THIS PAGE(1)
   The Beginning 30-200
   First wave 200-300
   Second wave 300-550
THE GAULISH EVOLUTION (2)
SYNCRETISM(3)
   'EPOCH OF SYNCRETISM AND HERESIES'
    'CHRISTIANITY OUT FROM ROME'
   First set-back 400-500
   BRITANNIA
    GERMANIA
    PANNONIA - NORTH ILLYRIA - RHAETICUM - NORICUM
ASIA (450-1500) (4)
   China
   India
   Turcomongols
   Other Peoples
THE BALKANS(5)
   Second set-back 525 - 600
   MOESIA - THRACIA - MACEDONIA
    'THE SLAVS AND THE VLACHS'
    DACIA
    DALMATIA
THE MIDDLE AGES (550-1050)(6)
   Third wave in 550-750
    'ANIMISM AMONG THE MUSLIMS'
   Thirth set-back in 650-750: the Islamization
   EGYPT
    NORTH AFRICA
    AL-ANDALUS
    SYRIA
    MESOPOTAMIA
   Fourth wave 800-950
   Fifth wave 950-1050
THE REST (1050-2000)(7)
  Fourth set-back
   'THE CATHAR MENACE'
    ANATOLY
   Sixth wave 1050-1250
   Seventh wave 1250-1350
   Eighth wave 1550-1650
   Fifth set-back 1450 - 1650
   Ninth wave 1650 - 1800
   Tenth wave 1800 - 1900
   Eleventh wave 1900 - 2000
   Sixth set-back 1917 - 2000: Secularization.
SOURCES(8)

 
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The Beginning 30-200_________________________________________________________________________

Crucifixion of Christ near the year 30-34, after His death, the Apostles start the preaching of the Gospel.

The early Christians had a bad fame among the pagans, they were considered as cannibals and incestuous people: The first  one by the consume in the Catholic masses of "the Blood and Body of Christ" and the second one for the love professed  by the christians for their brothers. But, amazingly, the Christianity rise up: the Resurrection in a just Earth when the Pagans  had their Avernus or Hell; the social assistances among its fellows (hospitals, orphanages, help for the poor and widows...),  when the Pagans left their relatives dying on the streets in case of pestilence, and many of them died not by pestilence but by  famine; or their high moral values, illumined a society were immorality was widespread: for example, in the Lex Scatinia,  where the pederasty, known as the Greek vice, was banned, and the common homosexuality punished  (but only the "passive" part !). Or in the former roman circus, where the masses assisted to see human sacrifices (gladiators or martyrs) to  enjoy this wicked and malignant society. Or the normal abortion or/and infanticide among Pagans (there were 14 guys per  each 10 girls !), massacre supported by the law: the father had the right "to receive it into the family." Curiously and newly,  we are seeing how our modern states are regulating laws on "minor's abuse" again; or the modern version of circus: that is,  secret meetings where people sees some men betting their lives for money in a rotary Russian roulette... until the luck of  somebody ends. But these Pagan societies still existing, p. e. in the rural India all of the above is applicable excepting  the Circus... but perhaps to compensate it, is normal to sell preadolescent daughters to priests, and the duty of these  misfortunate girls is the practice of the Holy Prostitution (real); also, it is an ancient custom that widows must share out  the cremation of their husbands by own will or by relatives' will (sati or satee, banned by the British government in 1828).

Pliny the Old, in the end of the first century, commented about the followers of "The Egyptian", and that they claimed  that with one word they could destroy the walls of Jerusalem. According  to Pliny, these followers had 30.000 members  circa 75... It is very smart identify these followers as Christians, because Jesus born in Israel, but He grew up and came from  Egypt... as well He said that with one word He could destroy the Temple of Jerusalem.

Pliny the Young, circa 112, said that the Christians singed an hymn where Christ is their God. As governor of the province of  Bithinia (North Turkey), he complains about "this superstition [Christianity], is spreading as an contagion, not only they are in  the cities, also in villages too". This same governor forced the apostasy of these early Christians.

