Christianity and Berbers

[Lezer]

Although the Berbers of Northwestern Africa are nowaday Muslims, this was not the case before the Arab-Islamic conquest. Christianity has once flourished in Northwestern Africa especially in Carthage.

Not far from Ancient Libya, Jezus has dwelled in Ancient Egypt, and not far from Egypt there were many Jews in Cyrenaica. Those Jews kept their spiritual bonds with their homelands, especially with "Jeruzalem". Therefore, it is evident that those Jews would have contributed to the spread of Chrisitianity in Northwestern Africa after converting to Christianity. The sons of Simon of Cyrene- Alexander and Rufus- are believed to have been Christians. It is even probable that Simon of Cyrene himself has converted to Christianity, according to some sources. It is also notable that Mark the Evangelist was a Libyan Jew who preached Christianity in Northwest Africa.

After a century, "Christianity" seemed to have penetrated the most cities in Northwest Africa. A native christian and one of the Fathers of churche called "Tertullian" (ca. 155â€"230) reported that the Christians were even the majority in some cities. Tertullian was maybe impressed by the courage of the christian martyrs. He may have been a young pagan man when a native Christian woman martyr called "Vibia Perpetua" has suffered from the Roman persecution. But Tertullian who was at that time a pagan lawyer, became later one of the fiercest lawyers of Christianity. He was rebelious in his words. The French historian Julien attributed this fiercity to his fiery "Berber temperament" combined with his christian belief.

Another native Northwestern church father was "Arnobius". He was pagan in his youth, but later he became a Christian who defended his belief during the Roman persecution. Those Chrisitians were seen as danger for Rome, they didn't honor the Roman Emperors. Those early North African Christians had left their pagan gods. They avoided the symbols of their previous pagan deities. Tertullian didn't use the Christian Cross as symbol of Christianity, but he used the "Ichtys" instead, because the Christian Cross looked like the symbol of Tanit that was a North African goddess. Augustine of Hippo has also condemned the local pagan rituals of Anzar that was the god of rain to the Berbers.

In Northwestern Africa, there were various churches during the existence of the Christianiy there. Some of them were founded by non-Northwestern Afircans like "Montanism", and other churches were founded by native North Africans like "Arianism" and "Donatism".

Donatism was mainly found among the Berbers, it was a sort of resistance against the Romans. Donatus wondered "what the Emperor has to do with the church". The donatists supported also a Berber rebel called "Firmus" and declared him as Emperor. Firmus could defeat "Flavius Theodosius", but he was betrayed by Igmazen and commited a suicide. Donatism could survived some centuries after the Arab-Islamic conquest.

The more Latinized North African Christians seemed to be Catholic, like Augustine of Hippo who has great influence on the church.

When the Arab-Muslims conquered Northwestern Africa, the Berbers became gradually Muslims while the inhabitants of the Canary Islands remained uninfluenced until the Spanish conquest, and became subsquenstly Christians.