10 Sep 26 – The African Early Fathers of the Church

0:00The star you're about to hear is true. Catholic commentary. Spiritual warfare. Stay ready so you don't have to get ready. Jesus 9-1-1. And audience, we are live and have an incredibly special guest joining me today. You all know me very well for my deep dives into the early church fathers, early church history. But indeed we got the men here, the men himself, Mike Hackley, near and dear friend of mine, author extraordinaire, speaker extraordinaire, my brother Mike Havvy, been my friend. I've been all right. Thanks for having me back, William. This is wonderful. I'm honored. I love having you back every time. I love dialogue and we love talking about a really church history.

1:05And as we're talking about backstage, planning to bring you on multiple times. You've got a couple of phenomenal books that are coming out. I'm not sure if your book on St. Michael. Is that out yet or is that on the way? No, that's out. I don't have it at hand here, but it is out. It's called St. Michael and his world. And it's out from September press. And it's a history of devotion to St. Michael. So it goes into the Old Testament, the inter-testimental period, the New Testament, the era of the Talmudic rabbis. And I bring in a lot of archaeology from that period. And then into the fathers, of course. And I lay a lot of emphasis on the captic fathers for that book. So it's going to be new to a lot of people. It'll be material they've never seen before on St. Michael, the Archangel. Well, I'll tell you that definitely would be new for me as well, because I love talking about St. Michael, the Archangel.

2:07But in order to really find out a lot of information, you got to really dig in deep. You got to dig in deep. So I'm going to leave the audience in a cliffhanger. We're going to do, we're going to cover that in a separate show. But today we're going to be talking about another book you wrote. I remember when I got this book. I'm like, man, Mike, what what has Mike not talked about that is incredible in the early church, but you always find amazing topics to cover. One of my favorite books you put out and I can't put my favorite books in particular order of yours, because they're all so good, but you're African, the early church book. And people can tell it's quite worn. I've carried it with me many places. Really good book, because in particular you cover a lot of the famous African church fathers, some of the most incredible ones. What before we even dive into book the book and the contents of the book, wasn't inspired you to write this book here? Well, you know, one of my editors, the editor at Angelo's News, Pablo Kay asked me to write a piece of short essay for for Black History Month.

3:14And so I decided to write it about Africa in the early church. And, and man, you know, in my little world, this went viral. It did just got so many shares and I got a lot of email in response to it. A lot of grateful email and a lot of kind of disturbing email as well, you know, it was really. Yeah, it was very strange. It was very strange, you know, some some people wanted, you know, thought I was trying to claim too much for Africa in the early history of the church. So obviously they were unaware of the early history of Christianity. Right. And then, and then other people thought I wasn't doing enough. So, so I figured, well, you know what? This tells me that I need to write a book because of book, let me stretch out and do the things that need to be done because there's so much story to be told about Africa in the early church.

4:16Really a lot to be told, do you have a particular, and now I'm not putting you in the spot here. I didn't even tell you us can ask you this. Do you have a particular favorite African father? I think my favorite African father is Augustine because there's nobody greater than Augustine saying Augustine of Hippo, you know, as you have there, he lived in the fourth and fifth century, but he's one of a handful of the greatest thinkers of all time. Not just Christian thinkers, not just, you know, he's a handful of the most influential thinkers of all time. And he really did lay down the foundations for the civilization that took the place of realm. And so we're all influenced by him whether we know it or not. You know, he's one of these, these people who have been so influential in the history of the church, he's the father or he's the figure outside of scripture most quoted in the catechism of the Catholic church.

5:20He's the figure most quoted by Thomas Aquinas in his summa theologica. So we're talking about a giant here. He'd have to be my favorite. And at the same time, you know, I was tempted as soon as you asked the question to say, Tertullian because he's I knew that. I know you love him. I know you love him. I know you love him. I know that because you know, he provides us one of our earliest witnesses to early Christianity in the Latin language. Okay, he's he converted in the one we're on the 190s. He converted from paganism and he became a great theologian in the Christian world. And and so he's he's someone who's very entertaining because he he kind of had a cholera temper and he he didn't hesitate to call people names. So he makes he makes for good copy. He makes for good stories. He wasn't always the most charitable person, but he he did he did lay things out of very clear language. He's the first the first Latin writer to use the word Trinity.

