The Vandal Era

Ligon Duncan

    It has been said that North African Christianity reached its high watermark in the year 418 at the Council of Carthage. But trouble was on the horizon. "Never again was Africa to hold the same commanding eminence in the sight of all Christendom," says Julius Lloyd. The Vandal invasion which would occur just a decade after the great council had much to do with the eclipse of African Christianity.

    In 428 the long polemical career of Augustine was coming to a close and seemed to have won the Catholics a permanent ascendancy in the religious life of North Africa. At the time, Boniface was the Imperial Governor of Proconsular Africa (and as such he held the title of Count of Africa). He was a friend of Augustine's and the two had corresponded over the course of many years. Boniface had sullied the relationship of late, disappointing Augustine by marrying an Arian and following in the footsteps of his ruling predecessors by living a rather voluptuous life. However, the friendship continued. Procopius tells us that in 428 Boniface came into conflict with his rival Aetius. Aetius desired to obtain Boniface’ position in Africa. He was an able man himself and skilled at the political maneuvering necessary to advance one's career. He went to some lengths to ingratiate himself to the Imperial court, particularly with Empress Placidia who was ruling as regent for her son — the future Emperor Valentinian. Aetius assured the Empress that Boniface was disloyal to her and had tyrannical aspirations for himself in Africa. This could be proven if she would summon him to Rome. If he were loyal he would come. So, Placidia sent word to Boniface to return to Rome. Meanwhile, Aetius had sent Boniface a private message advising him that Placidia was planning a plot against him. This would be confirmed, according to Aetius, if Boniface were summoned to Rome for no reason at all. Hence, Boniface declined to appear at the court. He was subsequently accused of treason and declared a rebel.

    In this hour of difficulty, Boniface invited the Vandals of Spain to ally themselves with him in North Africa. They accepted and crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, quickly arriving in North Africa 80,000 strong behind their leader Gaiseric [variously spelled: Geiseric, Genseric]. Meanwhile, Aetius' fraud was discovered and friends of Boniface were able to make peace for him with the Empress. Boniface then appealed to the Vandals to return to Spain, but their course was already set. Hence, Boniface was compelled to fight against them. He lost in battle and was forced to retreat to Hippo. The Vandals pursued them there and besieged the city for fourteen months. Within the city walls Augustine responded to the urgent inquiries of the clergy as to whether to flee or remain with their charges. Augustine instructed them to remain with their people unless they were speci- fically singled out for persecution. On August 28th, 430, Augustine died - long before the siege was lifted. By Augustine's death only three churches in his province had survived the Vandal onslaught: Hippo, Cirta and Carthage. Boniface, however, fought on bravely and eventually the Vandals abandoned their siege. Boniface then received reinforcements from Rome and help from the Eastern Empire who sent along Aspar. They took to the field against the Vandals and were completely routed. Both Aspar and Boniface fled to their homelands and Hippo was burned by the Vandals. Africa was lost and the Romans would soon be forced to sue for peace with the Vandals. After Hippo fell, only Cirta and Carthage remained. "The Vandals became masters of Africa within a very short time. Landing in A.D. 428, they were practically supreme throughout the Province by the fall of Carthage in 439 (Holme, The Extinction of the Christian Churches in North Africa, 80)."

    "The arrival of the Vandals seems to have caused an immediate and spontaneous outbreak of feeling against Catholicism in which the clergy were the chief sufferers (Frend, The Donatist Church, 301)." Moorish hill tribes (and possibly radical Donatists) joined in with the Vandals, allying with the invaders (see Lloyd, The North African Church, 273, and Frend, The Donatist Church, 301-2). "Thus began for the North African Church a period, lasting more than a century, of suppression and persecution by the new rulers . . . . (Jedin and Dolan, History of the Church, 602)."

