"The Christianity that was once indigenously present throughout North Africa was forced to flee from Vandal and Arab invasions. These refugees were exiled and became implanted in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries in Spain, Gaul, Sardinia, Italy, and Britain. Their influence spread largely through quiet, inconspicuous, scholarly, monastic communities formed under Pachomian (and Augustinian ) rules out of Egypt and Numidia.
"The best example is the unexpected trajectory of monasticism from Africa to Ireland to Europe and then back to Africa in a thousand-year cycle. This is the next surprising step of our investigation: how Africa influenced Ireland and how the Irish monks then shaped the formation of medieval Europe.
"The history of the planting of African monasticism in Ireland is one of the most astonishing of all the stories of the preservation of civilization . The trajectory was from Africa to Sicily to the Isle of Lerins to Ireland. This transit happened before the Arab conquest, but its consequences became critical only after the Arab conquest....
"The period of the fifth through tenth centuries, though very lively is still dubbed the Dark Ages. This says more about our darkness than about the events occurring at the time. A shroud of obscurity hangs over Western culture during these times. These centuries are least studied with less empathy and less contextual information, than any others of Western history....
"The most surprising chapter of the story, however, is the return to Africa of classic Christianity--that same ecumenical Christianity that was so well formed in Africa. By this time, the mutations that occurred made it unrecognizable as African. So the exegesis and theology and liturgy that were first refined in Africa finally returned to Africa in the prayerbooks and penitential practices of both Catholics and Protestants, but in forms that seemed unrecognizable as African. Indeed, by the time it returned, it seemed alien to Africa, like Odysseus reclaiming his bed...
"This unexpected trajectory proved to be the seeding of medieval Christianity, Western law, and ultimately Western democracies and their teachings of human dignity. All the marks of special providence appear to classic theologians to be embedded in this strange and surprising trajectory...
"African intellectual history has no need to be defensive or self-effacing . We are learning that Africa taught Europe before Europe was prepared to teach Africa. Europe has slept for many centuries without being fully aware of its vital intellectual sources in Africa. "
P.73-76, "Defining Africa," HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND : REDISCOVERING THE AFRICAN SEEDBED OF WESTERN CHRISTIANITY by Thomas C. Oden (2007)
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND, excerpt...
"The Christianity that was once indigenously present throughout North Africa was forced to flee from Vandal and Arab invasions. These refugees were exiled and became implanted in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries in Spain, Gaul, Sardinia, Italy, and Britain. Their influence spread largely through quiet, inconspicuous, scholarly, monastic communities formed under Pachomian (and Augustinian ) rules out of Egypt and Numidia.
"The best example is the unexpected trajectory of monasticism from Africa to Ireland to Europe and then back to Africa in a thousand-year cycle. This is the next surprising step of our investigation: how Africa influenced Ireland and how the Irish monks then shaped the formation of medieval Europe.
"The history of the planting of African monasticism in Ireland is one of the most astonishing of all the stories of the preservation of civilization . The trajectory was from Africa to Sicily to the Isle of Lerins to Ireland. This transit happened before the Arab conquest, but its consequences became critical only after the Arab conquest....
"The period of the fifth through tenth centuries, though very lively is still dubbed the Dark Ages. This says more about our darkness than about the events occurring at the time. A shroud of obscurity hangs over Western culture during these times. These centuries are least studied with less empathy and less contextual information, than any others of Western history....
"The most surprising chapter of the story, however, is the return to Africa of classic Christianity--that same ecumenical Christianity that was so well formed in Africa. By this time, the mutations that occurred made it unrecognizable as African. So the exegesis and theology and liturgy that were first refined in Africa finally returned to Africa in the prayerbooks and penitential practices of both Catholics and Protestants, but in forms that seemed unrecognizable as African. Indeed, by the time it returned, it seemed alien to Africa, like Odysseus reclaiming his bed...
"This unexpected trajectory proved to be the seeding of medieval Christianity, Western law, and ultimately Western democracies and their teachings of human dignity. All the marks of special providence appear to classic theologians to be embedded in this strange and surprising trajectory...
"African intellectual history has no need to be defensive or self-effacing . We are learning that Africa taught Europe before Europe was prepared to teach Africa. Europe has slept for many centuries without being fully aware of its vital intellectual sources in Africa. "
P.73-76, "Defining Africa," HOW AFRICA SHAPED THE CHRISTIAN MIND : REDISCOVERING THE AFRICAN SEEDBED OF WESTERN CHRISTIANITY by Thomas C. Oden (2007)