CHRISTIANITY AND THE VANDALS

IN THE REIGN OF GEISERIC’

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PETER HEATHER

The Vandal rulers of North Africa adopted a non-Nicene version of Christianity. The same
happened in the Visigothic and Ostrogothic realms and, at least to an extent, in the
Burgundian kingdom of the Rh6ne valley. But whereas non-Nicene kings outside Africa
generally managed to reach accommodations with Nicene Churchmen, Vandal kings did not.
This paper will examine the origins of this striking failure by reconsidering the religious
policies of the kingdom’s first ruler, Geiseric (439-477).’

Vandal Christianity
At the heart of this paper, as of all previous studies of Geiseric’s religious policies, lies ‘The
History of the Persecutions in Africa’ by Victor of Vita. This text provides considerable
coverage of the period 429-484, much of it accurate and contemporary, but its author was a
Nicene churchman implacably opposed to the religious policies of the Vandal kings.*It leaves
some questions unanswered, therefore, and is particularly unconvincing when it comes to
motivation. Victor also has little to say about the religion of the Vandals, consistently
dismissing them as ‘Arians’ whereas Nicenes are ‘Catholics’.
The Vandals considered themselves ‘Catholics’, however, in the sense that they understood
themselves to hold the true belief of the universal Church.3 Indeed, Vandal Christianity had
a set of theological and historical roots that did not in any direct way derive from the
teachings of the Alexandrian priest Arius.“ Rather, it developed from the ‘Homoean’ school
of theological opinion which emerged under the Emperor Constantius I1 in response to the

* This paper has been condensed and revised from a larger study dealing with the religious policies of
Geiseric and Huneric. I would like to thank the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Stress
in San Marino and Professor Giorgio Ausenda for permission to use this material. By happy chance it
deals with barbarians, bishops, and a context recently dealt with by Professor Liebeschuetz himself: see
Liebeschuetz 2003.
i Geiseric dated his rule in North Africa from the capture of Carthage in October 439, although he had
been king of the Vandals since 428.
2 Victor Vitensis, Historia persecutionisAfricanaeprovinciae:the
basic study remains Courtois 1954,
now supplemented by the excellent introduction to the new Bud6 edition of the work: Lance1 2002.
3 In the Carthage council of February 484, the pro-Nicene bishops’ appropriation of the term ‘Catholic’
caused a huge uproar among their opponents (Vict. Vit. 3.1).
4 In so far as the latter can be reconstructed: see e.g. Williams 1987.

I37
I38 WOLF LIEBESCHUETZ REFLECTED

detinition of the relationship between God the Father and God the Son - homousios, ‘identity
of essence’ - propounded at Nicaea in 325. Many eastern churchmen found that definition
unsatisfactory because it was a non-scriptural novelty, which seemed to erode any real

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difference between God the Father and God the Son. The Homoean school argued that a
vision of the Son as ‘like’ (homoios)the Father did more justice to the scriptural evidence and
better represented traditional Christian belief. It also won cnough episcopal support under
Constantius I1 to be enshrined as orthodox Christianity at the Councils of Seleucia and Rimini
in 359. Constantius’ settlement died with him in 361 but was revived under Valentinian I and
Valens (364-78). It was only after the Council of Constantinople in 38 I , when Theodosius I
threw his weight once more behind homousios, that the Nicene definition finally established
itself as the canon of Roman Christian orthodoxy. Even so, Christians of a non-Nicene
persuasion continued to abound after 381: enough, indeed, to transmit the doctrine to the
Vandals.
No liturgical, creedal, or doctrinal materials survive from the Vandal Church, but King
Huneric’s edict of 25 February 484, preserved by Victor of Vita, refers with approval to the
theological teachings established at the councils of Ariminum and at Seleucia.’ That
Homoeanism was its official dogma is also suggested by the ‘Book of the Catholic Faith’,
which the Nicene African bishops presented to the Council of Carthage on 7 February 484.
In this the bishops justified themselves against the kinds of criticisms that Homoeans had
always tended to make of Nicenes. Like many mainline Roman churchmen of the mid-fourth
century, the fifth-century Vandals should be seen, therefore, as adherents of a more
conservative theology, unhappy with the potentially embarrassing connotations of homousios.
There was also nothing Germanic about the Church’s structure. We have no comprehensive
listing, but incidental references confirm that the hierarchy of the Vandal Homoean Church,
like its Roman Nicene counterpart, comprised bishops (how many is not known), priests, and
deacons.6 Nonetheless, the Vandals’ Christianity was a source of great conflict between
themselves and some of their Roman subjects. To understand why, it is necessary to take a
close look at the evolving religious policies of Geiseric.

