Roman Empire - Africa Proconsularis (125 AD)

Bonusta was a town, not far from

Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...

, in the

Roman province The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was rule ...

Africa Proconsularis Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. No trace of it has been identified.Stefano Antonio Morcelli
''Africa christiana''
Volume I, Brescia 1816, pp. 105–106

Bishop Rufinianus

At the

Conference of Carthage (411) The Councils of Carthage were church synods held during the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries in the city of Carthage in Africa. The most important of these are described below. Synod of 251 In May 251 a synod, assembled under the presidency of Cyprian ...

, which brought together for joint discussion the Catholic and

Donatist Donatism was a Christian sect leading to a schism in the Church, in the region of the Church of Carthage, from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and t ...

bishops of

Roman Africa Roman Africa may refer to the following areas of Northern Africa which were part of the Imperium Romanum and/or the Western/Byzantine successor empires : ; in the unified Roman empire : * Africa (Roman province), with the great metropolis Cartha ...

, Bonusta was represented by the Catholic bishop Rufinianus. He declared that there never been Donatists at Bonusta. Primianus, a Donatist, responded: "He (Rufinianus) was one of us. We do have people there for whom we could ordain a bishop." Rufinianus retorted: "There never were."

Auguste Audollent Auguste Audollent (14 July 1864 – 7 April 1943) was a French historian, archaeologist and Latin epigrapher, specialist of ancient Rome, in particular the magical inscriptions ('' tabellæ defixionum''). His main thesis was devoted to ''Roman Car ...

, v. ''Bonustensis'' i
''Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques''
vol. IX, 1937, col. 1136Pius Bonifacius Gams
''Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae''
Leipzig 1931, p. 464

Bishop Cyprianus

In the ''Notitia Provinciarum et Civitatum Africae'', the name of Bishop Cyprianus of Bonusta appears in the 31st place in the list of Catholic bishops of Africa Proconsularis whom the

Vandal The Vandals were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century. The Vandals migrated to the area betw ...

king

Huneric Huneric, Hunneric or Honeric (died December 23, 484) was King of the (North African) Vandal Kingdom (477–484) and the oldest son of Gaiseric. He abandoned the imperial politics of his father and concentrated mainly on internal affairs. He was m ...

summoned to Carthage in 484 and then exiled.

Titular see

No longer a residential bishopric, Bonusta is today listed by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

as a

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbish ...

.''Annuario Pontificio 2013'' (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ), p. 852

References

{{reflist Catholic titular sees in Africa