Where Is the Church?

Martyrdom, Persecution, and Baptism in North Africa from the Second to the Fifth Century

Burris

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781630876364
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Where Is the Church? Martrydom, Persecution, and Baptism in North Africa is an overview of North African Christianity from the second to the fifth century. Beginning with the African martyrs, Ronald D. Burris investigates the idea of how church was defined in North African Christianity through the understanding of water baptism, martyrdom (baptism in blood), and key theological concepts such as origo or conscientia. In addition to baptism and ecclesiology, this work investigates the social, political, and economic issues that were germane to the shaping, hardening, and eventual condemnation of those beliefs as expressed by the North African Christians, called the Donatists. Morevoer, this work seeks to explain why so many North African Christians were drawn to that group. They were drawn to the Donatists because the latter more closely represented the tradition of the early African martyrs, Tertullian, and their beloved hero and martyr, Saint Cyprian.

1

North Africa before the Christian Era

The African scholar G. Mokhtar divides the territory of North Africa, the non-Phoenician inhabitants of the Maghrib, into three main areas. In the west, between the Atlantic and Lulucca is the territory known as Mauretania, inhabited by the Mauri people. In between the people of Mauri and the maximum western extension of the Carthaginian inland were the Numidae people, with their territory being Numidia. The third group was the Gaetuli, who represented the nomads along the northern fringes of the Sahara.1 However, when the Phoenician traders from Tyre begin to arrive on the coast of North Africa they found that area already inhibited by Libyans, whose language and culture survived well into the Roman period.2 The Phoenicians did not come to make war with these native peoples but to establish ports for their trading endeavors. It has been suggested that the Phoenicians may have had ports every thirty miles or so to anchor their ships. Quite naturally, some of these ports would develop into permanent settlements, and three of their most important settlements were Carthage (f. 814 BCE) Utica (f. 1101 BCE) in North Africa and Motya in Sicily. Mokhtar also emphasizes that all of the Phoenician settlements in North Africa and elsewhere were small settlements with not more than a few hundred people at most. As a result, the native peoples and the Phoenicians together were referred to as Punic by the Romans and Libyophoenicians by the Greeks.3

During the sixth century BCE Carthage became independent of Tyre and emerged as the leader of other Phoenician cities in North Africa. Over time, Punic Carthage also became a maritime power competing and eventually warring with Greece over the trading rights in Sicily. In 580 BCE Carthage succeeded in preventing the Sicilian Greeks from settling in North Africa by expelling them from the Punic settlements at Motya and Palermo. Later a Spartan named Dorieus tried to establish a settlement in Libya, but, with the help of the native Libyans, the Carthaginians were able to drive the Greeks out of Africa.4 For four centuries Carthage and Greece fought battle after battle in the open seas, Carthage trying to maintain her trading dominance in western Sicily and the Greeks determined to get their fair share of trade.

The Wars Between Carthage and Rome

Since Rome initially had no fleet and no commercial interest in the western Mediterranean, Rome and Carthage were on good terms for two centuries, signing treaties in 504 and 348 BCE. Yet events not of their making eventually caused both powers to clash in the first of three Punic wars that ultimately led to Carthage’s destruction. Around 288 BCE, the city of Messana (modern Messina), under threat from Greek mercenaries, appealed to both Carthage and Rome for help. At the time, Carthage controlled large parts of Spain and were masters of the islands in the Sardinian and Tyrrhenian Seas,5 Rome feared that if Carthage got control of Messana, it could use this site to launch an attack on Italy; and so. after a long debate, the Roman Senate agreed to help the Messanians.

After twenty-four years of fighting, during which Rome not only built a navy but also developed new techniques of naval warfare, the first war between Rome and Carthage came to an end in 241 BCE with a treaty requiring the Carthaginians, among other things, to pay a large indemnity. Unfortunately, subsequent events led to another war between these two powers. Immediately after the war ended, Carthage suffered from internal strife. Because the war was so costly, the government of Carthage could not pay their mercenaries, many of whom were native Libyans. A civil war ensued, and it was two years before Carthage could put down the insurgents. During this time, Rome took advantage of the situation, seizing Sardinia and adding another 1,200 talents to the indemnity the Carthaginians were already required to pay. This action naturally inflamed Carthaginian hostility to Rome.6

For the next twenty-three years there was peace between Rome and Carthage, but the balance of power had shifted to Rome. The Carthaginians had lost their supremacy at sea as well as their holdings in Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily. To counter its losses, Carthage rebuilt its empire by conquering large territories in Spain. Rome, on the other hand, continued its military conquests by winning several battles against the Gauls, a Celtic people that they had been fighting for over a century. The Carthaginian general Hamlicar directed the operations in Spain and became very adept at winning the respect and cooperation of the Celtic people there. His son Hannibal, who won the command of the Carthaginian army in 229 BCE, also had this gift, inspiring a multiracial army to fight under his command in the midst of tremendous hardships.

From several years of fighting in Spain, Hannibal and his troops were a cohesive fighting unit. As a result, they began seizing towns near Saguntum and in 229 BCE attacked Saguntum itself. This was a violation of the treaty Carthage had signed with Rome and led directly to a war that raged for almost three decades, during which Hannibal invaded Italy with his famous elephants. Ultimately, however, Rome prevailed with the help of Numidian troops.

Under the terms of the treaty ending this war Carthage had to give up most of its fleet, its elephants, and its prisoners of war. It also had to pay reparations, could not make war outside of Africa, and could make war in Africa only with Rome’s permission.

Carthage survived and prospered for another fifty years, making every effort to be faithful to its treaty with Rome and even aiding Rome in wars against the Greek kings Philip and Antiochus. But Carthaginian prosperity made some in Rome nervous. One senator in particular, named Cato, ended every speech he gave on the Senate floor with the declaration Carthago delenda est (“Carthage must be destroyed”).7 Around the same time, King Masinissa of Numidia, who had made common cause with Rome, kept intruding into Carthaginian territory, claiming more than seventy towns. When the Carthaginians complained to Rome about this intrusion, Rome did nothing. Thus, in 150 BCE Carthage declared war on Masinissa and was defeated, violating their agreement not to make war in Africa without Rome’s approval. As a result, Rome demanded that the Carthaginians do the impossible: leave their capital and move inland. When Carthage refused, Rome declared war on Carthage in 149 BCE. The Punic city held out for three years, but in 146 BCE the Romans razed it to the ground and ceremonially cursed it. Not all the citizens of Carthage were killed, however, nor did Punic culture come to an end. Mokhtar describes the situation after the sack of Carthage in 146 BCE:

Rome only took over a small part of north-eastern Tunisia after the destruction of Carthage, and even this was largely neglected. In the rest of North Africa she recognized a series of client kingdoms which were generally left to their own devices. Within these kingdoms the cultural influence of Carthage continued and even increased as the older coastal settlements continued to...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: North Africa before the Christian Era
• Chapter 2: Martyrdom and the Church in North Africa
• Chapter 3: Tertullian: Baptism and the Church
• Chapter 4: Cyprian on Persecution and Martyrdom
• Chapter 5: Cyprian and the Unity of the Church
• Chapter 6: The Great Persecution and the Rise of the Donatists
• Chapter 7: From Julian to Augustine
• Chapter 8: Baptism, Persecution, and Resistance
• Chapter 9: Imperial Repression, African Resilience: Where is the Church?
• Chapter 10: Summary of North African Christianity
• Bibliography