Geiseric’s religious policies

According to our sources, some persecution of Nicene Christians began as soon as the
Vandals reached North Africa in 429. Atrocities surely did occur, but whether they reflect a
coherent policy of persecution at this stage seems more doubtful. Churches often contained
objects of value, and clergy, particularly bishops, could have important roles as leaders of
local society. Given this, individual acts of violence were only to be expected? Once Geiseric
had taken Carthage in 439, and the Vandal kingdom started to assume the shape it would hold

5Vict. Vit. 3.4: Victor’s citations of Vandal royal edicts are generally accepted as accurate; cf. Lance1
2002,22-27.
6 courtois 1955,225 f.
7 Vict. Vit. I . 4-7, 10.
 PETER HEATHER: CHRISTIANITY AND THE VANDALS I39

for the next century, new and more coherent religious policies, unfolding in two broad phases,
replaced such individual confrontations.'

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N) From the conquest of Carthage (439) to the appointment of Deogrutius (454)

Thc first phasc opened with a series of confiscations of Nicene propcrty. In Carthage, four
iiiajor churches werc confiscated for Geiseric's Homocan clergy (Vict. Vit. I . 9, 15-16). All
would appear to havc bcen insidc thc city walls, a numbcr of suburban churches remaining
in thc hands of the Nicencs." Elsewhere, religious policy varicd according to Vandal
scttleincnt pattcrns.
Some of the details remain contentious, but we know that the provinces of Numidia and
Byzacena were essentially unaffected, with Geiseric clustering his followers only in Africa
Proconsularis. The process also involved the transfer of substantial amounts of land in
Proconsularis - not, as has sometimes been argued, shares in the province's overall tax
revenues"' - to the Vandal immigrants. In addition, the settlement quickly acquired a religious
dimension. In localities within Proconsularis where Vandals settled, Nicene church buildings
were confiscated to the Homoean Church, and Geiseric imposed a ban on all Niccne services
(Vict. Vit. 1. 17, 22). Later confiscations of Nicene churches under Huneric also included
their landed endowments (cf. Vict. Vit. 3. 2), and a church without its endowments would
have been impossible to maintain. Although Victor is not explicit, therefore, it seems probable
that the original confiscations in Proconsularis included lands as well as buildings."
This must have had substantial effects upon Nicene believers in Proconsularis. Two
different sources record that Geiseric's followers at the time of the crossing to North Africa
were sub-divided into eighty groups under leaders called millenarii. If, as seems likely, these
groups formed the basis on which the settlement in Proconsularis was organised (and one
millenarius is mentioned subsequent to the settlement in north-eastern Proconsularis), around
eighty Nicene communities within the province would have lost one or more of their churches.
By the early fifth century the province could muster 164 Nicene bishops. Thus if the Vandal
millenarii established themselves in the province's larger settlements, then perhaps as many
as half of its major Nicene communities were affected in some way.'*
Handing over Churches was a straightforward order to enforce, less so the ban on services.
Shortly afterwards, however, bishops and leading laymen (honorati) of Proconsularis
petitioned Geiseric for pcrmission to hold Nicene services in buildings close to their lost
churches (Vict. Vit. 1. 17- 18). This suggests that Gaiseric's policies were a serious hindrance

