At the turn of the fifth century, the Alexandrian patriarch Theophilus asked the rhetorical question: How can you say that a Cushite is in the image of God?Footnote ¹ The patriarch's statement evokes questions regarding race in late antique Christianity. The following study will explore the nature of race and racism in early Christianity with a specific focus on how this social construct varied across cultural contexts. This study is based upon two fundamental controversial principles that I hold to: 1) the social construct of race existed in certain forms in Late Antiquity and is not unique to the modern world and 2) racism also existed in the ancient world. I define race as a broader social category than ethnicity in which various groups of people are envisioned as belonging to a collective that transcends empire, ethnicity, language, and religion and that is based primarily on physical characteristics.Footnote ² I define racism in antiquity as the belief that racial groups with lighter skin are inherently superior to those with darker skin.Footnote ³ Although this belief system would later become weaponized through race-based colonialism and slavery during the medieval and modern periods, racism remained a worldview in Late Antiquity. The texts surveyed in the following will demonstrate these points. Furthermore, this study will explore how social factors such as race, ethnicity, and language resulted in variegated ways that early Christians talked about race.

Race was a marker of Greek and, later, Roman superiority that elevated the balance between Black and white in contrast to the “barbarians” on either side of the racial spectrum: “Those who are too black are cowards; this applies to Egyptians and Ethiopians. But the excessively white are also cowardly; witness women. But the complexion that tends to courage is in between these two.”Footnote ⁴ Aristotle espoused a vision of biological determinism that stratified humanity with respect to their relative position on the earth:

When the Roman Empire conquered and subsumed Hellenistic society in the late first century BCE, the Greeks were ethnically differentiated from Romans. However, much of Roman society was influenced by Hellenistic civilization, including racism and biological determinism. Marcus Vitruvius repeats a similar method of racially categorizing the world as Aristotle did three centuries prior: “The races of Italy are the most perfectly constituted in both respects—in bodily form and in mental activity to correspond to their valour … Hence it was the divine intelligence that set the city of the Roman people in a peerless and temperate country, in order that it might acquire the right to command the whole world.”Footnote ⁶ Specifically, Black people (“Ethiopians”) were often contrasted in Greco-Roman literature with Scythians who, in the minds of Greco-Roman society, represented the “white” extreme of humanity. “Ethiopians” and Scythians were often contrasted as polar ends of humanity while the Greco-Roman world inhabited the idealistic middle ground, geographically and racially.Footnote ⁷

It is true that Greeks and Romans thought of their skin color as a representation of their racial and geographical balance and thus, superiority, to the “white” and “Black” people around them. However, the examples in classical Greek and Roman literature include far more examples of Blackness being disparaged than whiteness. Juvenal satirically commented: “Let the straight-legged man laugh at the club-footed, the white man at the Ethiopian.”Footnote ⁸ The fourth-century Roman poet Ausonius also associated whiteness with purity and Blackness with immorality in his recollection of his dark-complexioned grandmother: “Her name was given as a joke, because of her dark skin (cute fusca) she was called ‘Moor’ (Maura) back then. But her soul was not black (atra); it was brighter (clarior) than a swan and whiter (candidor) than untrodden snow.”Footnote ⁹ The classical Roman world inherited a Greek vision of race that inconsistently depicted whiteness as foreign and inferior while at times identifying with whiteness. Blackness, however, was consistently associated with depravity at worst and exotically fetishized at best.

With the exception of the Bible, Christian literature that was produced in the Roman Empire syncretized Greco-Roman anti-Blackness with Christian theology. This is evident in the earliest centuries of Christianity, such as in the apocryphal Acts of Peter. In this text, the senator Marcellus reported to his mentor Peter a vision of a demon in the form of a Black woman:

Perhaps the most extensive theological treatment of race and Blackness from a Christian of the late antique period was from Origen's Commentary on the Song of Songs. Favoring an allegorical interpretation of Scripture, Origen spends considerable time reflecting on the symbolism of the Shulamite's statement of being “Black and beautiful” or, as Origen would think of it, “Black yet beautiful.” Origen begins by channeling the voice of the Shulamite in reproaching the anti-Blackness of the Daughters of Jerusalem, thus silencing any contemporary sentiment that Black people are beyond the purview of Christian salvation:

