African Christianity: Orthodox, Ecumenical, and Reformed

by Terry Johnson Jun 9, 2010

Tags: missions, worldview and culture, church history

Early African Catholicity

The conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch, recorded in Acts 8:26-39, marks the beginning of African Christianity. Not until eight chapters and several years later does Christianity reach Europe (Acts 16:9-11). This African head-start, as we might call it, is emblematic of the contribution of the early African church made to the development of the Christian religion as compared to other regions, in particular Europe. Thomas C. Oden, in his book, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind, points out that, 

Africa played a decisive role in the formation of Christian culture. Decisive intellectual achievements of Christianity were explored and understood in Africa before they were recognized in Europe, and a millennium before they found their way to North America.¹ 

Oden, general editor of the multi-volume Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, came to this insight only after years of working on this series.² Slowly the editors came to see 

how profound had been the African influence on every subsequent phase of scriptural interpretation. We were not prepared for the breadth and power of this evidence. Nowhere in the literature could we find this influence explained. Everywhere in the literature it seemed to be either ignored or resisted. It came only from decades of experience with African texts and ideas. Finally we learned to trace the path back from Antioch, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Nisibis, and Rome to its origins in Africa.”³  

Early African Christianity covered 4 billion square miles of Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, “and possibly further south than we now know,” he claims.⁴ He identifies two traditions that emerged “out of Africa:” the Alexandrian, largely Greek-speaking, which would travel north to give shape to what would become the Eastern, or orthodox, form of Christianity; and the Carthaginian or Numidian tradition, which would give shape to the western or catholic Christian tradition. Oden explains that, 

Latin African orthodoxy became chiefly transmitted through the Western Christian tradition, while Eastern African orthodoxy became transmitted chiefly through the Eastern Christian traditions.⁵ 

And again, 

By sea and land, early Africa significantly shaped the basic layers of both Eastern and Western traditions of Christianity.⁶ 

It is startling to realize that the flow of ideas and influence that have given shape to historic Christianity was not north to south, as nearly everyone has assumed, from Europe to Africa, but south to north, from Africa to Europe. It is a stereotype, and in error, to say that Christianity came from Europe to Africa. One can take this view, Oden insists, only by “ignoring Christianity’s first millennium, when African thought shaped and conditioned virtually every diocese in Christianity worldwide.”⁷ Classic ecumenical Christianity “was largely defined in Africa.”⁸ It is not a European import. Again, he says, 

in Christian history, contrary to this common assumption, the flow of intellectual leadership demonstrably moved largely from Africa to Europe––south to north.⁹ 

“The Christian leaders in Africa,” he continues, “figured out how best to read the law and prophets meaningfully, to think philosophically, and to teach the ecumenical rule of triune faith cohesively, long before these patterns became normative elsewhere.”¹⁰ 

Oden points to seven different ways in which Africa shaped the Christian mind, some more important for our purposes than others. We may highlight several that manifest the orthodoxy and catholicity of early African Christianity.  

Exegesis and preaching

Africa exegetes exercised a decisive influence on the history of biblical exposition. Clement of Alexandria (c.150–205) provides one of the earliest extent Christian sermons, a verse-by-verse exposition of Mark 10:17-31, preached with historical-grammatical awareness in which he allows Scripture to interpret Scripture.¹¹ Origen (c.185–254), born in Alexandria, Egypt, may be considered the father of biblical exposition. He wrote commentaries on almost all the books of the Bible, and his homilies are among the oldest examples of biblical preaching. While ministering in Caesarea he preached through the whole Bible. Origen was a brilliant lectio continua preacher who paid close attention to the historical-grammatical meaning of the text of Scripture. Hughes Old regards him as “the greatest preacher of the second and third centuries.”¹² Henri Crouzel, writing in The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, calls Origen a “great theologian,”¹³ and places only Augustine and Aquinas among his peers in Christian history, while Old has called him “the genius of the early church.”¹⁴ 

Origen’s influence on the history of biblical exposition, as well as that of the African expositors who followed him, has been vast. According to Oden, “The rules and methods for interpreting Scripture were decisively shaped not only by Africa’s greatest scientific investigator of sacred texts, Origen, but also by fourth- and fifth-century African exegetes like Didymus the Blind (c.313–98), Tyconius (d.c. 400) and Augustine of Hippo.”¹⁵ Moreover, he continues, “Virtually all Christian exegetes following Origen and Didymus the Blind actively borrowed from their studies in large portions, even while at times resisting or opposing certain aspects of the checkered tradition later called “Origenism.”¹⁶ Again, “. . . the greatest fourth-century Christian exegetes of East and West (Gregory Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine) were all profoundly influenced by the writings of Origen.”¹⁷ Hughes Old calls this early African “the first great Christian biblical scholar.”¹⁸ 

