porec) St. Perpetua (Archiepiscopal Chapel; The two mosaic cycles in the Archiepiscopal Chapel created for Pietro II [494-95CE]) St. Felicitas (Archiepiscopal Chapel; The two mosaic cycles in the Archiepiscopal Chapel created for Pietro II [494-95CE]) Ethnic Perpetua & Felicitas Perpetua & Felicitas (Robert Lentz, 20th Century) St. Perpetua & Felicitas (Saints of Color, Office of Black Catholic Affairs; Date Unknown) Select Black Saints Websites SAINTS OF COLOR (Office of Black Catholic Affairs Black Catholics: African Saints (National Black Congress) Black Saints Black Saints(AfricanAmericans.com) Black Saints Report (St. Augustine High School) More Black Saints of the Ancient African Liturgical Church (Angelfire.com)                                                                                                   [The Question][Terms of the Query][The Evidence][Assessing the Evidence][The View from Roman Italy][The View from the "Peripheries"][Conclusions] [Glossary][Bibiography] [Images] The Question St. Perpetua and St. Felicitas hold our fascination not only for their compelling biographies, but also for who they were. Like many early church leaders, they were from Roman North Africa. Unlike many early church leaders, they were women. St. Perpetua and St. Felicitas were born near Carthage in North Africa and were martyred there in 203 A.D. (Their Feast Day is March 7). Felicity was servant to Perpetua. Today the women are widely lauded as early "Black Saints." The purpose of this page is to help you test that theory based on what we have learned in Humanities 110 about race and class in North Africa during Late Antiquity. Were Perpetua and Felicitas Black? Does it matter? [Return to Top]   Terms of the Query Before we start it is important to define what we mean by "black." This is a difficult task as Romans did not define race the way that Americans do. One might ask, what do the people mean who claim that Felicitas and Perpetua are black? This is unambiguous and probably not monolithic. Most of the web sites that list Felicitas and Perpetua as "Black Saints" do not define the term explicitly; rather, they usually aim to show "the contributions of Africans to the Catholic Church." These Africans Saints are then also usually referred to in passing as "black." As Martin Bernal (Black Athena) and others have attested, it is questionable when people say "black" whether they intend to include the Semitic peoples of North Africa as well as the "negroid" peoples of sub-Saharan Africa who were taken as slaves to the Americas. For the purposes of this web page, however, we will use the more the wider definition of "Black Africans" here to include all indigenous North Africans--that is basically everyone in Roman North Africa except European colonists. Our question then becomes, were Felicitas and Perpetua European colonists (or descendants or European colonists) living in North Africa, or were they descendents of the indigenous peoples living in and around Carthage? [Return to Top]   The Evidence The Evidence we have about Saints Perpetua and Felicitas comes mainly from two sources: The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicity (Sometimes attributed to Tertullian) Ancient Images of the Saints from the Fifth and Sixth Centuries [Return to Top]   Assessing the Evidence Read through the The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicity. According to Snowden's book Before Color Prejudice the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and early Christians had a "highly favorable image of blacks and...white-black relations differing markedly from those that have developed in more color-conscious societies" such as our own (Snowden vii). Given these differences, it is quite possible that the author of the Passion might not take note of the skin color of the saints. Instead, you might look for the following evidence To what social class did they belong? (The upper classes in Roman North Africa were more likely to be Roman colonists.) Are we told anything about the ancestry of the women's families? Are there any descriptions of their bodies? What is the purpose of these descriptions? If Snowden is right, would the writer have any reason to either hide the race of the saints or would he be unlikely to mention it at all? Is there anything conclusive we can say about the women's ethnicity? Now take a look at the Late Antique images below. You may want to either read my lecture on race and mosaics in Roman North Africa (Hum 110 Lecture) of you may want to look at some of the other depictions of African and Black Africans my Hum 110Tech site Imaging Roman Africa. Who is depicted as "black" and who is not? Why might "Africa" herself depicted as European? Examine the images of Perpetua and Felicitas from the 5th and 6th centuries below. These images represent a view from the saints both from Roman Italy and her Peripheries. [Return to Top]   The View from Roman Italy: Although generally there was an artistic decline in Italy during the Late Antique period, Ravenna--the town where the 5th century portraits of Felicitas and Perpetua were found--is often known as the "capital of mosaic." Ravenna was capital three times: of the western Roman Empire, of Theodoric King of the Goths, of the Byzantine Empire in Europe. What are people from Ravenna likely to have known about Africans? (See my lecture on race and mosaics in Roman North Africa as a starting place.) Are these images more likely to tell us about the saints themselves or about the people who worshipped the saints? Why? What do the other images from the mosaic cycles in the Archiepiscopal Chapel tell us about the worshippers and their values? Make a list of reasons why they might depict the saints as European. [Return to Top]   The View from the "Peripheries": By the late third century, Africa--not Rome--was the economic center of the empire. Parentium was a colony in that expanded empire. The Sixth Century images are from the Cathedral Eufrasiana, named after its mid-sixth century founder, Bishop Eufrasius. "The small, three-aisled basilica forms the heart of a well preserved episcopal ensemble situated along the shoreline of ancient Parentium (Parenzo, Porec), on the Istrian