Perpetua, Cheese, and Martyrdom as Public Liturgy in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity

In a well-known scene from the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, Perpetua has a vision in which she is given cheese by a heavenly shepherd. This paper argues that the cheese which Perpetua receives is eucharistic, and that the vision is best understood as a heavenly rite of initiation. Scholarly views of the reception of cheese as essentially interchangeable with the reception of milk cannot be supported. Perpetua’s cheese should be interpreted as eucharistic even if it does not reflect any actual liturgical practice involving cheese, as both textual and contextual evidence make a eucharistic reading compelling. The biblical images in the vision, including the transformation of milk into cheese, support this liturgical reading. The article concludes by arguing that the Passio as a whole envisions martyrdom as a public liturgy.