Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200-450 CE

1. Setting the Stage: Carthage at the End of the Second Century

9 •Chapter 1 Setting the Stage Carthage at the End of the Second Century In his magisterial study of Tertullian, Timothy Barnes notes: “It can surely be no accident that Tertullian’s three earliest extant works are De Spectaculis, De Idololatria and what appears in modern editions as the second book of De Cultu Feminarum. All three address themselves to similar problems: how ought Christians to live out a life of faith in a pagan society?” (1985: 93). To present the conciliation of Christian faith and social life in Carthage at the end of the second century as a problem is to implicitly adopt Tertullian’s own point of view. Indeed,most scholars have underestimated how crucial it was to Tertullian’s rhetorical strategy to challenge Christians on this “problem.” In this chapter, I will show that not all Christians saw conciliation as an issue, as Christianness was only one of the multiple identities that mattered in their everyday life. Tertullian and the Christian Organization(s) in Carthage Little is known about Tertullian himself. Our main sources of information are a notice of Jerome in the De viris illustribus (53) and various remarks in Tertullian’s own works.1 The dates of his birth and death are uncertain, but we do know that he wrote during the reigns of Septimius Severus (193–211) and Caracalla (211–217). Tertullian was born in Carthage, where he also spent most of his life. He was not raised as a Christian,but we have no details 10 CHAPTER 1 of his conversion. His writings attest to a good education, and he was very likely of equestrian status (Schöllgen 1985: 183–184). Current scholarship rejects the identification with the jurist Tertullianus. Jerome says that Tertullian was a presbyter of the church of Carthage, and this statement was for a long time viewed in the light of his later alleged schism with the Montanists, or the New Prophecy, a movement originating in Phrygia (Trevett 1996). Nowadays, scholars tend to reject the claim that Tertullian was a schismatic as anachronistic (Mattei 1990; see Rankin 1995). His sympathy for the prophetic movement and growing dissatisfaction with the Christians he calls the psychici do not imply an official separation, especially in an ecclesiastical context where the relations between Christian organizations were rather fluid (Mattei 1990; Van der Lof 1991; Brent 1995). Although Tertullian was familiar with the ecclesiastical hierarchy of bishop, presbyters, and deacons (see, for instance, bapt. 17; see also Mattei 2000), this does not make it the case that there was one bishop overseeing all the Christians of Carthage. Indeed, we know very little about Carthaginian bishops before Cyprian: one Optatus is mentioned in the Passio Perpetuae 13.1, and one Agrippinus is referred to by Cyprian in context of a synod held probably around 230 (Clarke 1989:196–199;Y. Duval 2005:59,107–110). There is no attempt in our sources to reconstitute an episcopal list before the bishopric of Cyprian (Maier 1973). Thus,it is more likely that there were several Christian organizations in Carthage at the time of Tertullian, organizations that were independent, though sharing a common sense of belonging to the church. Because Tertullian, in at least one text, clearly includes himself among the clergy (anim. 9.4; see Braun 1972: 74), I see no reason to reject the information given by Jerome, and I accept that Tertullian was presbyter. Such status would also have lent him more legitimacy when addressing Christians on pastoral and disciplinary matters, even if his standing as a “sophisticated literate ” had, of itself, given him some authority (Tabbernee 2001: 380–381, following Hopkins 1998). How many Christians were there in Carthage at the time of Tertullian? As with all numbers in antiquity, we can arrive at only a reasonable guess. The population of Carthage in the second century is now estimated at about 70,000 inhabitants (Gros 2000), and Keith Hopkins suggests as a serviceable estimate,though quite likely too high,that Christians composed one-thirtieth of the total urban and metropolitan population of the Empire (1998: 195). If we apply these estimates to Carthage we arrive at a total of fewer than 2,500 Christians in 200 CE.2 Although this number is very low, perhaps even statistically insignificant, it does not tell the whole story. Indeed, in the pamphlet he addresses to Scapula, the proconsul of Africa, Tertullian warns CARTHAGE AT THE...