Having before discussed the contributions of Africa to global Christianity here, we come back to my main question. Did Lactantius, Augustine, and Tertullian, identify themselves as Africans? Or were they ‘merely Europeans in disguise’?
Although Oden argues that such an allegation is a ‘fairly recent Western intellectual prejudice,’ I shall, through his work, and with David E. Wilhite attempt to discover the answer to this question.
Thomas Oden argues that it is demeaning prejudice for us to ask whether Africans were indeed Africans. He contends that such a question suggests that African intellectual tradition ‘cannot even claim its own sons and daughters, especially if they happen to have been articulate.’[1]
And yet also, we note that the question of identity, as David Wilhite argues in his book Ancient African Christianity, is a complicated question, and multiple factors may be considered together to establish how someone identifies himself. For example, although we can use language as an indicator of ethnicity, yet one uses a language for several reasons beyond identity.
Personally, I speak English for the sad consequence of colonialism, and for the exchange of ideas with those whose cultural dialect differs from my own. But I am neither European nor American; I am African. Names as well can signal cultural identity, though they may, by themselves tell us little. I have an English name and an African one.
But then, in our investigation, we must guard against what Wilhite, like Oden, calls ‘western imperialistic prejudice’ of suggesting that African Christian thinkers were not ‘real African’ but rather ‘Romanized.’
The western world must stop using their colonialist lenses to read African sources, he argues.[2] Although it is true that most of the written material of early Christianity was in the places under Roman influence, Wilhite explains that local Communities under Roman governance could negotiate Roman values and customs in light of their own indigenous ones.
Indeed, the Romans did not aim at changing the cultures they conquered, but instead, through their syncretistic policies they minimized dissensions among the defeated. Because of this, it would be somewhat inaccurate to conclude that to be under Roman jurisdiction by default made one a Roman.
Wilhite argues that African Christianity was shaped by an environment marked by the remnants of Punic culture, including its religion, making it different from other forms of Christianity.[3]
And because this is so, those who read African sources must have a firm grasp of the ancient African culture and customs, for, without this, one will not be able to discover what was African about these church Fathers.
Oden, for example, argues that ‘It was the strength of (the) traditional African religion transformed by Christianity that stood up to idolatrous Roman civic religion.’[4] In other words, Christianity was not alien to Africa precisely because the African Christians did not abandon their ‘Africanness’ in their pursuit of Christ.
Yet, to discover such interactions between Christianity and the indigenous spiritual concepts requires a firm understanding of the ancient African cultures.
In order to discuss the African Identity of the Early African Christians, Wilhite suggests that we consider the meaning and root of names used, language, metaphors used in writing, and how the authors identified themselves. We ought to look at their usage of conventional conceptions of African deities, dress, and appearance, as well as the success (or lack thereof) of their ministry inland.
And this we shall do, in my next article.
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[1] Oden, C. Thomas. How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind. Illinois: 2007. Print. Page 62-3
[2] Wilhite, E. David. Ancient African Christianity. New York: Routledge, 2017. Print. Page 7.
[3] Wilhite, Page 45
[4] Oden, Print. Page 66