M. Harding. The .17. Division.M. Hardinge. The .17. Diuision.

M. Harding. The .17. Division.

M. Hardinge. The .17. Diuision.

Now to say somewhat touching the Common prayers, or Service of the Churches of Africa, where S. Augustine preached in Latin, as you say, and I deny not, and thereof you seem to conclude, ⟨p. 179⟩that the common people of that Country, understood and spake Latin, as their vulgar tongue. That the African Churches had their Service in Latin, it is evident by sundry places of S. Augustine in his exposition of the Psalms, in his Books De Doctrina Christiana, and in his Sermons, and most plainly in an Epistle that he wrote to S. Hierome, in which he showeth, that the people of a City in Africa, was greatly moved and offended with their Bishop, for that in reciting the Scriptures, for part of the Service to them, he read out of the fourth Chapter of Jonah the Prophet, not Cucurbita, after the old text, which they had been accustomed unto, but Hedera, after the new translation of S. Hierome. Now, as I grant that some understood it, so I have cause to doub•e, whether some others understood it, or no. Nay rather I have great probability to think, they understood it not.¹ For the bewraying of Hannibals Ambassadors to the Romans by their Punical language, whereof Titus •ivius writeth: and likewise the conference betwixt Sulla the Noble man of Rome, and Bocchus King of Numidia, had by mean of Interpreters adhibited of both parts, as Sallust recordeth In Bello Jugurthino, declareth, that the tongue of Africa was the Punical tongue before the Romans conquest. Now the same people remaining there until S. Augustine's time, what should move us to judge, that they forgot their own native and mother tongue, and learned a new the Latin tongue? I confess, that many understood, and spake. Latin, by reason of the Romans common resort thither, of their laws there executed, of their garrisons there abiding, and specially of the great multitude of Latin people thither sent to inhabit, Deductis Colonijs, by August the Emperor first, then by Adrianus, and afterward by Commodus, who would have had the great City Carthago newly reeied, to be called after his own name. Alexandria Commodiana, as Lpridius writeth. These Romaine Colonies, that is to wit multitudes of people sent to inhabit the Country, placed them selves about the Sea coasts, in the chief Cities, in Carthago, Utica, Hippo, Leptis &c and there about.