Africa, Orthodoxy in Essential Ingredient in the Support of the Citizens in JUSTIN M
A Afanasiev, Nicholas (1893–1966) structures. It was Julius Caesar who laid the plans for see Contemporary Orthodox Carthage’s reemergence as Colonia Junonia in 44 bce. This strong colonial apparatus made North African Theology Christians especially susceptible to persecution by the Roman authorities on the Italian Peninsula. Because the economic power of Carthage was an Africa, Orthodoxy in essential ingredient in the support of the citizens in JUSTIN M. LASSER the city of Rome, the Romans paid careful attention to the region. The earliest extant North African Christianity on the African continent begins its story, Christian text, the Passion of the Scillitan Martyrs (180 primarily, in four separate locales: Alexandrine and ce), reflects a particularly negative estimation of the Coptic Egypt, the North African region surrounding Roman authorities. Saturninus, the Roman procon- the city of Carthage, Nubia, and the steppes of sul, made this appeal to the African Christians: “You Ethiopia. The present synopsis will primarily address can win the indulgence of our ruler the Emperor, if the trajectories of the North African Church, the you return to a sensible mind.” The Holy Martyr Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and the Nubian Speratus responded by declaring: “The empire of this Orthodox Church. The affairs of Christian Alexandria world I know not; but rather I serve that God, whom and the Coptic regions have their own treatments no one has seen, nor with these eyes can see. I have elsewhere in the encyclopedia. committed no theft; but if I have bought anything I pay the tax; because I know my Lord, the King of Roman-colonial North Africa kings and Emperor of all nations.” This declaration was a manifestation of what the Roman authorities After the Romans sacked the city of Carthage in 146 feared most about the Christians – their proclama- during the Third Punic War,COPYRIGHTED they began a sustained tion MATERIAL of a “rival” emperor, Jesus Christ, King of kings.
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