coast, today part of Croatia" (Terry and Muhlstein). Porec was founded by the Roman emperor Tiberius as a city-colony. For awhile it served as a seat of military and government administration called the Colony of Iulia Parentium.What are people from Parentium likely to have known about Africa and Africans? (See my lecture on race and mosaics in Roman North Africa as a starting place.) Make a list of why the artist might have depicted the saints as Europeans. Are these images more likely to tell us about the saints themselves or about the people who worshipped the saints? Why? How do the saints in this church (the Eufrasiana Basillica) differ from the Archiepiscopal Chapel in Ravenna? What insights can we gain about the purpose of the images from these choices? [Return to Top]   Conclusions Do we have enough evidence to make a hypothesis about the race of either St. Perpetua or St. Felicitas? If so, what is your hypothesis? If not, why do you not find the evidence satisfactory? What does the evidence tell us in your opinion? If we cannot know, what are the benefits or disadvantages of claiming that Felicitas was either black or white? Choose one of the 20th century images below and explain what the image emphasizes about the saints. [Return to Top]

Image Gallery St. Perpetua (Nicholas Papas, Iconographer, St. Philip's Antiochian Orthodox Church in Souderton, PA) "Liturgical artist Nicholas Papas is a communicant at St. Michael's Antiochian Orthodox Church in Greensburg, PA. While studying painting at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Nicholas simultaneously began to learn iconography from his priest, the Reverend John Osacky (now known as Job, Bishop of the Midwest, O.C.A.). After receiving his degree in 1981, he advanced his iconographic skills in Athens, Greece under the tutelage of Nicholas and Basil Lepoura. Over the past twenty years, Nick has continued to refine and improve his skills while working full-time as an iconographer from his own studio." (Click here for more on artist Nicholas Papas) [Back to Image Gallery List]   St. Felicitas (Nicholas Papas, Iconographer, St. Philip's Antiochian Orthodox Church in Souderton, PA) "Liturgical artist Nicholas Papas is a communicant at St. Michael's Antiochian Orthodox Church in Greensburg, PA. While studying painting at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Nicholas simultaneously began to learn iconography from his priest, the Reverend John Osacky (now known as Job, Bishop of the Midwest, O.C.A.). After receiving his degree in 1981, he advanced his iconographic skills in Athens, Greece under the tutelage of Nicholas and Basil Lepoura. Over the past twenty years, Nick has continued to refine and improve his skills while working full-time as an iconographer from his own studio." (Click here for more on artist Nicholas Papas) [Back to Image Gallery List] Late Antique Perpetua from the Sixth-Century Wall Mosaics at the Eufrasiana Basilica in Porec [Back to Image Gallery List] Late Antique Perpetua from the Sixth-Century Wall Mosaics at the Eufrasiana Basilica in Porec [Back to Image Gallery List] St. Perpetua (Archiepiscopal Chapel; Ravenna.The two mosaic cycles in the Archiepiscopal Chapel created for Pietro II [494-95]) [Back to Image Gallery List] St. Felicitas (Archiepiscopal Chapel; Ravenna. The two mosaic cycles in the Archiepiscopal Chapel created for Pietro II [494-95]) [Back to Image Gallery List] North African Perpetua & Felicitas (Robert Lentz)       "Robert Lentz is a master iconographer of the school of Photios Kontoglou. Robert was born in rural Colorado in 1946. His father's family had emigrated from southwestern Russia at the turn of the century. Robert grew up with his grandmother's stories of Cossack soldiers and lives of the saints. ...His journeys have brought him close to the struggles of modern men and women for a more just world. Realizing that the only hope for preserving his Russian roots lay in adapting their essence to the modern world, he began painting Russian icons of modern "saints." His icons enable people of many different cultures and religious backgrounds to share in the rich traditions of the Byzantine East" (Click here for a picture and full Trinity Stores Bio) Catalog of other icons by artist Robert Lentz. Lenz's Native American Icons. Lenz's Martin Luther King Jr. Icon     [Back to Image Gallery List] St. Perpetua & Felicitas (Saints of Color, Office of Black Catholic Affairs; Date & Creator Unknown) [Back to Image Gallery List] GLOSSARY Late Antiquity (200-700 AD) is characterized by the acceptance of Christianity as state religion, increasing border troubles in west and east, and the grand solution of dividing the empire into two halves (Nicholson's Timeline; Liebeschuetz 4). [Return to Top] BIBLIOGRAPHY & RESOURCES Blanchard-Lemee, Michele, et. al. Mosaics of Roman Africa. NY: George Braziller, 1996. Borriello, Mariarosaria, et. al. Pompei. Italy, Ferrara Arte S.A., 1996.Brilliant, Richard. Pompeii AD 79. NY: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1979. Etienne, Robert. Pompeii: The Day a City Died. NY; Harry Abrahms.Kraus, Theodor. Pompeii and Herculaneum.NY: Harry Abrahms, 1975. Raven, Susan. Rome in Africa, 3rd ed. NY: Routledge, 1993. Renaud, Chris. The Other: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Ancient World: Bibliography. 18 February 200. <http://www2.carthage.edu/outis/obib.html>. 8 January 2004. Snowden, Frank M. Before Color Prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1983. Terry, Ann and Tom Muhlstein, "New Documentary Evidence for the Restoration of the Sixth-Century Wall Mosaics at the Eufrasiana in Porec" (Abstract) Eufrasiana Basilica. July 10 1999 <http://nickerson.icomos.org/euf/euf-idx.htm> 8 January 2004. Veyne, Paul, ed. A History of Private Life: from Pagan Rome to Byzantium. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1987. Witt, R.E. Isis in the Greco-Roman World. Ithaca, BY: Cornell UP, 1971. Woloch, G. Michael. Roman Cities. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1983. [Return to Top]     Conference 21 Meets T/Th, 1:10 -2:30 in Library 387. Conference Leader: Prof. Laura Leibman, Dept. of English

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