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Jude 3 Project
Resources

Early African Christianity Bibliography

The Christian faith has deep roots in Africa. This is a working bibliography of primary texts and scholarship tracing that heritage across Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, North Africa, and the study of race in antiquity, for anyone who wants to read further.

106 sources · 7 areas

01

Primary Texts

19 sources
  • Acts of Mark, ed. Allen Dwight Callahan. In The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: Harvard Divinity School Studies, ed. F. Bovon, A.G. Brock, and C.R. Matthews, 62-85. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, 1999.
  • Apophthegmata Patrum, ed. John Wortley. In The Book of the Elders: Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Systematic Collection. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2012.
  • Athanasius, Life of Antony, ed. Robert C. Gregg. In Athanasius: The Life of Antony and The Letter to Marcellinus. New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1980.
  • Athanasius of Alexandria, Apologia ad Constantium, ed. A. Robertson. In NPNF 4. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1907.
  • Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, ed. David Vincent Meconi. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2012.
  • Benjamin of Alexandria, On Cana of Galilee: A Sermon by the Coptic Patriarch Benjamin I, ed. Maged Mikhail. In CCR 23.3 (2002): 66-93.
  • Cyprian of Carthage, Letters, ed. Rose Berard Donna. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1964.
  • Ethiopian Synaxarion, ed. E.A. Wallis Budge. In The Book of the Saints of the Ethiopian Church. New York, NY: G. Olms, 1976.
  • History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria, ed. B. Evetts. In PO 1, (1904): 105-211; 383-518; 5 (1910): 2-215.
  • Isaac the Presbyter, Life of Samuel of Kalamun, ed. Anthony Alcock. Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd, 1983.
  • John of Nikiu, The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu, ed. R.H. Charles. Merchantville, NJ: Evolution Publishing, 2007.
  • Kebra Nagast, ed. Miguel F. Brooks. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press, 1995.
  • Life of Daniel of Scetis, ed. Tim Vivian. In Witness to Holiness: Abba Daniel of Scetis. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2008.
  • Life of Pachomius, ed. Armand Veilleux. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1980.
  • Mena of Nikiu, The Life of Isaac of Alexandria, ed. D.N. Bell. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1988.
  • Pseudo-Dioscorus of Alexandria, Panegyric on Macarius of Tkôw, ed. David W. Johnson. In CSCO 415- 416. Louvain: Secrétariat du Corpus SCO, 1980.
  • Shenoute of Atripe, Canons, ed. Bentley Layton. In The Canons of Our Fathers: Monastic Rules of Shenoute. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
  • ________________, Discourses, eds. David Brakke & Andrew Crislip. Selected Discourses of Shenoute the Great: Community, Theology, and Social Conflict in Late Antique Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
  • Timothy Aelurus, Against Chalcedon, eds. R.Y. Ebied and L.R. Wickham. In After Chalcedon: Studies in Theology and Church History Offered to Professor Albert van Roey, ed. And trans. C. Laga, J.A. Munitiz, & L. Van Rompay, Leuven: Peeters, 1985, 115-166.
02

Survey Books

8 sources
  • Atiya, Aziz. History of Eastern Christianity. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2010.
  • Burton, Keith Augustus. The Blessing of Africa: The Bible and African Christianity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007.
  • Hoyland, Robert G. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam. Princeton, NJ: The Darwin Press, 1998.
  • Jenkins, Philip. The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia- and How It Died. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2009.
  • Johnson, Scott F. Languages and Cultures of Eastern Christianity: Greek. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2015.
  • Oden, Thomas C. How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007.
  • Usry, Glen & Craig S. Keener. Black Man’s Religion: Can Christianity Be Afrocentric? Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996.
  • Yamauchi, Edwin M. Africa and the Bible. Ada, MI: Baker Publishing, 2006.
03

Egypt

17 sources
  • Bagnall, Roger. Egypt in the Byzantine World, 300-700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  • Brakke, David. Athanasius and Asceticism. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.
  • Davis, Stephen J. Coptic Christology in Practice: Incarnation and Divine Participation in Late Antique and Medieval Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
  • _____________. The Early Coptic Papacy: The Egyptian Church and its Leadership in Late Antiquity. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2004.
  • Foat, Michael. “I Myself Have Seen: The Representation of Humanity in the Writings of Apa Shenoute of Atripe.” Ph.D. diss., Brown University, Providence, 1996.
  • Frankfurter, David. Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt. Leiden: Brill, 1998.
  • _______________. Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.
  • Goehring, James E. Ascetics, Society, and the Desert: Studies in Early Egyptian Monasticism. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999.
  • Guirguis, Fatin Morris. “The Vision of Theophilus: Resistance Through Orality Among the Persecuted Copts.” Ph.D. diss., Florida Atlantic University, 2010.
  • Harmless, William. Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
  • Iskander, John. “Islamization in Medieval Egypt: The Copto-Arabic ‘Apocalypse of Samuel’ as a Source for the Social and Religious History of Medieval Copts.” Medieval Encounters 4
  • (1998): 219-227.
  • Mikhail, Maged S.A. From Christian Egypt to Islamic Egypt: Religion, Identity, and Politics after the Arab Conquest. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2014.
  • Papaconstantinou, Arietta. “‘They Shall Speak the Arabic Language and Take Pride In It’: Reconsidering the Fate of Coptic After the Arab Conquest.” Le Muséon 120 (2007): 273- 299.
  • Pearson, Birger A. & James E. Goehring. The Roots of Egyptian Christianity. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1986.
  • Roberts, C.H. Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.
  • Van der Vliet, Jacques. “The Copts: ‘Modern Sons of the Pharaohs?’” In Religious Origins of Nations? The Christian Communities of the Middle East, ed. Bas ter Haar Romeny, 279- 290, Leiden: Brill, 2010.
04

Nubia

22 sources
  • Adams, William Y. Nubia: Corridor to Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977.
  • _______________. “The Twilight of Nubian Christianity.” In Nubia: Récentes Recherches Actes du colloque Nubiologique International au Musée National de Varsovie 19-22 Juin 1972, ed. Kazimierz Michałowski, 11-17. Varsovie: Musée National, 1975.
  • _______________. “The United Kingdom of Makouria and Nobadia: A Medieval Nubian Anomaly.” In Egypt and Africa: Nubia from Prehistory to Islam, ed. W. V. Davies, 257-263. London: British Museum Press, 1991.
  • Burckhardt, John Lewis. Travels in Nubia. London: John Murray/Albemarle Street, 1819.
  • Davies, W.V. Egypt and Africa: Nubia from Prehistory to Islam. London: British Museum Press, 1991.
  • Burstein, Stanley ed. Ancient African Civilizations: Kush and Axum. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1997.
  • Faraji, Salim. The Roots of Nubian Christianity Uncovered. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2012.
  • Grillmeier, Aloys. Christ in Christian Tradition: Vol. 2 From the Council of Chalcedon (451) to Gregory the Great (590-604): Part 4 The Church of Alexandria with Nubia and Ethiopia after 451. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1996.
  • Łajtar, Adam and Jacques Van Der Vliet. Nubian Voices: Studies in Christian Nubian Culture. Warsaw: The Journal of Juristic Papyrology, 2011.
  • Obłuski, Arthur. The Rise of Nobadia: Social Changes in Northern Nubia in Late Antiquity. Warsaw: The Journal of Juristic Papyrology, 2014.
  • Plumley, J.M. “New Light on the Kingdom of Dotawo.” Études nubiennes. Colloque de Chantilly, 2-6 juillet 1975. Bibliothèque d’étude 77 (1978): 231-241.
  • Ruffini, Giovanni R. The Bishop, the Eparch, and the King: Old Nubian Texts from Qasr Ibrim (P. QI IV). Warsaw: The Journal of Juristic Papyrology, 2014.
  • ________________. Medieval Nubia: A Social and Economic History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
  • Shinnie, Peter L. Ancient Nubia. New York, NY: Routledge, 2009.
  • Spaulding, Jay. “Medieval Christian Nubia and the Islamic World: A Reconsideration of the Baqt Treaty.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 28 (1995): 577-594.
  • ____________. “The Funj: A Reconsideration.” The Journal of African History 13
  • (1972): 39-53.
  • Taylor, John H. Egypt and Nubia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.
  • Welsby, Derek A. The Medieval Kingdoms of Nubia: Pagans, Christians and Muslims along the Middle Nile. London: The British Museum Press, 2002.
  • Williams, Bruce. “Studies in the Later History of Nubia.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 64 (2005): 309-311.
  • Žabkar, Louis V. “The Eparch of Nubia as King.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 22
  • (1963): 217-219.
05