In the first century A.D. there were 1.000.000 jews in Egypt, the majority in Alexandria: It means 1/4 or 1/5 in the whole Egypt !  And there was another million in Judea, and 3-4 outside Judea and Egypt ! Many scholars have arrived to the conclusion with  further indications, that the first Christians outside Judea came from this group.

Periodical persecutions and martyrdom of Christians, beginning with Nerus and finishing with Diocletian. It is assumed  that that chase affected above all men of Church and lays involved in preaching the Gospel. The most striking result  was the death of some ten thousand martyrs: the Caesars and the Romans viewed with terror the reformation of their  societies that Christians offered.

The I - II Centuries in Alexandria - Egypt,  the Orthodox presence was scarce, the "Christianity" was represented by gnostic  Valentinians and heretic christians using their "Egyptians' Gospel".
 
 

 First wave 200-300___________________________________________________________________________

 Andalusia, Tunis, Lazzio-Toscana, Greece, Turkey (coastal), Syria, Israel and Egypt are the most evangelized zones. Persecutions and martyrdom. Christianity almost exclusively urban, excepting Anatolia and Crete.

 In the Roman Empire, according to Origen (254) in Conta Celsius, or in Apologia by Tertulian (about 200) "the common people have now some knowledge of Christ",  at least in cities.

 After missionaires, the movile population, as to say traders and soldiers, carried Christianity with them at their families and to their cities. Originally each parish had a bishop, so that all congregations were little: St. Gregory, who was bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus around 240, headed a gongregation of 17 people; in fact by canonical law it was allowed to a community little as 12 adult persons to elect a bishop for themselves; such canons lead to think that there were comminities even more little willing to have a bishop for themselves, and that in the other side it was normal the existence of little bishropics of 25, 50 or 100 Christians.

 Tertulian (circa 200) said that the Christians were the majority in cities... but in the epoch only the 10 - 15% of the romans were urban, and the zone where Tertulian dwelt was one of the most evangelized too...

 In the capital itself in the middle of the third century, the Christian congregation was larger than any of the legally recognized guilds, with 155 clergy and 1500 dependent widows and orphans living by its alms. Recent experts have extrapolated this into a total Christian congregation of 30.000-60.000 ( = 3 - 6%).

 The contemporary witnesses Origens and Ciprianus in the half of the third century: 1/5 in Cartage and in the Oriental Part is Christian. Otherwise, Origens said in the beginning of the III Century "We aren't a Nation. In that or this CITY there are SOME whom are arrived to our faith. But since the preach started, there is any wide nation converted. We aren't as Jews or Egyptians whom conform a sole race: the Christians are recruited one by one in each nation."

 About the christian rise in Egypt, Roger S. Bagnall investigating the proportion of Christian names in papyri calculates these percentages: 2.4% in 274, 10.5% in 278, 13.5% in 280 and 18% in 313. It is to assume that names writen in papyri were of leading persons, living mainly in cities then, so a lesser percentage might be considered since rural population was ever the majority (So if applied an 80% as rural, it could be supposed that around a 4% of Egyptians were Christians in the beggining of the fourth century). Another point would be to clarify how it can be recoginized "Joseph" as being a Christian name or a Jewish name...

