Ancient African Christianity

An Introduction to a Unique Context and Tradition

David E. Wilhite

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781135121419
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

Christianity spread across North Africa early, and it remained there as a powerful force much longer than anticipated. While this African form of Christianity largely shared the Latin language and Roman culture of the wider empire, it also represented a unique tradition that was shaped by its context. Ancient African Christianity attempts to tell the story of Christianity in Africa from its inception to its eventual disappearance. Well-known writers such as Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine are studied in light of their African identity, and this tradition is explored in all its various expressions.

This book is ideal for all students of African Christianity and also a key introduction for anyone wanting to know more about the history, religion, and philosophy of these early influential Christians whose impact has extended far beyond the African landscape.

1 Introduction

Wearing his toga and holding a ripe fig, Cato asked the Roman senate, “How many days ago would you guess I plucked this fruit?” With parliamentary-like rumbles, the senators murmured guesses of a “day or two,” based on the fruit’s pristine condition.

“Correct!” thundered Cato, and yet “This fig came from Carthage.” Carthage, the hated and much feared arch-enemy of Rome, was not far away and distant, but a mere two days journey across the sea. If Rome knew the moment her enemies were leaving their port, she would not have time to prepare a defense before they arrived!

Cato forced the Romans to realize just how imminent a threat resided in Carthage, and in response Rome launched the third Punic war. He ended this speech, like every one he gave on the senate floor, no matter the subject, with the cry, Carthago delenda est! “Carthage must be destroyed!”

Preliminary concerns

Christianity arrived in Africa early, and within a few centuries the whole region was heavily Christianized. What has Cato to do with Christianity? Often enough the answer can simply be, “Nothing.” On a closer reading, however, this assumption misses something in our understanding of the influential Christian thinkers from this region. Perhaps Cato and the Punic wars were important to African Christian writers who belonged to the Punic heritage, and perhaps an omission of their heritage results in an oversight in our interpretation of their writings.

In fact, famous African Christians like Tertullian and Augustine knew of Cato’s famous speech, referencing the Roman senator by name. Allusions to the Punic wars and to Africa’s heritage can be found in many of the North African church fathers, and in addition to an implicit non-Roman identity, or other-than-Roman identity,¹ which can be detected in most of the works from this region, these writers often explicitly described themselves as “African.”

The present book is devoted to studying the entirety of ancient African Christianity. In other words, the story of Christianity in the geographic region of Africa during the first millennium needs to be told as one continuous story. In carrying out this task, the story needs to question what ancient African Christians shared with the wider church (something that has often been done) and what was unique to their experiences (something that has rarely been done). For these tasks to be completed a few initial questions need to be answered.

Question 1: what is meant by “ancient African Christianity”?

At the risk of being pedantic, it will help to define each word in this phrase in order to avoid any initial confusion. By “ancient” I am referring roughly to the first millennium of Christianity, or late antiquity into the middle ages – pre-modern, if you like. The first undisputed evidence for Christianity in Africa dates to the mid-second century, which itself is evidence that Christianity had probably been established in some way previous to this – perhaps with ties to the first century. Moreover, the literary sources continue through the mid-seventh century, when the spread of Islam begins to replace Christianity in the region.

By “Africa” I primarily refer to the Roman province known as Africa Proconsularis, but I secondarily include the entire region of North Africa west of Aegyptius (Egypt). It is here argued that the early African Christians were not only African in a categorical sense because of the modern map (which is a modern expansion of a Roman invention), but also because the ancient Christians themselves embraced a self-identity as African. This self-understanding is especially acute in the Roman province of Africa, while the Christian residents of the ancient provinces connected with Egypt were far less likely to identify themselves as African. In other words, my usage represents the way people spoke of Africa in late antiquity. “Africa” (which the Latin writers generally preferred) or “Libya” (which the Greek writers generally used) could refer to the whole region,² but usually with the connotation that excludes Egypt. More precisely, Rome divided the province of Africa Proconsularis from Numidia (to the west) and Cyrenaica (to the east). Even when, under the emperor Diocletian (284–305), Africa was subdivided into seven provinces,³ the whole region could still be referred to as “Africa.” It is also helpful to remember that the dominant language of Egypt and Cyrenaica to the east was Greek, while Latin dominated in the western provinces. When Christianity became prominent throughout these western African provinces, Christians adopted this category of “Africa” so that they could speak of specific provinces, such as Africa Proconsularis, and yet they could also refer to the general region.⁴ Therefore, keeping this designation aligned with the view of the ancient African Christians enables us to understand them better.⁵

Lastly, by “Christianity” I include everyone who understood themselves in these terms, which includes some groups formerly known as “heretics.” The reason for this is that the boundaries of “Orthodox Christianity” became solidified only during the period of the ecumenical councils (325–787). By this time Christianity in North Africa had already divided into what will later be understood as “orthodoxy” and “heresy”; the internal split in the North African church predates the councils. Moreover, oftentimes the historian is hard pressed to identify who belonged to which group, since all such groups normally referred to themselves simply as “Christian.” In sum, ancient African Christians includes the whole of African Christian history, from the earliest records to the mysterious disappearance of a Christian presence around the end of the first millennium.

