American Society of Church History

The Imperial Administration and the Church in Byzantine Africa

Author(s): R. A. Markus
Source: Church History, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Mar., 1967), pp. 18-23
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church History
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3162341 .
Accessed: 10/11/2013 15:55
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Cambridge University Press and American Society of Church History are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to Church History.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 193.54.110.35 on Sun, 10 Nov 2013 15:55:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

THE IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION AND THE

CHURCH IN BYZANTINE AFRICA
R. A. MARKUS, University of Liverpool
There are only two moments during the Byzantine era at which
the African Church emerges into something like daylight: on the
morrow of the reconquest, in the middle years of the sixth century,
and again almost a century later, under the emperors Heraclius and
Constans II. Both in the controversies over the 'three chapters' under
Justinian, and in those over monothelitism in the seventh century, the
African Church took the lead in resisting what seemed, in the eyes
of its leading churchmen, attempts by the Court to subvert the Chalcedonian orthodoxy. Both these episodes in the African Church's
history are tolerably well-known,' though in both cases one could
wish for a much greater volume of material than exists to throw light
on the details of the part played by the imperial administration in
Africa. The eighty or so years between these two episodes are years
of almost total darkness, broken only by a few stray rays of light
during the pontificate of Gregory the Great. His extensive correspondence gives us some tantalizing glimpses of the African Church
during a few years at the turn of the century. From these glimpses
we certainly cannot construct anything like a complete picture, even
an outline sketch, of the life of the African Church. It is tempting
to fill out the hints by interpreting them on the analogy of what we
know of the African Church at other and much more fully documented periods, for instance, at the time of Saint Augustine. This
is, it seems to me, what all current interpretations of the evidence
have done in effect. The allusions to a revival of 'Donatism' and
the references to the imperial authorities in Africa have all been
construed in the light of parallels with the classical period of the
Donatist schism, at the end of the fourth century and the beginning
of the fifth. I have studied the evidence for the reality concealed
behind Gregory the Great's words about 'Donatism' elsewhere,2 and
concluded that it will not bear the interpretation universally placed
upon it. Of 'Donatism' in any recognizable sense there is no evidence
in Africa by the sixth century. That the schism lasted well into the
Vandal period we may accept; but beyond this all is obscure and the
alleged evidence for its survival in the sixth century-and laterneeds careful sifting. By the 590's all that we can be sure about is
that there were churches in Africa, and especially in Numidia, in
which intervention neither by imperial nor by papal authority was
welcome.
In this paper I wish to re-examine the evidence on which the
current views on the attitude of the imperial authorities to the Church
1. Cf. C. Diehl, L'Afrique byzantine (Paris 1896); L. Duchesne, L'eglise au sixienme siecle
(Paris 1925), among other accounts.
2. "'Donatism: the last phase," Studies in Ch7urch history, vol. I. 1964, 118-26.

18

This content downloaded from 193.54.110.35 on Sun, 10 Nov 2013 15:55:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BYZANTINE AFRICA

19

are based. As a rough summary of these views I quote the judgment of J. Ferron and G. Lapeyre, which has the added merit for
my purpose of being endorsed in the latest instalment of Pere Goubert's Byzance avant l'Islait.3 In their 'remarkable article' on Carthage, as Pere Goubert refers to it, they write: "The successors of
Justinian and especially Maurice [the text has Maxime], while favouring the Catholic Church, exerted themselves to keep a religious peace
by means of enacting laws of toleration in favour of Jews and Donatists." "The Churches of Africa are turning towards Rome, a
stream of letters and emissaries passes between them. The bishops
appeal to Rome against the government," and so forth. Gregory I,
in particular, "intervenes very frequently in the ecclesiastical and
even the civil affairs of Africa," and "re-establishes in Africa unity,
concord and ecclesiastical discipline." Here we have, in its simplest
form, the view expressed by most scholars in a more guarded form.
With various qualifications it is, in substance, common to historians
of Byzantine Africa4 of Donatism,5 of the papacy and of the pontificate of Gregory I in particlar.6 But there is nothing in the evidence
that supports such a view of the African Church, united with the
papacy, estranged from and opposed to the government and united in
concord and ecclesiastical discipline under Gregory I, and there is a
great deal that points in quite another direction.
Of the policies pursued at the court in Constantinople with regard to the African Church we know next to nothing, but the little
we do know is that there was no question of legislative toleration of
Donatism. Maurice, we know, had issued iussiones which gave clear
testimony, in Gregory's eyes, of the emperor's turning "against the
wicked depravity of the Donatists, moved by concern for righteousness and zeal for the purity of religion."7 The iussiones referred to
have not survived; but Gregory's language scarcely entitles us to conclude that they were laws granting toleration to Donatists. In this
respect the emperor's policy for Africa contrasts with his refusal to
take coercive measures against the Istrian schismatics. If however
the iussiones themselves met with Gregory's approval, their execution by the authorities in Africa left much to be desired. In the African provinces, Gregory thought "the Catholic faith was being pub3. DHGE, XI. 1208-9, quoted by P.
I'Occident sous les successeurs de
1965), 235. Of. also the judgment
the text of Ferron and Lapeyre is

Byzance et
Goubert, Byzance avant l'Islam, t.2;
Justinien, II: Rome, Byzance et Carthage (Paris,
of P. Romanelli, referred to ibid., 235-6. (Much of
taken from Diehl, op. cit., 510.)

