Christian inscriptions of North Africa: a study in the popular religion of the early (Western) Church

Abstract

What was the popular religion of the Early Church, as developed in a typical, historically important province of the Western Empire, in so far as this can be gathered front its Christian Inscriptions? That is the question to which an answer is sought in the following pages. Dilettanti and controversialists, to "be Sure, have long "been aware of the charm and; usefulness of Christian Epigraphy; "but an earnest grappling with the problem is still wanted, whose aim shall "be neither amusement nor propaganda but genuine knowledge, and therefore more nearly worthy of the expert work already accomplished, to wit the excavation, critical examination, and accurate publication of Early Church remains.

(A) PROBLEM Our purpose is thus broadly similar to that of Dr. Alexis Schwarze, who in the year 1892, under the title: "Untersuchungen liber die aussere Entwicklung der afrikanischen Kirche mit besonderer Verwertung der archaologischen Punde"(Gttttingen, Vandenhoetek und Ruprecht) issued a history of the African Church, in which speeial use was made of local Christian Inscriptions, about 300 Items in all being examined by this industrious investigator, his source being the parts then in print of GIL VIII. We differ from him radically however, (l) in neglecting the "outward" development of the African Church, i.e. its history considered as a chronicle of specific events, in favour of a description of the metamorphosis of its piety brought about in the course of time, that is to say, what no doubt Schwarze himself would term its "inward" development; and (2) in raising the Christian Inscriptions of the country from the status of auxiliary to that of principal sources.Each of these .two fundamental modifications involves the other; for although the African stones are so numerous that the history of the Church there can "be traced through them, alone they could not for a moment supply the data for a continuous chronicla: on the contrary, their function, as is the function of inscriptions generally, can only "be to fill out with flesh and blood the skeleton of the past left us "by the old chroniclers?' In a sense this is precisely what we wish to do here: namely to supplement Schwarze's "ftussere Entwicklung" "by means of an "innere Entwicklung", which shall restore something of the freshness of immediate experience to the "bald details of what the African Church did and suffered.

And in truth its achievements and its sufferings were alike extraordinary. Whence Africa received the Gospel is not known: on general grounds, probably Rome; in any case the African Church could boast of martyrs before the end of the second century, not in one spot only, but from every quarter of the country?'Very soon it was flourishing as the Church from which Western Christendom was glad to learn its Theology, owing to its outstanding personalities, notably Tertullian, Cyprian, and above all Augustine, to whom Harnack ascribes a degree of influence equal only to that exerted by Paul before him and Luther after him. On the other hand no church was more grievously mutilated by schism, intensively or extensively; and of all the Western Churches that of Africa alone was utterly annihilated without remainder, never to rise again, ere the Mediaeval Transition: for in 644 the Arabs gained a footing on Tripoli, in 698 they subdued Carthage, and by 714 they had overrun the whole land westward as far as Tingi itself. Apparently the expulsion of the Romans meant also the extinction of the Church in Africa, since its last dated monument, namely the epitaph of one Julius recently discovered at Volubilis, in Morocco, "belongs to the year 679. It is with astonishment, however, that we learn a further fact, namely that in spite of this revolution, a Christian remnant survived down to the sixteenth century, albeit on an insignificant scale, since it left no monumental traces, and therefore is of no account for our present purpose. In order to explain both phenomena, the extinction of a once vigorous Church as a whole on the one hand, and the long survival of a numerically contemptible remnant of it on the other, our informant offers the hypothesis: Catholicism affected the natives superficially, being essentially a development of Christianity controlled by the Roman spirit; in so far as they were Christianized at all, the natives developed a radically different conception of the fAith (Donatism), which, had it prevailed, might well have secured Africa for Christianity; as it was, the victory of the Catholics, and therewith the political reduction of the faith, which henceforth became for the Africans merely the religion of alien overlords, rendered the extinction of the Church in Africa inevitable on the withdrawal of the Roman political domination therefrom: and the 16th-century remnant survived simply because it was not Catholic.' We have no occasion to comment on this solution of the problem in the mean time; we only wish to justify our interest in the Church of North Africa, whose unique destiny invites a scrutiny of its religious quality.

(B) MATERIAL From the very "beginning of the modern interest in Christian Archaeology considered as a science, the Christian Inscriptions of Africa have attracted attention: G.B.De Rossi himself wrote a work "De christianis titulis Carthaginiensibus" (Paris, 1858) .But it was only after the early parts of the GIL volume 8 appeared, (1881) , that the first African collection of Christian texts could brought together; and this pioneer work was undertaken without delay by Künstle, who isolated there from 408 items. But soon the CIL 8 Supplements of 1891, 1894, and above all of 1916 (containing fresh texts up to 1907) offered new matter in such richness as to render Künstle's collection antiquated. By this time, moreover, the Christian Inscriptions of the West generally had been brought together in local collections, those of Rome by De Rossi, those of Gaul by Le Blant, those of Spain and Britain by Hübner: Africa alone lacked a collection of its own. In 1903, therefore, Monceaux took up the challenge, and announced an ambitious programme, ' issuing 119 Greek texts immediately, 33 Jewish texts in 1904, and 75 metrical inscriptions in 1906, all in the Revue Archeologique; and a fourth series, consisting of hagiographic texts, he published through the French Institute in 1907. Since then nothing has been heard of the plan: to date, therefore, of the 2000 texts he said he possessed, Monceaux has furnished us with but 304, his Jewish texts apart.