6:29And he's the first right writer really to lay emphasis on the word sacrament sacramentum to describe the central mysteries of the Christian faith. So so we owe him a lot. He was brilliant. He was a giant in the church of his time and his successors in cart that gen Africa calls him. Yeah, they called him the master. So so you know, we owe him a lot, but but boy, you know, there's just no one in the same league as a gustan. No, I'm with you there. I am 100% with you there. Now Tertullian was a titan. There's no way around it. And and he wasn't afraid of calling out people that were theoretical, I believe. What is the name of the the was that praxious that he said he had a melon for a heart. I'm trying to remember with us. He had no, he had no issue calling them out. If you believe that they were heretical and a magnificent magnificent very influential writer and I dare say I'm an enormous fan of Saint Siprian of Cartage.

7:36But the writings of Tertullian hit a little bit differently. They do. They do. You know, Tertullian, as I said, could be a servant. He was brilliant. He was, he was writing on a lot of different subjects and he was a professional writer. He was a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, his gifts were amazing. Now, Siprian followed him and Siprian was also a very gifted man. He, he also had been a rhetorician. He had been a lawyer in, in Cartage before his conversion to Christianity. But he, his works were mostly situational. He was a bishop. So he was first of all a pastor and he was dealing with pastoral situations. He was trying to put out fires. He was trying to, um, to get the clergy to observe the discipline. He was trying to deal with the fact of persecution because the persecution grew very intense during his, um, his, his reign as bishop.

8:39So all of these things are going on and he's trying to address them directly. He might say that he comes to us through his letters and through his treatises as, as a far more practical thinker. He's telling you what to do. He's telling you how to handle a current situation. But you know what? So many of those situations that were current for him are current for us as well because no doubt human nature hasn't changed and it's good to know what to do when you're dealing with the crisis. Well, Cyprian tells us how to deal with the crises and, um, and he really does model how to be a bishop. So, um, so I think he's, he's helpful for a lot of reasons. Uh, he's a beautiful figure in history. He died as a martyr. He's a very different man from, from Tritullian, but he consider Tritullian to be his master and invoke him as the master. So, uh, so, so we're, you know, we're just a little bit into Christian history there and already we're talking about such great, great figures coming out of North Africa and influencing the earliest development of, of Christianity in the Latin language.

9:49I love that and we're going to talk a lot about North Africa in a moment. We got a great question that came in an audience. Any questions you may have in your mind. We are tackling them as well. The brother Daniel, thank you for the support. Daniel says is agrippiness, the earliest African church father. Well, we don't usually use the word father at church father to refer to agrippiness because, um, because he we don't have, we don't have extensive writings from him. The term father isn't applied to the martyrs and to the fathers we are the teachers we know about rather than know. It tends to be reserved to the great teachers of that time whose works we know whose works have survived from antiquity and, um, and that, you know, that's that's that that wouldn't apply to agrippiness. But, uh, but, you know, I would, I would say that the earliest father is Tritullian and I would say that the earliest mother of the church is perpetual.

10:53perpetual, wow. Yes. Yeah, I know that that's one thing that you've always held even though, even though Tritullian isn't an excellent that he's he that he, he died outside of the bounds of the church. That's one question that I want to leave the audience on. We'll leave them on that because we're about to hit our first break and that when we return, I want to pick your brain on that as to whether or not. Whether or not there's any evidence that Tritullian ever returned to to the bosom of Holy Mother Church. I have. That's a good question. Yeah. And that is going to be a great cliffhanger for the audience. Did Tritullian ever return to the Catholic church? We know he left it for modernism. Did he ever return? You all are going to want to stick around just a moment more. You all are going to break.

