Tunisian Dispatches: in the Shadow of Saints Perpetua and Felicity
The single phrase Carthago delenda est reminds us powerfully that up until recent times there can have been few more storied places in the minds of English school children than that of Carthage. That simple phrase (That Carthage must be destroyed) was forever tied to the figure of Cato the elder as he used it repeatedly to push the Roman senate into what was to become the Third Punic War.
He argued that the fear of a common enemy was necessary to maintain Roman unity and keep the people in check. But in the Senate the son-in-law of Scipio Africanus was the most influential senator, and he opposed the war, so he ended all his speeches with a variation of that same phrase:“Carthago servanda est” (Carthage must be saved).
Then, however, the Carthaginians made a fatal mistake by invading Massinissa, which gave a casus belli to Rome since the peace treaty of 201 BC prevented Carthage from declaring war without Rome’s assent.
It was after losing this fight that in 146 BC, Carthage was razed to the ground by Scipio Aemilianus — Africanus’s grandson — and its entire remaining population was sold into slavery, and North Africa was subsumed as an entirely Roman province.
The Three Punic Wars, from 264 BC to 146 BC, together constituted a truly epic fight to the death between the Roman and Phoenician empires which forever shaped the later course of history. Perhaps its most famous military campaign was that of Hannibal (247 – 181 BC). He first invaded Spain and then proceeded on into Italy by crossing the Alps with North African war elephants.*
The first large history book I ever remember reading, at about the age of seven, told of the extraordinary brilliance and complexity of Hannibal’s campaign, while also making clear from the overall outcome that gradualness can have its place — as indeed my personal motto reflects: Suaviter in Modo, Fortiter in Re.
It was with all this in mind that I landed via Amman in Tunis (the modern name for what was Carthage), Tunisia, to attend the consecration last Sunday of my long standing friend and Cranmer scholar Dr Ashley Null (whose work I first came to know as Editor of The Anglican Way).
This consecration was a most important milestone for Anglicans across the region of North Africa rich with promise for expanding our work. Years ago, while in Cairo, I sat on the first committee that reviewed and developed a plan for what became the New Alexandria School of Theology in Cairo and Alexandria with which Dr Null was a key supporter and teacher.
Accordingly, he is now highly credible in proposing a new Graduate Student institution which will likely begin by offering summer schools for students who wish to read the early church Fathers of the region in their original languages of Greek and Latin.
At a time when Divinity schools are widely shrinking and losing their most academically heavy courses, I have no doubt at all that there will be demand for such tuition and it is hoped that over time these courses will lead to the possible award of a Master’s Degree.
While St Augustine was latterly based in Algeria, Tunisia currently looks the more stable and secure basis for an institution. Enabling a new generation of students to have a true command of the Patristic sources will be massively important in helping reinforce the traditional Anglican perspectives. A new Graduate Student institution will help students greatly to understand the Augustinian and Patristic sources that did so much to shape the thought of Anglican Divines from Cranmer through to Keble, Pusey and the wider Oxford Movement.
Of Carthage’s most famous inhabitant, St Augustine of Hipppo, we shall have other occasions to speak but it is important to remember the other great saints of the city too.
Here I think of St Cyprian whose later witness to a terrible plague (fully comparable in impact to COVID) led the Chritsians to become famous for their care for all, no matter what the danger to themselves.
Long before that he would speak of a time when he was so smitten in conscience that he could lie in bed!
As he went on to explain it was grappling with what his Baptism meant that truly transformed him:
When I was still lying in darkness and gloomy night,
I used to regard it as extremely difficult and demanding to do
what God’s mercy was suggesting to me…
I myself was held in bonds by the innumerable errors of my previous life,
from which I did not believe I could possibly be delivered,
so I was disposed to acquiesce in my clinging vices and to indulge my sins…
But after that, by the help of the water of new birth,
the stain of my former life was washed away,
and a light from above, serene and pure,
was infused into my reconciled heart…
a second birth restored me to a new man.
Then, in a wondrous manner every doubt began to fade….
I clearly understood that what had first lived within me,
enslaved by the vices of the flesh, was earthly
and that what, instead, the Holy Spirit had wrought within me
was divine and heavenly. (Epistola ad Donatum de gratia Dei)
He had been baptised at the rather advanced age of 35 in the year 245 AD in Carthage, North Africa and not long afterwards was ordained a Deacon and then Priest and was then elected Bishop all within about 4 years — a circumstance that led to difficulties with his fellow clergy!