4. Cf. Diehl, op. cit., 510-6.

5. W. H. Frend, The Donatist Church (Oxford 1952), 300-314.
F. H. Dudden,
6. E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, II (Tiibingen, 1933), 442-6;
Gregory the Great (1905), I, 414-28.
7. Ep. VI.61; cf.V.3 (All references to Gregory's letters are in the edition of the Register
by Ewald and Hartmann, M.G.H., Epistolae, I and II).

This content downloaded from 193.54.110.35 on Sun, 10 Nov 2013 15:55:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

20

CHURCHHISTORY

licly sold"; and inevitably, he blamed the refusal of the African administration to put the imperial policies into effect on Donatist
bribery.8
Gregory's own correspondence contains ample evidence of the
reluctance felt by the officials on the spot to enforce whatever the
anti-Donatist policies of the court amounted to. The most revealing
instance in this connection is the case of Paul, bishop of an unknown
see in Numidia. In the summer of 594 we find the pope asking the
Prefect of Africa to send this bishop off to him without delay, in
order that he might have his first-hand report on the situation and
that they might consult together as to how to deal most effectively
with the trouble.9 As early as three years before this, Gregory had
urged the Exarch of Africa not to delay any Numidian bishops who
wished to go to Rome;10but it was not until the year 596 that Paul
arrived in Rome. In Rome, Paul explained that far from being assisted to make his way to the pope, he had been hindered in many
ways. Further, he said, his complaint was not so much that he had
incurred enmity by his zeal in "coercing" Donatists, but that his efforts in defence of the Catholic faith had met general ingratitude. He
added some further charges, which the pope did not judge the time
right to specify in the letter he wrote to remonstrate with the Exarch." Bishop Paul's chief enemy appears to have been the Exarch
himself; Gregory, in view of the fact that the civil authority was involved in the case, referred bishop Paul to the imperial court,'2 commending him to the Emperor's support with unusually vehement language about his adversaries. Eighteen months later we meet Paul
back in Rome with his case referred by the Emperor for trial, not by
the Pope but, significantly, by a synod in Africa.l3 How little Gregory
could rely on African officials in the furtherance of his own aims
is further illustrated by a letter he wrote to one Boniface, vir magnificus-an unknown official?-summoning him and others of his
mind to come to Rome and clear themselves of the suspicion of heresy
which they have incurred.'4 On another occasion, again, it was a
local official who had been instrumental in the failure of an ecclesiastical case reaching Rome, notwithstanding the Emperor's wish
that it should be judged there.l5 The pope's frequent appeals to African administrative personnel and a lack of adequate scrutiny of the
8. Ep. VI. 61.
9. Ep. IV. 32. A similar letter which has not survived must have been sent to the Exarch
at this time--f.
Ep. VI. 59.
10. Ep. I. 72.
11. Ep. VI. 59. The further charges in all probability refer to the refusal of the administration to put the imperial iussiones into effect--f.
Ep. VI. 61.
12. Ep. VI. 61; ef. VII. 2, where it appears that the Exarch had sent his chancellor along
with three members of Paul's church to give evidence against Paul.
13. Ep. VIII. 13, 15; the inference is made by Caspar, op. cit. 445.
14. Ep. IV. 41. The 'heresy' of which they are suspected can only be 'Donatism.'
15. Cf. Ep. IX. 27.

This content downloaded from 193.54.110.35 on Sun, 10 Nov 2013 15:55:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BYZANTINE AFRICA

21

only cases where we can follow their response, have combined to obscure the fact that what Gregory saw as a heresy had much support
among the ranks of the imperial administration and, at least so far
as our evidence goes, no opposition whatever.
It would be quite unjustified however to assume that what the
government in Africa was conniving at was identical with the heresy
the spectre of which looms so large in Gregory's correspondence.
Bishop Paul's case again is instructive: it is clear that this Numidian
busybody had incurred widespread unpopularity among the African
episcopate, even to the extent of being excommunicated by a provincial council.l6 The scanty evidence combines to suggest that he was
distrusted for his fussy intransigence not only by the government
but also by his fellow-bishops. Elsewhere I have argued that in any
case the distinction between 'Dontatist' and 'Catholic' had lost much
of its old sharpness, and in all probability had by this time ceased to
have any meaning to African churchmen.17The two communitiesif indeed there were two communities-had learnt to live in peaceful
co-existence, broken only by trouble-makers such as Paul. The image
projected onto the African scene by Gregory had lost contact with
the reality; like much else in his awareness of more distant parts of
the world, it was formulated in terms of a fiction which had once
corresponded to the facts.
This does not mean that there was nothing Gregory need have
had misgivings about. The case of bishop Paul displays a fact for
which there is much other evidence: that the African Church preferred to keep the papacy at arm's length. Even Paul's excommunication by the Numidian bishops was not disclosed to the pope by the
primate or the province, as Gregory noted somewhat peevishly, but by
the Exarch."8 The Numidian bishops, in particular, were in no mind
to follow papal directives. Gregory's special agent and informant
among them, bishop Columbus, was to find his friendship with the
pope a dubious asset: in 596 he complained of becoming unpopular
in his province on account of the many letters sent him by the pope.19
And even with the help of this confidential agent, Gregory could not
count on Numidian councils acting in accordance with what he thought
to be in line with the tradition of the Fathers and the canons. Where
the bishops failed him, Gregory was prepared to resort to the Exarch,20
or even to the superintendent of the Roman Church's African lands,21
to try to get offending measures reversed. There is no evidence that
his efforts met with any success. Furthermore, the bishops, far from
16. Cf. Ep. VI. 59.
17. Cf. my paper referred to above, n. 2.
18. Ep. VI. 59.

