A review

To the African mind that contends that Christianity is a recently spotted UFO (un-African Foreign Object) and therefore deserving of rejection, incline thine ear to this quotation:

“Too many scholars of African culture trained in the West have regrettably acquired from the West a persistent hypermodern habit of assuming that Christianity began in Africa only a couple of centuries ago. The myth is that Christianity was imported from Europe and America. However, the evidence is much stronger to the contrary—that Europe and America learned from Africa much of their earliest layers of scriptural interpretation and consensus formation.”

The source of the above quotation is Thomas C. Oden, the Henry Anson Buttz Professor of Theology Emeritus at Drew University (Madison, New Jersey). A year ago (in 2009), Oden delivered the annual W. H. Griffith Thomas Lectureship at my alma mater, Dallas Theological Seminary. Initially entitled “Early Libyan Christianity,” the discourse was later repackaged as a four-part article that appeared in the Seminary journal between January and December 2010.

Granted, Oden’s focus is early Christianity in Libya. But who is to argue that Libya is not part of Africa. Liberal historical scholarship has insisted on excising Egypt from Africa. Libya, however, has not really been subject to detachment from Africa and reattachment to the Middle East.

Obliviousness of early Christianity in Libya specifically and North Africa in general is attributable to several factors according to Oden: (a) Little archaeological excavation or architectural analysis despite the fact that the remnants of early Christian history have lain silent in an almost pristine state without having layer after layer of urban sprawl built on top of them (b) Systematic abstention by the tourist industry from pointing out the religious importance of cities such as Cyrene and Leptis magna. The standard travel literature emphasizes the Greco-Roman ruins rather than the later Paleo-Christian and Byzantine remains and their accompanying centuries of Christian history (c) Ignorance by contemporary African Christian theology or indigenous Africans of the intellectual textual contributions by Christians in pre-AD 643 Africa. Such contributors include Tertullian, Cyprian, Clement, Origen, Athanasius, Didymus the Blind, Augustine, and Fulgentius (d) The physical geography of the continent shaped the fact that African Christianity found its way first to the north of the Sahara in the first millennium, and only in its second millennium did it reach the south

Lest one confound ignorance of a matter with lack of the matter, Oden painstakingly uncovers for his readers evidence of early Christianity in Libya. Irenaeus (A.D. 120-202), he notes, gives us the first documented written testimony of early Christianity in Libya before A.D. 180 in his Adversus haereses (written between A.D 182 and 189). Mention of Cyrene in the gospels (Mark 15:21; Acts 2:10; 6:9; 13:1) suggests that Libyan Christianity dates back to the first century. The African Pope, Victor (186-197), most probably hailed from Leptis Magna in Libya. Bishops from Libya were present at the Ecumenical Councils of Nicea (325) and Ephesus (431) (e.g., the bishop of ancient Olbia, now Qsar Libya) and the 363 council of Antioch (e.g., Serias of Paraetonium, Stephen of Ptolemais, Pollux of Libya Inferior, etc). Libya (Libu) is mentioned in the OT (1 Chron 1:8; 2 chron 12:3; Nah 3:9; Dan 11:43; Gen 10:6; Isa. 66:19; Jer 46:9; Ezek 27:10; 30:5; 38:5). The remains of five basilicas (western basilica, central basilica, eastern basilica, the chapel in the Byzantine ducal palace, and a triconchstyle cemetery basilica) serve as further evidence of the presence of Christianity in 5^th and 6^th century Libya.

Besides being concretely evidential in as far as the presence of early Christianity in Libya, Oden’s lecture could be characterized in other ways. It is proudful of Africa’s maturity, antiquity, and influence as far as the history of Christianity is concerned. Christianity in North Africa, he argues, has a much longer history than its European and American expressions. North American Christianity has survived a scant five hundred years since 1492, and in the United States since 1776, a little over two centuries. Libyan Christianity, on the other hand, is still alive after two millennia. Regarding influence World Christian orthodoxy is significantly shaped by the North African imagination spawned indigenously on North African soil.

It is castigatory. It is castigatory of the West. The most practiced European intellectual habit of the last five centuries is that of ignoring North African history. European history often proceeds as if Africa did not exist, at least in a way pertinent to Europe. It is castigatory of the African scholars. It is absurd for Africans to disown their own illustrious exegetical brilliance and theological roots that came out of African soil. It is especially vexing to misconceive this denial as if it were a true defense of African identity

It is prescriptive. The remedy to the lack of awareness by African scholars who have learned much of their history from Euro-American elitists who have little or no interest in African patristic sources is improved historical research and textual analysis. The narrow definition by many modern anthropologists of African traditional religions as to rule out the great written traditions produced on the continent of Africa must be countered by a broader definition of African traditional religion that adequately assesses the artifacts of African Christian history from the fourth to the eighth centuries

Lastly, it is commissionary. It remains the task of future scholars, many of them from Africa, to restudy the rising tide of ideas flowing from Africa to Europe in the third century, and to better describe their wide dissemination and impact.