Perpetua: A Bride, A Martyr, A Passion

When Perpetua was first released, the normal constraints of print publishing necessitated the novel stay below a certain page count. The process of reducing the manuscript to fit was undoubtedly beneficial from an editorial standpoint, serving to tighten the story, yet not all that was lost should have been. I have never forgotten certain characters I had to leave behind on the cutting room floor, so to speak, nor missing scenes that had added nuance to Perpetua’s experiences and times. Over the years, as Perpetua’s story has gone on to touch so many of you, I’ve thought regretfully of these lost characters and wished you could know them, too.

On this fifteenth anniversary of the novel, I’m thrilled by the opportunity to release a digital version. While not all the cut characters and scenes can, or even should, be restored, the digital format has allowed me space to reintroduce some. A restored chapter now appears between the original edition’s twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth, and a limited number of short passages have been restored throughout the text. None of these change the original story, and the novel is not substantially lengthened.

Alas, it is hard for historians to leave out even the smallest parts of the whole story, but it was not reasonable to reintroduce certain elements, and you shall have to find out more for yourself about the landscape of the Church in Perpetua’s time and the secular feminist movement of her mother’s and grandmother’s day—both so akin to our own moment in history; about the brotherhood of believers that transcended slave or free; about Christianity’s harmlessness from the very beginning, its history of rescuing the weakest and adopting the abandoned.

Thank you to all the readers who have shared your hearts with me and allowed Perpetua’s story to illuminate your own. It is for you that this novel was written. As Perpetua stands among that great cloud of witnesses described in Hebrews 11 and 12, I can hear her urging us onward in these perilous times—to throw off everything that hinders, to run with perseverance, to fix our eyes on Jesus, to despise the shame and look to the joy—and saying with Him, when we have given up seeking our own: “Do not fear, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”