Those for Whom the Lamp Shines: The Making of Egyptian Ethnic Identity in Late Antiquity by Vince L. Bantu (review)

Reviewed by: Those for Whom the Lamp Shines: The Making of Egyptian Ethnic Identity in Late Antiquity by Vince L. Bantu Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga Vince L. Bantu Those for Whom the Lamp Shines: The Making of Egyptian Ethnic Identity in Late Antiquity Oakland: University of California Press, 2023 Pp. ix + 288. 95. 00. The question of when to date the emergence of a distinct Christian Egyptian identity, and how to characterize that identity (as national, ethnic, confessional, provincial, etc. ), is an important, if not always central, one for scholars of late antique and early Islamic Egypt. While the prevailing consensus at this point is that no such identity existed until some point after the end of Roman hegemony in Egypt, Vince Bantu's monograph is the first to make a sustained argument against this prevailing consensus. Through a close examination of Egyptian and non-Egyptian Christian texts between the fourth and eighth centuries, Bantu argues that a distinct Egyptian "ethnic consciousness" emerged two centuries before 'Amr Ibn al-'Aṣ's arrival in Egypt, as a product of the imposition of council of Chalcedon throughout the empire (2). The first chapter, "Egyptian Ethnicity in Late Antiquity, " endeavors to explain why the author decided to characterize Christian Egyptian identity as "ethnicity, " rather than race or nationality. Bantu believes that because Egyptians "did not write out a clear definition of exactly what they meant by ethnos, genos, or rōme (the Coptic term for a 'person' or 'human being') " (12), the study of Egyptian Christian texts must center on the ways in which these texts create ethnic boundaries that define the group. End Page 299 The other chapters then proceed chronologically. Chapter Two investigates the use of ethnic framing in Egyptian Christian texts prior to Chalcedon, noting that Egypt's Christians "placed very little emphasis on their unique ethnic identity" and that their texts still reflected an Egyptian Christianity that was fully integrated into and part of the imperial church (15). Bantu does note, however, that "awareness of and pride in Egyptian identity were present prior to Chalcedon" (42). Chapters Three to Five investigate Egyptian boundary maintenance after Chalcedon. Chapter Three focuses on texts of the early sixth century, laying the foundations for an Egyptian miaphysite identity that was not secessionist, but constitutes what Bantu believes is a transparent strategy of identity formation. Chapter Four carries the analysis into the reign of Justinian, arguing that the Egyptian ecclesiastical response was "immediate and unified across every level of ecclesiastical authority" (70), and analyzing the ways in which Coptic depictions of Byzantine Chalcedonians were juxtaposed with Egyptian holy men. Chapter Five moves into the period after the Islamic conquest of Egypt, discussing the calcification of Egyptian miaphysite identity in this time, and highlighting "the persistence of Chalcedonians as the primary enemy of Egyptian Miaphysites into Islamic times" (100). Chapter Six focuses on non-Egyptian anti-Chalcedonian perspectives of Egypt (primarily that of Severos of Antioch) and argues persuasively that Egypt was understood by non-Egyptian miaphysites to be the hub of anti-Chalcedonianism, an argument that this reviewer finds particularly compelling and well-supported by the fact that many of the movement's key figures (and first splitters, in the case of the Gaianites) emerged in Egypt. I must acknowledge that after some consideration of the question of Egyptian identity in late antiquity for my own work on the Chronicle of John of Nikiu, I have come to the opposite conclusion of the author: I view the formation and calcification of a Coptic identity as a distinctly post-Roman phenomenon. I must concede, however, that there is room for the conversation to continue. There has been little recent consideration of Egyptian perceptions of the Roman state, the ways in which Romans from other parts of the empire viewed Egypt and its people, and whether Egyptian Christian identity rose to the level of some sort of subaltern identity. With that said, some of the claims made in the monograph raise significant questions. For example, one claim of ethnic boundary-formation rests on a source which is firmly outside of the period under discussion, the Apocalypse of Pseudo- Samuel of Kalamoun. Bantu himself acknowledges that this. . .