But such squabbles were rapidly eclipsed by the wave of horrendous persecution which shortly and unexpectedly fell upon the church in the year 250 AD, after the Emperor Decius issued an edict, ordering sacrifices to the pagan gods of Rome to be made throughout the Empire. The witness of the Christian Community once again was powerfully amplified by their extraordinary courage in the face of death.
In this way, these martyrs were upholding a tradition going back all the way to the Martyrdoms of St Felicity, Perpetua and their companions which is one of the earliest such persecutions of which we have a full account.
I was very mindful that my ceremonial installation in this parish took place on the Feast of these very martyrs and it was deeply moving that all those attending the Consecration were able to visit the Amphitheatre in Tunis where they gave their lives.
Happily we do have a written record known as “The Passion of St. Perpetua, St. Felicitas, and their Companions,” and we know thus that in the year 203 AD, Vivia Perpetua, a well-educated noblewoman, made the decision to follow the path of her mother and become a Christian, although she knew it could mean her death during the persecutions ordered by the Emperor Severus. Her surviving brother followed her leadership and became a catechumen as well, and he prepared for Baptism.
Her pagan father desperately tried to talk her out of her decision but her answer was simple and clear. Pointing to a water jug, saying “See that pot lying there? Can you call it by any other name than what it is?” Her father answered, “Of course not.” Perpetua responded, “Neither can I call myself by any other name than what I am — a Christian.”
Perpetua was arrested with four other catechumens, including two slaves, Felicity and Revocatus, and Saturninus and Secundulus. Their instructor in the faith, Saturus, chose to share their punishment and was also imprisoned. Perpetua was Baptized before being taken to prison. She tells us that at the time of her Baptism she was told to pray for nothing but endurance in the face of her trials.
When she and the others were taken to be examined and sentenced, her father followed, pleading with her and the judge. The judge, out of pity, also tried to get Perpetua to change her mind, but when she stood fast, she was sentenced with the others to be thrown to the wild beasts in the arena.
When the fateful day of the Games finally arrived the men were first driven towards by bears, leopards, and wild boars who savaged them. Perpetua called out to her brother and the other Christians, “Stand fast in the faith, and love one another. Do not let our sufferings be a stumbling block to you.”
Then the women were stripped to face a rabid heifer but survived and therefore were reclothed and driven back into the arena to face the gladiators.
Perpetua and Felicity stood side by side when finally they were killed by the sword.
The horrific circumstances make all the more remarkable the simple but hugely profound faith that enabled these martyrs to stand — even though an escape was readily on offer if they would only symbolically offer incense to the Emperor. The Romans being highly cynical about beliefs just wanted a public demonstration of commitment to the Roman way. Most would have had no trouble with worshiping multiple Gods so long as your commitment to Rome itself was publicly maintained. This is a dilemma we are increasingly facing in new forms today, in the context of an ever more aggressive secularism.
That same simple and profound faith was well captured in the final vision granted to Perpetua which we ourselves do well to ponder.
Not long before the day of her execution Perpetua had a dream in which she was shown a golden ladder of the highest length, reaching up to heaven, which she climbed.
She then saw a beautiful and vast garden with a tall man with white hair dressed like a shepherd and milking sheep. He addressed her saying, “Thou art welcome, my child,” and all those around her said, “Amen.”
The Rev. Canon Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff
Rector
* Footnote: In his first few years in Italy, as the leader of a Carthaginian and Celtic army, he won a succession of victories at the Battle of Ticinus, Trebia, Lake Trasimene, and Cannae, inflicting heavy losses on the Romans. His meticulous attention to detail and analysis of military capacity, allowed him to conquer and ally with several Italian cities previously allied to Rome. So he came to occupy most of southern Italy for 15 years.
Eventually the Romans, led by Fabius Maximus (from whom derives the later slogan of Fabian politicians about the “inevitability of gradualness”) by carefully avoiding direct engagement, wore him down by attrition (the Fabian strategy). And this set the stage for the final and terrible invasion of Scipio Africanus and the victory at the Battle of Zama, whereafter the fearsome desire for revenge was unleased to the total destruction of the original Punic city.