Bonusta was a town, not far from

Carthage Carthage was an ancient city in Northern Africa, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classic ...

, in the

Roman province The Roman provinces (, pl. ) were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman appointed as Roman g ...

Africa Proconsularis Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. No trace of it has been identified.Stefano Antonio Morcelli
''Africa christiana''
Volume I, Brescia 1816, pp. 105–106

Bishop Rufinianus

At the

Conference of Carthage (411) The Councils of Carthage were church synods held during the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries in the city of Carthage in Africa. The most important of these are described below. Synod of 251 In May 251 a synod, assembled under the presidency of Cypr ...

, which brought together for joint discussion the Catholic and

Donatist Donatism was a schism from the Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Carthage from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and their prayers and sacraments to ...

bishops of

Roman Africa Roman Africa or Roman North Africa is the culture of Roman Africans that developed from 146 BC, when the Roman Republic defeated Carthage and the Punic Wars ended, with subsequent institution of Roman Empire, Roman Imperial government, through th ...

, Bonusta was represented by the Catholic bishop Rufinianus. He declared that there never been Donatists at Bonusta. Primianus, a Donatist, responded: "He (Rufinianus) was one of us. We do have people there for whom we could ordain a bishop." Rufinianus retorted: "There never were."

Auguste Audollent Auguste Audollent (14 July 1864 – 7 April 1943) was a French historian, archaeologist and Latin epigrapher, specialist of ancient Rome, in particular the magical inscriptions ('' tabellæ defixionum''). His main thesis was devoted to ''Roman C ...

, v. ''Bonustensis'' i
''Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques''
vol. IX, 1937, col. 1136Pius Bonifacius Gams
''Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae''
Leipzig 1931, p. 464

Bishop Cyprianus

In the ''Notitia Provinciarum et Civitatum Africae'', the name of Bishop Cyprianus of Bonusta appears in the 31st place in the list of Catholic bishops of Africa Proconsularis whom the

Vandal The Vandals were a Germanic people who were first reported in the written records as inhabitants of what is now Poland, during the period of the Roman Empire. Much later, in the fifth century, a group of Vandals led by kings established Vandal ...

king

Huneric Huneric, Hunneric or Honeric (died December 23, 484) was King of the (North African) Vandal Kingdom (477–484) and the oldest son of Gaiseric. He abandoned the imperial politics of his father and concentrated mainly on internal affairs. He was ma ...

summoned to Carthage in 484 and then exiled.

Titular see

No longer a residential bishopric, Bonusta is today listed by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

as a

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbi ...

.''Annuario Pontificio 2013'' (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ), p. 852

References

{{reflist Catholic titular sees in Africa