Origen highlights the biblical reproachments against anti-Blackness in Numbers 12 and Song of Songs 1. However, he adds his own disparagement of Blackness by referring to African identity as a “lowly origin.” Origen believes the Shulamite to be an “Ethiopian,” which he associates not with the Axumite Empire, but with the Nubian kingdom of Meroe.Footnote ¹² Origen further demonstrates the importance of Black figures throughout Scripture such as Ebed Melech and the Cushite wife of Moses. The marriage of Moses and the Cushite Origen is believed to be a typological representation of Jesus’ adoption of the Gentiles. However, Origen's anti-Blackness is evident in his claim that Moses’ celebrated humility is represented most vividly in his marriage to a Black woman. Origen likens a non-Black man marrying a Black woman to the God-man Jesus’ incarnation and suffering on earth.Footnote ¹³

Origen crystalizes the double-sided theology of race that characterized late antique Roman Christianity: Blackness denotes depravity yet Black people can be saved despite this impairment.

For Origen, Black skin is a symbol of wickedness and a moral “stain.” Origen's making of Blackness as a marker of depravity allows him to use this motif to emphasize God's goodness, who “even” accepts the seemingly unacceptable Black person. Origen refers to Ebed Melech from Jeremiah 38 as a “man of a dark and degenerate race” (obscurae gentis homo et degeneris) as well as a “foreigner” (alienigena), despite any such designation in the biblical text.Footnote ¹⁵ This method of using Blackness as an archetype for fallenness and as an illustration of the extent of God's inclusion would be repeated through numerous early Christian sources from the Roman Empire. For Origen, “Black and beautiful” are contrasting concepts that typologically represent sin and forgiveness: “However, one could say each individual soul that turns to repentance after many sins, that she is ‘black’ (nigra) because of the sins, but ‘beautiful’ (formosa) through repentance and the fruits of repentance.”Footnote ¹⁶ Nowhere in Origen's thought is it stated that Black people are created in the image of God and, as part of God's creation, are “very good.”Footnote ¹⁷ Indeed, Origen even adds language to the biblical text, declaring that the Shulamite has been “made white” (dealbata) and has “not remained black to the end” (non in finem in nigredine ista permansit), language absent from the Song of Songs.Footnote ¹⁸

At times, it appears that Origen's “Black = depraved” language is simply an excessively deployed analogy, but that he does not actually think that Black skin is the same as sinfulness:

Nearly every mention of Black skin by patristic Christians from the Roman Empire entailed negative connotations. Whether this was intended to simply be a typological analogy or not, the consistency with which early Roman Christians associated Blackness with depravity profoundly shaped the theology of race for the rest of late antique Roman Christianity. Origen claims that the Shulamite “became black” (“effecta est ergo nigra”) was “made white and fair” (‘erit dealbata et candida”) that “her blackness has been cast away” (“abiectaque omni nigredine”), and that she “apologized to the Daughters of Jerusalem for her blackness” (“dicit ergo nunc ad filias Hierusalem pro nigredine sua satisfaciens”).Footnote ²⁰ The relationship between Blackness and sinful guilt is further clarified: “This blackness (ista nigredo), then, for which you reproach me, is in me because the sun has despised me by reason of my unbelief and disobedience.” Origen follows this by imploring his audience to imitate the faith of the Shulamite, lest “we be made black” (“denigrate”) or “make room for darkness and blackness (tenebris et nigredini) in ourselves.”Footnote ²¹ Jerome deployed similar theological framing in communicating his racial imagination: “At one time we were Ethiopians in our vices and sins. How so? Because our sins had blackened us. But afterwards we heard the words: ‘Wash yourselves clean!’ And we said: ‘Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.’ We are Ethiopians, therefore, who have been transformed from blackness into whiteness.”Footnote ²²

Roman Christians often used Black people as archetypes for demons, thus exacerbating the association of Blackness with evil. This motif features prominently in the Apophthegmata Patrum and its presentation of Black people. One apophthegm tells the story of an ascetic who encouraged his young son to remain strong in the fight against porneia:

Another apophthegm states that an ascetic lifted “up his eyes and beheld demons like Ethiopians around him, stimulating his desire.”Footnote ²⁴ Blackness was also bluntly depicted as unattractive in the Apophthegmata Patrum. A revered Christian couple—Andronicus and Athanasia—lost their children and the husband traveled alone to Scetis. After some time apart, Andronicus came upon his wife again, who disguised herself as a man. The text implies that part of Andronicus’ lack of recognition of his wife was that her skin had been darkened by the sun. The author, however, straightforwardly declares that dark skin is unattractive: “They embraced each other and the dove (Athanasia) recognized her mate, but how could he recognize such wasted beauty and one that looked like an Ethiopian?”Footnote ²⁵ The attitude that Blackness is unattractive is likely a product of the broader Greco-Roman world in which the author of the Apophthegmata Patrum participated. Such an attitude is not inherent to Christianity because the Bible records no such statements.

Anti-Blackness was also prevalent in authors from Near Eastern backgrounds who wrote in Near Eastern languages. The most prominent Syriac-speaking theologian in the history of this tradition was a fourth-century malphana (“teacher”) named Ephrem the Syrian. Ephrem lived at the border of the Roman and Persian Empires and led a theological academy in the Syriac center of Urhoy (Edessa). In one of his most renowned series of madrashe (poetic songs for theological instruction), Ephrem makes a comparison between Blackness (“Ethiopians”) and depravity that was common to the early Christian world:

He has made the pearls of Cush () exceedingly bright

As it is written, to Cush of the Black People ()

How He gave you, He who gave

Light to the peoples (), to the Black People ()

And to the Indians () have his light rays arrived

The believer from Cush upon the chariot

Saw Philip. The Black man () met

The Lamb of light () while from among the verses

He was reading. The Cushite was baptized

And he was clothed in light () and he was made to shine () as he drove away

He made disciples and he taught; From Black People ()

He made white people (); and Cushite women ()

Black women (), pearls

For the Son, He lifted up his Father

A bright crown from the Cushites

The Queen of Sheba, a lamb who came

To the wolf's location. The light of truth

Solomon gave to her. He inspired her

While he became a pagan, she left enlightened ()

But they became dark (), according to their custom

The brightness () that went down with her

The blessed woman, into the House of Darkness ()

Its illumination () shined until

A new light () came.Footnote ²⁶

Like many early Christian writers in the Roman Empire, Ephrem espouses a Christian universalism that embraces Black people despite their “depraved” Blackness. Therefore, Ephrem participates in the early Greco-Roman tradition of disparaging Blackness while simultaneously articulating a Christian universalism that includes the Black “other.”

Roman Christian sources also depicted Black Christians as self-deprecating participants in Roman Christian anti-Blackness. Among the best and only examples of a Black Christian voice in the patristic period are the statements attributed to Moses the Black. Moses was and still is one of the most revered of the Desert Fathers who lived in Scetis during the fourth century. Like all early Christian ascetics, Moses’ chief attribute was his humility. In the case of Moses, however, his humility is celebrated at the expense of his Blackness. Moses endures racism from the non-Black Egyptian monks at Scetis: “Another time, a council was convoked in Scete. The Fathers wished to put Moses to the test. They treated him with contempt, saying ‘Why has this Ethiopian come into our midst?’ He, upon hearing this, kept silent. After they were dismissed, they said to him, ‘Father, weren't you troubled just now?’ He said to them, ‘I was troubled but I did not say anything.’”Footnote ²⁷ The audience of the text is led to celebrate Moses as a humble ascetic who patiently endures racist attacks. Another similar story portrays such behavior even more vividly:

This excerpt not only involves racial attacks upon Moses but also promotes a theology of race that associates whiteness with purity and Blackness with depravity. Furthermore, this color association explicitly associated depravity with Black skin and the Sub-Saharan African phenotype. And finally, the text celebrates Moses’ acceptance of racial assaults, setting a trend in early Roman Christianity: 1) anti-Blackness is compatible with Christianity and 2) Black Christians are expected to patiently endure racist attacks.

Greco-Roman anti-Blackness crept into Christian literature written by Roman citizens. However, the same disparaging remarks about Black people were absent from Sub-SaharanFootnote ²⁹ Black sources outside of the Roman Empire and even in marginalized language groups within the Roman Empire. An example of this is the various recensions of the life of the sixth-century ascetic Daniel of Scetis. In Daniel's biography, there is a lengthy narrative about an Egyptian stonecutter named Eulogius. Eulogius found a treasure and moved to Constantinople, where he flourished under the emperor, until a new emperor brought charges against Eulogius, resulting in the latter's return to Egypt and the monastic life. Daniel received a vision of Eulogius’ troubles as a result of his greed and spiritual downfall. Daniel's vision involved Eulogius being dragged away from the imperial court. It is concerning the racial identity of Daniel's envisioned arrestor of Eulogius that the various sources differ. The Greek version of the Life of Daniel says that Eulogius was dragged away by “a Black man” (“ἑνὸς Αἰθίοπος”).Footnote ³⁰ The same wording is found in the Apophthegmata Patrum.Footnote ³¹ The Armenian version of the Life of Daniel says that Eulogius was carried away by “black demons.”Footnote ³² The Coptic version of the Life of Daniel, however, does not identify the racial or ethnic background of the person.Footnote ³³ It is of note that the Coptic Life of Daniel is of a distinct provenance from the Greek.Footnote ³⁴ The Coptic Life contains a substantial amount of anti-Chalcedonian material—involving confrontations between the titular figure and the pro-Chalcedonian emperor Justinian—that is not present in the Greek version or its various translations. The Coptic Life was produced with a distinct cultural and theological agenda from that of the Greek, and this may have influenced the distinct racial imaginations between the two transmission strands. I am not arguing for a social division between Greek and Coptic-speaking communities in late antique Egypt.Footnote ³⁵ To a degree however, “Greek” and “Egyptian” signaled different layers of identity, and there was some tension between the two.

“Greek” was often a polemical term used by early Christians—many of them Greek—in a religious sense, meaning “pagan.” For example, the Life of Antony contrasts “Christians” and “Greeks”: “The Greeks they deceived through illusions, while envying us Christians, disrupting everything, desiring to prevent us on our way up to heaven so that we will not enter that which they left behind.”Footnote ³⁶ In this context, “Greek” clearly refers to religious practices in contrast to the Christian tradition. The name “Greek,” however, is ultimately an ethnic identity, not a religion. These categories overlap a great deal, but they are not completely synonymous. Therefore, there are degrees to which names such as “Egyptian” or “Greek” signal ethnic identities that are, to a degree, distinct from what we would call religion. Even in Late Antiquity, early Christians distinguished between various kinds of “pagans.” Athanasius of Alexandria enumerates the various differences between different kinds of “pagans” and differentiates them by ethnicities such as “Egyptian,” “Greek,” and “Persian.”Footnote ³⁷ Cyril of Alexandria also speaks against “Greek religion.”Footnote ³⁸ Therefore, ancient Christians understood “religion” to be a distinct category that may be modified by various ethnic identifiers, such as “Greek.” It is overly simplistic, therefore, to simply interpret every instance of the word “Greek” in a religious sense only. A more nuanced approach is needed to take into account the multifaceted nature of social identity.

Greek language and identity were commonly believed to be more sophisticated than languages and identities such as Egyptian.Footnote ³⁹ Early Christians, however, would often invert these forms of stratification, especially in monastic contexts. Antony is tested by “Greek” philosophers in the desert, highlighting the social and linguistic hierarchy between the two: “Why did you so greatly inconvenience yourselves, O philosophers, for such a foolish person?” When they said that he was not a fool but that he was very wise, he said to them “Since you came to me, be like me, for I am a Christian.”Footnote ⁴⁰ Although Antony is called a simpleton (ἰδιώτῃ), his ascetic humility elevates him above those whom society would normally see as superior to Antony. The various versions of the Life of Daniel also demonstrate an attitude of Greco-Roman superiority and disparagement of Egypt. After Daniel escapes the imprisonment of the Roman emperor, he returns to Egypt to take up his former work of stonecutting. He was hoping to find his former treasure still in its cave. When he found the cave empty, the Coptic text reports his saying: “Get yourself up and work! There's nothing like this in Egypt!” ().Footnote ⁴¹ In the Greek text, Eulogius declares “for here is Egypt” (“ὦδε Αἴγυπτός ἐστι”),Footnote ⁴² expressing his disappointment that, because he is now in Egypt, he will not have the same wealth and status he had in Byzantium. The Armenian and Latin versions express this sentiment more directly: “This is Egypt, and not Constantinople.”Footnote ⁴³ In the text, according to sixth-century Egyptians, Constantinople is the source of wealth and power, and Egypt is a place of squalor in which material prosperity is limited. Similar strategies of symbolic geography are repeated in the recension of this story in other language communities. This phrase is entirely absent from the Geʿez text.Footnote ⁴⁴ These various translations demonstrate a strikingly different vision of Egypt and its value as a place. The Greek, Armenian, and Latin versions depict Egypt as socially inferior to the imperial capital while the Coptic and Geʿez versions focus on Eulogius’ misfortune without making comments on the value of Egypt. Given the varieties of social imagination across the various recensions of this text, it is not surprising that the same text would display contrasting racial imaginations. The Greek, Armenian, and Latin versions depict Eulogius’ arrestor as a “Black person,” whereas racial identity is absent from the Coptic and Geʿez versions.

