The Bible in Christian North Africa

Part I: Commencement to the Confessiones of Augustine (ca. 180 to 400 CE)

Jonathan Yates, Anthony Dupont, Jonathan Yates, Anthony Dupont

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781614519263
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

This handbook explores the formation of Christianity in Northern Africa from the second century CE until the present. It focuses on the reception of Scripture in the life of the Church, the processes of decision making, the theological and philosophical reflections of the Church Fathers in various cultural contexts, and schismatic or heretical movements. Volume one covers the first four centuries up until the time of Augustine.

Part One: A General Introduction and Overview

Jonathan P. Yates

Anthony Dupont

David L. Riggs

Introduction

There is no question that the Christians of North Africa, both individually and via the communities that they formed and constituted, made more than their fair share of contributions to the history and the thought of the Western Christian tradition. Figures such as Tertullian and Cyprian, both of whom were Carthaginians, and, above all, Augustine, who, while spending almost all of his seventy-five-plus years in North Africa, managed to do more than anyone to influence both the shape and the contents of Western Christian thought, have – for good or for ill – never been far from the mainstream of what it means to live and to think as a Christian within Western culture.

And, while scholarly interest in particular eras and/or particular places usually ebbs and flows over the course of time, both the last few decades in general and the last few years in particular have witnessed a definite “flow” in terms of scientific and scholarly interest in North African Christianity.¹ It is our sincere hope that, by focusing on a crucial yet often understudied aspect of the lives of ancient North African Christians – i.e., their exegetical, doctrinal, and material relationship to what would eventually be recognized as the Christian Bible – these two volumes will make a contribution to understanding this unquestionably crucial era, geographical space, and (collection of) Christian culture(s). Both collections are oriented more or less chronologically, with this volume taking the reader from the late second-century world of the martyrological acta through to what is arguably the best known of all North African Christian texts: Augustine’s Confessiones.²

Specifically, by proceeding more or less chronologically, we hope to shed further light or, in some cases, offer new answers to questions such as: If viewed diachronically, what patterns emerge within the story of these ancient Christians’ relationship to their sacred texts? Are there particular thinkers and writers from within the North African Christian tradition whose exegetical import or influence remains underappreciated? And, where might the boundaries of the influence of the North African Christian tradition have been inaccurately drawn, either to that tradition’s benefit or to its detriment? Of course, in order to begin pursuing these and related questions, this volume, insofar as the extant sources will permit, begins by laying at least a brief theological and historical foundation for the studies it includes.

“Behold, I tell you a mystery”: The Origins of North African Christianity’s Relationship to the Bible

It is often noted that both the origins and the fundamental nature of Christianity in Roman North Africa are obscure. Jesus of Nazareth was executed in 30 (or 33) CE. For the next century and a half, however, the annals that would record the arrival, the presence, and the growth of Christianity in the four Roman provinces to Libya’s west are blank.³ The oldest unquestionable evidence, the brief Acta sanctorum Scillitanorum,⁴ emerges only in the late-second century, presumably having been written soon after July 17, 180 CE.⁵

Its brevity contributes to the fact that this text tells us far less about these Christians and their faith community than we would like it to. For example, while the text’s title tells us that these Christians were transported to Carthage from Scilli, it says nothing else about the latter, a town or village that is otherwise unknown and that, to this day, remains of uncertain location.⁶ We also remain uncertain about the precise circumstances that brought this group before Saturninus, the presiding proconsul, though the proconsul’s commentary on his verdict does tell us that the defendants were charged with “living in the manner of Christians” (Acta sanctorum Scillitanorum 14). At the same time, one certainty is how the story ends: because these Christians refused to give homage to the emperor by swearing an oath to his genius and supplicating the gods for his well-being, they were beheaded.⁷

Most interestingly for this volume’s purposes, however, is the fact that this oldest unquestionable evidence for the presence of Christianity in Roman North Africa is also the oldest extant evidence of North African Christianity’s sophisticated relationship to (at least) some of the texts that would eventually comprise the Christian New Testament.

