Perpetua

• Perpetua

145:3.5Soon af­ter the set­ting of the sun, as Je­sus and the apos­tles still lin­gered about the sup­per ta­ble, Pe­ter’s wife heard voices in the front yard and, on go­ing to the door, saw a large com­pany of sick folks as­sem­bling, and that the road from Ca­per­naum was crowded by those who were on their way to seek heal­ing at Je­sus’ hands. On see­ing this sight, she went at once and in­formed her hus­band, who told Je­sus.

139:2.14Pe­ter’s wife was a very able woman. For years she la­bored ac­cept­ably as a mem­ber of the women’s corps, and when Pe­ter was driven out of Je­ru­sa­lem, she ac­com­pa­nied him upon all his jour­neys to the churches as well as on all his mis­sion­ary ex­cur­sions. And the day her il­lus­tri­ous hus­band yielded up his life, she was thrown to the wild beasts in the arena at Rome.

163:7.3The women’s corps also pre­pared to go out, two and two, with the sev­enty to la­bor in the larger cities of Perea. This orig­i­nal group of twelve women had re­cently trained a larger corps of fifty women in the work of home vis­i­ta­tion and in the art of min­is­ter­ing to the sick and the af­flicted. Per­petua, Si­mon Pe­ter’s wife, be­came a mem­ber of this new di­vi­sion of the women’s corps and was in­trusted with the lead­er­ship of the en­larged women’s work un­der Ab­ner. Af­ter Pen­te­cost she re­mained with her il­lus­tri­ous hus­band, ac­com­pa­ny­ing him on all of his mis­sion­ary tours; and on the day Pe­ter was cru­ci­fied in Rome, she was fed to the wild beasts in the arena. This new women’s corps also had as mem­bers the wives of Philip and Mat­thew and the mother of James and John.

145:2.15The cook­ing and the house­work at the large Zeb­e­dee home, where Je­sus and the twelve made their head­quar­ters, was for the most part done by Si­mon Pe­ter’s wife and her mother. Pe­ter’s home was near that of Zeb­e­dee; and Je­sus and his friends stopped there on the way from the syn­a­gogue be­cause Pe­ter’s wife’s mother had for sev­eral days been sick with chills and fever. Now it chanced that, at about the time Je­sus stood over this sick woman, hold­ing her hand, smooth­ing her brow, and speak­ing words of com­fort and en­cour­age­ment, the fever left her. Je­sus had not yet had time to ex­plain to his apos­tles that no mir­a­cle had been wrought at the syn­a­gogue; and with this in­ci­dent so fresh and vivid in their minds, and re­call­ing the wa­ter and the wine at Cana, they seized upon this co­in­ci­dence as an­other mir­a­cle, and some of them rushed out to spread the news abroad through­out the city.