12:10And we are back audience. We're having an incredible time dialogue with my near and dear friend, the amazing Mike Aqualina talking about. Well, a lot of great stuff he's put out and in particular his book, a great one and maybe one of our amazing moderators. Could you all do us an enormous favor and put the link to African the early church, a tremendous book. There you go. You got it right there. Mine's a little bit more worn. I carried around a lot. I'm happy to hear that. Yeah, I love it. I love it. And I got a pick your brain here. And I and I know a lot in the audience are going to want to hear this. Is there any evidence at all? Is it a possibility at all that Tritullian returned to Holy Mother Church and died in the bosom of the church? Is there any evidence at all of that? Certainly there's evidence. You know, the great evidence as many people point out is that is that Siprian was willing to call him the master.

13:19And it's unlikely that Siprian would have used that kind of language for a heretic for a man who died in heresy. So it's quite likely that that Tritullian came back to the unity of the Catholic Church or he never left. We don't really know what the situation was with montanism in Africa. Some scholars say that montanism in Africa was substantially different from montanism in frigia, the land of its origin. And the montanists in Africa were not so far had not gone so far astray from Orthodox Christianity. That's a possibility. You know, it's it would be hard to believe that Tritullian would be drawn away by a group as as flighty as as the montanists were in some of the other lands. He was he was a pretty brainy guy. We had a pretty tough mind. I think that he, you know, like other fathers of his time, like a politice of Rome, was having a problem with the way the church was dispensing discipline.

14:27Right. Especially the way the church was administering the sacrament of penance and they and and these men, Tritullian and a politice thought that the popes especially were being very lacks and very permissive and were actually promoting sin by their laxity. Right. So they advocated a more rigorous administration of penance where people were denied communion for much longer periods of time. And and and this became a movement in Africa that that lasted not only for decades, but for centuries this this sense of of rigorism, the sense of toughness, the sense that you have to you have to tough it out. And when you have to do things the hard way, Siprian tried his best to correct that in his time, but you know, anyway, I'm getting I'm getting far. No, you know, you are you're doing phenomenal. There's something I wanted to run by you. Yeah. And because I love Tritullian. In fact, in fact, I as you know, very well, I converted to the faith a little bit over two decades ago now.

15:37And an enormous reason of that was was the writings of Tritullian that that gave me a great view into the mind of the early church. There was an article that I stumbled upon and I read it quite a few years back. Maybe you've heard of it. Maybe not. I don't know if it's even prominent, but I'd love to get you thoughts on it. The author is doctor Dr. Powell and I'm reading from it right here. And there are a number of scholars and he argues he says and I'd never ever thought of it in this manner. He says that we don't have any real solid evidence that Tritullian underwent a juridically identifiable formal schism from the Carthaginian church in his own lifetime. Certainly he embraced a new prophecy, attacked people whom he called Sikiki, but there is no evidence that there was discreet event of that skimianication followed by membership in a separately constituted mountainous church. That's true. Okay. It is because because the later fathers may have been kind of retrojecting, you know, either these these categories on the early church that didn't really apply to the church.

16:48It's quite likely that Tritullian was hanging around with some outliers and it's quite it seems it seems definite that he was protesting against against the actions of the bishops of his time. So what's unclear is whether he crossed any lines and doing that in in in the sense of separating himself from communion with his bishops. There's no evidence that he was ever excommunicated in his lifetime and and there's no evidence that he wished to be separated from the Catholic church. Great great points or phenomenal ones and for people wondering maybe you're barely tuned in. He doesn't need any introduction, but I've got the incredible Mike Aquilina here we're talking about his amazing book Africa and the early church by the time the show is done. We'll have a link down there where you the audience can get it. We want you all to grab the book. We know we know that it is available on Amazon and many other places, but we'll want you all to grab it to snag it from the same Paul website itself because that will help support the Catholic publishing houses. That's what we want to do.

18:00Thank you because they absolutely they rely on our support. They wouldn't survive without our support and we don't need to be putting money into the hands of a billion billion billion dollar company like Amazon. We want to give we want to help out our fellow wonderful castles doing this kind of work. Now, are there any other incredible African fathers maybe stick out to you Augustine is one of my favorites. I love Augustine. It's sold by the fathers by the ecumenical councils as well, even by the great and we could talk about that another time, even by the great later great Byzantine fathers, including figures that skis from the church figures in the East like Mark of Ephesus. And before him, Palomas, they had an enormous veneration for Augustine. That tells you everything of the Greek Greek people did as well. But are there any other maybe stick out to you say, Hey, man, I love this particular father.

