Abstract
The African exegesis of the basic biblical places associated with the words in principio is linked to the Alexandrian roots of the interpretation of each concept. The study examines how this reception took place and what conclusions it reached.
In most African writers it appears in a greatly simplified, even rudimentary form. In the case of Quodvultdeo, a good knowledge of the traditional interpretation of Gen 1:1 and Jn 1:1 having a basis in Origen's exegesis can be assumed, while at the same time his argument regarding the presence of the Trinity at creation in Gen 1:1 may represent further internal evidence of the authorship of the corpus of discourses attributed to this author.
All the authors are united by the new context in which the interpretation of the concepts of ἀρχή/principium and λόγος/verbum appears, namely, the polemic with the Arian Vandals in the situation of the oppression of the Catholic Church, and in the case of Fulgentia and Facundus, in the context of the post-Chalcedonian Christological controversies, where they were vividly involved in the current Byzantine theological debate, especially in the dispute over the Three Chapters. The study shows that the reflection on the concepts studied by the African authors builds on previous theological disputes and the foundations of Alexandrian theology, but at the same time is used as a building block for theological argumentation in a completely changed historical and cultural context on theological issues that were topical for the African Church of the Vandal era and the Byzantine reconquista of North Africa after 533.