uildings, especially
churches, of which five in Leptis alone.[124]

An early result of Justinian's reconquest of Africa was that the bishops
met in plenary council, under the presidency of the primate of Carthage,
Reparatus, successor of Boniface. After a hundred years of Vandal
oppression, 217 bishops assembled in the Basilica of Faustus, at Carthage,
named Justiniana in honour of the emperor--the church which Hunnerich had
taken from the Catholics, in which many bodies of martyrs were buried. To
their intercession the council ascribed their deliverance from persecution.
After reading the Nicene decrees, they discussed the question whether Arian
priests who had become Catholics should be received in their dignity or
only to lay communion. All the members of the council inclined to the
latter judgment. They, however, would come to no decision, but with one
voice determined to consult Pope John II. They addressed a letter to him by
the hands of two bishops and a deacon, in which they say: "We considered it
agreeable to charity that no one should disclose our judgment until first
the custom or determination of the Roman Church should be made known to us:
honouring herein with due obedience the authority of your Blessedness,
being such a Pontiff as the holy See of Peter deserved to have, worthy of
veneration, full of affection, speaking the truth without falsehood, doing
nothing with arrogance. Therefore the free charity of the whole brotherhood
thought that your counsel should be asked. And we beg that your mind, the
organ of the Holy Spirit,[125] may answer us kindly and truly."[126]

When the African deputies reached Rome, Pope John II. was already dead.
But his successor Agapetus answered the questions of the council, attaching
also the ancient canons which decided thereupon, to the effect that at
whatever age a person had been infected by the Arian pestilence, if he
became afterwards a Catholic he should not retain any rank, but that
converted Arian priests might receive support from the Church fund. Pope
Agapetus wrote expressing his intense joy at the recovery of their country:
"For, since the Church is everywhere one body, your sorrow was our
affliction. And we acknowledge your most sincere charity in that, as became
wise and learned men, you did not forget the Apostolic Principate; but, in
order to resolve that question, sought approach to that See to which the
power of the keys is given".[127]

This council also