Graham, Alexander: Roman Africa: an outline of the history of the Roman occupation of North Africa ; based chiefly upon inscriptions and monumental remains in that country (London [u.a.], 1902)

Africa under the later Emperors 243

some idea of the anxiety which troubled him in dealing with
recalcitrants in his far-distant province. So rapidly, he tells us,
was Christianity spreading that the ancient temples were being
deserted, and votive offerings to the gods he was taught to
reverence were daily becoming matters of indifference. If such
^ state of things prevailed in a country of such secondary
lrnportance, how much more potent in its results would be the
working of a similar movement in so renowned a centre of
mtellectual thought, and the home of so vast a population, as
the city of Carthage ! The schools of rhetoric and philosophy,
which had been firmly established there during the rule of the
Antonines, had attracted men of eminence from all parts cf
the Empire, and had made Carthage inferior only to Rome as a
seat of learning in the second century. As a stronghold of
Christianity it had asserted its authority in the time of Septimius
Severus, when Tertullian, a native of that city and the first in
Point of date of the Latin Fathers, stands forth pre-eminently as
the pioneer of the Church in Africa. The gentle rule of the
Antonines had been tolerant of all forms of religion, and had
given more tacit encouragement to freedom of thought than was
Accorded at any later period of the Empire. For more than
e'ghty years, dating from the accession of Hadrian to the firm
establishment of imperial government under Septimius Severus,
Christian communities had enjoyed almost unrestrained liberty
°f action, and had extended the sphere of their operations into
remote parts of the Empire. But their labours received a severe
check when Tertullian of Carthage, a master of rhetoric, openly
Poached the new doctrine to not unwilling ears, and helped to
Provoke an edict by Severus for the suppression of all forms of
Christian worship. Some thirty years later Alexander Severus,
|nstigated by his ministers rather than from personal inclination,
ISsUed a similar proclamation ; but it was not till the reign of
^ecius, a.d. 249-251, that Pagan zealots found in the African
Church a field for systematic persecution, and invoked the
Senate at Rome and the governors of provinces to refuse pro-
action to any followers of the new creed. It is in this stage
°f the history of the Church that we are brought face to face
j^th the fact that 'it was through Africa that Christianity
ecame the religion of the world. Tertullian and Cyprian were
rorn Carthage, Arnobius from Sicca Veneria, Lactantius and