Book contents
- Slavery in the Late Antique World, 150–700 CE
- Slavery in the Late Antique World, 150–700 CE
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- A Note on Abbreviations and Sources Used
- Introduction Late Antique Studies and the New Polyphony for Slave Studies
- Part I Moral and Symbolic Values of Slavery
- Part II Slavery, Cultural Discourses, and Identity
- 5 Slavery in Euphemia and the Goth
- 6 What Was Jewish about Jewish Slavery in Late Antiquity?
- 7 Divining Slavery in Late Ancient Egypt: Doulology in the Monastic Works of Paul of Tamma and Shenoute
- 8 Rural Slavery in Late Roman Gaul: Literary Genres, Theoretical Frames, and Narratives
- Part III Slavery, Social History, and the Papyrological and Epigraphical Sources
- Part IV Social and Religious Histories of Slavery on the Borders of the Empire and Beyond
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Divining Slavery in Late Ancient Egypt: Doulology in the Monastic Works of Paul of Tamma and Shenoute
from Part II - Slavery, Cultural Discourses, and Identity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2022
- Slavery in the Late Antique World, 150–700 CE
- Slavery in the Late Antique World, 150–700 CE
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- A Note on Abbreviations and Sources Used
- Introduction Late Antique Studies and the New Polyphony for Slave Studies
- Part I Moral and Symbolic Values of Slavery
- Part II Slavery, Cultural Discourses, and Identity
- 5 Slavery in Euphemia and the Goth
- 6 What Was Jewish about Jewish Slavery in Late Antiquity?
- 7 Divining Slavery in Late Ancient Egypt: Doulology in the Monastic Works of Paul of Tamma and Shenoute
- 8 Rural Slavery in Late Roman Gaul: Literary Genres, Theoretical Frames, and Narratives
- Part III Slavery, Social History, and the Papyrological and Epigraphical Sources
- Part IV Social and Religious Histories of Slavery on the Borders of the Empire and Beyond
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The title of this chapter plays with the problem of understanding the role of slavery in late ancient Egypt. Scholars tend to agree that Egyptians, with a large tenant farmer population, relied far less heavily on enslaved labour than their counterparts elsewhere in the Empire. These smaller numbers mean that enslavement is harder to trace as a phenomenon. Thus, to discern how slavery functioned and who the enslaved were requires a certain amount of ‘divining’ or well-informed guesswork. Luckily, a wealth of extant documentary evidence and literary, largely monastic, texts are available for such an endeavour. To do such imaginative work responsibly requires careful attention to brief references to the enslaved, to the larger world in which they moved, and to how scriptural appropriation of slave imagery among monks masks the presence of actual enslaved individuals within the community.
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- Slavery in the Late Antique World, 150 – 700 CE , pp. 149 - 169Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022