19. Bp. vn. 2.

20. Ep. IV. 7, cf. also Ep. I. 72.
21. Ep. I. 82; IL 46.

This content downloaded from 193.54.110.35 on Sun, 10 Nov 2013 15:55:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

22

CHURCH HISTORY

appealing to Rome against the government, were flocking to the Court

to avoid having their cases judged by Rome.22
WVhetherany of Gregory's appeals to the secular authorities in
Africa met with success, we cannot know. The only evidence points
to a notable lack of readiness on their part to further his aims, and
a tendency to identify themselves with the independent line taken by
the African episcopate. The inference that Gregory must have brought
his plans to fruition because in his later years references to Donatism
disappear from his correspondence rests on the shakiest of foundations. There is, on the contrary, an air of disillusion about Gregory's
later dealings with the African Church, born out in his conduct both
over the case of the primate of Byzacena,23 and with regard to
Numidia.24 There is nothing to suggest that he found it any easier
to get his way, only that he had come to recognize and to some extent
Io accept the situation as inevitable.
The exception to the general impression of the position of the
papacy in Africa created by Gregory's correspondence is the see of
Carthage. Gregory's correspondence with the primate, Dominicus,
stretching over nine years, suggests a close personal friendship. Even
if we make the necessary allowances for therapeutic flattery-an art
of which the pope was a master-Gregory could, it seems, count on
support in Carthage. Among the several reasons which may account
for this I single out one: the see of Carthage and the Proconsular
province in general was differently placed and did not share the same
concerns as the Church in Numidia, and even in parts in Byzacena.
How very different the Carthaginian point of view was at this time
appears clearly in the year 594. In this year a Carthaginian Council had decreed to put into effect the imperial provisions for the repression of Donatism. The Council's decrees laid down heavy penalties for failure to combat the heresy by the clergy. When Gregory
was notified of these regulations, he was horrified by the likelihood
he foresaw of serious opposition to such legislation in the other African provinces.25 The Carthage attitude, plainly, was almost as remote from the realities of the other African provinces as the Roman.
There is no evidence to justify the view that the support of men like
Dominic-any more than of Numidians like Columbus or Paul-made
the slightest contribution to the alleged "re-establishmentof unity, concord and ecclesiastical discipline in Africa."26
Cf. Epp. IX. 24, 27.
Epp. IX. 24, 27; XII. 12.
Cf. Epp. XII. 8, 9.
Cf. Ep. V. 3. The Council must presumably have been one of the whole African Church,
since the legislation was meant to apply not only in the Proconsular province. If this
is the case, it is interesting that such a Council could enact legislation as severe as
this in this matter. The implication is that few if any bishops from the other provinces
were present.
26. Diehl, op. cit., 510. Cf. above, n. 4.
22.
23.
24.
25.

This content downloaded from 193.54.110.35 on Sun, 10 Nov 2013 15:55:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BYZANTINE AFRICA

23

The conclusion to be drawn from this enquiry is that in order

to answer the question what the relation of the government to the
African Church was like we need to make two sets of distinctions:
first, it will matter greatly whether we have in mind the Court in
Constantinople, or the Exarch and other African officials. Secondly,
it will matter even more whether we have in mind the Church of
Rome or that of Numidia, of Byzacena or Proconsularis. Neither the
Church (even, as I have argued, the African Church) nor the government can be treated as monolithic in this respect. If we look at
the relations between Church and government in this perspective, the
situation during the years of Gregory I's pontificate will not seem
so very very different from the situation some fifty years earlier or
some forty years later. Much of the old sense of constituting an
autonomous province with its own traditions was still alive in the
African Church. Under Justinian this sense found an outlet in the
courageous stand made by African churchmen against his Kirchenpolitik.27 At the turn of the century it served to define its Autonomiegefiihl with regard to Rome. In the seventh century it led naturally to the alliance between the African Church and the African administration against the Emperor Constans II. The one essential
difference between the situation around 640 and a century earlier,
under Justinian, is that the administration had become closely identified
with African interests, among them not least those of the African
Church. The period with which I have been concerned in this paper
marks an important stage in this development.
27. Cf. my paper "Reflections on religious dissent in North Africa in the Byzantine period,"
Studies in Church history, 3, 1966, 140-9.

This content downloaded from 193.54.110.35 on Sun, 10 Nov 2013 15:55:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions