Early Libyan Christianity from Marmarica to Tripolitania -- By: Thomas C. Oden

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 167:667 (Jul 2010)
Article: Early Libyan Christianity from Marmarica to Tripolitania
Author: Thomas C. Oden


Early Libyan Christianity from Marmarica to Tripolitania*

Thomas C. Oden

*This is the third article in a four-part series, “Early Libyan Christianity,” delivered as the W. H. Griffith Thomas Lectureship, February 3-6, 2009, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.

Thomas C. Oden is the Henry Anson Buttz Professor of Theology Emeritus, Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, and director of the Center for Early African Christianity, Eastern University, Radnor, Pennsylvania.

The Byzantine Mosaics Of Qasr Libya (Olbia)

The first stop on a journey from east to west in Libya is ancient Olbia (Olvea/Theodoria), now Qsar Libya. The artistic face of early Christian Libya is best displayed in this remote location west of Al-Bayda. The art of mosaic was magnificently expressed in ancient Olbia in a way that would become the glory of Byzantium.

At Qsar mosaics left from two Byzantine churches were uncovered in 1952 by construction workers. They found fifty remarkable mosaic panels with numerous Byzantine inscriptions. An elaborate decorative inscription indicates that mosaics in the eastern church at Qsar were made in the era of Justinian (A.D. 529-540).

Qasr was refortified after the Vandal period by Justinian, the emperor of New Rome, as a stronghold for resisting the Arian menace during the fifth century, and later to defend the Christian population from tribal raids from the desert. The bishop of Olbia was present at the Council of Ephesus in 431, where the Marian doctrine of Theotokos (“God-bearer”) was contested and consensually confirmed. The church was dedicated to Saint Nekarios in the third year of Bishop Macarius (539), showing the continuity of the Christian tradition in a remote rural location.

The biblical content of eight mosaics points up several “teaching moments” in Byzantine Christianity. (1) One mosaic shows the

four rivers of Genesis 2:10-14, which provides the Byzantine Christian imagination with a way of providing a biblical map of the world. The four rivers were interpreted by ancient exegetes as the Ganges (Pishon, which “flows in the direction of India),”1 the Nile “which comes down from Ethiopia into Egypt,”2 the Tigris, and the Euphrates. The Nile mosaic is luxuriously decorated with lotus flowers, images of deer, birds, horses, fish, and waterfowl. (2) Another scene portrays a lighthouse, like the great lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the anci...

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