 In the other hand, we have from the excerpts of the Life of Gregory the Wonderworker, writen by St. Gregory of Nyssa, how the saint acted in some regions of Egypt (around the middle of the III Century) with success, at least around the city of Kumana and its countryside: "In every place, city and neighboring area to which the divine preaching extended [in Egipte], it changed pagan altars to the devout faith of [Gregory's] teaching. It overturned sacred places and their idols and liberated people from the iniquity of images and the pollution of burnt sacrifices. Once defilement from blood upon altars and the desecration of animal sacrifices were washed away, all such places were transformed into fervent houses of prayer in Christ's name. [...] Having zealously directed the church's affairs in this fashion before his death, [Gregory] wished to see everyone converted from idolatry to the faith which saves. He had foreseen his own death and eagerly searched all the cities and surrounding areas wishing to learn if there were any persons who had been deprived of the faith. Since he knew that no more than seventy persons persisted in the ancient error, he angrily said to God that the number of those who had been saved was not complete. However, this was worthy of God's kindness because those who had remained idolaters later became Christians when another person was appointed to succeed his governing of the church. [...] Because the entire people which had been in the clutch of Greek vanity [Politheism] was led to know the truth". From such excerpts it could be thought that Egypt was completely won for Christianity before Constantine, but this was not the case as can be seen in next cases.
 

 Second wave 300-550_________________________________________________________________________

Christianization of the rest of the former Roman Empire (England, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria). Ex-Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria  but with Arianism (shared with Greece and Turkey); N. Morocco (Rif), N. Algeria, N. Libya too but with Donatism. Syria is Nestorian, Egypt Coptic...

Edited the Edict of Milan in 313, the Christianity is tolerated by the Roman Empire. Catholicism becomes the official religion in 324 (Constantine); and after becomes the unique legitimate and licit religion, 385 (Theodose I).

As the Egypt's prosperity depended and depends on the annual flood of the Nile, after the dismantling of the Serapeum in 391 the flood was so great that the population turned to Christianity in large numbers.

Calculus by R. Stark according to ancient sources and social experiences: If the Roman Empire had an stable population of 60.000.000 inhabitants, and the Christianity had a grow rate of 40% each decade, we have that in the end of the first century there were 7.500 christians (0.01% - Or according to my suspicion, they were 30.000 "Egyptians" 0.05%), in 150 with 41.000 (0.07%), in the year 200 with 220.000 (0.4%), in 250 with 1.170.000 (1.9%), and in the year 300 with near 6.300.000 as Christian (10.5% - extension to the relatives by the previous 2% surely), in the Edict of Milan of 313 a 17.5% Christian; in the half of the IV century, with Christianity as official and legal religion, the Empire was filled with a majority of Christians: 34.000.000 (56.5%), above all in the East, but as an important portion in zones of Hispania, Galia, Italy, Illyria, Pannonia and the Alps.

The last percentages could be exaggerated, the next data can give us another outlook:

Lactancius in 310: Christian the half of the people in the Oriental Part; but St. Chrystostom tells us that in 385, in his city (Antioch - actual Turkey), one in five were Christians, but immoral as the pagans. Nowadays, it is estimated that this city had some 150.000 inhabitants, then 30.000, or 20% as Christian.

The author, Stark, bases his data according to a growth subject to an open network of Christian friends... But, this network can succeed in the barrier between urban Romans and Celtic - Iberobasc - Bereber peasantry ? This network really reached the 90 - 85% of rural population in the IV Century ? The Christianity was practically an urban phenomenon until the fifth century (in the West). The most Christianized regions are precisely the regions with most urban concentration: Andalusia, Tunis, Anatolia - Turkey, and islands as Crete or Cyprus. In these regions, the Christian portion perhaps was the double than the imperial average. And to find a Christian countryside, we must find firstly Christian cities, and this wasn't the case:

"In Rome, many of the oldest and most respectable families for a long time still adhered to the heathen traditions, and the city appears to have preserved until the latter part of the fourth century a hundred and fifty-two temples and a hundred and eighty-three smaller chapels and altars of patron deities." (SCHAFF).

If Antioch, as one of the most ancient Christian cities and as Patriarchate had this portion, the percentage contributed by the West really would have been minor.

About 327, Eusebius of Caesarea, wrote that it is possible to buy pictures of Christ and of the Apostles in Jerusalem, but he did not think the painters or shopkeepers selling these pictures to pilgrims were Christians at all.

