History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A. D. 100-325

Solomon with cedars from Lebanon, and helped him to build his palace and the temple. They

founded on the northernmost coast of Africa, more than eight hundred years before Christ, the

colony of Carthage.

7

 From that favorable position they acquired the control over the northern coast

of Africa from the pillars of Hercules to the Great Syrtes, over Southern Spain, the islands of

Sardinia and Sicily, and the whole Mediterranean sea. Hence the inevitable rivalry between Rome

and Carthage, divided only by three days’ sail; hence the three Punic wars which, in spite of the

brilliant military genius of Hannibal, ended in the utter destruction of the capital of North Africa

(b.c. 146).

8

 "Delenda est Carthago," was the narrow and cruel policy of the elder Cato. But under

Augustus, who carried out the wiser plan of Julius Caesar, there arose a new Carthage on the ruins

of the old, and became a rich and prosperous city, first heathen, then Christian, until it was captured

by the barbarous Vandals (a.d. 439), and finally destroyed by a race cognate to its original founders,

the Mohammedan Arabs (647). Since that time "a mournful and solitary silence" once more brooded

over its ruins.

9

Christianity reached proconsular Africa in the second, perhaps already at the close of the

first century, we do not know when and how. There was constant intercourse with Italy. It spread

very rapidly over the fertile fields and burning sands of Mauritania and Numidia. Cyprian could

assemble in 258 a synod of eighty-seven bishops, and in 308 the schismatical Donatists held a

council of two hundred and seventy bishops at Carthage. The dioceses, of course, were small in

those days.

The oldest Latin translation of the Bible, miscalled "Itala" (the basis of Jerome’s "Vulgata"),

was made probably in Africa and for Africa, not in Rome and for Rome, where at that time the

Greek language prevailed among Christians. Latin theology, too, was not born in Rome, but in

Carthage. Tertullian is its father. Minutius Felix, Arnobius, and Cyprian bear witness to the activity

and prosperity of African Christianity and theology in the third century. It reached its highest

perfection during the first quarter of the fifth century in the sublime intellect and burning heart of

St. Augustin, the greatest among the fathers, but soon after his death (430) it was buried first beneath

the Vandal barbarism, and in the seventh century by the Mohammedan conquest. Yet his writings

led Christian thought in the Latin church throughout the dark ages, stimulated the Reformers, and

are a vital force to this day.

§ 11. Christianity in Europe.

"Westward the course of Empire takes its way."

This law of history is also the law of Christianity. From Jerusalem to Rome was the march of

the apostolic church. Further and further West has been the progress of missions ever since.

The church of Rome was by far the most important one for all the West. According to

Eusebius, it had in the middle of the third century one bishop, forty-six presbyters, seven deacons

7

Καρχηδών), the Latin Carthago. It means New City (Neapolis). The word Kereth or Carth enters also into the names of

other cities of Phoenician origin, as Cirta in Numidia.

8

9

ions of N. Davis and B. Smith (Rome and Carthage, ch. xx. 263-291). The recent conquest of Tunis by France (1881) gives

new interest to the past of that country, and opens a new chapter for its future. Smith describes Tunis as the most Oriental of

Oriental towns, with a gorgeous mixture of races—Arabs, Turks, Moors, and Negroes—held together by the religion of Islam.

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History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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with as many sub-deacons, forty-two acolyths, fifty readers, exorcists, and door-keepers, and fifteen

hundred widows and poor persons under its care. From this we might estimate the number of

members at some fifty or sixty thousand, i.e. about one-twentieth of the population of the city,

which cannot be accurately determined indeed, but must have exceeded one million during the

reign of the Antonines.

10

 The strength of Christianity in Rome is also confirmed by the enormous

extent of the catacombs where the Christians were buried.

From Rome the church spread to all the cities of Italy. The first Roman provincial synod,

of which we have information, numbered twelve bishops under the presidency of Telesphorus

(142–154). In the middle of the third century (255) Cornelius of Rome held a council of sixty

bishops.

The persecution of the year 177 shows the church already planted in the south of Gaul in

the second century. Christianity came hither probably from the East; for the churches of Lyons and

Vienne were intimately connected with those of Asia Minor, to which they sent a report of the

persecution, and Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, was a disciple of Polycarp of Smyrna. Gregory of Tours

states, that in the middle of the third century seven missionaries were sent from Rome to Gaul. One

of these, Dionysius, founded the first church of Paris, died a martyr at Montmartre, and became

the patron saint of France. Popular superstition afterwards confounded him with Dionysius the

Areopagite, who was converted by Paul at Athens.

Spain probably became acquainted with Christianity likewise in the second century, though

no clear traces of churches and bishops there meet us till the middle of the third. The council of

Elvira in 306 numbered nineteen bishops. The apostle Paul once formed the plan of a missionary

journey to Spain, and according to Clement of Rome he preached there, if we understand that

country to be meant by "the limit of the West," to which he says that Paul carried the gospel.

11

0

But there is no trace of his labors in Spain on record. The legend, in defiance of all chronology,

derives Christianity in that country from James the Elder, who was executed in Jerusalem in 44,

and is said to be buried at Campostella, the famous place of pilgrimage, where his bones were first

discovered under Alphonse II, towards the close of the eighth century

12

When Irenaeus speaks of the preaching of the gospel among the Germans and other

barbarians, who, "without paper and ink, have salvation written in their hearts by the Holy Spirit,"

he can refer only to the parts of Germany belonging to the Roman empire (Germania cisrhenana).

According to Tertullian Britain also was brought under the power of the cross towards the

end of the second century. The Celtic church existed in England, Ireland, and Scotland, independently

of Rome, long before the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons by the Roman mission of Augustine; it

continued for some time after that event and sent offshoots to Germany, France, and the Low

10

is; thirty-first chapter, and Milman estimate the population of Rome at 1,200,000; Hoeck (on the basis of the Monumentum

Ancyranum), Zumpt and Howson at two millions; Bunsen somewhat lower; while Dureau de la Malle tries to reduce it to half

a million, on the ground that the walls of Servius Tullius occupied an area only one-fifth of that of Paris. But these walls no

longer marked the limits of the city since its reconstruction after the conflagration under Nero, and the suburbs stretched to an

unlimited extent into the country. Comp. vol. I. p. 359

11

Rom. 15:24; Clem. R. Ad Cor. c. 5 (

τὸ τέρμα τῆς δύσεως)

12

See J. B. Gams (R.C.): Die Kirchengeschichte von Spanien, Regensburg, 1862-1879, 5 vols. The first vol. (422 pages) is

taken up with the legendary history of the first three centuries. 75 pages are given to the discussion of Paul’s journey to Spain.

Gams traces Christianity in that country to Paul and to seven disciples of the Apostles sent to Rome, namely, Torquatus, Ctesiphon,

Secundus, Indaletius, Caecilius, Hesychius, and Euphrasius (according to the Roman Martyrologium, edited by Baronius, 1586).

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Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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