Augustine of Hippo (354–430) is regarded by Hughes Old as not only “the greatest Latin theologian of antiquity” and “a master of classical oratory,” but also “a great expository preacher.”¹⁹ His five hundred sermons are the largest collection to survive from Latin antiquity and include a lengthy series on John, 1 John, and the Psalms. According to Old, Augustine gave “first importance” to straight-forward grammatical-historical expositions of Scripture. Though he would use allegorical methods, his sermons are rooted in the text and the biblical author’s intent. In his sermons on John, his Scripture text is the Scripture lesson just read, indicating lectio continua reading of Scripture preceded his lectio continua preaching of Scripture. When preaching on the Psalms it was typically the Psalm that had just been sung in the service.²⁰ 

His festal preaching is also expository. Hughes Old draws what he calls the “obvious contrast between the elaborate festal sermons of the Greek Fathers, most notably Gregory of Nazianzus, and the simple, straight forward sermons of Augustine.”²¹ As a former professor of rhetoric he could have used the more artistic form of preaching. But he clearly chose not to do so, “sticking instead with the form of the expository sermon as it was developed in the synagogue in the early Christian church.”²² The early African Christians gave to us in Origen and Augustine the formative examples of straight-forward, text-driven expository preaching.  

Related to this, it should be noted that a number of the early church’s greatest theologians were highly educated Africans who taught rhetoric prior to their conversions: Cyprian (208–258) in Carthage, Arnobius (?–330) in Sicca in proconsular Africa, Lactantius (c.240–c.320) in Nicomedia in Asia Minor, and Augustine in Carthage, Rome, and Milan.²³ Tertullian (c.160–220) also was a master of classical rhetoric. Often it was these and other Africans who moved north to teach rhetoric in Italy and other parts of Europe. Oden claims, 

By the time we get to Tyconius and Augustine, we have a dialectical form of rhetoric that is far advanced in subtlety over much that was standard in the northern Latin tradition.²⁴ 

Augustine’s De doctrina christiana, On Christian Doctrine, or better On the Art of Christian Teaching is the Christian classic on the subjects of rhetoric, hermeneutics, and exegesis.²⁵ “Probably no other book on preaching has had so strong an effect on how Christian preachers have preached,” argues Hughes Old.²⁶ Repeatedly the reader encounters in Augustine some of much of the best of the Christian, and particularly Protestant rhetorical tradition. 

When he divides the preacher’s task into two parts: understanding the meaning of Scripture and communicating its meaning once understood, one sees the foundation of Christian preaching.²⁷ His emphasis on love as his foundational hermeneutic;²⁸ his emphasis on authorial intent;²⁹ his emphasis on the piety of the minister;³⁰ his urging of study of the original languages;³¹ his emphasis on the analogy of faith (2.6; 3.2,26,28);³² his principle that “wherever truth may be found it belongs to his master;”³³ his advocacy of a broad liberal arts education encompassing history, natural sciences, mathematics, mechanical arts, logic, rhetoric, and even philosophy,³⁴ all demonstrated the profound influence of Augustine of Hippo upon the broader Christian and specifically Protestant tradition.  

Dogma

Second, the early African theologians played a decisive role in the formation of Christian theology. In addition to Origen, Tertullian (c.160–220.), who was reared in Carthage in North Africa (present day Tunasia), and who once said, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” is widely known as “The Father of Latin Theology.”³⁵ He created much of Latin Christianity’s theological terminology (e.g. substantia, personae, and trinitas), developed the early Trinitarian and Christological formulations, and coined the term “sacrament.” Ivor J. Davidson, writing in the first volume of The Baker History of the Church series, asserts that, “It was in North Africa that the most robust formulations of a distinctive Western Theology was first produced in the work of the gifted teacher Tertullian.”³⁶  

Cyprian of Carthage (d.258) has been called “one of the greatest theologians in the history of the Christian church.” ³⁷ Athanasius of Alexandria (c.296–373), nicknamed the “Black dwarf” by the way, stood for the doctrine of the Trinity contra mundum, against the world. His treatise, On the Incarnation of the Word of God, is a theological classic.  