Saint Augustin (354 - 430), in the year 384, found the city of Rome overwhelmingly pagan (Confessions, VIII, 2). For the word "overwhelmingly" one can understand more than a half, as a conservative view; a realistic view would be more of three in four.

With the examples of Rome and Antioch, we cannot be surprised to see the Paganism in other minor cities almost untouched in 400. The best example can be that of Gaza: The ancient Gaza was inhabited by the Gazeans, a nation of Canaanite substrate but deeply hellenized in religion and customs (by Greeks and Cretan Philistines), but Syriac / Aramean in language. From the Mark the Deacon's Life of Porphyry, Bishop of Gaza (translated by G. F. Hill - Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1913) we can read in which situation was Christianity in 395 and its evolution in the following years. When St. Porphyry gained his bishropic in 395, the number of Christians were some 204: "the Christians came together [to receive the new bishop], with men, women, and children, to the number of two hundred and four score", but the most striking fact is that the city was "of no small account, being a populous city and notable" and having "eight public temples of idols" and "other very many idols in the houses and in the villages, whereof no man could reckon the number." As the Christian basilicas were two, it gives us a 20% of Christian inhabitants as maximum (2 basilicas in front of 8 temples). The biography continues saying that in the next year, 127 Pagans were converted after a long drought ended coinciding with a Christian procession. Some time after, "there were added unto the fold of Christ in this same year, over and above the hundred and twenty and seven, other one hundred and five" The christianization was indeed slow, we must wait until around 400 to see how a entire family was christianized because Porphyry prayed to save a woman and her babe from a sure death in a difficult childbirth, where previously the physicians were unable to solve it: "they that were enlightened through the occasion of this woman were in number sixty and four". Later in the year 402, another group of 39 Gazeans converted after they sow how a "naked" statue of Aphrodite exploded when a cross was placed near it, killing also two heathens that were mocking at the Christians. In the same year, it was ordered the destruction or the christianization of the Pagan temples, and so "There were added, therefore, unto the fold of Christ in that year about three hundred persons, and thenceforth in each year the numbers of the Christians received an increase."

 For the urban Greeks, in the period 380-400 there were movilizations of bishops, administrative heads, etc. against the cults of Venus and Isis in Constantinople, against the Eleusian Mysteries near Athens, against the Mysteries of Venus in Cyprus, and against whichever organizated pagan cult all over Greece.

Paganism was yet strong in other eastern cities in the middle of the fourth century, at least in Bostra [actual Busrat, between Damascus and Amman]: bishop Titus estimated the number of Christians when Julian was in power (361-364), concluding that there were just as many pagans. Moreover, in the principal Christian seat of Syria, Antioch, according to the bishop of Kyrrhos, Theodoret: "the slaves of error conducted their pagan mysteries [...] Diasia [festival of Zeus], Dionysia, and festivals of Demeter were being celebrated once again, not in secret, as might have been expected in a Christian empire, but right in the middle of the agora; that is where the bacchants held their revels"; that was written around 370. This same Theodoret, commenting on the history of his own region, Syria, explained that Marcellus, bishop of Apamea, started to demolish with imperial troops the pagan temples of the city "thinking that this was the easiest way to convert" the yet large pagan population. Shortly after he was killed: "Marcellus, bishop of Apamea in Syria, accompanied by an armed band of soldiers and gladiators, proceeded with the same zeal against the monuments and vital centers of heathen worship in his diocese, but was burnt alive for it by the enraged heathens, who went unpunished  for the murdering."

As seen, Christianity was not accepted by some Eastern urbanites yet in the V-VII centuries: in the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon (held in 449), the bishop of Harran, Daniel was listed as "bishop of a pagan city." Otherwise it seems that this city remained pagan late in time, as they conserved a pagan temple yet in the XI Century. Mar Jacob of Serug, who was bishop of Batnae, wrote the homily "The Downfall of the Idols" where he condemned the worship of Nabu (Mercury) and Bel (Jupiter) and other idols at Edessa in his time (beginnings of VI Century). Moreover, when the Muslims conquered the area of Edessa/Urfa in 639 CE, there were some polytheists in the city since the people of Harran asked their advice before surrendering.

