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Western North African Christianity
A History of the Christian Church in Western North Africa
Western North Africa
Perpetua & Felicitas
Tertullian
Cyprian
Donatists
Circumcellions
Augustine of Hippo
Christianity came to Western North Africa from Rome and grew more rapidly in this province of the Roman Empire than in any other western province. It was firmly established in Carthage and other Tunisian towns by the third century. Christianity in Western North Africa was predominantly urban, since its evangelists were Latin speakers who for various reasons had come to North Africa from Rome or other parts of the Roman empire, though the church also grew rapidly in the frontier regions of Numidia where there were fewer Romans and more people of Phonecian ancestry.
•Martyrs
The Christian Church in Western North Africa suffered rather severe, though sporadic persecution at the hands of the Roman Empire. This history of martyrdom left an indelible mark on the church’s subsequent development. Accounts of martyrdom were circulated widely and the martyrs remembered for their courage and their witness. The North African theologian Tertullian went so far as to write that "the blood of Christians is the seed of the church." One of the clearest accounts of an early martyrdom is that of Perpetua and Felicitas who died about AD 200. Perpetua’s diary, which she kept in prison and which is preserved in the account of her martyrdom is one of the treasures of the ancient church.
•Tertullian
Tertullian (160-240) was shaped by the experience of persecution. He viewed it his task to defend the church against her critics, but he was as likely to attack the non-Christian culture around him as he was to defend the gospel within the framework of educated pagan Romans. Tertullian’s enduring question was "What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?" For him the gospel and pagan philosophy had nothing to do with each other. The role of the Christian theologian was to challenge and discredit pagan philosophy and substitute a biblical worldview. Tertullian was equally harsh with those Christians he viewed as compromising with the world or with pagan culture, and, in fact, left the Catholic church towards the end of his life and became a Montanist — a puritanical and charismatic sect with its roots in Asia Minor.
•Cyprian
Cyprian (248-258) bishop of Carthage was a notable theologian and administrator, who followed Tertullian’s footsteps and revered him as the "master." Cyprian was bishop during a time of persecution and faced the problem of what to do after the persecution was over, and Christians who had given in to the persecution and sacrificed to the official gods wished to be re-instated. Since he believed and taught that there was no possibility of salvation outside of the church, he had to let the lapsed back into communion, as long as they showed genuine repentance. In the process of wrestling with the issue of the lapse, Cyprian developed the first mature theology of the nature of the Church.
•Donatists
When Constantine tolerated, then began to favor Christianity at the beginning of the fourth century, the Western North African church faced first a dilemna, then a split and finally a schism. Certain of the more rigorous of the North African churchmen, especially from Numidia, refused to recognize the sacramental credentials of priests who had been ordained by bishops who had returned to the Christian church after having denied their faith under the pressures of persecution, especially the persecution under Diocletian, which was well within living memory. One of the leaders of the movemnt, a bishop by the name of Donatus, gave his name to the movement, which the Roman Catholic Church rejected. The Donatists left the Roman Catholic Church and maintained an independent existence until the whole region was conquered by and then converted to Islam in the seventh century.
•Augustine of Hippo:
Perhaps the greatest of the North African Christian theologians was Augustine, bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia. Augustine applied his enormous erudition against the Donatists, breaking the schism through theological argument, as well as justifying the use of force by the Church against schismatics and heretics. The Roman empire fell during Augustine’s episcopate prompting the thoroughly Romanized Augustine to defend Christianity against those who accused the Christians for being responsible for the fall of the Empire. Augustine himself died during the seige of Hippo Regius when the Vandals invaded North Africa.
•Decline of the church in North Africa
The Vandals were Arian Christians,and therefore hosile both to the Donatists and to the Catholic Christians, but their presence was superficial enough to prevent any significant number of North Africans from becoming Arian. The Vandal kingdom was destroyed by a Byzantine invasion in 533, and, although African Christians welcomed the re-establishment of Catholic Christianity, this was the moment at which the Eastern Church and the Western Church came to a parting of the ways. North Africa was clearly western in its orientation, while Byzantium was the center of the eastern church. The Byzantine rule was neither efficient nor popular; the local population viewed it as foreign, corrupt and venal.
•Islamic Invasion & Conversion to Islam
Neither the Church nor the ruling Byzantine veneer were able to resist the Islamic invasions of the seventh century, particularly since they were at odds with each other. Within a century the Christian church had died out, without any particular persecution on the part of the Muslim rulers, who treated the Christians leniently because they were "People of the Book." Christians were, however, required to pay additional taxes, and within a generation or two found these taxes too onerous to be worth maintaining a Christian identity. The church, divided and quarreling, could not persuade its members of the truth and importance of the Gospel message. If the blood of the martyrs had been the seed of the North African church, the feeling that Christianity was unfashionable and rather expensive withered the plant. Had Islam persecuted the North African Christians rather than tolerating them, Christianity may well have continued to flourish.
This page was based on the following sources, which you can consult for more detailed information:
Henry Chadwick, The Early Church. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdman’s, 1968.
WHC Frend, The Rise of Christianity. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984.
Justo Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity. New York: Harper & Row, 1984
For more on Perpetua and Felicitas see:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/maps/primary/perpetua.html
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