8 Onthe geographical extent of the Vandal kingdom, see now Moderan 1999. From the early 440s. the
Vandals controlled Proconsularis, Byzacena and, Numidia. After the death of Valentinian 111 (459,
Geiseric added Tripolitania and the two Mauretanian provinces.
9 Courtois 1955, 226. See now on the physical remains of these churches, Ennabli 1997.
10 Taxation argument: Goffart 1980; more fully: Durliat 1988. Lance1 (2002) rightly notes, however,
the strongly territorial connotations of the sortes Vundulorutn mentioned in Huneric's edicts of 483 and
484. See further Moderan forthcoming.
II Argued - for once - contra Courtois 1955,284 ff.
1 2 Vict. Vit. 1. 2,. Procop. Bell. (Vund.)3. 5 . 18; Goffart 1980, App. 1.
I40 WOLF LIEBESCHUETZ REFLECTED

to the operation of Nicene cult, but it would be wrong to assume that Nicene services ceased
completely in every affected locality. Victor is quite explicit, for instance, that, after the
confiscations, Nicene clergy carried on ministering to their flock as best they could, according

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to local circumstance (Vict. Vit 1. 18). He also notes, in the context of a renewed clampdown
from 457 (see below), one Homoean cleric, Proculus, who enforced the existing rules with
unprecedented vigour, suggesting that general practice was less fierce. Varying levels of
cnforcernent in everything except perhaps tax exaction was a basic fact of lifc in cvcn thc most
developed of ancient states.
Beyond these general measures, the sources also record a numbcr of specific clashes bcforc
454 between Geiseric and individual Nicenes. Victor of Vita, for example, records the exile,
at different times, of six Nicene bishops from Numidia and Byzacena for preaching sermons
that were hostile to the king (Vict. Vit. I . 22-23). Quodvultdeus of Carthage, together with
many of his clergy, had suffered a similar fate after Geiseric’s seizure of Carthage (ihid.1.
15). In these and other cases the king refused to allow replacements to be ordained, even after
the exiles’ deaths, so that the total number of Nicene bishops within the Vandal kingdom
suffered a decline. But one inheritance of the fourth-century Donatist dispute was that North
Africa enjoyed a massive density of bishoprics. As a result, there were over 600 bishops by
the 420s (Gaul and Egypt, by comparison, had about 100 each).’?A few losses here and there
would not have affected Nicene pastoral provision substantially, and Victor notes that prior
to 454 people generally held firm to the Nicene Church (Vict. Vit. 1. 23).14
The king also clashed with some Nicene laymen. In the late 430s, he executed four Roman
advisors, whom he had brought with him from Spain. According to Prosper, he did so because
they refused to convert to the king’s form of Christianity (Chron. 1329). A religious
dimension may also have been involved in the later execution of another Roman advisor,
Sebastianus who publically refused rebaptism (Vict. Vit. I . 19-21). But there were many
reasons other than religion why a king might fall out with high profile advisors. This was
probably true also of the large number of reported exiles among larger landowners, senators
and honorati, which had followed the seizure of Carthage. Their disappearance would
certainly have had important effects upon the local Nicene communities they led, but the
exiles were accompanied by land seizures and these, rather than any religious imperative,
probably underlay Geiseric’s policy.
The first phase of Geiseric’s reign, therefore, saw individual clashes between the king and
leading Nicenes but, more importantly, a major religious restructuring in the province of
Proconsularis. Here, wherever the king’s followers were settled, there were large-scale
transfers of Church property and a ban on the celebration of Nicene rites. The Nicene Church
in Byzacena and Numidia, by contrast, was left broadly alone, and even in Proconsularis the
degree of enforcement on the ban on Nicene rites varied significantly from place to place.

1 3Courtois 1955, 135 ff.