But in some moment of the V Century the majority of the citizens of the eastern cities became Christian (at least nominally), fact that can be assumed if we take the concealed clue that gives us the report that the Persian king Chosroes I exempted the city of Carrhae (Harran) from paying tribute in 540 because a "majority" of its population was faithful "to the ancient religion [paganism]"; so, one can understand that in the rest of Syrian cities that paid tribute, the pagans conformed a minority.

In the Egyptian cities the same processes of eradication of the official paganism took place at the same time: the Serapeion at Alexandria fell in 391. But even under the imperial coercive laws against paganism, a clandestine temple dedicated to Isis still stood near Alexandria until 486, when a riot between Pagans and Christians began (Egyptians vs Greeks plus Hellenized Egyptians ?). Because of these riots, a great quantity of statues were found in the baths and in private homes: dogs (Anubis), monkeys (Thoth), cats (Bastet), and a crocodile filled with blood (Sobek-Kronos). But the pagan cults didn't end yet, so in 537, the duke of the Thebaid, Narses, closed another temple of Isis in Philae, jailing also its priests.

Moreover, the christianization of Egypt was neither very fast: Marrou, H.I., in his "Synesius of Cyrene and Alexandrian Neoplationism" writes: "[Alexandria] was not the monopoly of Christians; it was to be found equally in the other camp. .... Zacharias Scholasticus ... records for us ... a significant episode which occurred about 485-7.... He describes how pagan students in Alexandria lynched ONE of their fellows, Paralios, who was about to BECOME A CONVERT to Christianity, for having dared to defame publicly their great goddess Isis." Then, we have pagans lynching a Christian in an Egyptian city, so "strong" the pagan community was yet ?

Other proof is that in Gaza (Palestine), we haven't any witness on Christian presence but since 285 !

In the Roman Maghreb, paganism was yet strong on the eve of the V century: the counts Jovius and Gaudentius demolished pagan temples and broke their statues, and some years after the same Saint Augustin exclaimed: "How great was the power of the goddess Caelestis [Tanit] in Carthage !". But it was the beginning of a serie of religious riots... that perhaps concealed patriotic feelings...(to be exact, Latin Romans against Berbers and Semitic Punics): in 401 the Christians shaved off the beard of Hercules shouting "Rome and Cartage are the same !"; around the same year in Suffectum  [actual Sbiba / Sufes, in Tunisia], sixty Christians were killed after a Christian riot broke another Hercules' statue; in the letter that Saint Augustin sent at "The Magistrates and Leading Men, or Elders" of such city, it is possible to discern how nationalism and paganism was loud among them: "You have buried the laws of Rome in a dishonored grave, and trampled in scorn the reverence due to equitable enactments. The authority of emperors you neither respect nor fear. In your city there has been shed the innocent blood of 60 of our brethren; and whoever approved himself most active in the massacre, was rewarded with your applause, and with a high place in your Council. [...] If you say that Hercules belonged to you [...] We will give in addition some red ochre, to make him blush in such a way as may well harmonize with your devotions." Another case, occurred in 408, was that of a pagan riot that roughed up Christians and the basilicas were set on fire at Calama [actual Guelma or Qalmah, in the Kabylia]; here we can infer that pagans were majority according to the reports written in the epistolary communications that Saint Augustin and the local bishop Nectarius had: "this town has fallen disastrously by a grievous misdemeanor on the part of her citizens"says Nectarius to Augustin, and Augustin, instructing which actions adopt: "Accordingly you cannot in that community draw a distinction between innocent and guilty persons, for all are guilty; but perhaps you may distinguish degrees of guilt. Those are in a comparatively small fault, who, being kept back by fear, especially by fear of offending those whom they knew to have leading influence in the community and to be hostile to the Church, didn't dare to render assistance to the Christians; but all are guilty who consented to these outrages, though they neither perpetrated them nor instigated others to the crime: more guilty are those who perpetrated the wrong, and most guilty are those who instigated them to it. [...] What concerns us is the gaining of souls, which even at the risk of life we are impatient to secure; and our desire is, that in your district we may have larger success, and that in other districts we may not be hindered by the influence of your example." This same St. Augustin (c. 400) advised to the Berbers to follow the right way of Christianity; and he tells us that in North Africa there were innumerable Berber tribes where the Gospel hasn't been preached. The conclusion that we can assume, is that Christianity in the fifth century in the Maghreb was present in large cities, but outside, in medium and small cities, and in the countryside, a process of conversion started among a mostly stubborn population. For more accounts on the Roman Africa, see the next chapter.

