African Roots in the Early Church

Study Notes

The black Catholic community in America found its roots in the religious experience of Africa and its self-definition in the African saints of the early church.
Early American Protestants and Catholics found their roots in the black Africans who appeared in the pages of the Scriptures, both in the Old Testament and the New.
Origen, the great Alexandrian church father of the third century, saw the bride in the Song of Songs as the church.
The Queen of Sheba, a beautiful woman with black skin who appeared in the Song of Songs, was seen as a type of the church.
The Queen of Sheba was seen as an Ethiopian Queen, symbolizing the universality of the church, and a foreshadowing of the acceptance of people of all nations into the Christian faith.
Origen saw the wife of Moses and Ebed-Melech, the Kushite who saved the life of Jeremiah, as symbols of blackness in the Old Testament.
“Kushite” was a term that referred to people from Nubia, a black African nation south of Egypt.
The land of Nubia played a key role in the transmission of Egyptian civilization to sub-Saharan Africa and the flow of African riches to Egypt.
The Nubians built their own pyramids, temples, and had their own culture and writing system - ultimately establishing their own empire.
By the 8th century BC, the Nubian kingdom became the dominant power, with the Nubian king Kashta taking control of Upper Egypt.