Religious Violence in Late Antiquity between Facts and Ideology. The Case of Quodvultdeus of Carthage

Religious violence has been an essential factor in many of our societies for thousands of years. The rise of fundamentalism and coercion of others based on religious beliefs is a recurring phenomenon. The present paper analyzes key texts from Late Antiquity that relate episodes of religiously motivated violence: the story of the destruction of the Serapeum in Alexandria in 391 CE, as related by the Church historian Rufinus, and the destruction of the Carthaginian temple of Caelestis, as related by the bishop and Church writer Quodvultdeus. The paper argues that these religiously motivated destructions are not as straightforward as they seem at first sight. Rufinus’ description interprets the events through the prism of Old Testament prophecies about the fall of pagan gods and their statues. His vision is teleological and sees the event through a series of stages derived from Scripture: the triumph of Christianity, followed by the hiding and then destruction of pagan idols. By forcing these elements into the destruction of the Serapeum, he turns a local political and religious conflict into a world-encompassing fulfillment of prophecy. The Carthaginian bishop Quodvultdeus not only believed in the fulfillment of the same prophecies but also in emulating the events of the Serapeum. The destruction of the temple of Caelestis, an imposing but abandoned structure, is turned into the second fall of the Serapeum. Through the analysis of the vocabulary employed by Rufinus and Quodvultdeus, as well as parallels with other testimonies, this paper discusses and reframes these lenses.