19:00Well, we talked about your to lean we talked about Cyprian. I'd like to go back to perpetua because I think she's very significant. I think she's a significant figure in the history of the church and in history full stop. Alright, perpetua was a woman who was a new mom, alright, just delivered a baby and she was a catacumin in the church. Now, at that time, there was not like a full scale persecution of the church going on the severance who were African emperors. But we're trying to contain the growth of the church. They'd kind of given up on eradicating Christianity, but they wanted to contain the church's growth. So they outlawed conversion to the church. If you had already been Christian at the time their laws were enacted, you were grandfathered in, so to speak. But they did not want new converts. They wanted to contain the growth of Christianity. So she fell under this law and perpetua was was probably someone from a family that was well off because she was obviously educated. She was an educated woman. She could read she could write and she could write with a great fluency.

20:16She was obviously too a charismatic leader. Someone who was a natural leader, she seemed to be born to leadership. So she's a new mom, a breastfeeding mother, she's she's jailed with other catacumins, including her slave felicity. Together, they're condemned to die and there's a drama that goes on through her diary of her back and forth with her father, who's really upset that she's converted. He's really upset that she's condemned to death and he tries his best with arguments with pleading. And finally, just in this mad rage when he sees her, he tries his best to turn her around and get her to renounce Christianity. So you see all these these dramatic things going on. She has several visions while she's in prison. She emerges as a leader to the other Christians who are in prison with her as they're awaiting their execution. So all of this is very important because it shows us the status of women in the Christian community.

21:21Prepetua was not a priest. She was not a deacon. You know, she had no imposition of holy orders. And yet she was a leader. She emerged as a leader and a woman could do that within the Christian church. That's that's a development that's going on here because a woman in a sense any similar circumstance in the outer world outside of prison in the Roman world could not achieve that kind of leadership. It's it's interesting. She she she keeps the prison diary, which is completed by another hand. Someone who witnessed her death gives an account of her death at the end. And the diary becomes an instant bestseller. And it's copied out now. You think about this. There's no printing press at this time. Right. So in order to distribute a book, you had to hire a scribe to copy it out by hand. It would take a long time. It's skilled labor. You're paying a lot of money for it. And it's very dangerous because Christianity was illegal at this time. In fact, the practice of Christianity was a capital crime.

22:27And if you own Christian books, you could be killed for it. So if you were paying a pagan scribe, you'd have to pay a lot of money for it because he's taken a big risk. And a Christian scribe who's doing it would have to risk his life to copy that book. And yet the book was copied over and over and over again. And it becomes this this viral sensation. It goes throughout the empire. We find images of perpetua in Italy, not too long after her death. That's amazing. Wow. And I defy you to tell me the name of a pagan woman writer in Latin from this period who achieved the same kind of status. From that whole century, I'll give you the whole century, you know, you can't name one because there is none. But within Christianity, women could achieve this kind of status. They could become the great saints, the great leaders, the great teachers of their time. So I think she is very significant, perpetua of cartage. I completely agreed, incredibly significant. And we have an incredible work here that I recommend everybody read, passion of Saint Saint's perpetua in felicity is a magnificent work.

23:39One thing that blows me away when when I read in particular where where it records her scene, her deceased brother, Dino Cratis, perpetua sees him suffering. I have argued, I don't know if you agree with me here, but I've argued for the longest time that it seems to me like this is a very early account of something along the lines of a post mortem, purgation that Dino Cratis undergoes. I totally agree. You do agree. Okay. All right. You do. Okay. And so then you would you would see that we see the imagery of him suffering. He's it's in the afterlife. He is in a dark place and I'm going out the top of my head. He's in a dark place. She prays for him intensely. And then eventually he is delivered from suffering. He's no longer thirsting as he was thirsting before. And if I remember correctly, he's now delivered to the place of light as well, an audience where we're going to leave you with that amazing cliffhanger when we return because we're about to hit a break.

