Alfred Joshua Butler

“ The Coptic agricultural population (fellahīn) in the villages of Upper Egypt and elsewhere are not markedly different from the Mahommedan fellahīn, who, of course, are of the same stock, but mixed with Arab blood. The Copts in the towns, who have always been engaged in sedentary occupations, as scribes and handicraftsmen, have a more delicate frame and complexion, and may have mingled with Syrian and Armenian Christians. ”

“ The requirement of a period of desert life has so far prevailed that no one but a monk from one of the desert monasteries is now qualified. This rule, harmless perhaps when the monasteries were the great schools of learning and devotion, now puts a premium on ignorance, and is disastrous to the church; more particularly as even bishops must be chosen from the monks. The patriarch is elected by an assembly of bishops and elders. The candidate is brought in chains from the desert, and, if only in monk’s orders, is passed through the higher grades except that of bishop. ”

“ Many of the younger generation of Copts began openly to boast their indifference and even scepticism: in the large towns churches came to be too often frequented only by the old or the uneducated, confession and fasts fell into neglect and the number of communicants diminished; while the facility of divorce granted by Islam occasioned many perversions from among the Copts to that religion. ”

“ Lastly, since the British, as the dominant race, have filled most posts of responsibility in the government, the Moslems, in general, are obliged to content themselves with the subordinate posts which in the past they left to the Copts. Some Copts have attained high office, and in 1908 a Copt became prime minister. Moreover, the Copts have to a certain extent made up for the ground they lose elsewhere by engaging in agriculture and banking, and there are now to be found many rich Coptic landowners and farmers, especially in Upper Egypt. ”

“ The monasteries, however, were refuges that could bid defiance to the most powerful of the pagan aristocracy as well as to barbarian hordes, and became centres of united action that, at the summons of Shenoute, the organizer of the national church, swept away the idols of the oppressors in riot and bloodshed. ”

“ A principal object of these lay councils is to control the financial and legal powers vested in patriarch and bishops—powers which have often been greatly abused. Other objects are (1) to provide Christian religious education in all Coptic schools and to raise these schools to a high standard in secular matters; (2) to promote the education of women; (3) to apply church revenues to the maintenance of churches and schools and to the better payment of the clergy, who are now often compelled to live on charity ”

“ The British occupation of Egypt profoundly modified Coptic religious life. Before it the Copts lived in their own semi-fortified quarters in Cairo or Old Cairo or in country or desert Dairs (Ders) . Walls and gates were now thrownPresent state of the church. down or disused: the Copts began to mix and live freely among the Moslems, their children to frequent the same schools, and the people to abandon their distinctively Christian dress, names, customs and even religion. Freedom and prosperity threatened to injure the Church more than centuries of persecution. ”

“ Heraclius, in 638 after the repulse of the Persians, endeavoured to unite the churches, but, failing in that, he persecuted the Monophysites more severely than ever before, until ‛Amr brought Egypt under the Moslem rule of ‛Omar, as has been related above. Under the persecution many Copts had gone over to the Melkites, but now it was the turn of the Melkites, as supporters of the emperor of Constantinople, to suffer, and they almost entirely disappeared from Egypt, though a remnant headed by a patriarch of Alexandria of the Orthodox Christians has survived to this day. ”

“ Saints and angels are highly revered, if not adored, but graven images are forbidden. Fasts are long and rigid. Confession and absolution, strictly enforced, give great power to the priesthood. The clergy must marry, but once only. ”

“ The Melkites, adherents of the orthodox or court religion sanctioned by the council of Chalcedon, were mainly of foreign extraction, from the various Hellenistic races which peopled the Eastern Roman empire, while the bulk of the population, the true Egyptians, were Monophysite. ”

“ ABYSSINIAN CHURCH. As the chronicle of Axum relates, Christianity was adopted in Abyssinia in the 4th century. About A.D. 330 Frumentius was made first bishop of Ethiopia by Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria. Cedrenus and Nicephorus err in dating Abyssinian Christianity from Justinian, c. 542. From Frumentius to the present day, with one break, the Metropolitan (Abuna) has always been appointed from Egypt, and, oddly enough, he is always a foreigner. Little is known of church history down to the period of Jesuit rule, which broke the connexion with Egypt from about 1500 to 1633. ”

“ According to the 1907 census, there were 667,036 orthodox Copts in Egypt, or less than 1/14th of the total population, this being the same proportion as in 1830, when, according to Lane, they numbered about 150,000. The number of churches and monasteries at the same time had risen from 146 to 450, not including Protestant chapels nor Coptic Catholic churches. At the 1907 census the total number of Christians in Egypt described as Copts was 706,322; among them there were 24,710 Protestants and 14,576 Roman Catholics.
Monogamy is strict among the Copts, and divorce is granted only for adultery. ”

“ Modern People.—E. W. Lane’s description of the Copts in his Modern Egyptians is interesting, but founded on imperfect information, and, moreover, coloured by prejudices in favour of the Moslems whom he studied with so much sympathy. See Klunzinger, Upper Egypt, pp. ”