The question of African homophobia/homosexuality is increasingly significant on a global terrain. The question of exactly how African this homophobia is has been posed in recent years with some force. In the 1990s, the most widely publicized instances of homophobic discourse and action were generated by the pronouncements of leaders such as Presidents Mugabe and Nujoma of Zimbabwe and Namibia. Africa has a vast and wide-ranging corpus of oral poetry and narrative, sometimes referred to as "traditional literature". Representations of same-sexual activity, desire, or identity often stage more than themselves in the South African literature of the 1980s and '90s, most often racial struggle and shame. Silence, taboo, and gossip are practices that confound the discussion of sexuality in Africa. Finally, the chapter concludes by discussing the work of contemporary African novelists: Calixthe Beyala, Jude Dibia, and Frieda Ekotto.

The traditional story of the rise of monasticism as a fourth-century phenomenon associated par excellence with the Egyptian desert, is a Catholic legend, which, unlike many others, was reinforced, rather than questioned, by Protestant scholarship, happy to regard monasticism as a late, and therefore spurious, development. The literature falls into two categories: the literature of those monastic movements of the fourth century condemned as heretical; and literature that is eccentric to the geographical hegemony of Egypt in the traditional literature. The Life of St Antony, almost certainly by Athanasius of Alexandria, is the model, not only for all monastic Lives, but for the genre of the saint's Life itself. Instructional literature obviously includes monastic rules: those of Pachomius, Basil, Augustine, and, for Palestine, what can be discerned of the rules of Chariton and Gerasimus. The most important monastic literature of an instructional kind is the writings of Evagrius and John Cassian.

The fourth century sees a great cultural shift which both retains something of the school-like character of early Christianity and yet leaves no room for the semi-independent Christian philosopher or exegete. The character of the catechetical lectures that are extant demonstrates that the old anti-heretical thrust of the rule of faith remains crucial in the exposition of the creeds. Education in grammar and rhetoric would continue to be based on the traditional literature, now regarded as 'pagan' in an increasingly Christianized society, treated as useful but not true. The Christian way remained an education, a paideia, a training and discipline, moral, intellectual and spiritual. Christian teaching characterized human life and history as a journey, as progress under the guidance of the Spirit, even justifying some doctrinal developments in these terms as well as spiritual insights. The Christian tradition is clearly rooted in educational practice, and in this period retained something of its legacy as a teaching institution.