EARLY AFRICAN CHRISTIANITY BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Texts
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.
Survey Books
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.
Egypt
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.
Nubia
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.
Ethiopia
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.
North Africa
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.
Race in Antiquity
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.