TRIPOLITANIA. - Northwestern region of Libya (v.), which faces the Mediterranean between Tunisia and Syrtica.
When the Christian faith began to spread in the region now called T., which corresponds only in part to the "provincia Tripolitana" of the diocesan organization, cannot be stated with certainty.
The designation of "apostolic" given to some mosques of the Gebel Nefusa, and which clearly deviates from an equal designation that some pre-existing Christian churches had before the mosques, already cast doubt on whether the first Christian preaching in the region should be traced to apostolic times or to those immediately following; and the same hypothesis would seem to be supported by the expression used by Bishop Arche of Leptis when speaking of himself: "qui post discipulos Domini episcopus fuit Leptitanae urbis." However, while the first designation must certainly be explained in the sense that those churches were dedicated to the Apostles (there is ample evidence in Africa of the cult of SS. Peter and Paul) rather than founded by them, the second expression may also have had a vaguely generic meaning. Thus, although it cannot be ruled out—and indeed it is highly probable—that the Good News arrived very early in T., especially considering the close ties between this region and neighboring Cyrenaica, and that it arrived both directly from the East and from Rome, it does not seem plausible to admit that proper Christian communities were established there before the 2nd century. The first of these communities could not have been other than that of Leptis, a maritime city with active commercial and cultural relations, from the age of Augustus and perhaps even earlier, with Greece and Egypt as well as with Rome. For Leptis, the first secure mention of a bishop is in Archeus, already mentioned, author of a treatise on the date of Easter, who most likely lived at the time of Pope Victor. Centers for welcoming and spreading the new faith must have been the many colonies of judges along the coast and inland, which were certainly greatly increased by the destruction of Jerusalem first, and then by the Cyrenaican revolt under Trajan.
By the middle of the 3rd century, at the Council of Carthage in 256, there were four Tripolitanian bishops: two present in person, Natalis of Oea and Monnulus of Girba (on the island of Gerba in the Little Syrtis, now part of Tunisia), and two represented by their colleagues: Diogo of Leptis Magna and Pompeius of Sabrata. The episcopal sees are thus the three coastal cities that dominate the region, plus the island of Gerba. Already at this time, the characteristic that would remain throughout the following centuries of T. in comparison with the other regions of Roman Africa becomes apparent: namely, the scarcity of episcopal sees in it, all the more striking since they appear much more numerous and dense in the rest of Africa. This scarcity must clearly be related to the equally rare presence of urban centers properly constituted as civic communities. To the four sees already mentioned, another was later added, that of Tacape (now Gabès in Tunisia), and these five sees would remain permanently, as is expressly noted in the Acts of the Councils. All five sees are on the coast; for the interior, where, as will be said further below, the remains of Christian monuments are by no means rare, the evidence is less clear, but it does not seem possible to doubt that at least some of the stations of the limes Tripolitanus had this dignity as well: certainly Turris Tamalleni had it, where indeed the existence of an urban center, which became a municipium under Hadrian, is known; perhaps also, judging by the analogy of the names of some of these stations with those of some sees mentioned in the Acts of the Councils, Thenteo, identified today at Gasr Duib, southeast of Qintan (Journ. of Rom. Stud., 1949, p. 88 ff.), Augemmi, and others had II. However, since the Acts of the Councils just mentioned explicitly attribute five bishoprics to T., it must be believed that these inland sees were included in a different ecclesiastical region, namely the one called Arzugitana or Arzugis, united and dependent, rather than on T., on Byzacena, perhaps because it was easier to communicate with this region, sheltered from the defenses of the limes, than with T. (v. also W. Goodhild, in Journ. of Rom. Stud., 1950, p. 30 ff). Moreover, the remoteness, almost the detachment, of the lands between the two Syrtes from the rest of Roman Africa, the difficulty of communication and relations between this region and T., are characteristic features of the Christianity of this region, which very often emerge or are highlighted in the texts and Acts of the Councils.
This did not, however, prevent the Donatist schism from having its followers and struggles in T. as well, of which distant and vague reflections can be discerned: at the Maximianist Council of Cabarsussi in 393, three Tripolitanian bishops attended, and 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, others with only one, either Catholic or Donatist. However, of Tripolitanian Donatism, epigraphic evidence is so far limited to some inscriptions found at Hensir Tacglissi south of Garian (Inseript. Rom. Trip. [V. BIBLICA.], 863).
After coming under Vandal control in 455, T. also suffered the harshness of Arian persecution: Victor of Vita mentions two Tripolitanian bishops, Vincent of Sabrata and Cresconius of Oea, exiled by Gaiseric, but the latter appears again in 484 at the head of his Church; at the Council of that year, the region still sends all five of its bishops: it is the last time it appears with its full representation. In subsequent councils, this representation was much more limited, if not sometimes entirely absent: indubitable proof, not so much perhaps of poverty, as of the difficulties in which Christian life unfolded in the region.
There was a revival with the Byzantine reconquest, not only in the cities that Justinian enriched with new churches, but even in the farthest interior, where, according to the testimony of Procopius (De aedif., VI, 4), the inhabitants of Cydamus (Ghadames) and the Garamantes of Fezzan converted to the Christian faith. The episcopal sees must have remained the same, judging at least from the list of African bishoprics appended to the so-called Notitia Alexandri, a list that seems to derive from a document from the first half of the 7th century, immediately preceding the first Arab invasions: in it, the Tripolitanian bishoprics are four; Leptis, Oea, and Sabrata are correctly listed, the fourth, Tepetitov, is certainly a corruption and could be restored either as the name of Gerba or that of Tacape. This is the last mention of them.