The Canon LVIII of the Synod of Carthage held in 401, is very clear to state that paganism was yet public and flourishing: "Wherefore the most religious Emperors should be asked1 that they order the remaining idols to be taken entirely away throughout all Africa; for in many maritime places and in divers possessions the iniquity of this error still flourishes: that they command them to be taken away and their temples, (such as are no ornament, being set up in fields or out of the way places) be ordered to be altogether destroyed."

With these facts, we should agree that Christianity in 400 was essentially urban and minoritary also in the East, and it's not needed to mention the presence that it would have had in the countryside among the peasants then. So, the Paganism of the countryside can be understood better:

John of Ephesus, a Monophysitist bishop protected by the Byzantine court, evangelized the surrounding mountainous area of Tralles (in the Aegean coast of Turkey) in 545: "[...] John the Superintendant's mission to them [the heathens] in Asia, and especially the building of the great monastery in the mountains near Tralles, which was both the commencement and the crowning proof of his success. He was appointed teacher of the heathen in Justinian's time in the four provinces of Asia, Caria, Phrygia, and Lydia; and began his labours in the mountains which overhang Tralles, in the territory of which city alone he converted many thousands from the error of idol worship, and built for their use twenty-four churches, and four monasteries, all of which were entirely new. [...] And other trials too there were and difficulties, which Satan raised up against this monastery, and the twenty-four new churches which John had erected in its vicinity for the service of the heathen whom he had baptized and made Christians in the mountainous districts of the city of Tralles." If it was needed to convert heathens in the countryside of Tralles, it means that heathenism prevailed by then in actual Turkey in its rural areas where cities seem that were already Christianized (we can think it if we don't see in the text any effort to try to convert urbanites, surely because they were already mainly Christian by then). That account serves for West Turkey, one of the most Christianized regions in such epoch according scholars !. In the same text ("Ecclesiastical History", of John of Ephesus) more examples of prevailing paganism occur: "In the second year of Tiberius' reign [ 579 AD ], the news reached the capital that the wicked heathens at Baalbec [city in Lebanon], otherwise called Heliopolis, who were professed worshippers of Satan, were plotting whenever they could find an opportunity to destroy and wipe out the very remembrance of the Christians in that town, who were few and poor, while they all were in the constant enjoyment of wealth and dignity. They indulged moreover in scoffs at Christ, and all who believed in him, and had already ventured upon many acts of open violence [...]". That drove to John near the year 580 to expurgate pagans there, and these trials drove to more trials, some of these against supposedly Christian high posts: it was the case of the governor of the same province, Anatolius, or the trial against the patriarch of Antioch and the bishop of Alexandria, involved in a case of human sacrifice in Daphne. Also in the text appears an account about paganism in the same city of Antioch: "...and while there were known to be in the city many followers of heathenism...".

In the Cyrenaica province (East of Lybia), and in Siwa Oasis (Egypt), trials against pagans who worshipped the god Ammon were held yet in 550: it confirms that in rural areas of the East the old religion was yet keept.

