7 - The Christian period in Mediterranean Africa, c.ad 200 to 700

Summary

INTRODUCTION

For more than three centuries, from the reign of Constantine (AD 306-37) to the Arab invasions of the 630s, Mediterranean Africa was the scene of a prosperous and brilliant Christian civilization. Never before or since has North Africa exercised so great an influence on contemporary events and thought. The Christian leaders, Augustine of Hippo (AD 334-430) and Cyril of Alexandria (died AD 444), moulded the teaching of the Latin and Greek Churches respectively in a way that has survived for centuries. Augustine's theology of grace was accepted by Protestants and Roman Catholics alike during the Reformation era, Cyril's theology of the Incarnation remained standard orthodox teaching to modern times, and these examples illustrate the extent to which Mediterranean Africa faced towards Europe rather than towards the remainder of Africa for long periods in its history.

The transition from Graeco-Roman to Christian North Africa resulted in profound changes at every level of society. At the beginning of the third century AD, Mediterranean Africa was dominated by its cities, the final brilliant product of the military and economic power of Rome, and the lives of its peoples were watched over by the ‘immortal gods of Rome’, associated with the territorial and tribal gods and goddesses the origin of whose worship was lost in the mists of time. For the ordinary provincial the emperor was the intermediary between the world of gods and their own, a distant but kindly providence to whom recourse could be had against the extortions of his servants.