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 EGYPT

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EGYPT

those three passages, far from contradicting Euty- chius's testimony, rather confirm it. We find, how- ever, a more direct confirmation of Eutychius's state- ment in another, so far equally misinterpreted, passage of Severus. In the biography of Julian, the im- mediate predecessor of Demetrius, we read: "After this patriarch, the Bishop of Alexandria did not re- main always there, but he used to go out secretly and organize the liierarehy [!/a»«)'(w kahanat, literally, "or- dain clergy"], as St. Slark the Evangelist had done." The same remark is to be found in the "Chronicon Orientale" of Peter Ibn Rahib, with the variation, " Ac bishop always remained in Alexandria " ; and the omission of the last words "as St. Mark" etc. We know that the words i/ausim kahanat have been so far rendered "ordinationes sacerdotum faciebant" (Renaudot, Hist. Patr. Alexandr., p. IS), "ordained priests " (Evetts, " Hist, of the Patriarchs of the Cop- tic Church of Alexandria" in Graffin-Nau's "Patro- logia Orientalis", I, 154). There is no doubt, how- ever, that the word kahanat (plur. of kdhin) as a rule stands for bishops and deacons as well as for priests. That it really is so in this case is made clear from a com- parison among tliree versions of the same episode of the life of St. Mark. The author of the second biog- raphy in Severus's work says that the Evangelist, see- ing that the people of Alexandria were plotting against his hfe, went out from their city (secretly, adds Sev- erus of Nesteraweh, Barges, op. cit., p. 56) and re- turned to the Pentapolis, where he remained two years, appointing bishops, priests, and deacons in all its prorinces. The Melchite Martyrology of Alexandria, under 25 .A.pri], says that St. Mark went from Alexan- dria to Barca (Pentapolis) antl beautified the churches of Christ, "instituting bishops and the rest of the clergy [kahanat] of that country". (It is evident that in the mind of the author of the latter passage kahanat, on the one hand, and "bishops, priests, and deacons", on the other, are interchangeable.) Finally, in the "Chronicon Orientale", where the same episode of St. Mark's life is related, we find simply: "appointing clergy [kahanat] for them", without special mention of the bishops. And the argument will appear all the more convincing if we notice that the remark of Ju- lian's biography must have had in view the labours of St. Mark in the Pentapolis, when he added "as St. Mark the Evangelist had done", for neither the Ori- ental nor anj' other sources record a further instance of ordinations performed by St. Mark outside of Alexan- dria.

Before we dismiss this interesting passage of Juli- an's biography, let us call attention to another detail of it. 'The patriarch is styled simply the Bishop of Alexandria, which shows that the source from which the remark was borrowed must belong to a time when the expressions archbishop and patriarch had not yet come into use. It may, therefore, be considered as absolutely certain that, according to all the Oriental sources, there was from the times of St. Mark to Ju- lian's death only one diocese in the whole territory of Egypt proper, namely, the Diocese of Alexandria, and only one bishop, the Bishop of Alexandria. That bishop was assisted by a college of presbyters. These were bishops to all intents and purposes, excepting

i'urisdiction, which they had by delegation only. If ilutychius calls them presbyters, it is because he found that word in the source he was using, possibly the very same in which the author of Julian's biography found the word bishop used to designate the patriarch. In the " Lives of the Patriarchs " by Severus of .\shmunein, they are called bishops, in agreement with the current use of the time when those biographies were first writ- ten down. On so much the Oriental sources agree, and substantially they confirm the traditions preserved by St. .lerome and Severus of Antioch. They disagree as to the number of presbyters created by St. Mark; Makrizi, who probably copied Eutychius, gives the

same number (twelve) and does not speak of deacons. Severus's second biography of St. Mark, Al-Makin, and the "Chronicon Orientale" say three presbyters and seven deacons. According to Severus of Nesteraweh, St. Mark " ordained priests the sons of Anianus, who were but few, and eleven deacons". It is impossible to reconcile these data. If Eutychius's figure, as is very likely, has no historical foundation, it might be based on Mark, iii, 1-1. The number three in the other sources, if fictitious, might reflect the fourth canon of Nicsa. Although we have no means of determining, even approximately, to what extent Christianity had spread over EgiT^tian territory during the first two centuries of our era, there is hardly any doubt that the number of communities, as well as the area over which they were scattered, very much exceeded the propor- tions of an ordinary diocese of the primitive Church. Christianity, says Clement of Alexandria (Strom., ^T, xviii, 167), has spread koto eBms Kai Kwiiriv xai wdXin iraffav, i.e. whole houses and families have embraced the faith, which has found adherents in all classes of society. And this statement is borne out by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., VI, i), who says that in the year 202, dur- ing the Severian persecution. Christians were dragged to .Alexandria, for trial dir' AlyiirTov Kal Q-q^atdos dirdffij!. It would seem that under ordinary circum- stances there must have been a call for an ordinary resident bishop at least in each of the three great provinces of Heptanomis (Middle Egypt), Thebais (Upper Egypt), and Arsinoe (the Faytim).

But in £gy}it, as elsewhere, the Church in its in- fancy naturally copieti the political organization of the country, and Egypt, in that respect, was entirely dif- ferent from the rest of the Roman Empire. Rome, or rather Augustus, in taking possession of Egypt as his personal spoil, took in almost bodily the old political organization created by the Pharaohs and developed and strengthened by the Ptolemies, simply replacing the king by a prefect in whom, as his representative, all authority, judicial and military, was vested. That organization was characterized by the total absence of municipal institutions; no organized cities, as in the rest of the Roman Empire, no magistrates elected by a senate and governing in its name. The country was divided, as of old, into nomes, each of which was ad- ministered by a strategos (formerly, nomarch) under the prefect, though occasionally two nomes were tem- porarily united under one strategos, or one nome was divided between two strategoi. The strategos ap- pointed all subaltern officials throughout the nome, subject to approval from the prefect, and transmitted to them his orders. In judicial matters they could initiate proceedings, but could deliver juiigment only when specially empowered as delegates by the prefect. In each village there was a council of elders who acted as intermediaries for the paj-ment of taxes, and were held responsible to the authorities of the nome for the good order of their fellow villagers; they had, however, no authority except by way of delegation. Alexandria was no exception to that rule; it was not until the reign of Septimius Severus that the city was granted a senate, and even then the citizens were not permitted to elect their o\\ti magistrates. The situa- tion was probably the same in other cities which at a still later period secured the privilege of a senate. For convenience' sake the Ptolemies had grouped the nomes of Upper Egypt into one province governed by an epistrategos; the Romans at first did the same for the nomes of Middle Egj-pt (including the Arsinoite nome, the modern Fayinn) and the Delta, or Lower Egypt. But this and other later arrangements of the nomes into provinces never affected the political or- ganization of the country. The epistrategoi were the usual delegates for many of the powers nominally ex- ercised l)y the prefect. They appointed the strategoi and oth* local officials, subject to confirmation by the prefect. In a general way they acted as intermedi-