Well, welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history. On this episode, we are going to a place to a very famous city in the ancient world, the city of Carthage. Carthage was first settled by the Phoenicians. This of course was a crucial city right as it were on the

Mediterranean Sea. Carthage came to be known as the master of the Mediterranean Sea trade.

After the Phoenicians, it was part of the Punic Empire and then

under Caesar Augustus who reigned from 14 BC to 27 AD.

Of course this is the Caesar Augustus of the Gospel narratives in the

birth of Christ. Under Caesar Augustus Rome took control of Carthage and it became a

great Roman city.

It was second only to Rome in the Roman Empire,

rivaling Alexandria from time to time for that position,

but most give it to Carthage. At any given time in these centuries the population

of Carthage would be 250,000 people that had all the telltale signs of a

Roman city. There were theaters and there were public buildings, there were the extensive baths.

There were aqueducts for getting water across the city and even out into the fields for farming.

There was an extensive Roman road system. Soldiers were kept there.

It was a very busy port city and a very prosperous city. It also has quite a role in church history. It was the home of Tertullian.

This of course is that great church father from 160.

Tertullian is the one who gave us the word Trinity and brought together all that biblical teaching of who God is

in his Trinitarian being and so we have the word Trinity coined at Carthage.

In 2003, Carthage was the site of the martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas.

Those very brave young women and the wonderful story of their martyrdom and their courage and their stand for Christ,

well, it was at Carthage. In the 250s, Cyprian was Bishop of Carthage. This was on the heels of

the Deecian persecution, a very intense persecution

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