14 Even as late as 484, Proconsularis could still muster 54 bishops, Numidia 125, and Byzacena 107.
The figures depend upon the identification of the Notitiu provinciarum et civitutum Africue as an offical
list of this date. See Lance1 2002,223-36; Moderan forthcoming.
 PETER HEATHER: CHRISTIANITY AND THE VANDALS 141

0 ) From the ordination of Deogratias to the death of Geiseric (477)

In the second phase of the reign, changes in religious policy seem to have been driven by

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diplomatic considerations. In 454, Geiseric acceded to a request from the western emperor,
Valcntinian 111, to allow a rcplacement Nicenc bishop to bc ordained for Carthagc, the sec
having bcen empty since the exilc of Quodvultdeus. Deogratias was duly installcd in 454, and
procccded to act not only as bishop of Carthage but also as metropolitan 0 1 Proconsularis.“
Victor does not cxplain why Gciseric suddenly gavc in to outsidc pressure, but thc diplomatic
context is suggestivc. In the peace agreement of 442/3, it had been agreed that Geiseric’s
cldest son, Huneric, should marry Valentinian’s daughter, Eudocia, when she camc of age (at
that point she was only four or five). By the early 450s she was approaching marriagcablc age,
and I suspect that Deogratias’ ordination was one of many sweeteners designed to ensure that
the marriage happened. The marriage symbolised Roman acceptance of the existence of the
Vandal kingdom, and in pursuit of such a prize Geiseric was willing to allow the Nicene
Church more leeway. Deogratias’ ordination did not mean, however, that any of the former
Nicene churchcs in Proconsularis were restored, or that the local bans on Niccne services
were lifted.
Unfortunately, the king’s strategy failed. After the death of Attila and the collapse of
Hunnic power Valentinian thought he could rid himself of the overbearing influencc of his
chief advisor, Aetius, and murdered him in September 454. In March 455, however,
Valentinian was himself murdered, at which point the imperial title was seized by Petronius
Maximus, who proceeded to marry Eudocia to his own son. Geiseric’s sack of Rome at the
end of May 455 was, therefore, in part a violent response to this great diplomatic setback.
During the sack, Maximus and his son were killed and Huneric’s bride secured. She was
brought to North Africa and duly married, but she was no longer the daughter of a reigning
Roman emperor. Instead of becoming a legitimate member of the Roman club, the Vandal
kingdom was cast in the role of pariah. The two effective west Roman regimes of the period,
those of Majorian and Anthemius, made the kingdom’s destruction the central plank of their
policies in 460/61 and again in 468: both with eastern help.16
In this context, relaxing constraints on Nicene Christians within the Vandal kingdom lost
its diplomatic purpose, and the frustration of Geiseric’s international ambitions was matched
by a stiffening of religious policy at home. This first manifested itself in a refusal to sanction
the ordination of a replacement for Deogratias in 457. It quickly acquired further dimensions.
The selective refusal to allow replacements for bishops sent into exilc was extended into a
general policy for the whole of Proconsularis, where no new ordinations were allowed at all.
The ban further disrupted the operation of the Nicene Church in the provincc, but to what
extent is hard to know. According to Victor of Vita, its episcopate had ‘now’ declined from
one hundred and sixty-four to only three (Vict. Vit. 1.29), but the ‘now’ refers to the late 480s
when the text as we have it was produced. No doubt the ban initiated a substantial decline in

IS Vict. Vit. I . 24ff.; Courtois 1955,290 f.

16 On these expeditions and their significance, see Heather 1995.
I42 WOLF LIEBESCHUETZ REFLECTED

numbers but, according to the Notitia Provinciaruni et civitatum Africae, there were still 54
bishops of Proconsularis in post as late as 484.”
After 457, the ban on Nicene services in Proconsularis was also enforccd with greater