24:45I don't want that break to sneak up on us. But when we're return, we're going to talk about that. Is that early evidence of a post mortem purgation? It seems like my esteemed guest does agree, but I'd love to hear his thoughts. Pick this brain on that. Stick around, audience. We're going to be back in just a moment. And we are taking for your questions or your thoughts as well, audience. We'll see you just a moment after the spring.

25:45And we are back. We're having an incredible conversation with my incredible guest, Mike Aqualina, author extraordinaire speaker extraordinaire. And we're talking about the African fathers. And we left off on a little bit of a cliffhanger. We're talking about perpetua felicity, the passion. And then we're talking about perpetua's deceased brother, Dino Cratis. And I've read the work multiple times over. It seems to me like what is happening there is very purgatory. What are your thoughts on that, my friend? It seems that way to me here. I just called it up so it so we can take a look at it without delay on that very night. This was shown to me in a vision. I saw I saw a denocritis going out from a gloomy place where also there were several others. And he was parched and very thirsty with a filthy countenance and pallid color. And he was roamed on his face, which he had when he died. And moreover, in the same place where denocritis was, there was a pool full of water having its brink higher than was the stature of the boy.

26:56And denocritis raised himself up as if to drink. And I was grieved that although that pool held water still on account of the height towards brink, he could not drink. And I was upset and knew that my brother was in suffering, but I trusted that my prayer would bring help to his suffering. So right here, you know, you can see that she believed in a place of purification. And she believed that the prayers of the living could deliver the souls of the departed from that place of purification could help them to be purified. And she was as that belief. So she does pray as you point out. And then she gets a second vision. She says then on the day on which we remained in fetters. This was shown to me. I saw that place, which I had formerly observed to be in gloom was now bright. And denocritis with a clean body well clad was finding refreshment. And then I saw a scar had been a wound. I saw a scar. And that pool, which I had before seen, I saw now with its margin lowered even to the boy's navel.

28:05And one water from the pool incessantly. And upon its brink was a goblet filled with water and denocritis drew near and began to drink from it. And the goblet did not fail. And then he went away from the water to play joyously after the manner of children. And I awoke. Then I understood that he was translated from the place of punishment. So right there, I think we see a very clear statement of what Catholics believed in the end of the second century beginning of the third century. And Catholics still believe today that the prayers of the living are effective on behalf of the dead. What a phenomenal point. What a great point. Now, there is no way we could do a show on great African fathers without bringing up the great, the fiery saint, Athanasius. You love saying, Athanasius, don't I do. What are your thoughts on the great saint? Cause I know you've got a whole section in your book.

29:07I believe it is right here on Saint Athanasius. What can we say about the great Saint Athanasius? What are your thoughts on him? In this context, we can say an awful lot because he brings us to Alexandria in Egypt. And what we have to recognize is that in Alexandria, we have another great capital of Christian thought from the earliest earliest years. Alexandria was the second city of the Roman Empire, and it was probably the intellectual capital of the Roman Empire. It was known for its library, and it was known for its research institutions, universities, and kind of an early publishing industry because of all of these things that were going on there. And all of these books that found their home there. So Alexandria was an important center of Christianity from the earliest years. It seems likely that that the faith began there with Saint Mark as its first bishop, the evangelist, Saint Mark, who was of course the secretary to St. Peter, the first pope.

30:18So the church in Alexandria had a great pedigree, and it's pedigree going back into Judaism was just as great because the church in Alexandria inherited all of the philosophical heritage of Alexandria and Judaism, which is high point with with phyllo of Alexandria in the first century. So the great heir to all of this was Athanasius because, and I think he's the great figure of what we call the school of Alexandria. And at different times, there was an actual school in Alexandria in the city, but there was also a school of thought that found its center there. And Athanasius really did embody this in the most balanced way. You know, he used the allegorical method of understanding the Old Testament with great effect. He didn't go overboard with it as some of his predecessors did, but he used it to great effect.

