World Cup Blog 31: Tunisia

Tunisia, not unexpectedly, had a quiet World Cup.  As a land, Tunisia has had a quiet few centuries relative to some neighbours.  It has figured in the many Mediterranean, European and North African changes and challenges - two recent examples were the Arab Spring and the Second World War - without being much remembered in the longer term history of either.

Tunisia takes on a different perspective when we travel further back. Before Tunisia was so called and before it was largely Arabic it was the site of Carthage.  This might seem remote from the World Cup but the Tunisian's nickname is Les Aigles de Carthage so in its way Carthage turned up at the World Cup after all.

Most famous of the sons of Carthage, which in its day dominated the Western Mediterranean, was the great general Hannibal - yes the one famed for the elephant over the Alps.

Carthage had other famous sons too, and two of them - who both were born and died in Carthage - were Tertullian and Cyprian.  By their days, 150 - 250 AD, Carthage was not as great as it had been but was still significant within the Roman Empire.  When Christianity arrived in Carthage it arrived big-time and thus their stories which overlap through the 100 years, reflect the battle between the Roman Emperors and the emerging faith.

Tertullian is remembered for his turns of phrase and his lack of moderation.  He was never canonised by the church because he was mildly heretical regarding the Trinity - but he invented the word Trinity as irony would have it. He is loved for his pithy, bold, even aggressive statements.  Cyprian was the model of moderation (and he in turn was criticised for that) but you will find churches called St Cyprian's but not St Tertullian's.

Tertullian's memorable phrases includes the oft-quoted The blood of the martyrs is the seed by which he meant the seed that grows the church.  Cyprian, for all his attempts to keep the church unified and his moderating between warring factions ended up as one such seed some years after Tertullian's natural death.  A series of plagues was blamed on Christianity and so Cyprian, then the Bishop of Carthage, was beheaded in response to local anger. He was martyred in 258 AD.

Maybe Cyprian would not have been surprised or distressed by this, however.  In a famous - though less famous than Tertullian's frequent sound-bites - quotation he had previously written:

It is a bad world, Donatus, a very bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and good people who have learned the great secret of life. They have found a joy and wisdom which is a thousand times better than any of the pleasures of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are Christians. . . and I am one of them.

Rome

With encroaching winter - and yes, it has already snowed over an inch in High Wycombe - it is time to look longingly back at heady summer days. This year we were in Rome.

There was too much for a blog. But I like this picture of the first 'sight' we saw in the city. The Spanish Steps (138 of them!) were built to link the Spanish Embassy to the Papal City. But it's much more interesting than that because the Bourbon dynasty that ruled Spain also ruled France.

There at the top of the steps is a Church, Holy Trinity (in English), but a French Church in nationality. When I visited it there was an African priest speaking to a visitor in French.

Africa is also represented outside for the great obelisk on the steps was built (long before the steps of course) by a Roman governor from the wealth he had made from his North African province.

What I really loved about these steps however was the bizarre extra ingredient added to the French Church and its African priest, the Spanish dynasty and its grand staircase, the Roman obelisk with African connections and the blue Italian sky and fountain gushing fresh water.

For at the foot of the steps on the left is the English contribution. Babington's Tea Rooms. http://www.babingtons.net/en/history.php Not being blessed with the equivilant a lottery win we couldn't afford to go in and have afternoon tea! But what struck me was that although it touted itself as typically English such Tea Rooms are hardly to be found in the centre of most English towns and cities. Far easier - and certainly a great deal more economical - to go into a Costa Coffee or Starbucks.

As Church I pray that we might never be a Victorian quirk - a sugar and china cup escape from the reality of 21st century life rather than salt and light in it.

Altogether more down-to-earth is Trajan's Market. For in this ancient Roman ruin of a Shopping Mall, many of the first church members would have been bought and sold as slaves. This seems to me to be a gritty lesson in true churchmanship for all of us.