ABSTRACT
In the early Christian world, attitudes to disability were inevitably informed by biblical and especially New Testament teaching. Therefore, although we can still see at play Old Testament ideas in which the responsibility for sickness or incapacity lies with the sin of the person concerned or with that of his forebears, this attitude is overlaid or revolutionized by the teaching of Christ as represented in the New Testament. However, because this teaching related to individuals or individual situations where his discernment and purpose was obviously paramount in each case, his later followers could not have an absolute ruling and themselves would have to apply discernment in each situation. This is the picture that emerges from our chief sources for the Coptic and Ethiopic worlds. Much material will inevitably be drawn from instances of healing where an individual’s previous illness or disability is made visible through the sources (Holman 2009: 153-70; Horn 2009: 171-97; Horn and Phenix 2009 passim).