31:18He's also at the center of one of the great controversies, oh yeah, royal to the church in, in those early centuries, and that was the Aryan controversy, because it first erupted in his diocese. It first erupted in Alexandria under his predecessor, Alexander, and Alexander was the first to discipline areas. Aryus had this kind of rationalistic approach to Christian thinking, and he kind of eviscerated the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the incarnation and made it more amenable to pagans by saying, hey, three doesn't equal one. So we're never going to stop talking that way, and we're not going to say that the father and the son were co equal and co eternal. He's against that language, and he actually condemns that language. Right. So it's this rationalistic Christianity that's kind of moving the mysteries out to the margin of the proclamation, and it becomes inexplicably, well, I guess you can't explain it.

32:28There are people who want irrational belief, and there are some people who will believe anything. So he starts promoting this, and he gets some very influential allies, and Athanasius is the one who stands up to defend the the the apostolic tradition against this attack against this incursion by Aryus and his followers. Athanasius had been present at the Council of Nicaea as an advisor to Alexander, and so he he was there as a theologian, kind of form helping to formulate the creed, and the creed becomes kind of the monument that people would refer to the touchstone. But you know what, he had to continue fighting, you know, because the emperors kept on well, even Constantine himself waffled a bit on what to do with Aryus and what to do with his doctrine. And so, uh, Athanasius was repeatedly exiled from his own sea, and he had to go give the ICC lands of the North, far away from Egypt.

33:37He was accused of murder at one point, and he was almost convicted, and then he had to flee the country by way of vote. And so he was going down the river Nile, and he was being pursued by the military. His life reads like a great adventure. At one point, why haven't they made a big movie about it? Oh, it would be a great adventure movie. No doubt about it. It would be incredible. I mean, that what you just mentioned right there, I mean, if people knew about his life, I believe the one where he was accused of murder, he was accused of sorcery. I mean, all these kinds of things accused of why don't they make a big sweeping motion picture? It would be a blockbuster. And you know, at that trial, the only reason he finally got off was because the alleged victim showed up. Yeah, to exonerate Athanasias. Hello, I'm not dead. He didn't murder me. Right. And then when he was being pursued by the military, they caught up to his vote, and they said, they said to him, have you seen Athanasius?

34:43Right. And he couldn't tell a lie. So he said, he's not far from you. Speed on. And right about that. So there are all these wonderful scenes. And then there are the poignant scenes of his exile. And when he finally went to see the emperor, Constantius, and defend himself, Constantius derided him and said, you know, it seems as if it's Athanasius against the world. But he was willing to be that guy who stands against the world if it means standing for Jesus Christ. Because if you worship the Aryan God, the God who is not Trinitarian, the son who is not co-equal with the father, you're worshiping a different God. You've left the faith. Your worship is invalid. And so he was adamant about this. And he would not give way. And he kept the faith to his death finally in his last years. He was restored to his sea in Alexandria. And he was able to die in his bed, which nobody would have predicted after such a life of adventure and hot pursuit.

35:50Who would have imagined that he would have been able to survive and not be martyred? That is a true amazing thing. Absolutely. Because had the Aryans had their way, they would have taken them out way earlier. They tried. They tried. Many times over. They even tried to set them up with prostitutes. Oh my God. You remember that particular event, too. They tried to frame them, set them up with prostitutes, they accused them of sorcery. I mean, I'm telling you the audience for you all tuning in. They would make a movie. I mean, whoever is out there tuning in, if you are a Hollywood big, big wig. That would be an enormous flick, an enormous movie. That'd be one that I'd be in line to definitely watch it. He was a towering figure. And we're about to approach our final break audience. And so I'm going to leave you all with that before we return. I'm going to talk about more incredible African fathers, but keep in mind this tremendous figure.

