Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/439

CARTHAGE visited Waterford, Clonfert-molua (Kyle), and Ly- nally, whence, on the recommendation of St. Colman Elo, he settled at Rahan, near Tullamore, in the present King's County.

St. Carthage founded his monastery of Rahan about 590, and soon had hundreds of disciples. He was consecrated Abbot-Bishop of the Fercal dis- trict, and composed a rule for his monks,, an Irish metrical poem of 5S0 lines, divided into nine sepa- rate sections — one of the most interesting literary relics of the early Irish Church. Numerous miracles are also recorded of him. At length, Blathmaic, a Meatman prince, instigated by the neighbouring monks, ordered St. Carthage to leave Rahan. This expulsion of the saint and eight hundred of his com- munity took place at Eastertide of the year 635. Journeying by Saigher, Roscrea, Cashel, and Ardfin- nan, St. Carthage at length came to the banks of the River Blackwater, where he was given a foundation by the Prince of the Decies, and thus sprang up the episcopal city of Liox-mor, or Lismore, County Waterford.

Great as was the fame of Rahan, it was completely eclipsed by that of Lismore, although St. Carthage lived less than two years at his new foundation. He spent the last eighteen months of his life in contem- plation and prayer, in a cave near the present St. Carthage's Well. When at the point of death, he summoned his monks and gave them his farewell ex- hortation and blessing. Fortified by the Body of Christ he died on the 14th of May, 637, on which day his feast is celebrated as first Bishop and Patron of Lismore. Short as was St. Carthage's stay in Lis- more, he left an ineffaceable impress of his labours in a famous abbey, cathedral, and infant university, but more so in the shining example of an austere and blameless life. Purity was his transcendent virtue, and to guard it he practised the severest penances. On this account St. Cuimin of Connor thus writes of him in an Irish quatrain:

The beloved Mochuda of mortification,

Admirable every page of his history.

Before his time there was no one who shed

Half so many tears as he shed. Usher had two manuscript copies of the Irish life of St. Carthage; and in 1634 Philip O'Sullivan Beare sent a Latin translation to Father John Bollandus, S. J. The " Vita Secunda " is the one usually quoted. In 1891 the present writer discovered the site of the !:• | Mochuda in which St. Cartilage was buried.

Ada S3. 14 May (III); Colgan, Acta Sanctorum Ihbernim (Louvain. 164.il; I.inims. Ecrt. II I of Inland (Dublin, 1829).II; Babi Saintt (London, 1874),

V; O'Hanlon, Lives of tin- Irish Saint* (Dublin. 1889), V; Grattan Flood, St. Carthage (Waterford, 1S98); Hi.u.v. Insula Sanctorum ei Doctomm (Dublin, 1902): Power, Place- Kama of the Decie* (Waterford, 1907); Hyde, Literary History of Ireland I London. 1901).

W. II. Grattan Flood.

Carthage, Archdiocese of .—The city of Carthage, founded by Phoenician colonists, and long the great opponent of Rome in the duel for supremacy in the civilized world, was destroyed by a Roman army. 146 A little more than a century later (44 ), a new city composed of Roman colonists was founded by Julius Cæsar on the site of Carthage, and became the capital of the Roman province of Africa Nova, which included the province of Africa Vetus, as well as Numidia. From this date Roman Africa made rapid progress in prosperity and became one of the most flourishing colonies of the empire. The history of African Christianity opens in the year 180 with the ac- counts of two groups of martyrs who suffered at Scillium, a city of Numidia, and Madaura. Twenty years later a flourishing Church existed in Car- thage, already the centre of Christianity in Africa. In his "Apology", written at Carthage about 197, HI.— 25

Tertullian states that although but of yesterday the Christians "have filled every place among you [the Gentiles] — cities, islands, fortresses, towns, market- places, the very camp, tribes, companies, palaces, senate, forum: we have left nothing to you but the temples of your gods". If the Christians should in a body desert the cities of Africa, the governing au- thorities would be "horror-stricken at the solitude" in which they would find themselves, 'at a silence so all pervading", a stupor as of a dead world (Apol., xxxvii). Fifteen years later the same author asks tin' Proconsul Scapula: "What will you make of so many thousands, of such a multitude of men and women, persons of every age, sex and rank, when they present themselves before you? How many fires, how many swords will be required?" And with regard to the Christians of the African capital he inquires: "What will be the anguish of Carthage itself, which you will have to decimate, as each one recognizes there his relatives and companions; as he sees there, it may be, men of your own order, and noble ladies, and all the leading persons of the city, and either kinsmen or friends of those in your own circle? Spare thyself, if not us poor Christians. Spare Carthage, if not thyself" (Ad Scapulam, v). It is clear from this that the Christian religion at the beginning of the third century must have had numer- ous adherents in all ranks of Carthaginian society: Tertullian, if the contrary were the case, would merely have stultified himself by making a claim which could have been so easily disproved. A council of seventy bishops held at Carthage by Bishop Agrippinus at this epoch (variously dated between 198 and 222), substantially corroborates the testimony of Ter- tullian as to the general progress of Christianity in Africa in the early years of the third century. It is impossible to say whence came the first preachers of Christianity in Roman Africa. It is worthy of note in this regard, however, that from the moment when African Christianity conies into historical prominence, the bishops of Roman Africa are seen in very close relations with the See of Rome. The faithful of Carthage in particular were "greatly interested in all that happened at Rome; every movement of ideas, every occurrence bearing on discipline, ritual, literature, that took place at Rome was immediately re-echoed at Carthage" (Duchesne, Hist. anc. de I'Eglise, I. 392; cf. Leclercq, L'Afrique chret., I, iii). Indeed, during the last decade of the second centurv the Roman Church was governed by an African, Po'pe Victor (189-199).

The two greatest names in the history of the Church of Carthage are those of Tertullian and St. Cyprian. The former comes on the scene, in the troubled days of the persecution of Septimius Severn?, as an able and valiant defender of his religion. He was born at Carthage, about the year 160. In his youth he devoted himself to the study of law and lid ratine, and thus obtained the intellectual training which was to prove of the greatest service to his future core- ligionists. His conversion appears to have been in- fluenced by the heroism of the martyrs, and one of his earliest treatises was an exhortation to those ready to die for the Faith (Ad martyres). Mis first work was a severe arraignment of pagans and poly- theism (Ad nationesi, and this was followed in a short time (197) by his "Apologeticus", addressed to the imperial authorities. The bit tor work was calm in tone, "a model of judicial discussion" (Bar- denhewer). Unlike previous apologists of Christian- ity, whose appeals for tolerance were made in the name of reason and humanity, Tertullian. influenced by his legal training, spoke as a jurist convinced of the injustice of the laws under which the Christians were persecuted. The "Apologeticus" was written before the edict ofSeptimiusSeverus(202),and, conse- quently, the laws to which the writer took exception