“As long as the church had been a small despised body, no one would enter it except from sheer conviction; but once it became fashionable to be a Christian the new believers claimed the right of submitting themselves to dictates of fashion scarcely reconcilable with the teaching of the (original) church” (The Christian Churches in North Africa, L. R. Holine).
The history of Christianity in North Africa is of interest for several reasons. It reveals significant facts about: 1) The Gnostic sects, some of which developed in Egypt and North Africa; 2) The development of the apostasy (within the church) in the early centuries; and 3) Minority resistance to the paganized church.
It is not known how Christianity came to Egypt and North Africa, but it seems to have been there at the end of the first century. Alexandria was a leading multicultural city where the Greek influence was great. Founded by Alexander, it became a center of Hellenic scholarship (Ency. Brit.). It also had a large Jewish population in the first century — one of the largest outside Palestine. It was known for its Hebrew scholarship and the Septuagint version of the Old Testament which had been produced there. It would seem natural that Christianity would find its way to that center at an early period, and there is a tradition that Mark took the gospel to Egypt.
Egyptian Christianity
The church in Alexandria prospered, and it came to be one of the largest and wealthiest churches in the Roman world. Egypt produced several of the early Gnostic heresies, and even in the mainstream it fulfilled the apostolic prediction. “For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine, but, following their own desires, will surround themselves with teachers who tickle their ears. They will stop listening to the truth and will wander off to fables” (2 Tim. 4:3-4 NIV).
Clement of Alexandria (active 193-220) was one of the first of these teachers. He is honored for having resisted the Gnostic teachers, but, “Clement was confident that there is much to be learnt from Platonic metaphysics, and from Stoic ethics, and from Aristotelian logic” (Chadwick: The Early Church, p. 97).
In about 180 the Didascaleon, or catechetical school, was set up by a converted Stoic philosopher, Pantaenus, and it came to have a profound effect upon the formulation of the doctrines and the philosophy of the church, both east and west. One of the principals of the school was Origen (active 204-254). The famed teachers of Alexandria discarded the scriptural promises for a Platonic view of the soul and an ethereal afterlife. They would exercise a pernicious influence upon Christianity for several centuries.
Other Egyptian ecclesias
It is known from archaeological history that there were a number of ecclesias in Egypt outside Alexandria. Not much is known about these small groups of believers except that they were located throughout the Nile delta and had copies of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. One account, recorded by Eusebius, is revealing. Dionysius, a third century bishop of Alexandria, told of visiting one of the assemblies remote from Alexandria. He found the people still to be teaching the truth concerning the return of Christ and his millennial reign on earth. He disputed with them on the subject for three days, convincing some of the group that their understanding of scripture needed to be updated (Ecclesiastical History, VII, 24.9). A little later on, churches were given no choice. They either accepted the authority and teaching of the bishop or they were dismissed as heretics.
There is a recent study by C. Wilfred Griggs (Early Egyptian Christianity, Publ. E. J. Brill, 1990) which includes some interesting sidelights about Christianity in Egypt. There is evidence of a point in time at which there was a definite break, a change in the teaching of the church at Alexandria. This occurred early in the third century with the arrival of Catholic Christianity; from that time there are veiled references to an earlier church with a different point of view. This accords with the example we have just recounted.
Monasticism
The late third and early fourth centuries saw the beginnings of monastic asceticism in Christianity. It seems to have developed in part as a reaction to the worldliness of the Constantinian church. The first monks went out into the deserts of Egypt to live as hermits, devoting themselves to fasting and prayer. “The prolonged loneliness and shortage of food and sleep fostered hallucinations as well as growth in spiritual awareness” (Eerdmans’ Handbook to the History of Christianity, pp. 204-16). Monasticism would gain great importance in the Medieval church. The movement would both provide and restrict learning in the dark ages; its espousal of wrong doctrines would always be detrimental to the cause of the Truth.
The church in North Africa
Carthage was located directly across the Mediterranean from Italy and was closely associated with Rome. The Carthaginians were very independent, however, and the churches there resisted domination for two or three centuries. Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians and had been an independent state before being conquered by the Romans. It is thought that Christianity came to Carthage via Italy. As an interesting sidelight, the final canon of the complete New Testament was collected and decided upon in Carthage (A.D. 397).
Termllian (145-220) lived in Carthage. His copious works contributed in part to the advancing apostasy, but he did demonstrate some independence of thought from the established church. Though influenced himself by the philosophers, Tertullian recognized that the church was becoming paganized. “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” he asked. What, indeed, had philosophy to do with the teachings of Christ? Later in his life, appalled by the overbearing methods of the Roman clergy, he joined the Montanist sect.
The Donatists
A number of believers in North Africa resisted the authority of the Roman church. In the third century, they refused to recognize that the bishop of Rome had any authority over them. When Constantine became emperor they first appealed to him for support, then later opposed his interference in their spiritual affairs. One bishop, Donatus, was attempting to reform the African church and he gained a substantial following. He also gained the enmity of the church in Rome. It was Donatus who posed the question, “What has the emperor to do with the church?” The Donatists, though put out of the Roman communion and persecuted, represented for a time the majority of believers in North Africa. This division of the North African church lasted for more than a century, beginning in A.D. 313. In 414 an imperial commission was convened at Carthage against the Donatists, and their cause was diminished. They reappeared from time to time until Christianity in North Africa was no more.
The Donatist sect was associated with the rural population of the less romanized areas and with the poorer classes in the towns of North Africa. Orthodox Christianity, conversely, was the religion of the romanized upper classes. They, of course, had the support of the now powerful Roman church.
The Donatists were representative of believers who resisted the growing apostasy; they rejected the leadership of the Roman church and refused to accept the marriage of the church to the secular state. As a dissident minority persecuted by the new church-state, we see the Donatists as typical of all who were separating themselves from the apostatized church. They were probably not believers in the truly apostolic sense, at least at the time they come to the notice of historians. There were, however, true brethren of Christ among the dissident groups that were separating themselves from the new state-church.
The influence of Augustine
Among those who opposed the Donatists was Augustine, bishop of Hippo Regius in North Africa. He became bishop in 395. Augustine was to become one of the most influential of all the Catholic philosopher-theologians, leading that church even further away from New Testament truth. He did a great deal to restore the North African church to Rome. He encouraged the persecution of the Donatists and other dissidents and he stood for the supremacy of the Roman state-church.
Finally, at a council at Carthage in 525, edicts of the emperor Justinian were put into effect. They ruled that only the Catholic church would be allowed to exist. Arians, Donatists and other dissidents were outlawed and their property was forfeited to the Catholic church. None but the orthodox could be employed by the State.
These were portents of things to come throughout the empire. As the Catholic church grew in power, its will and ability to persecute dissenters increased.
The lesson of history
The course of history that was followed by Christianity is not irrelevant to us, though we have separated ourselves from the resulting apostasy. The form of religion we have accepted is, we believe, that of the first century — of the apostles of Christ. The Old Testament has provided us with a detailed account of the story of Israel, and we are told to learn from that example. We are to avoid the road to God’s rejection that they followed. The same lessons are to be learned from the tragic mistakes of Christianity after the first century. The Apocalypse makes it clear that there is such a parallel between Israel and Christianity. It warns the ecclesias in the first century against the very course they would choose to take. By extension those same warnings apply to us — to our ecclesias — today.
These small doses of history are intended to convey these lessons. We will do well not to forget whence we came. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6).
“Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples…for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come…And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 10:11; 6:11).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One