North Africa Research Paper

Introduction
North Africa in antiquity was a region that was constantly under the control and influence of foreign powers. It was a region that was favorably situated for trade with many of its major cities built along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and it was also a fertile region that was able to sustain the agricultural needs of its sovereign rulers. First, it was the Roman Empire that controlled the local North African provinces and the goods they offered, and much later it was the rising Islamic civilization that took control of these goods. The expansion of Islam into North Africa is similar to the rise of earlier Roman rule; by examining the underlying causes such as the institutional structure of the Christian church before the …show more content…
The Vandals wanted to spread Arianism , a form of Christianity that denies the divinity of Jesus, and in order to do so they persecuted many of the authority figures of the collegial church who were Catholic, in particular the local bishops. Arianism differs from the Catholic teachings of the Roman papacy because it teaches that Jesus was created by God and therefore is not divine. The persecution of the bishops was detrimental to the structure of the North African churches because the bishops were the top authoritative figures both in the church and in some places, in civil institutions. Other members of the clergy rarely made decisions without the approval of the bishops. The Vandals initially persecuted leading members of the church for their wealth, but by the end of Vandal king Gaiseric’s rule the persecutions were more and more for religious reasons only . Also, Geiseric decreed that only Arians were to hold all offices of power , which were seized from the Catholic bishops. Eventually, Huneric, Gaiseric’s heir and successor stopped the persecutions of Catholic officials and trying to force Arianism onto the local Catholics. However, the structure of collegial church was already destabilized as the most prominent and influential figures were either exiled or killed. Therefore, when the Vandals were finally defeated by the Romans for good, the Church was left in a weaker …show more content…
The bishops of Rome acted in ways that undermined the authority of the local bishops in North Africa. This was apparent in the cases involving North African minister, Apiarius who was excommunicated from the North African church twice for transgressing . Both times Apiarius appealed not to the heads of the North African church but to the bishops in Rome. And in both time the bishops acted on his behalf even though this violated agreements the local church had with the Roman church that they would be responsible for disciplining their own. Apiarius eventually confessed to his crimes and that was when the Roman bishops stepped away. Ultimately, the effect of this situation was that Rome did not see the local church as a capable institution anymore. The effectiveness and stability of the local church had been greatly damaged when the Vandals and Byzantines killed or exiled most of their best leaders. Therefore, we can draw the conclusion that one of the main reasons why Islam was able to spread quickly into the provinces post-Byzantine control was because the institution that held responsibility for the faith of the people, the church, had been left in weaken