TRIPOLITANIA. – Libya (v.), bordering the Mediterranean between Tunisia and the Syrtic Gulf.
When the Christian faith began to spread in the region now called T., which corresponds only in part to the “province of Tripolitana” in the Diocletianic administrative system, cannot be stated with certainty.
The designation “apostolic” given to certain mosques of the Gebel Nefusa, evidently deriving from an equivalent designation borne by some Christian churches that had preceded the mosques, had already led to the suspicion that the first Christian preaching in the region should be assigned to apostolic times, or to the period immediately following them; and the same hypothesis would seem to be supported by the expression used by the bishop Archeo of Leptis, speaking of himself: « qui post discipulos Domini episcopus fuit Leptitanae urbis »: yet, while the former designation must certainly be explained in the sense that those churches were dedicated to the Apostles (there are numerous testimonies to the frequency in Africa of the cult of ss. Peter and Paul), and not founded by them, the latter expression may also have had a broadly vague meaning. Thus, while not excluding—indeed, considering it highly probable—that the Good News reached T. very soon, especially in view of the close relations between it and neighbouring Cyrenaica, and that it arrived both directly from the East and from Rome, it does not seem plausible to admit that actual Christian communities were established there before the second century. The first of these communities must have been that of Leptis, a maritime city engaged in active commercial and cultural relations, from the age of Augustus and perhaps even earlier, with Greece and Egypt no less than with Rome. For Leptis we have the first certain mention of a bishop in Archeo, already recalled, author of a treatise on the date of Easter, who in all probability lived in the time of Pope Victor. The many Jewish colonies along the coast and inland must have been centres of welcome and dissemination for the new faith; the destruction of Jerusalem first, and then the Cyrenaican revolt in the time of Trajan, certainly gave them considerable growth.
In the middle of the third century, at the Council of Carthage in 256, the Tripolitanian bishops numbered four: two were present in person, Natalis of Oea and Monnulus of Girba (on the island of Gerba in the Lesser Syrtis, today part of Tunisia), while two were represented by their colleagues: Dioga of Leptis Magna and Pompeius of Sabrata. Episcopal sees therefore existed in the three coastal cities that gave the region its name, as well as on the island of Gerba. Already at this time there becomes apparent what would remain, in later centuries too, the characteristic feature of T. in comparison with the other regions of Roman Africa, namely, its scarcity of episcopal sees—particularly striking in view of their greater number and density elsewhere in Africa. This scarcity must evidently be related to the comparable rarity of regularly constituted urban centres with civic communities. To the four sees already mentioned, another was added later, that of Tacape (today Gabès in Tunisia), and these five sees would thereafter remain constant, as is expressly noted in the Acts of the Councils. All five sees were on the coast. For the interior, where, as will be said below, the remains of Christian monuments are far from rare, the evidence is less clear; but it seems impossible to doubt that at least some of the stations of the limes Tripolitanus possessed the same dignity. Turris Tamalleni certainly did, since the existence of an urban centre is known there, which became a municipium under Hadrian. Perhaps, judging from the similarity between the names of some of these stations and those of certain sees mentioned in the Acts of the Councils, the same was true of Thenteos, now identified with Gasr Duib, south-east of Qintan (Journ. of Rom. Stud., 1949, p. 88 sgg.), Augemmi, and others. Yet, since the Acts of the Councils just mentioned explicitly assign five bishoprics to T., it must be believed that these inland sees belonged to a different ecclesiastical region, namely, that called Arzugitana or Arzugis, which was attached to and dependent not on T. but on Byzacena, perhaps because communication with the latter was easier from them, protected by the defences of the limes, than with the former (v. also W. Goodhild, in Journ. of Rom. Stud., 1950, p. 30 sgg). In any event, the remoteness—almost the isolation—of the lands between the two Syrtes from the rest of Roman Africa, and the difficulty of communication and relations between that region and T., are characteristic features of the Christianity of this area, which frequently emerge or are emphasised in the texts and in the Acts of the Councils.