Near the end of the text and just before rendering his verdict, the proconsul Saturninus asks what the martyrs have in their capsa – that is, their “satchel,” “case,” or “(book) box”⁸ – to which Speratus famously responds, “books and letters of Paul, a just man” (libri et epistulae Pauli viri justi; Act. sanct. Scill. 12–13).⁹ Scholars have recently recognized that this reference forms part of a chiastic structure that is intended to accentuate the passage as a climatic point in the narrative and, by extension, to convey the significance of the Pauline tradition for these martyrs and their community.¹⁰ That the plural epistulae indicates just two letters is very unlikely. On the contrary, it seems certain that Paul’s letters circulated in collections of ten or more by the end of the first century.¹¹ Some scholars draw yet more from this phrase by claiming that the “libri” must have been codices, not scrolls, and must have contained “parts of the Old Testament and the Gospels, or … at least the Gospels, alone.”¹² Not surprisingly, more restrictive readings have been proposed: several English translations, by leaning toward literalness, judiciously leave the exact nature of the libri open.¹³

Still, given that these Christians were captured with sacred texts in their possession, it should not at all surprise us that, as faithful martyrs and as imitators of Jesus’s own sufferings, these sacred texts formed the basis of their verbal interactions with their enemies and persecutors.

For example, in response to Saturninus’s opening invitation to return to a good disposition and the favor of the emperor, Speratus contests the proconsul’s characterizations of the group as ungrateful wrongdoers. He is keen to establish that, as Christians, they have “never done anything evil” … “nor spoken evil of anyone” (numquam malefecimus … malediximus). On the contrary, in spite of the “wicked treatment they receive” (male accepti), they continually “render grace for grace” (gratias egimus) because this is how they “pay homage to our emperor” (imperatorem nostrum observamus; Act. sanct. Scill. 12). Here, Speratus seems likely to have been inspired by Rom 12:1–21, where “not speaking evil” (nolite maledicere) of those who persecute you and “not rendering evil for evil” (nulli malum … reddentes) are included among the “service of faithfulness” (obsequium; cf. Rom 12:1) i.e. Christians are to render thanks and praise to God for his divine favor.¹⁴

Equally important is that, in paragraph 6, the text includes a “direct biblical quotation” from a Latin translation of 1 Timothy.¹⁵ Here, Speratus answers Saturninus’s reminder that all they need to do is to demonstrate “simple devotion” (simplex … religio) and Saturninus’s subsequent request to “please swear by the genius of our lord the emperor” with an offer to teach the proconsul about the true “sacred mystery of simplicity” (mysterium simplicitatis) and with an assertion that “I do not recognize the empire of this world; I serve instead the God ‘whom no man has seen or can see with mortal eyes.’”¹⁶ According to Barnes, the inclusion of “with mortal eyes” (his oculis)¹⁷ offers important support for his broader thesis that a “Latin translation of at least parts of the Bible can be discerned behind the earliest texts which could reasonably be supposed to show knowledge of one.”¹⁸

Relatively clear though this reference may be, it is far from all that is going on in this passage in terms of biblical references, a claim that requires a fuller quotation of Speratus’s response in order to be supported.¹⁹ He says:

I do not acknowledge (non cognosco) the empire of this age (imperium hujus saeculi); but rather I serve that God, whom no human has seen, nor can see with these eyes (quem nemo hominum vidit nec videre his oculis potest). I have committed no theft; but if I have bought anything I pay the tax precisely because I acknowledge my Lord (quia cognosco Dominum meum), the emperor of kings and of all peoples (imperatorem regum et omnium gentium).

(Act. sanct. Scill. 6)

Arguably, Speratus’s declaration draws first on the logic of 1 Cor 2:1–9, where Paul writes about the “mystery” (mysterium) of God: a cruciform wisdom that is “not of this age” (non hujus saeculi) and that “rulers of this age do not acknowledge” (nemo principium hujus saeculi cognovit).²⁰ There also seem to be debts to 1 Tim 3:22, albeit with adjustments to that text having been made in light of the present dialogue. In 1 Tim 3:22, Paul describes God as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rex regum et Dominus dominantium). Given Saturninus’s previous cunning usage of “our lord the emperor” (domini nostri imperatoris), Speratus’s alteration of the divine title to “emperor of kings” (imperatorem regum) here makes sense. In a similar vein, his addition of “with these eyes” may indicate an intentional conflation with 1 Cor 2:9, a text in which, via a quotation of Isa 64:4, Paul describes the aforementioned mystery as “that which no eye has seen.”²¹

