Justinian aimed at restoring all things to their first estate. "We would be the guardians and defenders of the ancient traditions," he wrote in 542 to the primate of Byzacene. He confirmed the Bishop of Carthage in his metropolitan dignity; he restored sees, allowed synods to meet, gave special privileges to the clergy. An era of church building set in, and fine monasteries were erected, in all the impressive solidity of the Byzantine style, even in distant parts of the Roman territory. Tebessa remains a marvellous example of the wealth and dignity which came anew to the North African Church. The literary power of the Church revived with her material prosperity: a school of writers arose again in the land of Augustine. Primasius, Facundus, Liberatus, Victor of Tonnenna, were among those who restored the activity and knowledge of the Church in history, theology, and apologetic. Over all the emperor Justinian kept his watchful eye, directing, interfering, exhorting, as seemed to him good. The controversy of the Three Chapters had its echoes in Africa, and the deacon Ferrand, a learned theologian, represented a very wide feeling when, in his _Defensio_, he deprecated any condemnation of the dead theologians; and in Facundus, Bishop of Hermiane, the unhappy hesitating pope Vigilius found an adviser who, if anyone, might have given him firmness. In the result, the emperor, by the pen at least as much as the sword, overpowered resistance, and Africa accepted the decisions of Constantinople. Reparatus, Bishop of Carthage, who resisted, was deposed, Liberatus {107} preserves the record of bitter persecution, and Victor of Tonnenna, who equally refused to accept the decision against the Three Chapters, is especially bitter in his denunciation of Justinian. But the pope Pelagius was able, in 560, to announce the assent of Africa to the statements of the Fifth General Council. The Church from the death of Justinian settled down in peaceable habitations, strong in the imperial support and the affection of the people. But as, in the relaxation which set in as time went on, the power of the imperial administration decayed, the power of the popes in Africa was gradually strengthened, and the power of the bishops rose equally. But this was not all. In time relaxation set in in the Church as well as in the State. There are tales of immoral and corrupt bishops, of disobedience to authority, of a recrudescence, from 591 to 596, of Donatism. It was the pope Gregory the Great who took in hand the needed reformation. [Its relation to Gregory the Great.] His letters are full of African affairs: his keen attention, his instructions to Hilarus, the administrator of the Roman Church's possessions in Italy, his minute knowledge, his wise understanding of the many difficult problems which beset the Church, are prominent in his correspondence. It was he who reversed the conception of Justinian in regard to the Church of North Africa.