Ethiopia

9 sources
  • Conti Russini, Carlo. Storia d’Etiopia. Bergamo: istituto italiano d’arti grafiche, 1928.
  • Getahun Solomon Addis & Wudu Tafete Kassu, Culture and Customs of Ethiopia. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2014.
  • Irvine, A.K. “On the Identity of Habashat in the South Arabian Inscriptions.” JSS 10 (1965): 178-196.
  • Munro-Hay, Stuart. Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991.
  • Isaac, Ephraim. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahido Church. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2012.
  • Kidane, Dawit Worku. The Ethics of Zär’a Ya’ɘqob: A Reply to the Historical and Religious Violence in the Seventeenth Century Ethiopia. Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 2012.
  • Marcus, Harold G. A History of Ethiopia, 2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.
  • Uhlig, Siegbert. “Ge’ez.” in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, 732-735. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005.
  • Ullendorff, Edward. The Ethiopians: An Introduction to Country and People, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.
06

North Africa

16 sources
  • Bakker, Henk, Paul van Geest and Hans van Loon. Cyprian of Carthage: Studies in His Life, Language, and Thought. Leuven: Peeters, 2010.
  • Brent, Allen. Cyprian and Roman Carthage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
  • Chadwick, Henry. Augustine of Hippo: A Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
  • Dunn, Geoffrey D. Cyprian and the Bishops of Rome: Questions of Papal Primacy in the Early Church. Strathfield: St Pauls Publications, 2007.
  • Dupont, Anthony, Matthew Alan Gaumer and Mathijs Lamberigts. The Uniquely African Controversy: Studies on Donatist Christianity. Leuven: Peeters, 2015.
  • Evers, Alexander. Church, Cities, and People: A Study of the Plebs in the Church and Cities of Roman Africa in Late Antiquity. Leuven: Peeters, 2010.
  • Elizabeth W.B. Fentress, Numidia and the Roman Army: Social, Military and Economic Aspects of the Frontier Zone. Oxford: BAR International, 1979.
  • Frend, W.H.C. The Donatist Church: A Movement of Protest in Roman North Africa, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
  • Gonzalez, Eliezer. The Fate of the Dead in Early Third Century North African Christianity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014.
  • Hoyos, Dexter. Mastering the West: Rome and Carthage at War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
  • Keleher, James P. Saint Augustine’s Notion of Schism in the Donatist Controversy. Mundelein, IL: Saint Mary of the Lake Seminary, 1961.
  • Merrills, A.H. Vandals, Romans and Berbers: New Perspectives on Late Antique North Africa Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004.
  • Oden, Thomas C. Early Libyan Christianity: Uncovering a North African Tradition. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011.
  • Papandrea, James L. Novatian: On the Trinity, Letters to Cyrpian of Carthage, Ethical Treatises. Turnhout: Brepols, 2015.
  • Ployd, Adam. Augustine, the Trinity, and the Church. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
  • Tilley, Maureen A. Donatist Martyr Stories: The Church in Conflict in Roman North Africa Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996.
07

Race in Antiquity

15 sources
  • Bernal, Martin. Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, 3 vols. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987.
  • Buell, Denise K. Why This New Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2008.
  • Burguière, André and Raymond Grew. The Construction of Minorities: Cases for Comparison Across Time and Around the World. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2001.
  • Byron, Gay. Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference in Early Christianity. New York, NY: Routledge, 2002.
  • Diop, Cheikh Anta. The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, 1989.
  • Gruen, Erich S. Rethinking the Other in Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012.
  • Hall, Jonathan M. Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
  • ______________. Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2002.
  • Haar Romeny, Bas ter. Religious Origins of Nations? The Christian Communities of the Middle East. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
  • Isaac, Benjamin. The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.
  • Johnson, Aaron P. Ethnicity and Argument in Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
  • ______________. Religion and Identity in Porphyry of Tyre: The Limits of Hellenism in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
  • Kennedy, Rebecca F., C. Syndor Roy & Max L. Goldman, Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World: An Anthology of Primary Sources in Translation. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2013.
  • McCoskey, Denise. Race: Antiquity and its Legacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
  • Snowden, Frank M. Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1971.