The famous sixth canon of the first council of Nice Africa, recognized as belonging to the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt and Lybia, which latter included the Pentapolis “and the parts of Lybia about Cyrene” (Acts II. 10). Our present concern is with the remaining portion of North Africa. The Church in North Africa was for many ages in a most flourishing condition. It had produced such men as Tertullian, St. Cyprian and St. Augustin. But before the middle of the fifth century it had been rudely shattered by the savage Vandals from Spain. Their rule, or rather misrule, though never to be forgotten for its ferocity, did not last long. In 535 Africa was re-added to the Roman Empire by the genius of Belisarius. However, some twelve years before the coming of Belisarius, the persecution of the Catholics had ceased with the advent to the throne of Hilderic (523). Efforts were at once made to reorganize the Church. Councils were held (525 and 535) and Rome consulted. At Gregory’s accession Africa was divided into six provinces, presided over, like the various provinces in Italy, by an exarch. Counting westwards from Lybia, the provinces were Tripolis (the country of the Three Cities, Sabrata, or Abrotonum, Oea and Leptis Magna), Byzacium or Byzacene, Proconsular Africa, Numidia, Mauritania Sitifensis and Mauritania Caesariensis.

With regard to the ecclesiastical organization of these provinces, it may be safely stated that it was excep­tional, but not so safely what it actually was. The most important bishop in Northern Africa was the bishop who had his episcopal throne at Carthage, and who exercised the rights of a metropolitan over all the provinces. Constantine the Great wrote to him in connection with Numidia and Mauritania as well as with proconsular Africa, and speaks of him as the head of, or as the one who presides over, the latter Church. And the great council of Hippo-Regius (393) recognized the position of the bishop of Carthage when it decreed (can. 1 and 4) that certain matters of interest for all the African provinces had to be settled by him. The bishop of Carthage then was not only the metropolitan, as the African title had it, of his own province of proconsular Africa, but was the metropolitan of the remaining provinces. In these latter, neither the first of the subordinate archbishops or primates (again called the bishop of the first See), nor, presumably, the subordinate primates themselves, had their episcopal thrones in any fixed city. They succeeded to their position as primate, and ultimately as first primate, by some automatic arrange­ment agreed to among themselves. The consequence was that the See of the first primate was often to be found in some very second-rate town. The classical authority for this statement seems to be a letter of Gregory, in which he asked the exarch of Africa to cause the bishops to be admonished : “Not to make their primate from the order of his position, setting aside merit; since before God it is not a more elevated station that wins approval, but a better conducted life. And let the primate himself reside, not, as the custom is, here and there in different towns, but in one city, according to his election”. Following in the wake of St. Leo IX (1049-1055), it has been generally agreed among historians that it was length or duration of episcopal consecration which settled the acquisition of primatial dignity. In his note to this letter, however, Ewald not unnaturally fails to see how number of years of ordination can be got out of the words, ex ordine loci. Doubtless not directly; but, though automatic arrange­ments, by which ecclesiastical preeminence in a province might be settled other than that of seniority may be imagined, promotion by age must be acknowledged to be in every way the most likely. If this be conceded, Ewald’s difficulty would be solved, and the explanation of Leo IX stand good. For age would settle the position (ordo) of the primates among themselves, and then the senior amongst them would become the primate of the first See.

It remains to be settled what was the relation of the Pope to the Church in Africa. Did he treat with the Bishop of Carthage as with one of the great patriarchs, or as with one of the great metropolitans of the West? That is, did he deal with the African Church as Patriarch of the West, or only as head of the whole Church? A letter of Pope Siricius to the African bishops (ad. an. 386) is sometimes quoted as deciding the matter in favor of the former supposition, viz., that the Pope ruled Africa as patriarch. In the letter in question, Siricius inserted the canons of a council just held in Rome. By the first of these, the ordination of a bishop “without the knowledge of the Apostolic See, i.e., of the primate”, was forbidden. But it is pointed out that this was an encyclical letter, and would have to be interpreted according to the custom in vogue in the different parts to which it was sent. Hence in Africa it might simply mean that no bishop must be consecrated without the knowledge of the primate (of the province). There is no doubt that, although the bishop of Carthage never had the power of the patriarchs of Antioch or Alexandria, he may very well have had a more independent jurisdiction than, say, the Bishop of Thessalonica. But as the African Church owed its origin to the See of Rome, and as Gregory exercised very direct control over the African Church, it may well be treated of when that Pope is being considered as Patriarch of the West.

Because men are very prone to prefer their long-accustomed inumpsimus, the bishops of Africa were prob­ably not at all pleased when Gregory’s wishes in connection with their mode of electing their primate by seniority instead of by merit were made known to them. For it is certain that they had petitioned Gregory’s pre­decessor for the confirmation of their ancient customs, “which long usage had preserved up till then from the time of their first conversion from Rome”, or, keeping closer to the original, “from the beginning of their orders (received from) Bl. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles”. It fell to Gregory to reply to the petition of the Numidian bishops. But though he might express a wish that they should themselves alter their customs, with the conserva­tive spirit which has generally animated the popes of not interfering with established custom, Gregory consented to allow their customs, “whether for constituting their primates or other matters”, to remain inviolate, as it was at least clear that they were not “opposed to Catholic faith”. However, he would not permit that anyone, who had formerly been a Donatist and had afterwards become a bishop, should ever become a primate, even if their position, obtained, as we have said, by seniority, entitled them to the rank.

Next it is the primate of Africa, Dominicus of Car­thage, who asks Gregory for the confirmation of his privileges. “Lay aside all anxiety on that matter”, replied Gregory, “and let your fraternity hold to the ecclesiastical privileges concerning which you write. For as we defend our own rights we preserve those of all the other churches. For favor I will not grant to anyone more than he deserves, nor at the suggestion of ambition will I take away from anyone what is his due. For in all things am I anxious to honor my brethren and to advance them as far as possible without detriment to the rights of others”.

We have now to turn to another of the African pro­vinces, to Byzacium, and to the judging of its primate by the Pope. Crementius, thought by Hartmann to be the same as Clementius, Primate of Byzacium, had been accused of some crime (what, is not stated), a notice of which had been brought before the emperor. “In accordance with the canons”, he referred the matter to the Pope. At first Crementius was able to set everybody at defiance. He had no difficulty in buying the support of an important imperial official for forty pounds of gold. Then, finding that the emperor was urgent in pressing the Pope to move in the matter, and that his fellow-bishops were contriving to make things objection­able for him, Crementius appealed to Rome, declaring that he was subject to the Apostolic See. Though Gregory doubted the sincerity of his appeal, he took occasion therefrom to remark to John of Syracuse, into whose hands he was entrusting the investigation of the case, that “Where there was question of fault among bishops, he did not know what bishop was not subject to it”. Nearly four years after the bishop of Carthage was still unjudged. Various affairs, but most of all “the enemies that rage on all sides of us”, the Lombards, had prevented the Pope from pushing on the case. In March 602, in a letter “to all the bishops of the province (council as it was called) of Byzacium”, Gregory entrusted the task of examining the charges against their primate to the bishops of his province, that if proved they might be canonically amended, and if shown to be false an innocent brother might be freed from galling accusations”. He begged them not to be influenced by blandishments of any kind, but “to gird themselves up to find out the truth, for God’s sake, like true priests”.

Not only this case of Crementius, of whom no more is known, but divers others show Gregory’s supreme authority in Africa. Now he is defending a priest or deacon against a bishop, and now ordering the trial of bishops charged with beating their clergy and with simony or with...