It has therefore been necessary to start afresh upon the task of assembling the Christian inscriptions of North Africa. For this purpose the eighth volume of the OIL and its Supplements have naturally been taken as the basis, with Monceaux's Enquête alongside. For texts emerging since, Gsell's admirable re-editing of the Latin inscriptions of Algeria, so far as that has been published, has been drawn upon. Cagnat-Merlin-Chatelain's collection supplementing the CIL for Tripolitania, Tunisia, and Morocco from which unfortunately all Christian matter has been excluded on the ground that "Christianity is so much a. world apart that the epigraphical documents of Christendom are lost in a general Corpus, and would be more conveniently brought together in a special collection, which will be done for Africa some day", has however been consulted for State tituli. Further material has also been supplied by the French Society of Antiquaries' Bulletin (BSNAF) and the Transaations of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres(CRAIBL). For texts not communicated to these bodies grateful use has been made of the Revue des Publications Epigra.phiques issued annually in connection with the Revue Archeologique, and edited by Cagnat, Besnier, Merlin, and Gagé in turn. Finally the collection was revised, checked, and where necessary further supplemented by means of Diehl's splendid sylloge the 5000 texts of which include most of the material originally accessible to Monceaux, and much that is fresh besides. It is known that some inscriptions have not yet been seen, those namely found only in local African journals, at present out of reach, which have not been reproduced by the editors of the Revue des Publications Épigraphiques. They are few in number, and when again available are not Likely to affect the results obtained without them. It is impossible, moreover, to calculate the number of whole inscriptions represented by the prodigious mass of debris recovered by Delattre from the cemeteries of Carthage, numbering to date in the region of 30000 small fragments, which Leclercq, following De Rossi's "canaglia degli iscrizioni", has aptly termed "poussière épigraphique'. Some hundreds of pieces, those namely selected by the editors of CIL 8 as leaving less to the imagination than the majority, have been copied out; but apart from these, the names and phrases which Delattre himself was able to trace, and which he was in the habit of submitting, in liwa of the fragments themselves, when reporting his discoveries to the bodies interested, have been noted.

In all, our collection contains over 3000 items.

(C) METHOD Obviously the most convenient way of dealing with this material is first to catalogue the texts according to provenance and date: only when this is done, can a fruitful examination begin. Such a procedure will moreover simplify subsequent reference, as each text will then have a serial number, in letters and figures, which will not only prove far less cumbrous than an original quotation, but in addition will at once show its topographico-chronological situation.

Part I of the present investigation consists in just such a catalogue, in the introduction to which, called Methodological Prolegomena to distinguish it from this general Introduction, the principles controlling the selection of the material and its subsequent arrangement will be set forth.

It remains to determine the structure of Part II, i.e., the investigation proper. The main divisions into which the exposition will have to fall are indicated from two directions. On the side of the Problem, it is methodologically necessary to distinguish the life of the Christian community insofar as it is the centre of action and reflection respectively. Behind its overt behaviour we are justified in assuming the existence of "beliefs, convictions, and theories of all kinds which ultimately control what they do, and which therefore may be inferred from what they do. Our exposition will consequently contain two parts, the former devoted to the PRAXIS, the latter to the IDEOLOGY of the African Christians, the latter being inferred directly from the former.

But on the side of the Material also a methodological distinction must be made. We may alternatively approach the texts from below upwards, a posteriori, empirically, following up each element until we trace it in isolation to its origin; or from above downwards, a priori, formally, with preconceived attitudes and prearranged, specific questions, wishing to reduce all diversities to the maximum degree of unity. The former procedure is ANALYTIC, the latter SYNTHETIC.

Both systems may be combined by positing a correspondence between Christian Praxis and the analytical use of the texts on the one hand, and between Christian Ideology and the synthetic use of the texts on the other. This is done by distinguishing within the material a variety of categories, types, etc., and tracing the situation, experience, etc.determining them, thereby reaching analytically the Praxis of the community; and by formulating specific questions covering all possible Ideology, and reviewing the entire material once again from this synthetic standpoint.

A further plastic factor lies implicit in the predicates we wish to establish respecting the particular community in question, namely, "Christian", "African". It is a Christian community; we must discover how far it resembles, and how far it differs from, the non-Christian communities which surround it. And it is an African community; we must distinguish the elements it shares with the other Christian communities throughout the Empire, and those features of its Christianity which are peculiar to itself. Only so, that is, by establishing the African Christian community's Identity with and difference from its immediate environment, can a clear picture of its piety be secured.

The detailed discussion of the plan outlined above is reserved for the appropriate section on Methodological Prolegomena, with which Part II, like Part I, will be furnished. That, finally, a concluding section, offering a systematic summary of the results, will be necessary, is self-evident.