Augustine of Hippo, born in present day Algeria (354–430) is, of course, the single most important theologian in the history of the Christian church, writing with decisive insight on the subjects of the Trinity, the dual nature of Christ, original sin, free will, grace, predestination, and the church and sacraments. His Confessions was the first Christian autobiography, and his City of God is a classic of the “western” canon.  

Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, Augustine make for an impressive line-up. Oden says of the fourth and fifth century councils that defined classic Christianity,  

Their definitions of Christology and the Trinity were profoundly shaped by definitions and concepts that were defined decades earlier in Africa by Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, and Cyril . . . Western Christian dogma was formed with precision in Africa before it became ecumenically received worldwide.³⁸ 

Again,  

The great Cappadocian writers [e.g. Gregory of Nyssa (c. A.D. 335 – after 384), Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329 – c. 389 or 390), Basil the Great (330–379)], upon whom so much depended in post-Constantinian Christianity, could not have done their work without the scriptural expositors of the Nile.³⁹ 

It was not just the doctrines of classical orthodoxy that the early African Christian influenced, but the conciliar process itself. The great ecumenical councils, such as Nicea (325), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451) were crucial in the formulating of orthodox Christian belief and practice. But as Oden points out regarding the conciliar method, 

African churches, especially in the Medjerda Valley under Cyprian, developed highly sophisticated protocols and procedures for drawing together Christian leaders in councils to reach agreement on conflicted questions. They debated disruptive issues through rigorous scriptural inquiry. These were not debates primarily about philosophical language, but about the texts of Scripture. They came to discrete judgments based on mutual consent. The votes were reported and the debates summarized, and they became the beginnings of canon law. These actions became known as the conciliar process, and in time the ecumenical movement.⁴⁰ 

Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (208–258), Athanasius (c. 293–373), bishop of Alexandria, Augustine (354–430), and Cyril of Alexandria (376–444), are among the early Africans who gave leadership to the conciliar movement. Oden summarizes their contribution: 

So if you ask, from what continent did the great fathers of ecumenical orthodoxy get the core of their scriptural interpretation? The answer has to be: More of it comes from African texts than European (assuming that the far southeastern reaches of Europe are Thrace and the Bosphorus). From where did John of Damascus get his vision of orthodoxy? More from Athanasius and Cyril than any European. From where did Leo the Great get the Chalcedonian formulation? The roots are mostly African, from the exegetes of the Nile and Medjerda.⁴¹  

Again, 

Classical African Christianity represented ecumenical Christianity better than it was represented anywhere else in the fourth century, and the proof of that is historical: its judgments were widely received by ecumenical consent, and still are.⁴²  

Ministry & Worship

Third, as we look more broadly at ministry and worship (which Oden doesn’t), in addition to practicing lectio continua reading and preaching of Scripture, we see other prominent features of African Christianity. 

First, Tertullian and Augustine both gave prominence to a covenantal understanding of sacraments as oaths by which covenants are ratified or confirmed. Augustine defined the sacrament as “visible words” and as external signs of inward graces, both classic definitions. This understanding had a profound influence on the church’s understanding of the meaning and manner of administration of the sacraments, and especially influenced the Reformers and subsequent Protestantism.  

Second, the early Africans were champions of psalm-singing. For example, Tertullian, in the Second Century, testified that Psalm-singing was not only an essential feature of the worship of his day, but also had become an important part of the daily life of the people. Athanasius (300-343 A.D.) says it was the custom of his day to sing Psalms, which he calls “a mirror of the soul.”²³ Eusebius (c.260 – c.340), Bishop of Caesarea left this vivid picture of the Psalm-singing of his day, which he says was characteristic “throughout the whole world.” 
 