This did not, however, prevent the Donatist schism from having its followers and its conflicts in T. as well, of which distant and vague reflections can be discerned. At the Maximianist Council of Cabarsussi in 393, three Tripolitanian bishops took part, while two others were represented; at the great Carthaginian assembly of 411, some of the Tripolitanian sees appear with two bishops each, one Catholic and one Donatist, while others have only one, either Catholic or Donatist. Thus far, however, the epigraphic evidence for Tripolitanian Donatism is limited to several inscriptions found at Henscir Taglissi, south of Garian (Inscript. Rom. Trip. [v.bibl.], 803).
Having come into the possession of the Vandals after 455, T. also suffered the harshness of the Arian persecution. Victor of Vita recalls two Tripolitanian bishops, Vincent of Sabrata and Cresconius of Oea, sent into exile by Genseric; but the latter appears again in 484 at the head of his Church. At the council of that year the region still sent all five of its bishops; this was the last occasion on which it appeared with its full representation. At the subsequent councils that representation would be much more limited, and at times even entirely absent—a sure indication, perhaps not so much of poverty as of the difficulties under which Christian life developed in the region.
It experienced a revival with the Byzantine reconquest, not only in the cities that Justinian enriched with new churches, but even in the more distant interior, where, according to the testimony of Procopius (De nedi. VI, 4), the inhabitants of Cydamus (Gadames) and the Garamantes of the Fezzan converted to the faith of Christ. The episcopal sees must have remained the same, at least judging from the list of African bishoprics appended to the so-called Θρόνος ἀλεξανθρίνος, a list that appears to derive from a document of the first half of the seventh century, immediately preceding the first Arab invasions. In it, the Tripolitanian bishoprics number four: Leptis, Oea, and Sabrata are correctly recorded, while the fourth, Τερέπτον, is certainly corrupt and could be restored either as the name of Gerba or that of Tacape. This is the last mention concerning them.
It should nevertheless be believed that the first Arab invasion of the seventh century, just as it did not substantially alter the character of Africa, insofar as anything of its Roman character still remained, so it did not extinguish whatever Christian life still existed there. Christian groups continued to live first in the cities, at Leptis and Oea, then on their outskirts, such as the one whose cemetery was found at En Ngila, and in the interior, among the Berbers. Whether these Christian groups still elected bishops, and how many, is unknown. In any case, it was only the Hilalian invasion of the eleventh century that definitively annihilated and dispersed every Christian remnant.
Set against the certainly far from abundant information drawn from written sources, the numerous monumental remains brought to light by archaeological exploration illuminate Tripolitanian Christianity. These remains extend alike to the coastal cities, which, as has been seen, were seats of episcopal chairs, and to the interior of the region. As regards the cities, V. LEPTIS MAGNA.
At Sabrata, two large churches stood to the south and north of the Forum: the former had been adapted in the early years of the 5th century from the pre-existing judicial basilica; it is a very complex building, with a double apse, baptistery, and many inscribed tombs; the latter, certainly to be identified with the one mentioned by Procopius (op. cit.), was decorated with mosaics, among which the one in the central nave was particularly precious. Two other smaller churches, together with their respective baptisteries and many tombs inside, forming a single complex, stand to the north of the theatre. Finally, a catacomb, with loculi, pit graves, earth graves and arcosolia, inscriptions, and symbols painted or executed in mosaic, was discovered to the north of the large quarry preceding the amphitheatre: its oldest nucleus perhaps dates back to the end of the 4th century.
