The downfall of Caelestis: Salvian of Marseille and the end of public cult in Roman Carthage

In De gubernatione dei 8, Salvian claims that Carthaginian Christian noblemen worshipped Caelestis until the Vandalic conquest in 439. This article argues that Salvian’s account is fundamentally unreliable. Augustine and the anonymous Liber promissionum allow one to reconstruct the restrictions on Caelestis’ cult across 399-421. Salvian is ignorant of these developments, and his picture of Carthaginian society does not cohere with Augustine or post-Augustinian sermons. Salvian may not be engaging in outright fiction, but he is distorting cultural patterns attested in Augustine’s works, and so cannot be used as a source for Romano-African cult during its demise.