CHAPTER  THE FIFTEENTH
CHRISTIAN INFLUENCES IN  MOROCCO

ALTHOUGH it is generally assumed by writers on
Morocco   that   there   once   existed    a   flourishing
Christian church in this land, w^hen the founda-
unwarranted       ^j^^    ^^    which    that    assumption    rests    is

Assumptions.                                                                                    ^

examined, it is found to be but slender, and
quite insufficient to sustain the fabric raised upon it.
Innocent HI., it is true, declares in a bull directed to the
African bishops that the gospel had been published here by
the apostles,! and Pifieda says that Peter preached along
the North African coast as far as Mauretania. In support
of this statement he cites Nicephorus and Baronis, the
latter of whom attributed the journey to the fifteenth year
of his " pontificate." ^

Mercier maintains that in the year 40 '* St. Mark, a
Cyrenian Jew, came to his country to make proselytes,
carrying on this work until about 61, when he went
to Alexandria to establish churches. Having there
become the head of the church, he did not forget
his country, but returned several times, and instituted,
so they say, the first bishops."^ All this, however, is
very vague, and whatever success attended the pleach¬
ing of Christ in the more eastern of the Roman
provinces in Africa, there can be little doubt that in
what we now know as Morocco no real foot-hold was
ever gained by Christianity, though there may have been

1 Puerto, p. 5.          2 Monarquia Ecclesiastica, part i., bk. x.           3 p. no.

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