Of Oea, modern Tripoli, no building remains, but only scattered architectural remains, including a column bearing a graffito invocation to Mary and the archangel Gabriel; a small Jewish hypogeum with inscriptions, consisting of a short gallery excavated in the sandstone, was discovered near the beach of Sciara Sciat, but was almost entirely lost during the Second World War. In the region immediately adjoining the city, however, there are the two large and important cemetery areas of Ain Zara and En Ngila. Both, situated in areas of shifting dunes, present the same type of tombs, consisting of a crude, elongated masonry mound, rounded at the top: inscriptions and symbols are scratched into the plaster covering the masonry; the dates of the two burial grounds, however, are quite different. In the former, 121 tombs were identified, but there were certainly more: the inscriptions give the name of the deceased, his praises, the date of death, always expressed by mention of the indiction, and several phrases of good wishes and blessing: some reminiscence of Virgil is of interest. The symbols are crosses, fish, doves, etc. The recurrence of the trisagion sung at the Council of Chalcedon (451), and what appears to be a reference in one inscription to a violent death through persecution, together with other elements, led Aurigemma to date the burial ground to the Vandal period, that is, between the 5th and 6th centuries.
The cemetery of En Ngila, on the other hand, appears to be considerably later. Its inscriptions, which have a more complex phraseology than those of Ain Zara and contain many allusions to the sacred texts, sometimes bear a date reckoned from the creation of the world: on the basis of the Constantinopolitan era, the dates given belong to the second half of the 10th century and the beginning of the 11th, thus precisely on the eve of the Hilalian invasion. For we know from el Bekri that at that time groups of Christians lived in the countryside around Tripoli.
The Christian cemetery of Sirte is of an entirely different type. It is a catacomb excavated in the sandstone, consisting of a gallery 4 m wide and 31.65 m long, with a flat vault supported by three pillars cut from the rock itself. The dead were first deposited in loculi opened in the walls, and later also in earth graves and tombs set against the walls themselves; the inscriptions, for the great majority in Latin and a few in Greek (47 and 6 respectively), are extremely simple, bearing only the name and age of the deceased; they are often accompanied by the crimon, in a form that can be dated to the end of the 4th century; this is probably also the date of the hypogeum. More than two hundred lamps were collected there, one of which bears the image of St Peter.
In the inland regions, two churches were explored at el-Asabaa on the Gebel Garian, and near the village of Breviglieri at Tarhuna. The former, perfectly oriented, with its façade facing east, has a deep narthex, three naves divided by columns, an altar at the end of the central nave, and a raised apse; in the latter is the tomb of a predytter Turrentius and other burials; behind the apse is the baptistery. Numerous stone corbels, decorated with crosses, rosettes, and Solomon’s knots, supported the roof timbers. From their style and from the coins discovered during the excavation, the building can be dated to the beginning of the 6th century, before the Byzantine reconquest.
Of the church in the region of Tarhuna, only summary information is available so far. It was not a large building (approximately 17.60 × 11.75 m), but was well constructed; it had three naves, the lateral ones narrower and shorter than the central one, divided by columns and all ending in apses. The central apse was raised; the corbels supporting the roof and the capitals bear signs and figures of Christian significance. Attached to it was the baptistery, with a lobed cruciform basin and a circular well. Its probable date is the 6th century. The church formed part of a larger complex, perhaps a fortified monastery. A third church has been identified at Gasr Chafagi Aamer in the region of the Soffegin. It too had three naves, the central one longer and closed by an apse, while the lateral ones ended in small chambers communicating with one another through a crypt beneath the apse. Behind the church was a vaulted gallery, and nearby were the baptistery and another building with small cells (I. Gentilucci, in Africa Italiana, 5 [1933], p. 172 ff.; D. E. L. Haynes, Ancient T., p. 112 ff., pl. 30). Finally, other Christian buildings have been reported at Tebadut, not far from el-Asabaa; at Rumi bis-el-Cur, east of Garian; at Ain Wif, south of the Tarhuna-Garian road (Journ. of Rom. Stud., 1929, p. 84); and perhaps at Giamat near Chicla. Architectural or inscribed fragments have been found in the Gebel Nefusa, at Gadames, etc.; hypogea at Tarhuna and Gasr Doga, likewise in the Tarhuna area (Papers of British School of Rome, 1951, p. 64 ff.). - Vedi tavv. LV-VI.