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vigour, with a further seizure of books and vessels (Vict. Vit. 1. 39-40). Victor presents this
as an entirely different level of persecution, but it perhaps stemmed from a desire to make it
impossible for Niccne Churchmen to celebrate their rites in secret. It was followed by somc
individual martyrdoms as Geiseric’s officials closed down illicit Niccne church scrviccs (Vict.
Vit. I . 41-42). We also hear of one further specific measure. Again sometimc after 457,
Geiscric demanded that all those serving in royal households should espouse Honioean
Christianity. This did not just apply to Vandals. Slaves of Roman origin also found thcmsclves
affected (Vict. Vit. 1. 43 ff.). Strikingly, Victor portrays Geiseric as responding here to the
requests of his Homoean clergy. This is the first time Victor uses such a formulation, and I
will argue below that it represents a development of major significance.
Different Nicene individuals fell foul of one or other of these policies, but they did not alter
the fundamental situation. The basic pattern remained as it had been, with Nicene Christianity
suppressed in the areas of Vandal settlement in Proconsularis but elsewhere allowed. The
order banning new episcopal ordinations in Proconsularis certainly tightened the screw, but
I would hesitate to take it as a sign that Geiseric now intended the total suppression of Nicene
Christianity even in this province. And when the international situation began to improve,
Geiseric was once again willing to relax his grip. By the early 470s, the western Roman
empire was unravelling fast. The eastern emperor, Leo, and his advisors, not least the senior
general &no, concluded that it was impossible to rescue the West, and that peace should be
made with the Vandal kingdom.’xThe diplomatic context thus began to resemble that of the
early 450s, and, as part of the new peace deal, the Byzantine ambassador, Severus, was able
to persuade Geiseric not to close down, as he threatened to, the entire Nicene Church in
Carthage (Vict. Vit. 1. 51). In the middle of this further rapprochement with the Nicene
Church, Geiseric’s reign finally ended on January 25,477.

Geiseric and Vandal Christianity

Overall, Geiseric’s religious policies adversely affected many individual Nicenc communities
within the Vandal kingdom and it is this dimension of his activities that primarily attracted the
interest of our pro-Nicene sources. It is extremely important, however, not to overstate the
anti-Nicene character of Geiseric’s actions. The key distinction between Proconsularis and
the rest of kingdom must be kept firmly in mind. Whereas the Nicene Church in Proconsularis
was affected by a whole series of measures, in Byzacena and Numidia it was generally left in
peace. Even in Proconsularis many Nicene bishops continued in post and many Nicene
services were held. This suggests very strongly that it was not Geiseric’s underlying aim to
stamp out the Nicene Church within his kingdom, as the Nicene sources allege.’9To get

17 Date of Victor’s text: Lance1 2002.9-14, though there is good reason to think that the bulk of it was
written while Huneric was still alive in 484; cf. Moorhead, 1992 xvi-xvii. On the Notitia, sec n. 14.
18 Situation and significance: Heather 1995.
1 9 Unlike the much more ambitious persecution mounted by his son Huneric in 484, who sought to
make all Christians - lay and clergy alike -conform to non-Nicene doctrines.
 PETER HEATHER: CHRISTIANITY AND THE VANDALS I43

beyond their account of his motivation, I would argue that it is necessary to reconsider the
nature of religious belief amongst Geiseric's followers.

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a ) The conversion of the Vandals
My earlier picture of the Vandals as Homoean Christians must over-simplify the complexity
of religious belief prcvailing among Geiscric's followers. Thc prccise date at which the
Vandals convcrted to Christianity is a matter of debate. Our sources suggest termini of 406
and 42 I ,'"and since thc Vandals held to the same Homoean Christianity as the Visigoths, it
bccomes tempting to date their conversion betwccn 4 I I , when the Vandals were scttlcd in
Spain and the Visigoths first arrived north of the Pyrenees, and 416, when the Goths, now
allied with imperial forces, began fighting the Vandals and Alans in Spain. But this window
of'opportunity is obviously very narrow. After 422, the campaigns ceased because of Roman
political instability, so some initial work might have been supplemented in the period 422-
429. Whatever date one chooses, however, Christianity was only a very recent phenomenon
among the Vandals when they arrived in North Africa."
This means that the religious situation among the Vandals will have been much more
diverse than uniform Homoean Christianity. Conversion is a process, not an cvent. The
conversion of the Anglo-Saxons is the best-documented case study available from (very) late
antiquity. Here, well over a hundred years after the arrival of Augustine at Canterbury, Bede
was still complaining about the shortage of priests for the rural population; and, in a process
of mutual adaptation, Christianity metamorphosed in some extraordinary ways to become a
religion for warriors.22In the later 420s the same confusion of beliefs and shortage of priests
must have been a feature of Vandal Christianity, especially given the extraordinary mix of
followers that Geiseric led to North Africa. As well as the king's original Hasding Vandals,
there were some Goths and Sueves who had been picked up along the way.2' More
fundamentally, Roman-Gothic campaigns between 4 16 and 41 8 had led both Siling Vandals
and Alans, among the originally separate invaders of 406, to attach themselves to Geiseric and
follow him to Africa. The cultic complex of the conquerors of Roman Africa will thus have
spanned a wide spectrum of beliefs. In particular, the Iranian-speaking Alans, occupying
Steppe regions east of the Don as recently as c.375, must have had totally different religious
beliefs to the Germanic-speakingagricultural Vandals from central Europe. In 429 Homoean
Christianity can have been only a veneer imposed on the top of great cultic diversity. Our
Nicene sources concentrate upon the effects of Geiseric's religious policies upon Nicene
Christians but, as we have seen, this was probably not their primary purpose, since Geiseric
allowed Nicene cultic celebration to continue in many parts of Proconsularis and throughout