Given the social stratification that existed between Greek and Coptic speaking communities, it is not surprising that anti-Black sentiment was often more present in the former than the latter. Indeed, one of the only examples of anti-Blackness that appears in Coptic literature is one in which such language is rebuked. This linguistic variation may be due to the relative proximity of the Coptic-speaking community to the Black world (i.e., Sub-Saharan Africa). As we have seen above with Ephrem the Syrian, however, anti-Blackness is present in non-Greek literature as well. However, Ephrem and the Syriac-speaking world existed much farther from Sub-Saharan Africa than did the Coptic-speaking world. Therefore, it is not surprising that anti-Black sentiment appears less frequently in Coptic literature. Although Egyptian literature written in Greek is no less Egyptian than that which is in Coptic, there is an intersectionality in Coptic literature of being a marginal language community in the Roman Empire that is proximate to Black communities. The Life of Apa Aphou reports a debate between the titular bishop of Pemje and Patriarch Theophilus regarding whether humans are made in the literal image of God. The report of the debate in the Life contains an anti-Black statement uttered by Patriarch Theophilus:

Aphou gently rebukes the patriarch throughout this dialogue, giving the benefit of the doubt that the patriarch had just been led astray by the devil. According to the Life of Apa Aphou, Apa Aphou convinced Theophilus of the anthropomorphite position. Regardless of the historicity of this event, what is significant is how the Life of Apa Aphou presents Theophilus’ belief that Black people (Cushites) are not made in the image of God. Theophilus is presented as lost in heresy. One of several symptoms of his erroneous beliefs is his rhetorical questioning of the image of God in Black people. Black people are compared to those with physical disabilities, a population that is also presented as inferior by the erroneous patriarch. Apa Aphou rebukes these statements, however, along with Theophilus’ entire doctrine. In so doing, The Life of Apa Aphou presents anti-Black sentiment as an outgrowth of bad theology.

When Black people are mentioned in Coptic literature, there is an absence of disparaging and exoticizing language that often accompanies their presence in literature written in Greek. In fact, ethnic terminology that is more fitting—such as “Nubian” or “Blemmyes”—appear more often than more vague racial terms like “Ethiopian” or “melas.”Footnote ⁴⁶ Such is the case, for example, when Africans south of Egypt are mentioned in the writings of Shenoute of Atripe. Shenoute provided shelter for thousands of Nubians and Blemmyes who had come to the White Monastery as refugees during a war between the two groups. In one of his discourses, Shenoute gives thanks to the Lord for the presence of the refugees and their having become familiar with Christianity:

By the time of the Arab Muslim Conquest of Egypt in the seventh century, the Nubian kingdoms had embraced Christianity as the imperial religion. Egyptian Christian sources written in Coptic continued to mention Nubians in more humanizing ways than their Greek counterparts. Isaac of Alexandria was the patriarch of Egypt during the late seventh century and endured the threat of religious persecution under the new government. There was a story at the end of the Life of Isaac involving the patriarch brokering a peace treaty between two Nubian kingdoms, to the dismay of the Islamic governor of Egypt:

The governor of Egypt, Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan, expressed his intent to execute the patriarch. However, Abd al-Aziz received a vision of the apostles Peter and Mark warning against harming the patriarch, which the governor heeded. Just as in the writings of Shenoute, Nubians that are mentioned in the Life of Isaac are mentioned without any reference to skin color or physical features. Also like the writings of Shenoute, Nubians are identified by more specific ethnic terminology rather than racial categories.

