Constantina, Diocese of

CONSTANTINA, Diocese of. - It is the ancient Cirta in Numidia (now Algeria), which had an episcopal see in the 3rd century, restored on 25 July 1866 by Pius IX, assigning to it as its territory the current administrative department of C.

The diocese borders Tunisia to the east, the archdiocese of Algiers to the west, of which it is a suffragan, and to the south the apostolic vicariate of Ghardaïa in the Sahara. The bishop also bears the title of Hippo. The diocese comprises 7 vicariates or districts, has 89 parishes, 96 diocesan priests, 23 regular priests, and about 200,000 Catholics.

Mario Scaduto

ARCHAEOLOGY

To Cirta were brought from nearby Unguas the deacon James and the lector Mariano, whence by the local magistrates they were sent to Lambaesis and there condemned to death by the governor. Their names, together with those of other martyrs, were later inscribed on the rock near the banks of the stream Rummel. The inscription can be dated to the Byzantine age by the form of the letters and abbreviations, by the presence of the cross and of the indiction. The date, however, of the epigraph, IIII non. sept., does not coincide with that of 6 May reported by the Martyrologium Hieronymianum and by the calendar of Carthage.

In the Gesta apud Zenophilum (in CSEL, XXVI, pp. 185-97) of 320, there is contained a verbatim record of what happened in C. on 19 May 303 when the curator Munatius Felix, in order to comply with the imperial decrees, was to take possession of the books and the furnishings of worship, and confiscate the damum ubi christiani conveniebant.

(by courtesy of prof. E. Jasi)
CONSTANTINE - Inscription commemorating various martyrs, among them James and Marian, carved on the rock near the Rummel torrent.

From the record one can reconstruct the importance of the community of Cirta at the beginning of the 4th century. There are in fact mentioned Bishop Paul, four presbyters, two deacons, four subdeacons, then lectors, fossores, etc. Of the Christian meeting house there are mentioned the library, the hall for the agape; there is furthermore the list of liturgical utensils, of clothing and footwear, of food for the poor. On the death of Bishop Paul, in 305, the Christians gathered in the casa maior, situated in the area martyrum, that is, in the cemetery where the martyrs were buried; it was furnished with an episcopal cathedra; at that time the basilicae necdum fuerunt restitutae. From the above, it follows that the Christian community of C. possessed at that time more than one building of worship, but unfortunately their location is not known. Remains of a Christian building of the Byzantine age, inserted into a Roman temple, were reported in 1844, but they were destroyed, as were also the remains found at Sidi-Mabrouk; in the great mosque there is a reused capital with the so-called Constantinian monogram. A mosaic, today destroyed, had at its center the inscription Iustus sibi lex est, which Monceaux considers Donatist. The Donatists were powerful in C. in the 4th century. They had taken possession of the church built by Constantine for the Catholics. Constantine in a letter of the year 330 (Pl. 8, 531-32), addressed to the finance superintendent (rationalis), gives the latter the order to build a basilica at the expense of the treasury. Against the Donatist bishop of C. Petilianus, St. Augustine wrote Contra litteras Petiliani and De unico Baptismo contra Petilianum.

In a bas-relief preserved at Kroub, representing a victory with the crown and the palm, three Greek crosses and the inscription A Deo datur victoria were later added. Among the clay lamps found, mention is made of the one representing the angel and the three youths in the furnace.

In the museum of C. there is preserved a terracotta reliquary with the inscription commemorating a memoria sancti Iuliani, deposited by the well-known bishop Aemilianus of about the middle of the 6th century. (L. Leschi, Reliquaires chrétiens du VIe siècle en Numidie, in Comptes-rendus de l'Acad. des inscr. et belles lettres, 1934, pp. 236-45). Many Christian monuments are also preserved, epigraphs, lamps, etc., collected also in the region; until 1900 there was the Farges collection, now in France (L. Doublet and P. Gauckler, Musée de C., Paris 1893, with a fascicle by M. Besnier and L. Blanchet, ibid. 1900, which illustrates the Farges collection). From as early as 1857 the archaeological discoveries were published in the periodical Recueil des notices et mémoires de la Société archéologique de Constantine.

Enrico Josi