Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Darulfunun Ilahiyat, cilt.36, sa.1, ss.191-211, 2025 (Scopus)
This article focuses on the diary of Vibia Perpetua, one of the first female martyrs of Christianity and also the first female auto-biographer in history. Perpetua was martyred with her friends in the Carthage amphitheatre on March 7, 203, because she did not renounce Christianity and refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods for the sake of the well-being of the Roman emperor Septimus Severus. Perpetua kept a diary during her imprisonment and recorded all her experiences and dreams from the time she was detained until her martyrdom. We can access basic information about Perpetua and her experiences through the editor who published the diary. Many researchers from Antiquity to the present have examined this diary and made various comments. The inspiration for Perpetua’s dreams has particularly caused controversy among researchers. Additionally, theories have been produced about why Perpetua never mentioned her friend and slave Felicitas and her husband in her diary. In our study, ancient and modern sources were analysed and it was concluded that Felicitas was included in the story by the editor and Perpetua’s husband was removed from the diary as a result of the editor’s intervention. Accordingly, we tried to bring a new and different perspective to the field.