Athanasius’ Life of Antony includes problematic racial terminology, typically surrounding demonic imagery, as was done in many early Greco-Roman Christian texts. When the devil was unable to draw Antony into sinful behavior, “he appeared to him in the image of a black boy (μέλας αὐτῷ φαίνεται ταῖς).”Footnote ⁵⁰ When Antony resisted and caused the devil to flee, he is simply called “the Black One (ὁ μέλας)” rather than one who appeared Black. During the early seventh century, an Egyptian bishop named John of Shmun wrote a panegyric on Antony in Coptic. John's Panegyric contains no anti-Black statements such as those found in the Life of Antony. Mentions of Antony's combat with spiritual forces of wickedness contain no racial overtone: “He [Antony] fought with the bloodless demons () with a blank mind and he cast out the one in whom is found evil, Satan. Like the Cherubim, he delighted in the contemplation of divinity as an incorporeal being ().”Footnote ⁵¹ Indeed, not only is there no racialization of demons in John of Shmun's Paneygyric, but the incorporeality of demons is emphasized.

Egyptians occupied a middle place between Black and white in the late antique Roman racial imagination. Egyptians were often called “Black.” However, some Roman authors saw Egyptians as not as Black as “Ethiopians” or residents of Sub-Saharan Africa south of Egypt.Footnote ⁵² During the third century, Philostratus articulated a racial distinction between Egyptians and “Ethiopians”:

Despite the Roman tendency to differentiate between Egyptians and Ethiopians, Egyptians were sometimes referred to as “Black” by Greek and Roman authors from outside of Egypt. Some of the earliest and well-known examples are the comments made about Egyptians by Herodotus: “My own conjectures were founded, first, on the fact that they (Egyptians) are black-skinned and have wooly hair, which certainly amounts to but little, since several nations are so too.”Footnote ⁵⁴ During the Roman period, scholars such as Lucian of Samosata made similar remarks about Egyptians. Commenting on an Egyptian shipbuilder, Lucian's text describes him thusly: “This fellow is not only dark-skinned, but thick-lipped and too thin in the leg. He spoke in a slovenly manner, one long, continuous prattle; he spoke Greek, but his accent and intonation pointed to his native-land. His hair coiled in a plait behind shows he is not freeborn.”Footnote ⁵⁵ This excerpt from Lucian demonstrates both the racial and linguistic factors that led to Egyptians’ characterization in Greco-Roman literature. Egyptians were included in the racial category “Black” in a distinct manner from that of “Ethiopians.”

The racial imagination of Egyptians, themselves part of the broader Greco-Roman world, was, however, deeply complex. Although Egyptians were referred to as Black, Egyptians referred to Black people in an othering manner that differentiated Black from Egyptian. The social differentiation between Greek and Coptic speakers in Egypt, however, led to a variegated appearance of anti-Black statements. Egyptian statements of anti-Blackness appeared more commonly in literature written in Greek, such as in the cases of Origen, Athanasius and the Apophthegmata Patrum. The Coptic and Geʿez versions of the Life of Daniel, however, as well as The Life of Apa Aphou demonstrate a different vision of Blackness than their Greco-Egyptian counterparts. It is likely that the degree to which Egyptians themselves were racially stratified in the late antique Roman Empire and to which the Coptic language was disparaged led to a diminishment of racist rhetoric in Coptic Christian literature. The linguistic distinctions among late antique Egyptians should not be overstated; Egypt was a multilingual society, and all aspects of society were inseparably influenced by Greek and Egyptian cultural influences. However, the differences with which race, specifically Blackness, were constructed across the language groups cannot be ignored.