36:55St. Athanasius really, Athanasius contra mondom against the world is really what it was for the longest time. A towering figure, an amazing figure and really a pillar. Another one of those pillars. Now, what are mind you all? We are talking about my dear guests, incredible book, Africa and the early church. And it is the almost, and this is a good one, the almost forgotten roots of Catholic Christianity, tremendous book. But we have a lot more to talk about. I'm going to pick his brain in a few others. Audience, who do you have in mind? Is there a question you have in your mind? And you want to ask our tremendous guest in a moment when we're back, we got more to come out of this. Don't go ahead and talk. Music

37:56Music Music And audience, we are back, we're having an incredible time talking about the African fathers, the African church, with my tremendous guest, the amazing Mike Aqualina, who is an author, and a speaker, and we have a lot of great time talking about great figures like Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St. Augustine, St. Athanasius. My friend, take us wherever you want to take us on this incredible journey. What else do you have to say about the incredible African father is the African church? What I want to emphasize is that the Africans were not incidental.

38:56They were foundational for everything that has come after the period of the fathers. The Africans were so important during this time. Most Eastern Christians trace their roots back to Greek Christianity. But Greek Christianity wasn't coming out of Greece so much as out of Alexandria. Alexandria was the great center of thought in the Roman world. This is where a lot of the earliest Christian theologians were publishing in the Greek language. If we look at figures like Clement of Alexandria and Origin in the third century, they were doing the foundational work for theology and for Scripture study that we still depend on today. If you're Eastern, you're looking back to an African city of Alexandria as kind of your headwaters. If you're a Western Christian, now you might think, well, I'm Roman Catholic and I look to Rome as my headwaters.

40:00But what Rome looked to Carthage as its great literary headwaters, as its great source of thought. Carthage had a similar position in the Latin speaking world. This was even before Christianity. So many great figures of Roman literature came from North Africa. The playwright, Terence, the novelist, Appalais, the historian, Soutonus, the Red Rician, Framto. All of these great names in classical Roman literature were North Africans. They weren't in Rome. They weren't in the capital city. They were out there where where where Latin speaking Latin literature was really thriving. In Rome, the liturgy was still in Greek at that time. It's likely that the first Latin liturgy was established in Africa. It was in Africa for maybe 50 to 100 years before it reached the city of Rome.

41:07So the liturgy we know today in our American parrises is largely the Latin liturgy. We're Latin-right Catholics. We're Roman Catholics. But that liturgy likely originated in North Africa. So when we look back to our foundations, whether we're Eastern Christians or Western Christians, or even if you're Protestant, you're looking back to the African fathers. If you look at the two great figures of the Protestant Reformation, the Martin Luther and John Calvin, both of them claimed to be dependent on everything on St. Augustine. St. Augustine was the great thinker that they hark back to, and he was the greatest of the African fathers. So much of what we know today, we owe to these African forefathers of the faith. And I want to make that very clear. The Roman province of Africa, which was Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, was very important.

42:09These are the lands that are today in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. That land, which is today hardly, that hardly has a Christian presence, but those lands were profoundly influential in our development of doctrine. Also, the lands of Libya and Egypt, you know, it's a, but it doesn't just stop there. It also goes to Sub-Saharan Africa, the kingdom of oxom in northern Ethiopia and Evertria. That was Christian by the end of the fourth century. There was likely a Christian presence there from the very beginning, from the Apostolic generation. But by that time, by the three thirties, the three forties, it had royal approval. And the kings themselves were practicing Christianity. Nubian and Sudan, what's now Sudan, was another Christian land in the ancient world. So I want to make very clear that these lands were Christian.

43:09We don't know the all of them as Christian today. But in the ancient world, they were and they established so much of our doctrine, so much of our practice. They helped us to articulate the faith and they evangelized very effectively. And I want to make sure that we're giving credit where credits do and we're never forgetting their story. I love that. I love that. Really, really very important to to know their story, to highlight it. And I think another thing that really does bear mentioning is important to mention is what we typically call the North African code. 393, HEPPO 397 Carthage, the biblical canon. The same Augustine had a big role in being a prime mover of and that Rome would later confirm. But that's enormous, isn't it? The biblical canon as well, coming from the African world, what they discerned it, isn't that also amazing, brother?

