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Uthina

Historical Article from The Catholic Encyclopedia

Catholic Encyclopedia

Historical Context

This article preserves the historical wording and context of the printed encyclopedia. Dates, statistics, terminology, disciplinary descriptions, and civic or ecclesiastical circumstances may reflect the period in which the article was published.

Article Text

A titular see of Africa Proconsularis, suffragan of Carthage. Uthina is mentioned by Ptolemy (IV, 3, 34), Pliny (V, 4), and the Peutinger Tables. Pliny and an inscription call it a colony. From the accounts given by geographers the site seems to be the ruins known as Henshir Oudna, near a station on the railway from Tunis to Kef, Tunisia. These ruins occupy a surface nearly three miles in circumference, covering a hilly plateau, and commanding the left bank of the Milian wâdys; there are the remains of a fortress, cisterns, an aqueduct, triumphal arch, theatre, amphitheatre, basilica with a circular crypt, bridge, etc. Many beautiful mosaics are to be found there. Uthina had a bishop in the time of Tertullian by whom he was severely criticized (De Monogamia, xii). Five others are known: Felix, present at the Council of Carthage (256); Lampadius, at the Council of Arles in Gaul (314); Isaac, at the Conference of Carthage (411), where he had as rival the Donatist, Felicianus; Gallonius, at the Council of Carthage (419); and Quietus at that of 525.

Sources

GUERIN, Voyage archeologique dans la regence de Tunis, II (Paris, 1862), 283; TOULOTTE, Geogr. de l’Afrique Chretiene proconsulaire (Paris, 1892), 316-18.

Source Record

Author
Pétridès, Sophrone
Publication
The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1912.
Nihil Obstat
Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.
Imprimatur
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.