Christianity in the Roman Africa province

The name early African church is given to the Christian communities inhabiting the region known politically as Roman Africa, and comprised geographically somewhat around the area of the Roman Diocese of Africa, namely: the Mediterranean littoral between Cyrenaica on the east and the river Ampsaga (now the Oued Rhumel (fr)) on the west; that part of it that faces the Atlantic Ocean being called Mauretania, in addition to Byzacena.

The high lands of the Sahara and all the country west of the Atlas range were inhabited by the nomad tribes of the Gaetuli, and there are neither churches nor definite ecclesiastical organizations to be found there.

By the opening of the 3rd century there was a large Christian population in the towns and even in the country districts, which included not only the poor, but also persons of the highest rank.

The persecutions at the end of the third, and the beginning of the fourth, century did not only make martyrs; they also gave rise to a minority that claimed that Christians could deliver the sacred books and the archives of the Church to the officers of the State, without lapsing from the faith.

The accession of Constantine the Great found the African Church torn apart by controversies and heresies; Catholics and Donatists contended not only in polemics, but also in a violent and bloody way.

[9] Attempts at reconciliation, suggested by the Emperor Constantius II, only widened the breach and led to armed repression, an ever-growing disquiet, and an enmity that became increasingly embittered.

Yet, in the very midst of these troubles, the Primate of Carthage, Gratus, declared (in the year 349): "God has restored Africa to religious unity."

Nevertheless, the energy and genius of Augustine were abundantly occupied in training the clergy and instructing the faithful, as well as in theological controversy with the heretics.

For forty years, from 390 to 430, the Councils of Carthage, which reunited a great part of the African Episcopate, public discussions with the Donatists, sermons, homilies, scriptural commentaries, followed almost without interval; an unparalleled activity that had commensurate results.

Donatism, also, and semipelagianism were stricken to death at an hour when political events of the utmost gravity changed the history and the destiny of the African Church.

The churches were opened, and the Catholics were allowed to choose a bishop (476), but the death of Genseric, and the edict of Huneric, in 484, made matters worse than before.

Gelimer made an attempt to deprive him of power, and, proclaimed King of the Vandals in 531, marched on Carthage and dethroned Hilderich.

The victor, Belisarius, had but to show himself in order to reconquer the greater part of the coast, and to place the cities under the authority of the Emperor Justinian.

The reign of Justinian marks a sad period in the history of the African Church, due to the part taken by the clergy in the matter known as the Three-Chapter Controversy.

With the help of the metropolitan of Carthage, he succeeded in restoring unity, peace, and ecclesiastical discipline in the African Church, which drew strength from so fortunate a change even so surely as the See of Rome regained in respect and authority.

[16][17] Some historians remark how the Umayyad Caliphate persecuted many Berber Christians in the 7th and 8th centuries CE, who slowly converted to Islam.

[18] Other modern historians further recognize that the Christian populations living in the lands invaded by the Arab Muslim armies between the 7th and 10th centuries CE suffered religious persecution, religious violence, and martyrdom multiple times at the hands of Arab Muslim officials and rulers;[19] [20][21][22] many were executed under the Islamic death penalty for defending their Christian faith through dramatic acts of resistance such as refusing to convert to Islam, repudiation of the Islamic religion and subsequent reconversion to Christianity, and blasphemy towards Muslim beliefs.

[27] In June 1225, Honorius III issued the bull Vineae Domini custodes, which permitted two friars of the Dominican Order, named Dominic and Martin, to establish a mission in Morocco and look after the affairs of Christians there.

[29] Innocent IV asked the emirs of Tunis, Ceuta and Bugia to permit Lope and Franciscian friars to look after the Christians in those regions.

In contradistinction to the apologists of, and before, his time, Tertullian refused to make Christian apologetics merely defensive; he appealed to the law of the Empire, claimed the right to social existence, and took the offensive.

The lawyer Minucius Felix has shown so much literary skill in his short treatises of a few pages that he has deservedly attained to fame.

His relations with the Church of Rome, the councils of Carthage, his endless disputes with the African bishops, take the place, to some extent, of the lost documents of the period.

Arnobius, the author of an apology for Christianity, is of a secondary interest; Lactantius, more cultured and more literary, only belongs to Africa by reason of the richness of his genius.

Writings collected among the Spuria of Latin literature have been sometimes attributed to Tertullian, sometimes to St. Cyprian, or even to Pope Victor, the contemporary of the Emperor Commodus.

Other authors, again, such as Maximius of Madaura and Victorinus, stand, with Optatus of Milevi, in the front rank of African literature in the 4th century before the appearance of St. Augustine.

Of all St. Augustine's vast labours, the most important, as they are among the first Christian writings, are: The Confessions, the City of God, and the Commentary on the Gospel of St. John.

Other writers, theologians, poets, or historians, are to be met with after St. Augustine's time, but their names, honourable as they are, cannot compare in fame with the great ones we record as belonging to the 3rd and 4th centuries.

Victor of Vita, an impetuous historian, makes us sometimes wish, in presence of his too literary descriptions, for the monotonous simplicity of the chronicles, with their rigorous exactness.

The African bishops willingly allowed corrections to be made in a copy of the Sacred Scriptures, or even a reference, when necessary, to the Greek text.

No work of Christian literature written in Punic has come down to us, though there can be no doubt that the clergy and faithful used a language much spoken in Carthage and in the coast towns of the Proconsular Province.