    The invaders were less of a homogenous group than an admixture (Clover, "Carthage and the Vandals," in Humphrey, Excavations at Carthage, 1978, 7:3). Their kings bore the title rex Vandalorum et Alanorum, which bears testimony to this fact. In Spain, two factions of Germanic Vandals (Hasdingi and Silingi), had combined with Alans, East German Goths, and West German Suevi to forge this group (Clover, "Carthage and the Vandals," in Humphrey, Excavations at Carthage, 1978, 7:3). The Vandals were converts to Arian Christianity, apparently due to the missionary activity of Ulfilas in the fourth century (Speel, "The Disappearance of Christianity in North Africa," in Church History 29 [1960]: 383). They may have been the most Arian of the barbarians (Bremond, 123). Their Arianism however was different from the Hellenic Arianism of Anus. It was Teutonic Arianism, shaped by the preaching of Ulfilas. In this modified Arianism, Christ resembled one of their heroic figures who stood between them and the divine Father. He was a true king on earth, rather than the eternal God-man (Speel, "The Disappearance of Christianity in North Africa," in Church History 29 [1960]: 383-4). Further, the Vandals Arianism seemed to be more aggressive than that of the Ostrogoths or Visigoths (Speel, "The Disappearance of Christianity in North Africa," in Church History 29 [1960]: note 17). Hence, though the Vandals and the Catholics of North Africa shared the name 'Christian' in common, they were in fact the bitterest of religious foes. The Vandal’s persecution was brutal. "The statements of the different sources, among them eyewitness reports, are too unanimous for this and are in part confirmed by archaeological investigation (Jedin and Dolan, History of the Church, 603)." The Catholics and Donatists both were probably victims of the Arian persecution (Jedin and Dolan, History of the Church, 603; Frend, The Donatist Church, 301). The first stage of this oppression spanned from the beginning of the Vandal invasion to the establishment of Vandal power (429-442), though its intensity was greater or lesser at various times during this period (Jedin and Dolan, History of the Church, 603).

    After five years of war Gaiseric made peace with the Romans. A treaty was made with Ravenna in 435 which gave the Vandals the status of foederati. Huneric [variously spelled, as: Hunneric], the son of Gaiseric was held by the court at Ravenna as pledge of peace. However, a few years later he was allowed to rejoin his people. Soon after, while Aetius was in Gaul, Gaiseric attacked Carthage (October 19, 439). He gained the city by surprise and war broke out again for three years in North Africa, though the Romans had no success. In the raid of Carthage, Gaiseric showed particular animosity toward the nobles and the clergy. He suspected that they were hiding great wealth from him and so tortured them with a view to gaining their hidden wealth. He plundered the churches and then quartered his troops in them. The Bishop of Carthage, Quodvultdeus, was with many other clergy put on an unseaworthy vessel which nevertheless carried them safely to Naples. During the Vandal conquest, a fire destroyed a large portion of the city and the Vandals themselves destroyed several major theaters and churches.

    The monk Salvian took all of this in stride, explaining the sack of Carthage as the judgment of God on a city which was more immoral than its invaders. He also hailed the Vandals for their improving of the moral conditions in Carthage The principle churches were soon given by Caiseric to the Arian clergy. The Catholics were deprived of their buildings and forbidden to use hymns at the burial of the dead.

    The injury inflicted on the Catholic Church by the Vandals in North Africa is difficult to estimate. But even if one only considers the sheer size of the North African Church, one can gain a sense of its importance within the realm of Christendom. The weight of learning lost may have been greater.

    No successor to Quodvultdeus was appointed in Carthage for fifteen years. Gaiseric attempted to force Arianism on the clergy and people. To do so he attempted to bring the Catholic clergy into submission first because of the insufficient number of Arian priests available (and because many of them were unfamiliar with Latin). Gaiseric, in his effort to found a Vandal kingdom granted land to many of his soldiers on a hereditary basis.

    Meanwhile, Mauretania which had taken the initial blow from the Vandal invasion was now the first to recover from it. The Mauretanians needed ecclesiastical supervision however and unable to receive such from Africa because of the condition of the Church, the sought it from Leo of Rome. From this point on, the Roman Bishops had a stronger hand in the affairs of the North African Church.