For the rural Aramaic areas, we have the accounts again of the bishop of Cyrrhus, Theodoret, about the live of St. Maron: he stated that Abraham of Cyrrhus (350-422), who lately was known as "the Apostle of Lebanon", realized that paganism was thriving among the countrymen of Lebanon: "where, he had heard, a large village was engulfed in the darkness of impiety". It seems that by that time there where many peasants attached yet to the paganism: "they themselves were both cultivators and masters". Even Saint Simon the Stylite (died in 459) also converted many pagans from Lebanon. But Christianity finally prevailed in the rural areas before the Muslim invasion; it is possible to believe it if we take into account the presence of the village placed in the Anti-Lebanon of Maaloula, where its population after retain their old Aramaic language for centuries, they have also retained their Christianity.

In the West (Gaul, Hispania, Britannia, Italia, Noricum, Rhetia, Pannonia and Dalmatia), the Christianity takes place in the rural areas in the late of the IV Century, but it must be specified that in the most cases the presence of this new Christendom is in the "villae", it is, the secondary residences of the urban elite... According to the data provided by former sources and actual investigations, the growth of the christianity outside the cities really began in the half of the V Century, and mainly the process of Christianization went together with the effective Romanization - Latinization from these "villae" by its owner, his relatives and his servants. Then, I can theorize on the percentage of Christians in these westerner regions until that century: a 8 - 12%, the percentage of urban dwellers. Knowing it, it would be possible to discern major pagan or heretical populations where we find no-Latinized (or Hellenized) populations. Some cases:

Irenaeus preached in Celtic as Well as in Greek in Gallic cities about 170... nothing about Latin ! The importance to know the ethnic compositions is important due to the parallel ways that Latin (or Greek in Asia Minor) and Christianity took from the V Century. The same Irenaeus (about 170) speaks of the preaching of the gospel among the Germans and other barbarians (surely in Germania Cisrhenana). An ethnic Carthaginian, the Caesar Severus, is another good example of the poor latinization: from the Libyan town of Leptis Magna [actual Lybia], he spoke Latin with a Punic accent, and his sister never mastered the Latin language, so they often discussed family affairs in Punic on Rome; it's a good thing Cato never lived to see this !. If the Punic elites were not usual with Latin, what we can say about the masses of peasants ? Moreover, after four centuries of Roman power over Africa, so little effect had the Latin ? What is more, this same Caesar Severus [around 193-211] had firmly his sympathies with the provinces; Punic and Celtic words were allowed on legal documents during his reign, most of the top officials came from Africa or Asia, and he granted Roman citizenship to more provincial towns. Saint Jerome states around 400 that the Galatians speak two languages: Greek and their own Celtic dialect, which ressembled that of the Celtic tribe of the Treveri (in Trier, actual west Germany)... Sidonius, bishop of the French region of Auvergne, in his letter "To his dear Ecdicius" (c.474) stated that "Now [year 474], if ever, you [Ecdicius, Roman general in Auvergne] are wanted by my Arvernians [citizens of Clermont-Ferrand], [...] and that at one time it was due to you personally that the leading families, in their efforts to throw off the scurf of Celtic speech, were initiated into oratorical style and now again into the measures of the Muses. What chiefly kindles the devotion of the whole community to you is that after first requiring them to become Latins, you next [in 471] prevented them from becoming barbarians." The Sidonius' account shows that Celtic rather than Latin was still spoken by the leading families in Gaul in the mid 5th century. Therefore it would probably have been even more entrenched in regions abandoned by the Romans in such century or before: Britain, Retia, Pannonia, Noricum, or Germania Cisrenana. So it is logic that Procopius, in his book "On Buildings" (VI Century) describes how: "The River Ister [Danube] flows down from the mountains in the country of the Celts, who are now called Gauls [Norics of South Germany]; and it passes through a great extent of country which for the most part is altogether barren [actual Hungary], though in some places it is inhabited by barbarians who live a kind of brutish life and have no dealings with other men. When it gets close to Dacia [...]."Moreover, the diferentiation among Latin and French succeed around the VIII Century according to the historical grammatic and the written testimonies: a clerical law to speak in the masses in rustic language, and writen oaths in "romance". More examples on survival of ancient peoples in next chapitols.

