Tertullian often called (and rightly so I believe) ‘Father of Latin Theology coined the term Romanitas to mock Roman-ness, implying his rejection of a Roman identity.^[1]

Of Berber origin,^[2] Tertullian was born in and raised as an African. David Wilhite disputes the thought that Tertullian’s father was a ‘proconsular centurion’ because Timothy David Barnes’ investigation demonstrated that ‘there was no such office in the ancient world.’[3] Apparently, Jerome misread ‘soldiers of our country (patriae nostrae), for patri, from a corrupted copy of Tertullian’s Apology. Here Tertullian says thus:

‘Children were openly sacrificed in Africa to Saturn as lately as the proconsulship of Tiberius, who exposed to public gaze the priests suspended on the sacred trees overshadowing their temple—so many crosses on which the punishment which justice craved overtook their crimes, as the soldiers of our country still can testify who did that very work for that proconsul.’[4]

Tertullian’s self-identity as African shows in his concerns about dressing and Appearance. Dressing, even now in many rural African places serves as a test of someone’s virtues, morals, and identity. This was true for Tertullian as well.

Wilhite argues that Tertullian’s self-awareness as an African ‘comes to the forefront of his argument in his work On The Cloak’ in which Tertullian argues his African Christians to dress as Africans in a native garb as opposed to the Roman Toga.

In this letter, Tertullian appeals to the Carthegians not to forget their ancestry and reminds them of how they invented the battering ram, forgot about it, and Rome used it to smash Carthage. In this, you hear his African heartbeat. When Tertullian writes to his African Christians, he warns them not to forfeit their African identity and trade it for the Roman one.[5] As I read Tertullian’s On the Apparel of Women[6] this truth was much pronounced for me.

Augustine’s self-identity in light of Rome remained African. Wilhite argues that ‘throughout (The City of God), Augustine aggressively denigrates the traditional heroes of Rome – repeating many of the standard lines found in earlier African apologists.’[7]

In addition, around 412 when Augustine is replying to concerns brought about by Marcellinus, a magistrate in Carthage, he discourses a contrast of Christ with other magicians, such as Apollonius and Apuleius. In this, he says thus:

‘Apuleius (of whom I choose rather to speak, because, as our own countryman, he is better known to us Africans), though born in a place of some note.’[8]

‘Our own countryman,’ Augustine says. And adds, ‘he is better known to us Africans.’ Such self-identification would have been enough for a man mostly viewed as more Roman than African. Yet, for the sake of emphasis, permit me to cite more cases concerning Augustine.

Jerome, for example, having been pressed hard by Augustine to explain why he had to produce a Latin Vulgate when the church already had the Septuagint reluctantly responded to the youthful Augustine thus:

Wherefore, as I have already written, either send me the identical letter in question subscribed with your own hand or desist from annoying an old man, who seeks retirement in his monastic cell. If you wish to exercise or display your learning, choose as your antagonists, young, eloquent, and illustrious men, of whom it is said that many are found in Rome, who may be neither unable nor afraid to meet you, and to enter the lists with a bishop in debates concerning the Sacred Scriptures. As for me, a soldier once, but a retired veteran now, it becomes me rather to applaud the victories won by you and others than with my worn-out body to take part in the conflict; beware lest, if you persist in demanding a reply, I call to mind the history of the way in which Quintus Maximus by his patience defeated Hannibal, who was, in the pride of youth, confident of success.[9]

This response has excellent force because Jerome sees a Hannibal in Augustine, both ‘youthful’ Africans insisting on attacking ‘old and patient’ non-African adversaries. And if Jerome views the younger Augustine as African, it may appear, against popular belief, that Augustine indeed was identified as African rather than Roman by his contemporaries.

We do well here to recall that Augustine had written to Jerome earlier ‘on behalf of all African Churches’[10], which is why Jerome sees Augustine as an ‘overzealous young African.’

Wilhite gives us another case to consider. ‘In what has been called a fit of “nationalist, if nor racist” polemics, Julian of Eclanum claims Augustine imposed a peculiarly African teaching on the Catholic Church.

Specifically, Julian accuses Augustine of both “Numidian stubbornness” and “Punic reasonings,” and he, therefore, labels Augustine “the Punic Aristotle.”’[11] Julian does not need to use this label on Augustine with an explanation, suggesting that it was well known.

And Augustine, in response, doesn’t downplay his Punic-ness, but rather replies: ‘after all, even the blessed Cyprian was Punic.’[12]

In Wilhite’s intense argument, he also tells of a certain Quodvultdeus, a fellow African and soon-to-be bishop of Carthage who requested for instructions from the aged Augustine poetically calling them ‘African bread isolated from any foreign flavors.’ He intended this request as both a compliment and a show of solidarity for the shared African heritage unmingled with Roman tastes.

Wilhite continues thus: “Mike Hollingworth notes how Augustine’s context informed his own understanding: ‘Clearly the more telling consideration is the question of self-identity. In his writings, Augustine leaves information to how conscious he was of his African heritage; and to standing out as one.’”[13]

Thus, even Augustine, viewed by many as Roman, was instead identified by others as African, and he himself self-identified as such.

Oden reminds us that ‘among the decisive things Augustine personally learned in Italy according to his confessions (8.6.14), was the impact made upon him by hearing from Pontitianus of the holy life of Anthony of the African desert, written by the African Patriarch Athanasius.’[14] Augustine was an African, born to Africans in Africa, and learned from African minds.

But we will see more shreds of evidence in the next section.

 

[1] Wilhite, Print. Page 115

[2] Hilliard, Constance B. (1998). Intellectual Traditions of Pre-colonial Africa. McGraw-Hill. Quoted by Wikipedia

[3] Wilhite, Print. Page 115

[4] Schaff, Philip. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3 (Tertullian: Apology IX.) Michigan: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, originally printed in 1885. Accessed via www.ccel.org

[5] Schaff, Philip. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4 (Tertullian: On the Pallium. Chapter I.) Michigan: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, originally printed in 1885. Accessed via www.ccel.org

[6] Coakley, W. John & Sterk. Andrea. Readings in World Christian History, Vol 1. New York: 2014

[7] Wilhite, Print. Page 257

[8] Schaff, Philip. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1 (Augustine Letters: To Marcellinus) Michigan: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, originally printed in 1885. Accessed via www.ccel.org

 

[9] Schaff, Philip. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1 (Augustine Letters, LXXII) Michigan: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, originally printed in 1885. Accessed via www.ccel.org

[10] Schaff, Philip. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 1 (Augustine Letters, XXIII) Michigan: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, originally printed in 1885. Accessed via www.ccel.org

[11] Wilhite, Print. Page 252.

[12] Wilhite, Print. Page 252.

[13] Wilhite, Print. Page 257.

[14] Oden, Print. Page 63