A final consideration should take into account how sources created by Black Christians during the late antique period deployed racial categories. Christian literature from Nubia and Ethiopia is sparse during Late Antiquity but picks up heavily during the medieval period. It is still worth mentioning, however, the few extant sources created by late antique Sub-Saharan African Christians. Because much of late antique Christian racial discourse centers on Blackness, it is fitting to center the voices of those who would have identified as Black by both modern and ancient standards. During the patristic period, Sub-Saharan African Christians deployed racial categories rarely and positively. This fact, in and of itself, is pertinent. Most of the people in the ancient world who were obsessed with Black people and who talked about Black people were not, themselves, Black people. Consider, for example, the most important written evidence of early Christians in the Ethiopian Empire centered in Axum. King Ezana famously encountered a foreign Christian named Frumentius, with whom he established Christianity as the imperial religion of the Axumite Empire. In his renowned stelae commemorating his victory over the Nubians, Ezana also indicates his Christian faith. These multilingual stelae, however, make no reference to race, nor deploy racial categories:

Ezana commissioned several stelae to document his victory in multiple languages, none of which identify the emperor, his kingdom, or his African enemies through the common racial categories of the ancient world.

In one of the rare examples of Sub-Saharan African “Christians” deploying racial terminology, such language does not appear in disparaging form. King Silko ruled the northern Nubian kingdom known as Nobatia in the early sixth century and commissioned an inscription documenting his victory over the neighboring Blemmyes:

The mention of a monotheistic God (theos) in a Nubian inscription prior to the period of Christianization has led some to speculate that King Silko used the term “God” in a manner similar to Christians.Footnote ⁵⁸ It was in the mid-sixth century when the account of John of Ephesus narrated the official adoption of Christianity in Nubia.Footnote ⁵⁹ Nubians had contact with Egyptian Christians, especially monks, since the fifth century—a notable example being the famed Coptic writer and monastic leader Shenoute of Atripe, who housed thousands of Nubians in his monastery.Footnote ⁶⁰ Therefore, it is highly likely that Silko's mention of “God” is evidence that Nubians of various social and political strata had been introduced to Christianity. The precise nature of the theology of imperial Nubians in the early sixth century is unclear. The appearance of the words “God” and “Ethiopians,” however, indicates a degree of contact and interchange of ideas between the Nubian and Roman Empires.

This inscription is important for a discussion on patristic Christian visions of race because it is one of the only examples of a Black, Sub-Saharan African source deploying racial terminology in a religious manner influenced by Christianity. The Silko Inscription speaks of God and of Black people. Silko identifies himself as the king of Nobatia but adds to this the claim that he is king “of all Black people (Ethiopians).” In this unique deployment of a racial category by a Black author influenced by Christian thought, the term “Black” is used in a morally and theologically neutral way. The scarceness of Black sources using racial terminology—especially from Christian contexts—limits the conclusions that can be drawn about how late antique Black Christians understood race.

What is clear is that late antique Christians talked about race in varied ways that were largely influenced by geographical, linguistic, and cultural context. When the ancient world talked about race, this usually centered around Blackness and whiteness and the value or lack thereof attached to these categories. Many late antique Christians blended Greco-Roman anti-Blackness with Christian theology. Many Coptic-speaking Egyptians and Sub-Saharan African Christians, however, shifted this dynamic, even to the point of altering racist language in textual translation.

In modern theological and ministerial conversations about race, the tendency is to center visions of race from Western contexts. This is also true in studies of race in antiquity—that is, to focus primarily on visions of race from Greek- and Latin-speaking contexts. Willie Jennings describes the effects of whiteness in theological formation as creating “an ecclesiastical reality inside a white patriarchal domesticity, shaped by an overwhelming white masculinist presence that always aims to build a national and global future that we should all inhabit.”Footnote ⁶¹ Jennings’ argument that modern theological formation has been framed by the plantation dynamic is resonant with Dubois’ concept that Black people are tormented by self-image being shrouded in a “veil” of white dominance.Footnote ⁶² Not only is there a growing articulation of the need to decenter Western, or white, voices in defining race in the sectors of theology, but there are also increasing calls to centralize voices of color in the ministerial work of racial justice and reconciliation.Footnote ⁶³ This brief study of race in early Christianity contributes to the work of decentering dominant voices, specifically with regard to visions of racial identity. Race, the ancient and modern contexts, is often held captive by the textual, material, and discursive imagination of the dominant Western world. This study has demonstrated that the way in which early Christians talked about race—specifically Blackness—varied across imperial, linguistic, and racial contexts. By highlighting ways that early Christians outside of the realm of the Roman Empire and the ancient definition of “white” deployed racial categories, this study calls for discourse to center visions of race that emerged from nonwhite, precolonial contexts. Racial categories, and the symbols imputed into them, are not unique only to Roman, Western, or white contexts.