African Christian writers dispute with Roman authors by references to repres-
entations, systematization, and arguments on Roman religion used by these very
authors. Thus this peculiar form of reception of Roman texts is the vehicle for the
construction of an image of Roman religion and for the configuration of an anti-
Roman discourse, for which these Christian authors use the same argumentative strat-
egies as their Roman adversaries. It was from reading Roman works rather than from
observing religious practices that Christians depicted in their writing what Roman
religion consisted in, what rites their followers practiced, what the citizens of the
empire really believed in, what the nature of their gods was, among other questions.
From these writings, a particular image of Roman religion is written from the per-
spective of Christian intellectuals belonging to a well-positioned social sector in a
certain Roman province. From reading these authors, then, a question arises: how
did a set of religious practices, which for centuries was considered a religion and
which called itself religio Romana, become superstition – superstitio? Successive dis-
cursive strategies led Christian authors to speak no longer of Roman religion or of
the religions of the Roman citizens, but rather of “paganism,” calling their fellow
non-Christian citizens “pagans,” without making any sort of distinction. Roman reli-
gion, the practices of Roman citizens, soon became “paganism,” their gods demons.
This rejection of Roman religion constitutes, at the same time, the specific genesis
of Roman Catholicism and the mutation of the Christianity that began in Galilee
with Jesus’ preaching, a process bound to the expansion of Christianity in the west
and its eventual Romanization and Latinization. Latin Christian texts testify to this
dual process, the genesis of Roman Catholicism and the metamorphosis of Roman
religion. Furthermore, an anti-Roman discourse emerges from these writings, an image
of the paganiand, mainly, a paradigmatic way of building an image of the other
and of stigmatizing those who do not share the same beliefs and religious practices
(Cancik 1995: 200). Tertullian institutes this form of discursive construction in
Latin.Tertullian
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (c. 160–220) is the first Christian author that
can be located and identified with relative accuracy. Tertullian was born in Carthage,
the main city of the Roman province in Africa, which during this period experienced
a remarkable urbanistic development which reached its peak at the beginning of the
third century. Thanks to its flourishing agriculture, this province supplied Rome with
regular shipments of foodstuffs. This intense traffic made Carthage a cosmopolitan
trading city with several thousand Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews.
Wealthy, belonging to the upper social circles, Tertullian’s father may have been
an officer of the Roman army. Perhaps his family belonged to the ordo equestris, a
part of the highly Romanized autochthonous social sector whose social evolution is
characteristic of the second century (Schöllgen 1984: 176 – 87). Although in fact there
is very little reliable information on his social extraction and activities (T. Barnes 1971:
11–21), certain characteristics of his life and education suggest that he belonged to
the upper social sectors. In accordance with this social level, Tertullian enjoyed a
Roman Religion in the Vision of Tertullian 459