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“Vetus Superstitio et Nova Religio” the Problem of Refrigerium in the Ancient Church of North Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2011

Johannes Quasten
Affiliation:
Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C.

Extract

The history of the Church in North Africa, so far at least as the sources are concerned, begins for us in the year 180, and it begins with martyrdoms. At Carthage on July 17, Namphano of Madaura, called “Protomartyr” by Augustine, Miggin, Sanam, and six other Christians from Scili in Numidia were sentenced to death by the proconsul Saturninus and beheaded. The official record of their trial has been preserved to us in Greek and Latin and constitutes the oldest document in Africa's Church History.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1940

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38 Ibid., XXII, 5, p. 58.

39 Epistularum, XXII, 6 (CSEL, 34, p. 58, Goldbacher).

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43 Possidius, Vita Augustini, 7.

44 Mansi, III, 923.

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50 Ibid., 8, p. 119.

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