Africans in exile

Latin-world followers of Apocalypse include Victorinus and Ticonius, and Beatus of postIslamic Liébana.

Ticonius was a Donatist-1, so not as far gone as Parmenian or Donatus-2. Inasmuch as Ticonius refused to read the Apocalypse as a chronicle of the future brought back through wormhole, Augustine cited him. Ticonius' commentary would fall out of mainstream Catholic thought so must be reconstructed. Besides Augustine, we get the reconstruction from Beatus. Which is where Lucy Pick comes in, calling the elder author "Tyconius". Pick is more looking at Beatus; she argues that Beatus reads Ticonius in part through Augustine but also restoring Ticonius' intent.

Beatus shares a peninsula, if not the time, of the "Mozarabic" chronicle ad AD 754. That chronicle, since Hoyland 1998 anyway, piques the interest of Islamic historians: because it is early, isn't (on its face) anti Umayyad, and... doesn't mention Islam much. Nor even Muhammad, which has piqued the notice also of such as Robert Spencer. This means, to tease out what this chronicle doesn't say, requires to understand what it flat didn't know or what it chooses to omit. That demands an understanding of this Latin chronicle's motive, which we can only get through understanding its Christianity. We need, in short, to know the mind of contemporary Spanish Catholics. Beatus, later, shows us his mind through his Chronicle.

One feature in Beatus is mention of Africa. This was the home of Donatus, Ticonius, and Augustine; at least the former two felt they were persecuted by the saecular authorities, ostensibly religious or just Roman. Naturally all three of Beatus' forebears preached about the province they inhabited. Augustine wasn't quite in Donatus' boat himself, but Augustine's followers would face the Vandals and then the Greeks - shotgun-married, if you will, to the Donatists.

I've said before that Maximus having fled to Carthage shared some of these beliefs; I'd not be shocked if he adopted them. Looking around, in the middle ninth century, Maximus' Ambigua on Gregory the Theologian and on John were known to Scotus Eriugena, who translated at least the latter. I don't know if Beatus had a copy however. Cerban will translate Maximus' On Charity in the 1100s.

Pick argues that the Chronicle and Beatus are African at heart. In the face of the ever-westward march of Islam, it would be African Latin elites who swarmed into the later Visigothic kingdom. I've suspected they even gestated the Spanish-Portuguese languages.

The Chronicle represents Augustine. Whether or not the end of the world be nigh, the Arab conquests aren't (much) in the schema. What matters in the schema is human sin. If it weren't Muslims, any Berber adventurer could have done what they did - like Munnuza, who'd set up his own Tirmidh north of the Pyrenees. Muhammad happened to die in year 666 (after 38 BC) - which is a Revelation trope - but that interpretation's left to the reader. If Islam doesn't matter, that - for Pick - explains why the Chronicle doesn't talk it up.

I deem fair to consider Beatus a Neo-Donatist. Beatus revives Ticonius' view of a split within the city of God which is the Church. The Arab advance had stalled in his day, leaving Liébana Christian. Occupied Toledo owned an Adoptionist bishop. That's not exactly compatible with sura 3, which presents Christ as an Adam-like new Creation. But it assuredly agrees with the bulk of the Islamic book.

This general neutrality over the Church hierarchy of the time reminds of John bar Penkaye, more than of Pseudo-Methodius.