From Gnostics to Monastics: Studies in Coptic and Early Christianity in Honor of Bentley Layton

This collection of studies is offered in honor of Bentley Layton by

twenty-three of his colleagues and former students. Prof. Layton taught

the history of ancient Christianity and also the Coptic language at Yale

University for forty years beginning in 1976. At that time he was

already recognized internationally as a leading figure in the

publication and study of the Coptic Gnostic texts from the Nag Hammadi

Codices and in Coptic linguistic and manuscript studies, two areas of

research that are represented in this volume by sections on Gnostic,

Valentinian, and Manichaean literature, and on Coptic language and

texts. A section on Egyptian monasticism pays tribute to Prof. Layton’s

fundamental contributions to the study of the late antique monastic

leader and Coptic author Shenoute. A final section looks north across

the Mediterranean Sea to early Chistianity in the Wider Late Roman World.