20 Salvian, De gub. Dei 7. I 1/46;Oros. 7.41.8.

21 This wouldremain true even if one wanted to push the initial Vandal conversion back to the late 390s
and early 400s;cf. Courtois 1955.35f.
22 Bede, Letter to Egbert (ed. Plummer 1896,405-23);Campbell 1971, 1973;Mayr-Harting I991 ;
Fletcher 1997.
23 Goths: Possidius, Vim Augusiini 20; Sueves: Courtois 1955,App. I I , no. 70.
I44 WOLF LIEBESCHUETZ REFLECTED

all of Numidia and Byzacena. The real purpose of Gaiseric’s policies, to my mind, emerges
when we consider the unfolding story of Homoean conversion among the Vandals.

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b ) The Homoean Church

Wc have no idea how the Vandal Church was structured before 439. The surviving indications
suggcst, as wc have seen, that Geiseric’s disparate following was organiscd in sub-groups
under millenarii, but it seems unlikely that the process of conversion had gone far enough for
thcre to have been a matching ecclesiastical hierarchy at this point. Thc Homoean clergy
presumably had some books and liturgical vessels but little or no property, and hence no
secure annual income. Its numbers would have been limited by this shortage of financial
support and by a shortage of recruits from among an as yet only partially converted
population. After the seizure of Carthage, Geiseric’s religious policies transformed this
situation when the Homoean Church received a substantial portfolio of Church buildings and
endowments. At a strokc, some of the main limitations upon the process of Homoean
conversion among the Vandals - the lack of cult centres and an income to maintain an
extensive priesthood - were swept away and the path opened up to long-term clerical
expansion. In fact, some recruits might have been available immediately from Homoeans
among the Romano-African population. Theodosius 1’s change of policy had clearly stranded
numerous convinced Homoeans in its wake. As late as 42718, Augustine had written against
the teachings of an Homoean priest of Italian origin, Maximinus, who had come to Italy with
some Gothic troops, and he was surely not a solitary survivor.”
Against this backdrop, I suspect that the ban on Nicene rites in the relevant parts of
Proconsularis was imposed, not so much to hit the Nicene Church, but to ensure a monopoly
for Homoean Churchmen as they attempted to establish their form of the Christian religion
among Geiseric’s ethnically and religiously diverse followers. The longer-term effects of this
revolution showed up by the late 450s. This was the moment when all those serving in royal
households were commanded to espouse Homoean Christianity. As noted, Victor of Vita
portrays Geiseric as responding to the requests of his Homoean clergy. Victor’s wording
could be no more than stylistic variation, but I suspect that this was the moment when the
large and coherent Homoean Church, created by Gaiseric’s measures of the early 440s, had
matured sufficiently to formulate agendas and press the king to implement them. Gaiseric’s
institution had come of age.

c ) The importance of being Homoean

This raises a further question. Why did Geiseric want to create a Homoean Church? It is
possible to answer this question with a thoroughly Machiavellian argument. Geiseric led to
Africa a large and disparate following. Uniting this force through a Church of which the king
would be the effective head could be seen as important prop to royal authority, which
otherwise rested on no long-established foundations.2sOnce Carthage had been captured and