It must, however, be believed that the first Arab invasion of the 7th century, just as it did not substantially alter the physiognomy of Africa, as far as what remained of its Roman character, so it did not extinguish what little Christian life remained: Christian communities continued to exist first in the cities, at Leptis and Oea, then on their margins, such as the one whose cemetery was found at En Niglia, and in the interior among the Berbers. Whether these Christian communities elected bishops, and how many, is not known: in any case, it was only the Hilalian invasion of the 11th century that definitively annihilated and dispersed every Christian remnant.
Facing the certainly not abundant information that can be gleaned from written sources, the numerous monumental testimonies brought to light by archaeological explorations shed light on Tripolitanian Christianity, testimonies that extend equally to the coastal cities, seats, as has been seen, of episcopal sees, and to the interior of the region. Regarding the cities, V. LEPTIS MAGNA.
At Sabratha two large churches stood to the south and north of the Forum: the first had been adapted in the early years of the 5th century within the pre-existing judicial basilica; it is a very complex building, with a double apse, a baptistery and many tombs with inscriptions; the second, which can certainly be identified with the one mentioned by Procopio (op. cit.), was adorned with mosaics, among which particularly precious was that of the central nave. Two other smaller churches, forming with their respective baptisteries and many tombs inside a single complex, lie to the north of the theatre. Finally, a catacomb, with loculi, pits, *terrae* and arcosolia, inscriptions and symbols painted or in mosaic, was discovered to the north of the great latomia preceding the amphitheatre: the oldest nucleus of it may perhaps date back to the end of the 4th century.
Of Oea, present-day Tripoli, no building survives, only scattered architectural remains, among which a column with a graffito invoking Mary and the Archangel Gabriel; a small Jewish hypogeum with inscriptions, consisting of a short gallery dug into the sandstone, was discovered near the beach of Sciara Sciat, but it was almost entirely lost during the Second World War. However, in the region immediately adjacent to the city there are the two large and important cemetery areas of Ain Zara and En Niglia. Both, situated in areas of shifting dunes, display the same type of tombs, consisting of a rough masonry tumulus of elongated and rounded shape: on the plaster covering the masonry are graffiti with inscriptions and symbols. The date of the two burial grounds is, however, quite different. In the first, 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 with the mention of the indiction—and some augural and blessing phrases; some Virgilian reminiscences are of interest. The symbols include crosses, fish, doves, etc. The recurrence of the *trisagion* sung at the Council of Chalcedon (451) and the hint, seemingly recognisable in an inscription, of a violent death by persecution, together with other elements, have led Aurigemma to date the cemetery to the Vandal period, i.e. between the 5th and 6th centuries.
The cemetery of En Niglia, on the other hand, appears much later; its inscriptions, which have a more complex phraseology than those of Ain Zara and many references to sacred texts, sometimes bear a date counted from the creation of the world: on the basis of the Constantinopolitan era, the dates provided point to the second half of the 10th century and the beginning of the 12th, thus just on the eve of the Hilalian invasion; indeed, from al-Bakrī we learn that at that time groups of Christians were coming into the countryside around Tripoli.
Of a quite different type is the Christian cemetery of Sirte. It is a catacomb dug into the sandstone and consists of a gallery 4 m wide and 31.65 m long, with a flat vault supported by three pillars hewn from the rock itself. The dead were first placed in open loculi in the walls, then also in earthen pits and in tombs leaning against the walls themselves; the inscriptions, the vast majority in Latin and a few in Greek (47 and 6 respectively), are very simple, giving only the name and age of the deceased; they are often accompanied by the *chrismon*, in a form datable to the end of the 4th century: and this is likely the age of the hypogeum; more than two hundred lamps were collected in it, one of which bears the image of St Peter.
In the inland regions, two churches were explored at el-Asbaha on Gebel Garian, and near the village of Breviglieri at Tarhuna. The first, perfectly oriented with its façade to the east, has a deep narthex, three naves divided by columns, an altar at the end of the central nave, and an elevated apse; in this is the tomb of a *presbyter Turrentius* and other burials; behind the apse is the baptistery. Numerous stone corbels, adorned with crosses, rosettes, Solomon’s knots, supported the roof beams: from the style of these and from the coins found in the excavation, the building can be dated to the beginning of the 6th century, before the Byzantine reconquest.
Of the church in the Tarhuna region only summary information is available so far: it was not a large building (c. 17.60 x 11.75 m) but of good construction, with three naves, the side aisles narrower and shorter than the central one, divided by columns, and all ending in apses; the central apse was elevated; corbels supporting the roof and capitals bear signs and figures of Christian significance; attached was the baptistery with a lobed cross-shaped basin and a circular well; the 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 Soffegin: it too has three naves with the central one longer and closed by an apse, the side aisles ending in small chambers communicating with each other through a crypt beneath the apse. Behind the church is a vaulted gallery, and nearby are the baptistery and another building with small cells (I. Gentilucci, in *Africa Italiana*, 5 [1933], pp. 172 ff.; D. E. L. Haynes, *Ancient Tripolitania*, p. 112 ff., pl. 30). Other Christian buildings have also been reported at Tebadut, not far from el-Asbaha, at Rumi bir-el-Cur, east of Garian, at Ain Wif, south of the Tarhuna-Garian road (*Journal of Roman Studies*, 1929, p. 84) and perhaps at Giamar near Chicala; architectural or inscribed fragments in the Gebel Nefusa, at Gadames, etc.; hypogea at Tarhuna and Gasr Doga, also in the Tarhuna area (*Papers of the British School at Rome*, 1951, pp. 64 ff.). — See pl. LV-LVI.