Cherchell

CHERCHELL. - In Algeria. It is the ancient Caesarea in Mauretania, founded by the Carthaginians, who called it Iol (a Phoenician deity). King Juba II called it Caesarea after his patron Augustus; from the time of Caligula it was the seat of the governor of the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis.

The known bishops of C. are Fortunatus, present at the council of Arles in 314; Clement (371-72), Deuterius, who attended the council of Carthage in 411, then Emeritus, Apocorius (484) and Crescens. C. still had its bishop at the beginning of the 8th century. Today it is a titular bishopric.

Among the martyrs of C. the best known is St. Fabius the standard-bearer, very probably from the last Diocletianic persecution, martyred at C. but buried at Cartenna (BHL, 2818; P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, S. Fabio vessillifero, in Note agiografiche, 8 [Studi e Testi, 65], Vatican City 1935, pp. 101-13). The Jeronymian Martyrology commemorates on 23 January St. Severianus and his wife Aquila igni combustorum; some have wished to identify him with the M. A. I. Severianus of the well-known inscription, but neither De Rossi (CIL, VIII, 9585, p. 818) nor H. Delehaye (Les origines du culte des martyrs, 2nd ed., Brussels 1933, p. 391) accept that proposal. On the date of 11 July the Jeronymian Martyrology likewise commemorates at C. in Mauretania a martyr Marciana, whose Passio is preserved (BHL, 5256, 5259). St. Arcadius is known from the Passio (BHL, 659) and from a sermon in his honour by St. Zeno of Verona (BHL, 658). The same document indicates on 21 May, in the province of Mauretania, the deacon Timothy, while his companion Poliutus would be from Caesarea in Cappadocia.

Of the buildings of worship in C. no monumental remains are known. St. Augustine spoke in 418 in the ecclesia maior, from which it is gathered that in that year C. had more than one church.

Christian burial areas were found outside the city. The most notable is the one discovered about 500 m. to the west; it is an area of 30 × 15 m. enclosed by a wall; it had at its centre an aedicule with two apses, entirely occupied by tombs superimposed one upon another, up to six. Two very well-known inscriptions were found there. The first (E. Diehl, Inscriptiones latinae christ. veteres, I, Berlin 1925, no. 1583) commemorates the area at sepulcra and the cella built at his own expense by Marcus Antonius Julius Severianus and donated to the whole community (cunctis fratribus). De Rossi considered the epitaph pre-Constantinian (Bull. arch. crist., 1st series, 2 [1864], p. 28), which is excluded by the presence of the two apocalyptic letters α and ω. The second inscription commemorates four deceased buried in accubitorio hoc, belonging to the presbyter Victor qui hunc locum cunctis fratribus fecit (E. Diehl, op. cit., 1179). The two epitaphs are now in the museum of Algiers. In the same zone a chapel was found (12.08 × 8.40 m.) divided by pillars into two naves and with adjoining rooms.

To the east of the city, near the amphitheatre, another chapel, likewise apsidal, was found, entirely occupied by tombs. From this zone come two Christian sarcophagi, one with the anchor and the other with the Good Shepherd and the inscription with the rare indication of the time lived after Baptism (CIL, VIII, 9592). To the Louvre museum in Paris have been transported a fragment of a sarcophagus with Eve and the serpent and a sarcophagus lid with the three Hebrew children in the furnace (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, III, pl. 288, 12, 13, p. 42). In 1926, in the courtyard between the town hall and the museum, a stone sarcophagus had a T incised on its front, the symbol of the cross. In the museum of C. are preserved some Christian cippi certainly earlier than Constantine; one bears the inscription Amanda (CIL, 21421); a second has incised on it the Good Shepherd, the anchor and the dove; a third the anchor, the tree and the dove. Later inscriptions are those in CIL, VIII, 9590, 9591, 9593, in mosaic, 9594 and 9595, now in the museum of Algiers.

Enrico Josi