“The command to sing Psalms in the name of the Lord was obeyed by everyone in every place: for the command to sing is in force in all churches which exist among nations, not only the Greeks but also throughout the whole world, and in towns, villages and in the fields.”²⁴ 

Likewise, Augustine (343-430 A.D.) in his Confessions (ix.4) says of the psalms,  

“They are sung through the whole world, and there is nothing hid from the heart thereof.”²⁵  

In a remarkable statement, Hughes Old sees a patristic root of Scottish metrical psalmody in the monks of the Egyptian desert, who faithfully chanted through the entire Psalter each week.⁴³ 

Third, early African Christians emphasized simplicity in worship. They took seriously the prophetic tradition which warned of external ostentation at the expense of internal or heart service (e.g. Am 5:21-24; Isa 1:10-15; Jer 7:1-11). Clement of Alexandria (c.150–c.215), Tertullian, and Lactantius (c.250–325), another Carthagenian theologian, came to their understanding of Christian worship before it had been influenced by what Hughes Old calls, “The trappings of the imperial court.”⁴⁴ They also came to faith out of stoicism rather than the neo-Platonism that influenced so many subsequent Christian thinkers. Old explains,  

“Like Tertullian before him, he contrasted the simplicity of Christian worship with the highly developed liturgy of Greek and Roman paganism. He insisted that it is innocence and purity of life that God wants from those who worship. He ridiculed those who burned candles before statues of their gods.”⁴⁵  

According to Lactantius, “the chief ceremonial in the worship of God is praise from the mouth of a just man.”⁴⁶ 

Oden also points to the development of the Christian university (based on the model of the ancient library at Alexandria), and monasticism, which spread from the Egyptian Anthony (251?–356) to Pachomius (292–348; born in Thebes) to Augustine to Basil in the East and Benedict in the West. However, our main focus is on biblical exposition and theology. In both of these crucial areas the shining lights of the early centuries were African, not European. As Oden points out, 

The Christians to the south of the Mediterranean were teaching the Christians to the north. Africans were informing and instructing and educating the very best of Syriac, Cappadocian and Greco-Roman teachers. This flow of intellectual leadership in time matured into the ecumenical consensus on how to interpret sacred Scripture and hence into the core of Christian dogma.”⁴⁷  

Oden shows little patience with those who wish to argue about the racial identity of these early African Christians.  

What convincing argument can be set forth to deny their Africanness? How black were the Christians of North Africa? Black enough, if blackness is understood in terms of intergenerational suffering and oppression. If black is defined by color, a trip to Numidia or Nubia or Ethiopia settles the chromatological argument. But orthodox Christians do not admit skin color as a criterion for judging Christian truth. Never have. Never will. African Christianity is not primarily a racial story but a confessional story of martyrs and lives lived by faith active in love. To judge truth by race is itself heretical, and that truth was first clearly formulated in ecumenical Christianity, from the Jerusalem Council and the early baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch and following, and that truth itself became a standard assumption of early African Christianity.⁴⁸  

Completing the Mission

Those of us wishing to see the growth of Reformed and Presbyterian Protestantism can’t but rejoice to discover so many of our “patristic roots” in Africa. Calvin believed that he was reviving the ministry and worship of the “Ancient Church” when he published his “Form of Church Prayers.” We can see how often this was the case in early African Christianity. Not only did the Reformers look to Scripture for the patterns, but also to the best of the early churches, where they found: 

•  
  • Lectio continua reading and preaching in the writings of Origen and Augustine;
  • Psalm-singing throughout all the churches and eager advocacy from Tertullian, Athanasius, Augustine;
  • Scripture-enriched “full diet” of prayer, often extemporaneous throughout the churches, as seen in Justin Martyr’s First Apology (c.155), the Didache (c.80-110), the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (217), the Apostolic Constitutions (c.387), and in the works of the Africans Cyprian, Tertullian and Augustine;
  • Word-filled synagogue-like services with the simple administration of the sacraments, and without visual stimuli, without extensive liturgy, without ceremony and ritual as urged by Lactantius and Tertullian.

Those who wish to see the establishment of Reformed Protestantism in Africa and among African-Americans can rejoice that something very much like Reformed Protestantism is indigenous to Africa, at least as indigenous as the camel, as Oden points out, which didn’t arrive until the ninth century, five centuries at least after classic African Christianity.⁴⁹ When we bring Reformed Protestantism to Africa and the African diaspora around the world, we bring not a European import, but that which is ancient and indigenous to the Africa peoples.  

Go then, and spread this gospel, in its apostolic simplicity, in its ecumenical breadth, in its orthodox depth, and in its Reformed clarity, throughout the continent of Africa and to the ends of the earth. Harness the native African gifts in music and preaching to classic Christian orthodoxy until a continent is won and the attention of the world is arrested. Go into the trades, the professions, the business enterprises, the schools, the ministry, and the mission field until the knowledge of the glory of God covers the earth as the waters cover the sea (Hab 2:14), until the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ (Rev 11:15).