24 See Gryson 1980.

2sThe control exercised by Geiseric and subsequent monarchs over both religious policy and the
appointment of leading Churchmen shows that Vandal kings acted as head of the non-Nicene African
Church.
 PETER HEATHER: CHRISTIANITY AND THE VANDALS I45

peace made with the Empire, the need became more, not less, pressing. Up to 439, Geiseric’s
followers had been operating as a coherent mass in a generally hostile environmcnt. Once the
immediate Roman threat was lifted, and his followers had dispersed across the provincc of

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Proconsularis, maintaining unity became that much more difficult. In this new situation,
Christianity in general, and Homoean Christianity in particular, offered Gciseric somc
spcctacular advantages.
Christianity had long argucd that no powcr could cxist in the world unless God so willed.
It was a short stcp from here to the vicw that Christian monarchs werc God’s representatives,
put in powcr to do His Will. Emperors from Constantine onwards had taken that step, and
Vandal monarchs quickly did so too, perhaps in dircct imitation of Roman rulcrs. Within
Africa, they certainly presented themselves as God-appointed monarchs.26Asidc from such
ideological inflation of the royal position, Christianity had the further advantagc of repres-
enting a neutral religion, standing outside the wide range of different cults that Geiseric’s
followers had previously observed. Any brand of Christianity would have offered Geiseric
these advantages, but Homoean Christianity also brought particular benefits. First, its Gothic
proponents had already translated key Christian texts into a Germanic language. Everything
suggests that there was little linguistic difference between the Germanic dialects spoken by
Goths and Vandals, so that the Gothic Homoean texts would have been comprehensible to
Vandals.*’ Second, the Homoean Church was not the Church of the Roman Empire, which had
instituted, since the early 380s aggressive legislation defining Nicene Christianity as imperial
orthodoxy. The Empire offered Geiseric both a model of an entwined Church and state,2xand
Homoean theology an appropriate but different brand of Christianity with which to recreate
the model for his own purposes.
It is easy, therefore, to identify a whole series of advantages for Geiseric in using Homoean
Christianity as ideological cement. I suspect, however, that such an analysis oversimplifies
on a number of levels both the complexities of Geiseric’s attitudes, and of the context in
which he was operating. It is very doubtful, first of all, that the king could have stood as far
outside his own context as such a coldly objective line of analysis would imply. Personal
belief must also have played a substantial role in Geiseric’s decision-making,especially if it
is true that he eventually moved from Nicene to Homoean Christianity (Hydatius, Chron. 79
[89]>.Second, an ideology will only have the desired effect if its rhythms strike a chord with
its intended audience. There would have been little point in Geiseric trying to use Homoean
Christianity to unite his following if it had not already proved itself attractive to substantial
numbers of them. Here, the existence of a Homoean priesthood already equipped with the
right books in a Germanic language, combined with its role as a non- or even anti-imperial
form of Christianity, may have been critical reasons why it appealed. Third, and related to
this, it is far from unlikely that those of Geiseric’s followers who werc not already Christian

26 Courtois 1955, 243-46.

27 On Ulfila and a continuing Gothic tradition of Bible scholarship, see Heather and Matthews 1991,
chap. 5.
28 Before 429, Augustine’s Ciry ofGod had already argued that no state could be the direct vehicle of
God’s Will in the world. The contrary, however, continued to be maintained by Roman state propag-
anda, and subscribed to by many Christian Churchmen: see e.g. Dvornik 1966.
I46 WOLF LIEBESCHUETZ REFLECTED

were influenced by his worldly success. There are several hints in migration period sources
that highly successful warriors, Germanic and other, were considered specially blessed with

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divine favour.29 Geiseric’s achievement in conquering North Africa will have given added
momentum to the process of conversion to his favoured creed.”’

29 Beda, HE, esp. Book 3; Moisl I98 I .

30 Very similar in spirit is Liebeschuetz 2003,77-81, although the observation that Geiseric left Nicene
Christians alone except where Vandals were settled to my mind strengthens the case still further for
seeing Vandal Christianity as a strategy of distinction rather than as a religion to be enforced on
everyone within the kingdom.