Even tribes Romananized after eight centuries keept their tribal name (and even they could keep their language, as did the Oscans of Pompey before the eruption of the Vesubius). Jordanes, in his "Origins and Deeds of the Goths", written around the mid of the sixth century exposed that: "Thence they [the Visigoths] departed to bring like ruin upon Campania and Lucania, and then came to Bruttii. Here they remained a long time and planned to go to Sicily and thence to the countries of Africa. Now the land of the Bruttii is at the extreme southern bound of Italy, and a corner of it marks the beginning of the Apennine mountains." [Calabria region]. And even more suppositions with "Then growing bolder and still thirsting for Roman blood, the Huns raged madly through the remaining cities of the Veneti."

How Romanization or Hellenization was in the middle of the fourth century a fact far to be accomplished can be seen in an account of the different nations that Saint Basil (329?-379) has left us: "The fair thing would be to judge of me, not from one or two who do not walk uprightly in the truth, but from the multitude of bishops throughout the world, connected with me by the grace of the Lord. Make inquiries of Pisidians, Lycaonians, Isaurians, Phrygians of both provinces, Armenians your neighbors, Macedonians, Achaeans [Greeks]. Illyrians [related to the Albanian], Gauls [Celtics]. Hispanics, the whole of Italy, Sicilians, Africans, the healthy part of Egypt, whatever is left of Syria; all of whom send letters to me, and in turn receive them from me." (Letter CCIV, to the Neocaesareans). Yet in the middle of the fifth century, in the Pilgrimage of Etheria it is accounted how: "Now, forasmuch as in that province [Palestine] some of the people know both Greek and Syriac, while some know Greek alone and others only Syriac [native Assyrians]; and because the bishop, although he knows Syriac, yet always speaks Greek, and never Syriac, there is always a priest standing by who, when the bishop speaks Greek, interprets into Syriac, that all may understand what is being taught."

For a better understanding of the origin and placement of the old nations there is this page: Human Cultures and Languages.

In Asia Minor Hellenization seems was far to be accomplished in the half of the VI Century; if we read "The Secret History" of Procopius of Caesarea, it can be seen mentions as that "war broke out with the Isaurians when that nation rebelled"; "Priscus, an utter villain and Paphlagonian"; "Polybotus in Phrygia, called Polymede by the Pisidians"; "one Rhodon, a Phoenician, was Governor"; "There was a Cilician named Malthanes [...] Justinian sent this Malthanes to restore order among the Cilicians." For more examples see the part "Islamization" (by the Turks).

It is possible to doubt of a complete romanization of North Africa; the fact that the Greek neither replaced Assyrian - Aramean in a millennia, nor Egyptian - Coptic in such period of influence, would have let to Rome to replace effectively Punic or Neopunic in six centuries ? The Latin was imposed ever over civilizations less developed or with a development almost similar (Celts, Iberians, Etruscans...); perhaps the Donatist revolts were the religious disconformity against Rome, meaning different political and national allegiances: the Circumcellions, a Donatist militar brach, were mostly rustic enthusiasts, who knew no Latin, but spoke Punic. More examples will follow in the next chapter, that treats how nationalism was linked with heresy there.

"After there is the country of the Venets which reachs till the town of Ravenna: the Venets have stablished their places over the sea. Above it [the Alps], the Sisci and the Suabes (not those that are under Frankish rule, but others apart) are placed in the middle of the area; more above there are the Carni and the Norici [...] Below the town of Ravenna, at the left of the Po river, are placed the Ligurii; near them, in the side of the boreal wind, dwell the Alban, in a region extraordinally good named Languvilla." [Procopius of Cesarea, in his "Histoires", written in the mid of the VI Century].