But beyond such elementary definitions of terms, the following work is devoted to studying ancient African Christianity as African Christianity. One recent group of scholars have concluded that much like the “Antiochene school” and the “Alexandrian school,” African Christians had their own theological tradition and their own unique expression of their faith.⁶ This school, therefore, deserves to be studied further and on its own terms.

Question 2: why study ancient African Christianity?

If this question were asked more broadly (i.e. Why study any ancient Christians?), then it would demand a longer answer than I can provide here. Suffice it to say that the discipline of Christian history is an important one.

When this question is asked more narrowly (i.e. Why limit the study of Christian history to one particular region?), then the question is about how to subdivide history. It is common practice for historians to divide history into periods (e.g. ancient, medieval, modern), and it is common practice to focus on specific persons from history (i.e. biographies) or groups and movements (e.g. monastics, scholastics, the Charismatic movement, etc.). In any one approach the historian could fall into a range of problems, such as overgeneralizations and misrepresentations, or – to the other extreme – losing the proverbial forest for the trees. In studying the history of a religion in a certain region, one hopes to avoid both pitfalls and to focus on patterns, recurring themes, and common context (generalizations) which can be identified in particular groups and persons (specifics). In short, Christianity in ancient Africa needs to be told as one story.

The topic of ancient African Christianity has too often been, if not neglected, than eclipsed by larger narratives. While most histories of Christianity include major African figures such as Cyprian and Augustine, few treat these subjects as Africans. Too often the fact that Africa was a western Roman province has meant that scholars can categorize African Christian history into the history of western Christianity, without paying closer attention to the uniqueness of Christianity in this region. While there are many commonalities between ancient African Christians and ancient Italian Christians, for example, there are also many differences. These differences are important. Just as one could not adequately understand the apostle Paul without identifying his commonalities with Greeks, so one should also identify his differences from Greeks. Paul, “the apostle to the Gentiles” (Rom. 11:13), could become “all things to all people” (1 Cor. 9:21–22), and yet he always remained “a Hebrew of Hebrews” (Phil. 3:5). With ancient Africans, however, such a clear statement of otherness is more difficult to define – after all, no one claimed to be “an African of Africans.”

Or did they? Occasionally, ancient writers from North Africa will claim just such a unique North African identity, and some specific examples are worth examining at the start of this discussion. Although Africa was conquered by Rome during the Punic wars (264–146 BCE), the actual rule of Africa by Rome was more complex. After the third Punic war (149–146 CE), Rome’s control of Africa began in the area around Carthage and only gradually spread from there over the next century. Furthermore, Rome’s presence in North Africa in no way negated the indigenous populations or their local languages, religions, and customs. Inhabitants of Africa often embraced their new Roman identity alongside their indigenous heritage. We will explore this more fully in Chapter 2, but a few examples will help introduce our discussion here.

Fronto (c.100–166 CE) was from the North African city of Cirta, but he moved to Rome and joined the highest ranks of imperial society. Nevertheless, Fronto could still claim, “I am a Libyan of the Libyan nomads” – an uncanny parallel to Paul’s self-description as a “Hebrew of Hebrews.”⁷ Fronto’s point, of course, is rhetorical and serves a different purpose than Paul’s statement, but he nevertheless nicely illustrates how easily Africans could claim a non-Roman identity.

Another example is Apuleius of Madauros (c.124–180 CE), who stated, “I proclaimed myself to be ‘half Numidian’ and ‘half Gaetulian.’”⁸ The Numidians and Gaetulians were people groups in northwestern Africa. Apuleius’s claim to be of mixed heritage is making a very particular rhetorical point about how he has embraced the highest of ideals of the empire, such as education and political involvement, despite what some think is a barbaric background.⁹ Again, Apuleius’s case demonstrates how someone can be categorized as non-Roman in one sense and still fully belong to Roman society. The important point for this study is that the wider Roman context should not negate our appreciation of the local context.

This point will be evident in Christian writers as well: Augustine, who studied in Madauros, will need to invoke Apuleius’s memory in order to speak to his non-Roman context, saying, “Apuleius of whom I choose rather to speak, because, as our own countryman, he is better known to us Africans.”¹⁰ Apparently, the memory and local heritage mattered to people who could classify themselves as “us Africans.”

Fronto and Apuleius both represent very specific groups within North Africa, namely the civic identity of Cirta and the ethnic identities of the Numidians and Gaetulians. So we must also not allow our category of “African” to eclipse the many local people groups who were from this region, because most of the individuals from these groups would not necessari...