    In 454, Gaiseric allowed the Catholics of Carthage to elect for themselves another Bishop (on the request of the Emperor Valentinian). Deogratias was elected. He would play a memorable role in the three years of his service in the episcopate. Events in Rome at this time had left her open for invasion. Valentinian had seduced the wife of his companion Maximus (of the Anicii). Soon after her death, Maximus plotted revenge and had Valentinian murdered. When he took the throne he also took Valentinian's wife Eudocia as his own. At this point Eudocia sent word to Gaiseric in Carthage that Rome was defenseless. Not long after, Gaiseric's fleet appeared at the mouth of the Tiber and Rome fell into his hands. Leo appealed (as he had with Attila) for Rome. Gaiseric agreed not to burn Rome and to spare its citizens from violence, but Rome was sacked for fourteen days. The Vandals apparently did a much better job of it than their predecessors Alaric and the Goths. When the captives returned to Carthage, they were ministered to by Deogratias. He worked tirelessly — selling sacred vessels for ransom in order to reunite families separated by the sack, making beds in the two main churches under his control, giving the victims medical advice, food, physician's care, and visiting their bedsides. When he died in 457 he was so beloved that his burial had to be kept secret in order to keep relic hunters from disturbing his body

    However, the popularity of the Catholic bishop was not popular with Gaiseric at all. Consequently, when Deogratias died, Gaiseric would permit no successor and the see remained vacant for the next twenty four years. By that time the number of bishops in Proconsular Africa was reduced from 164 to three. Tales of martyrdom in this period are many. One is of a reader, killed while singing the 'Alleluia' during the Easter service in Regia.

    After the sack of Rome, Gaiseric took Eudicia's daughter Eudocia and married her to his son Huneric. He then sent Empress Eudocia and her other daughter (Placidia) to Constantinople. During the latter part of Gaiseric's reign there were two failed attempts to invade Africa. Majorian attempted to attack but his fleet was destroyed under the reprieve of a truce. Again, in 468, Basiliscus brought a fleet and l00,000 men. But Gaiseric stalled for time through negociations and sent fire-ships out into the harbor by night, sinking the whole fleet.

    Gaiseric died in 477, forty eight years after landing in Africa. Two years before his death, at the request of the the Emperor Zeno, he agreed to mitigate his severe treatment of the Catholics. But he would not consent to the election of another Bishop of Carthage. The accession to the throne of his son Huneric brought relief to the Church. Huneric resolved to suppress Manichaeism at the start of his reign, but backed down upon finding many Manichaeans among Arian clergy. At the request of Emperor Zeno and his wife Placidia, Huneric allowed the election of a Catholic Bishop of Carthage in 481. Eugenius was elected. He was wise and popular. His church attracted not only Catholics but many from the Vandals. Huneric was alarmed and forbade anyone in Vandal dress to attend the Catholic services.

    In 483, Huneric summoned the Catholic Bishops to hold a conference with the Arians in February of 484. 464 bishops assembled themselves, though some of the ablest had been detained or intimidated by Huneric. Confusion ruled and there was never any debate. Euguenius submitted a statement of belief for the Catholics and the meeting ended. Some weeks later the Emperor ruled that the old Imperial laws against heretics would now be enforced against the Catholics if they did not submit to Arian doctrine within the prescribed time. Later that year Huneric died. He was succeeded by his nephew Gunthamund (though he had desired his son to rule). Under his reign the Catholics were free from molestation on the part of the government and he restored to the Catholics the Basilica of St. Agileus. He died in 496 after reigning for twelve uneventful years. He was succeeded by his brother Thrasimund.

    Thrasimund at first sought to bring the Catholics into line with Arainism through gifts and persuasion. However, when this did not work he resorted to threats and torture. He deported 120 bishops to Sardinia and during that time the relics of Augustine were conveyed from Africa. They remained in Sardinia until 722, when they were taken to Pavia.

    "The African Church at the beginning of the sixth century, was in a more forlorn condition than it ever had been.... (Lloyd, The North African Church)." When Hilderic took the throne, however, he recalled the exiled bishops — among them was Fulgentius, the new intellectual leader of the North African bishops. A Council was held in Carthage in 525 concerning the jurisdiction of bishops over monastic houses, but only sixty bishops could be mustered. From 523 to 530 the church was undergoing the process of reorganization, but a palace revolution threatened to bring back the days of persecution. Gelimer, Hilderic's cousin, ascended to the throne after several military setbacks against the Berbers. But his reign was short-lived for during his time the great general Belisarius conquered the Vandals and Gelimer was marched through the streets of Constantinople behind his captors, in chains.

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