44:11So, you know, we've already seen that we get a lot of the vocabulary of doctrine from from North African sources, words like sacramentum and Trinity. We could not tell our story without these words. We also get our liturgy from this area of North Africa. And yes, you know, as you're pointing out, there's just so much more that we get from this area. And it's it's it's it's fertile development in those early Christian centuries. So many names we could bring up and didn't we we did mention perpetuous, syphry and an Augustine. But there's Pope Victor the first one of the early writing posts, those teaching posts who really had things to say there's an Arnobius who was a red a ration who talk rhetoric and also who was the first to articulate what we what we now call Pascal's wager right for the existence of God and for faith in God.

45:13And then his student, Lactantius, who became the the the chair and Latin rhetoric for the for the emperor himself and and became the great tutor of August or the great tutor of Constantine. And I think the reason why Constantine's main issue on taking the imperial throne was religious freedom, religious liberty. It's the first time it's enacted in law and I believe that the philosophy that that Constantine was following he had received from an African like can't just and and like can't just himself received that the foundations of that philosophy from another African to Tolian. So so there's just so much that we see and so much that we owe to all of these great figures, maintain this climate origin, Athanasius, Anthony Cyril, for Mentius so many people who are too little known today and should be well well known. There's no doubt about it and you think of the enormous role these towering figures played in in early councils, St. Evan, issues, a towering figure there in ICA St. Cyril, an enormous figure there and ethicist 431.

46:30I mean, right there alone where he defends mother Mary's title as Delta, who says a God bear over and against the Nistorius just what a what a phenomenal amount of influence that we really we really need to think about and we need to really ponder about. And I don't think we give it an attention wouldn't you agree I do agree I do agree that's why I wrote the book and I hope people people will read it and come to an appreciation of our African origins of our African roots of what we owe to the African fathers African saints African martyrs this is an important part of our story and we should be giving that credit where it's due as I said. Now we got about three minutes left and I want to give you the final few about a minute or so to plug in anything you want to plug in but I want to ask you one final very quick question and some Catholic scholars believe this I wonder if you believe do you think it's possible that one day a figure like origin can perhaps be rehabilitated maybe even maybe even become a saint it would that be a possibility one day original battle of Zandria what do you think.

47:40Well the obstacles would be great I have I have a deep admiration for origin it's it's clear that he crossed certain lines and his speculative theology now in his defense at that time the these these these theological speculations were not worked out you know and compared to to the apostolic tradition and and sifted really. So so he didn't he was he was he was breaking new ground and he he as I said I think that he did stray from from what is authentic Christianity yeah and he seemed a little resistant to to to correction even though whenever he's doing these speculations he always says but I but I'm telling you if you find anything to be in conflict with the Catholic faith. He always refers to the Catholic faith and there you go refers people back to it you know so I think that origin had a good heart he died as a confessor he he was willing to be a martyr and he was tortured almost to the point of death and they would not give him the satisfaction of killing him so he lived on for some time in excruciating pain all of this for the witness for Christian witness I have a great deal of admiration for him and I think it's wrong for for people who

49:08for people who condemn him out of hand he was a complicated figure I I tend to doubt after after his condemnation by several councils it would be hard to declare him a state but I do think that there are good theological arguments against those condemnations they were done after he died I mean that's that's the main thing he they were done with what can you excommunicate a dead man I don't think so great great points. I'm not my friend we got a little bit under about a minute working people find you working they find your books and anything you want to plug in go for it now my friend well I'm online at fathers of the church.com you can find me on Facebook I'm not too into social media but I do have to have something of a presence there also I have 99 episode podcast called way of the fathers which you'll find a Catholic culture.org other than that you know I do a lot of events with the St Paul Center for biblical faith.

50:08I'm a theology which I helped to found 25 years ago with Scott and Kimberly Han and and I'm always keeping busy so if you if you follow me on Facebook you usually see to what I'm doing. You are always busy I want to thank you for showing up thank you for being tremendous my friend and I want to say you're always welcome back here and I am very excited to talk to you again my brother God bless you my friend I'll see you again soon. Thanks again for having me on it's an honor. God bless you my friend talk to you soon. you