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Thomas C. Oden surveys the decisive role of African Christians and theologians in shaping the doctrines and practices of the church of the first five centuries, and makes an impassioned plea for the rediscovery of that heritage. Christians throughout the world will benefit from this reclaiming of an important heritage.
Weaving sound historical research with rich ethnographic insight, An Impossible Inheritance tells the story of the emergence, disavowal, and afterlife of a distinctive project in transcultural psychiatry initiated at the Fann Psychiatric Clinic in Dakar, Senegal during the 1960s and 1970s. Today’s clinic remains haunted by its past and Katie Kilroy-Marac brilliantly examines the complex forms of memory work undertaken by its affiliates over a sixty year period. Through stories such as that of the the ghost said to roam the clinic’s halls, the mysterious death of a young doctor sometimes attributed to witchcraft, and the spirit possession ceremonies that may have taken place in Fann’s courtyard, Kilroy-Marac argues that memory work is always an act of the imagination and a moral practice with unexpected temporal, affective, and political dimensions. By exploring how accounts about the Fann Psychiatric Clinic and its past speak to larger narratives of postcolonial and neoliberal transformation, An Impossible Inheritance examines the complex relationship between memory, history, and power within the institution and beyond.
In The Cross in the Visual Culture of Late Antique Egypt Gillian Spalding-Stracey brings the design of crosses in monastic and ecclesiastical settings to the fore. Visual representations of the Holy Cross are often so ubiquitous in Christian art that they are often overlooked as artistic devices themselves. This volume offers an exploration of the variety of designs and associated imagery by which the Cross was expressed across the Egyptian landscape in late antiquity. A survey of locations and images leads to an analysis of artistic influences, possible symbolism, variance across time and place and the contextual use of the motif. Gillian Spalding-Stracey provides the reader with an art-historical perspective of the socio-cultural situation in Egypt at the time.
With increasing interest in early Egyptian (Coptic) Christianity, this volume offers an important collection of essays about Coptic language, literature, and social history by the very finest authors in the field. The essays explore a wide range of topics and offer much to the advancement of Coptic studies
The Vision of Theophilus is an apocryphal work that enjoyed great popularity in Late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages [wrongly attributed to the Patriarch Theophilus (385-412 CE)]. The original text, now lost, was composed in Coptic, but versions have survived in Syriac, Arabic and Ethiopic. It details the legendary journey of the Holy family's famous flight into Egypt, where they pass through various sites in the Egyptian landscape.
Saint John the Little was a monk and hegumen of Scetis (Wadi Natrun) during the first great period of early Egyptian monasticism. The Apophthegmata preserve some fifty sayings by or about him (see CS 59, 85 '96). In addition, Zacharias, eighth-century Bishop of Sakha, wrote his Life, more than seventy percent of which is composed of material not found in the Apophthegmata. John bears witness to the formative period of early Egyptian monasticism. His Life, with its emphasis on obedience and compassion, offers a lively witness to the earliest monastic traditions and to their transmission and continuing importance in the Coptic Church. This book contains an introduction to the textual history o...
To read and visualize the transfiguration of Christ is to enter its mystery and encounter its hope. Like the Gospel writers and the disciples who climbed the mountain with Jesus, we struggle to tell the story and explain its meaning. Yet this astounding event reveals God’s ultimate purpose in sending his Son—the complete restoration of humanity and all creation—our transfiguration in Christ. The light and glory of that moment reveal a destiny that is infinite and eternal, made possible by the power of grace. Transfiguration is the trajectory and goal of our spiritual journey. Across time and space, Christians have reflected on the mystery and hope epitomized in the transfiguration, yet their voices have been heard primarily within their own cultural and ecclesiastical contexts. This study gathers many of those voices from the panorama of Scripture and church history and finds in them the common theme of radical transformation in Christ. The point of this theological conversation is spiritual transfiguration and hope for each of us as we reach toward the future Christ has shown us in himself.
Contemplative reading is a spiritual practice developed by Christian monks in sixth- and seventh-century Mesopotamia. Mystics belonging to the Church of the East pursued a form of contemplation which moved from reading, to meditation, to prayer, to the ecstasy of divine vision. The Library of Paradise tells the story of this Syriac tradition in three phases: its establishment as an ascetic practice, the articulation of its theology, and its maturation and spread. The sixth-century monastic reform of Abraham of Kashkar codified the essential place of reading in East Syrian ascetic life. Once established, the practice of contemplative reading received extensive theological commentary. Abraham'...
In this finely written study of demonology and Christian spirituality in fourth- and fifth-century Egypt, David Brakke examines how the conception of the monk as a holy and virtuous being was shaped by the combative encounter with demons. Drawing on biographies of exceptional monks, collections of monastic sayings and stories, letters from ascetic teachers to their disciples, sermons, and community rules, Brakke crafts a compelling picture of the embattled religious celibate.
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.