Alex Miller’s Conditions of Faith, Allen & Unwin 2001 – PART THREE – The Conditions of Faith

❝ First, a note of caution. It is undoubtedly true that Hakim el-Oeudi and his colleague, Ahmed, will be delighted by your title, The Secular Perpetua, as it indeed implies more scope than Delattre’s approach for the history of the native peoples of the Maghrib. But we must never forget, the Arabs did not conquer the Maghrib until five hundred years after Perpetua’s time. After our dinner at Antoine’s that evening, neither you nor I can doubt Hakim el-Oeudi’s passionate partisanship on the question of Arab nationalism. [I would caution you to hold yourself aloof, therefore, from an engagement with the fierce politics of these people. You will discover that assiduous diplomacy and the practice of a balanced neutrality are essential skills for all of us who venture to ply our trade in foreign lands]. In your enthusiasm, do not, I beg you, underestimate Pere Delattre. He is a scholar of formidable intelligence and ability. It has been his guardianship alone over the past half century that has preserved the principal remains of Roman and Punic Carthage from being utterly obliterated and built over by new suburbs. Without the work of Delattre and his White Fathers there would be nothing left of Carthage for you and I, nor for Hakim el-Ouedi, to study and to disagree about. But Delattre is an octogenarian and you and Hakim are both young. For you, Delattre is a man [FROM] another time. I understand that. [It is a ready fault in all young people impatient for the truth to judge the past by the standards of the present – the only standards you possess, after all, and so you mistakenly believe them to be timeless and universal]. But experience soon teaches us that no standards are more fickle than those we apply to the writing of history. If we are not vigilant, [it is soon our own work that is unread and out of fashion].

❝ You have made such a very important beginning! You have impressed us all with your resolve to make [PERPETUA’S] voice audible to us above the din of Tertullian’s bleak and heartless discourse .. ❞

the early part of Dr Olive Kallen, US anthropolgist’s, letter to Emily pp 258-9 //