The paper aims at showing the continuity of the methods and motivations of the religious persecutions in Roman North Africa between IV and VII century. Different examples are briefly analysed: anti-Christian persecutions of the first centuries, the struggle between the Catholics and the Donatists, the persecution of the Catholics by the Vandals and the religious coercion exercised against Jews and dissidents under Byzantine dominion. The continuity can be found not only in the means employed by the oppressors and their justification, but also in the description of the situation produced by the victims.