Those for Whom the Lamp Shines

The Making of Egyptian Ethnic Identity in Late Antiquity

Vince L. Bantu

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9780520388802
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520388826
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

In Those for Whom the Lamp Shines, Vince L. Bantu uses the rich body of anti-Chalcedonian literature to explore how the peoples of Egypt, both inside and outside the Coptic Church, came to understand their identity as Egyptians. Working across a comparative spectrum of traditions and communities in late antiquity, at the intersection of religious and other social forms of identity, Bantu shows that it was the dissenting doctrines of the Coptic Church that played the crucial role in conceptualizing Egypt and being Egyptian. Based on the study of neglected Coptic and Syriac texts, Those for Whom the Lamp Shines offers the only sustained treatment of ethnic and religious self-understanding in Africa’s oldest Christian church.

Table of contents

• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Egyptian Ethnicity in Late Antiquity
• 2. Egyptian Christians and Ethnicity Prior to Chalcedon
• 3. Aftermath of Chalcedon
• 4. Response to Justinian
• 5. Identity Formation Under Islam
• 6. Egyptian Identity from Outside Perspectives
• Conclusion: Miaphysite Christology as Identity Boundary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index