Made in an Imperfect Image: Race, Ethnicity, Disability, and Infirmity in the Life of Aphou

Theophilus, the Archbishop of Alexandria, utters the above words in response to Aphou’s rebuttal to his festal letter in the Coptic Life of Aphou. In the text, Aphou is deeply troubled after he hears the festal letter of Theophilus in 399 CE. According to the narrator, “Under the pretense of extolling the glory of God in the sermon,” and recalling “the weakness of humans,” the festal letter explains that “[t]his is not the image of God that we carry” (Rossi 1885, 6). Aphou, deeply offended and unable to quell his indignation, resolves to travel to Alexandria and confront Theophilus. After arriving at the episcopal residence and waiting outside it for three days, he becomes embroiled in a debate. It is the above interrogative that serves as the initial objection to Aphou and begins a six-chapter debate over humanity’s debility, so that the Life, composed arguably around the later part of the fifth century, but possibly later, essentially dedicates a third of its text to a debate on humanity’s capacity to bear the image of God or imago dei. Traditionally, scholars have used this debate to understand the difficult and elusive theological concerns of the anthropomorphite controversy. However, I would argue that the debate reveals not just theological concerns about the controversy, but also concerns over Christian embodiment.