We should also probably read the martyrs’ crowns at the end of the account as an allusion to Paul’s “crown of righteousness” (corona justitiae) in 2 Tim 4:6–8. Finally, considering their indebtedness to the Pauline epistles as illustrated above, we may reasonably assume that, when the martyrs replied to Saturninus’s guilty verdict and sentence of death with “Deo gratias” or “Thanks be to God,” they could well have had in mind either 1 Cor 15:57 (“but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” [NASB]), or 2 Cor 2:14a (“but thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ” [NASB]), or both.

Despite their brevity, these acta attest to a lively and nuanced scriptural imagination within (at least one community within) North Africa Christianity. Whether this significant familiarity is owing to catechetical instruction, editorial crafting, or both, is more difficult to say. What seems clear is that Speratus and his fellow martyrs repeatedly exhibit logic, language, and images that they drew from a reasonably large, if not complete, collection of Paul’s letters in their (sometimes polemical) responses to Saturninus’s interrogation, verdict, and death sentence.²² And, even if they do not tell us all that we would truly like to know about the origins and growth of Christianity in Roman North Africa’s western provinces, these brief acta do bear witness to a deep and, as we shall see, abiding relationship between the Christians who lived in these provinces and the texts that they regarded as sacred. To that extent, the brief Acta sanctorum Scillitanorum, lay an excellent foundation for the fifteen chapters that comprise this volume – chapters to which we now turn.

Light on the Mystery: North African Christianity’s Relationship to the Bible ca. 180 to ca. 400 CE

This volume’s account of Roman North Africa’s relationship to the Bible begins with a consideration of the Bible itself. In chapter 1, H. A. G. Houghton surveys the (earliest) history of Scripture and and Latin Christian Manuscripts from North Africa. First, he considers the material aspect, namely, the earliest extant documents (whether in the form of papyri or codices). He then reconstructs the complex history of the Vetus Latina tradition: its initial impetus – i.e., the North African Christians’ need of a Latin translation, the sources available for reconstructing the Vetus Latina today, and the characteristic aspects of the African biblical text, such as harmonization, omission, and distinct vocabulary. Next, he provides an extensive overview of African Latin manuscripts of the Bible and of biblical passages that may be reconstructed on the basis of extant Patristic compositions by, e.g., Cyprian, Lactantius, and Augustine. Houghton concludes by elucidating the vibrant Christian book culture of Roman North Africa. As he makes clear, the translation of the Bible into Latin and the practice of using half-uncial script played a preponderant role in the development of Latin Christian literary culture and, moreover, may even have been African innovations.

While persecution was not a personal experience for most pre-Constantinian Christians, the threat of martyrdom, both as an idea and as a lived experience, was, nevertheless, constitutive for their identity formation. Hagiographical literature thus played a crucial role in early Christianity generally. As a ge...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Part One: A General Introduction and Overview
• 1 Scripture and Latin Christian Manuscripts from North Africa
• 2 Scripture in the Martyr Acta et Passiones
• 3 Scripture in Tertullian’s Polemical and Apologetic Treatises
• 4 Scripture in Tertullian’s Moral and Ascetical Treatises
• 5 Scripture in the Letters of and Councils under Cyprian of Carthage
• 6 Scripture in the North African Treatises of Pseudo-Cyprian
• 7 Scripture in the North African Apologists Arnobius and Lactantius
• 8 Scripture in Optatus of Milevis
• 9 Scripture in Augustine’s Earliest Treatises
• 10 Paul as Scripture in the Young Augustine
• 11 Scripture in Augustine’s Early Anti-Manichaean Treatises
• 12 Scripture in Tyconius
• 13 Scripture in Augustine’s De doctrina christiana
• 14 Scripture in Augustine’s Confessiones
• Subject Index
• Ancient Sources Index