Page:Early Christianity outside the Roman empire.djvu/20

Rh Spanish. There is little to shew that Christianity spread among the native Egyptians till the rise of monasticism, still less that a Christian, literature existed in any Coptic dialect before the latter half of the 3rd century. The vast increase of information about the condition of Egypt under the Empire which the last fifty years has witnessed, has served only to confirm the familiar words of Gibbon. "The progress of Christianity was for a long time confined within the limits of a single city, which was itself a foreign colony; and, till the close of the 2nd century, the predecessors of were the only prelates of the Christian Church. … The body of the natives, a people distinguished by a sullen inflexibility of temper, entertained the new doctrine with coldness and reluctance; and even in the time of Origen it was rare to meet with an Egyptian who had surmounted his early prejudices in favour of the sacred animals of his country. As soon, indeed, as Christianity ascended the throne, the zeal of those barbarians obeyed the prevailing impulsion; the cities of Egypt were filled with