401

Some years stand out in church history: 325, 1054, 1517. But the year 401 is more obscure. Today, Stephen Nichols takes us to a time when Augustine helped Christians in Carthage navigate conflict in the church and pressure from the world.

Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. Some of you may know that this past year, Reformation Bible College opened its first remote campus, and it is in Alabama, and it is inside Bibb County Correctional Facility. We have a classroom in that facility, and we have 14 students, who are RBC students. I visited with them recently, and I asked them about their first semester, and I asked them what they learned, and they all said to me, “325.” And of course they were talking about the Council of Nicaea, and I thought that's fantastic that they're learning about the Council of Nicaea and the great Nicene Creed. And 325 is one of those very significant numbers of the early church, but here's a number that you may not know of a date of the early church — 401. In June of 401, our friend Augustine was not in Hippo in his pulpit preaching. He was in Carthage, and he was there at Carthage for the Synod of Carthage.

Now, just to catch up Augustine's context here, he's born in 354. He actually is in Carthage from 376 to 383, both as a student and as a professional rhetorician, and he is taking that city by storm. It's after that that he sets his eyes on Rome, gets to Rome, a little bit unsatisfactory for him, ends up in Milan, and is converted in 386. In 391, he's back. He's back in North Africa. He's in Hippo Regius, and he is ordained in 391, and in 395, he becomes a bishop. And here it is, six years later, and he is at the Synod of Carthage. Overseeing the synod is his good friend, the Bishop Aurelius of Carthage. He was installed as bishop around 390, so he just has a few years of experience on Augustine. And this synod in 401 had to do with the Donatist controversy and a few other things.

But the Donatist controversy was ricocheting around North Africa, causing all kinds of problems. This goes back to 311 and the whole Christianizing of the Roman Empire under Constantine. And you'll recall that prior to that moment, there was an intense level of persecution, a decade's worth of persecution. And under that intense pressure of Roman persecution, a number of clergy buckled under the pressure, and a number of members also denied their faith, buckling under the pressure. And so there was this controversy, “Now that the church is favored, what to do with these folks who left the church?” And the Donatists took a strong position that any clergy who succumbed to the persecution, they were forever disqualified, and any member who succumbed was forever out of the church.

But by the time we get to the end of the 400s, the Donatists had become much more schismatic. They were much more closed off and inward and very sectarian, very judgmental, and they became a great source of conflict across North Africa. They would eventually be condemned in 411, and they would be given the opportunity to repent of their position and come into the church. But the beginning of the debate with the Donatists started in 401.

Now, it wasn't just the pressure from within the church and the Donatist controversy. The church at Carthage and North Africa was also feeling pressure from without from the culture. Carthage was very pagan. By 401, it was a major capital of the Western Roman Empire. It was the second most prosperous city in the Roman world, of course, to Rome. And it was full of this odd mix of Christian and paganism with pagan statues and pagan rituals of entertainment and theaters open on Sunday, and this causing all sorts of difficulty for the church. And so here comes Augustine, here comes Aurelius to try to convene this synod and bring in the other bishops and bring in the clergy from within and these challenges of the Donatist controversy and from without and this challenge of carving out this Christian identity in the midst of a pagan city and of a pagan culture.

Well, you're going to have to tune in next week to hear not only what Augustine does at the synod, but what Augustine preaches from the pulpit to speak to these challenges facing the church of North Africa. Well, that's 401 in Carthage, and I'm Steve Nichols, and thanks for joining us for 5 Minutes in Church History.