Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/772

748 748 EGYPT [HISTORY. Egypt, more policy. Antony, on the false news of the queen s death, stabbed himself ; and Cleopatra, finding Octavian resolved to make her walk in his triumph, perished by her own hands in some unknown way. Thus Egypt became a Roman province, B.C. 30. The young Ptolemy Ciesar, in spite of his double claim, perished by the command of Octavian, but the beautiful Cleopatra, Antony s daughter by the queen, was generously taken by his divorced wife Octavia, brought up with her own children, and married to a king, Juba II. of Mauretania. With their son Ptolemy, whom Caligula put to death A.D. 40, this great line came to an end. Its genius ended with Cleopatra. The dislike of the Romans for her has tended to give the moderns too low an estimate of her abilities. When we see what Egypt was under Auletes and under her we are astonished to perceive how much she accomplished by her management of Caesar and of Antony. After all the other independent states had been absorbed by Rome, Egypt was raised from a mere protected province to be once more a kingdom, and at last Alexandria became again a seat of empire. But the task Cleopatra set herself was beyond accomplishment; the more she turned Antony into an imperial ruler the less could he control the Roman armies by which he governed. Thus the fabric she had raised was rotten at the base, and with her fall it disappeared. The history of Egypt under the Komans being that of a province, and the most interesting events matters of ecclesiastical history, may here be told very briefly. Worn out by the cruelty and avarice of a succession of bad rulers, the country must have wel comed the Romans almost as it had welcomed Alexander, and so soon as it was known that the native religion would be protected, all discontent must have vanished. The temples were still the care of the rulers. Art had indeed fallen very low, yet it con tinued to produce buildings with a certain rich grandeur, that did not begin to give place to Grseco-Roman structures till the time of Hadrian and the Antonines. .rfElius Gallus, prefect of Egypt under Augustus, was ambitious to enlarge the province by foreign conquest. He failed in an ex pedition into Arabia Felix, but repelled an Ethiopian invasion, and in return penetrated as far as Napata, the capital of Queen Caudace, which he captured. In later reigns the chief events were troubles connected with the Jewish population. In the time of Vespasian, the temple Onias had founded was closed, and a great Jewish revolt in the reign of Trajan, which was not easily suppressed, cost the Jews the privileges which, in common with the Greek population, they had enjoyed above the native inhabitants. Hadrian twice visited Egypt (A.D. 130, 134). He renewed the old privileges and granted new ones. The foundation of Antinoe shows how low the nation had then fallen. Under Antoninus Pius, a Sothiac Cycle began (A.D. 139). In the next reign, Avidius Cassius, prefect of Egypt, having suppressed a serious revolt, usurped the purple, and was acknow ledged by the armies of Syria and Egypt. On the approach of Marcus Aurelius, the adherents of Cassius slew him, and the clemency of the emperor restored peace. After the downfall of the house of the Antonines, Pescennius Niger, who commanded the forces in Egypt, was proclaimed emperor on the death of Pertinax (A.D. 193). Severus overthrew his rival (A.D. 194), and, the revolt having been a military one, did not punish the province, but gave great privileges to the Alexandrians. In his reign the Christians of Egypt suffered the first of their many persecutions. When Christianity was planted in the country we do not know, but it must very early have gained adherents among the learned Jews of Alexandria, whose school of thought was in some respects ready to welcome it. From them it rapidly passed to the Greeks. Ultimately, the new religion spread to the Egyptians ; their own creed was worn out, and they found in Christianity a doctrine of the future life, for which their old belief had made them not un ready ; while the social teaching of Christianity came with special fitness to a subject race. The history of the Coptic Version has yet to be written. It presents some features of great antiquity, and, unlike all others, has the truly popular character of being written in the three dialects of the language. Side by side there grew up an Alexandrian Church, philosophic, disputative, ambitious, the very centre of Christian learning, and an Egyptian Church, ascetic, contemplative, mystical. Tlie two at length influenced one another ; still we can generally trace the philosophic teachers to a Greek origin, the mystics to an Egyptian. Caracalla, in revenge for an affront, massacred the population of Alexandria. Under Decius the Christians again suffered from per secution. When the Empire broke up in the weak reign of Gal- lienus, jEmilianus was made emperor by the troops at Alexandria ; but, after a short and vigorous reign, was conquered by the forces of Gallienus. Zeuobia, queen of Palmyra, after an unsuccessful invasion, on a second attempt conquered Egypt, which she added to her empire, but lost it when Aurelian made war upon her (A.D. 272). The province was, however, unsettled, and the con quest of Palmyra was followed in the same year by the suppres sion of a revolt in Egypt (A.D. 273). Probus, who had governed Egypt for Aurelian and Tacitus, was subsequently chosen by the troops to succeed Tacitus, and is the first governor of this province who obtained the whole of the Empire. The country, however, was still disturbed, and under the reign of Diocletian, in A.D. 292, a formidable revolt had broken out, led by Achilleus, who as em peror took the name Domitius Dornitianus. Diocletian, finding his troops unable to determine the struggle, came to Egypt and reduced the strongholds of the country. After he had left, Domi- tianus again raised his standard and captured Alexandria, but Diocletian returning to Egypt took the city and put his rival to death (A.D. 297). This revolt has very distinctly the character of a native rising, for it was not localized in Alexandria, but spread over the country. The reign of Diocletian is the turning-point in the history of the Egyptian Church. The edict of A.D. 303 against the Christians, and those which succeeded it, were rigorously carried out in Egypt, where Paganism was still strong, and face to face with a strong and united church. Galerius, who succeeded Diocletian in the govern ment of the East, implacably pursued his policy, and this great persecution did not end until the persecutor, perishing, it is said, of the dire malady of Herod and Philip ] I. of Spain, sent out an edict of toleration (A.D. 311). The Copts date from the accession of Diocletian (A.D. 284), which they call the Era of Diocletian or of the Martyrs. By the Edict of Milan (A.D. 313), Constantine, with the agree ment of his colleague Liciuius, acknowledged Christianity as having at least equal rights with other religious, and when he gained sole power he wrote to all his subjects advising them, like him, to become Christians (A.D. 324). The Egyptian Church, hitherto free from schism, was now divided by a fierce controversy, in which we see two Greek parties, rather than a Greek and an Egyptian, in conflict. The Council of Nicsea was called together (A.D. 325) to determine between the orthodox and the party of the Alexandrian presbyter Arius. At that council the native Egyptian bishops were chiefly remarkable for their manly protest against enforcing celibacy on the clergy. The most conspicuous controversialist on the orthodox side was the young Alexandrian deacon, Athanasius, who returned home to be made archbishop of Alexandria (A.D. 326). For the long period during which he presided over the Church of Egypt, his history is that of the struggle of the two parties. Four times expelled by the Arians, and once by the emperor Julian, he employed each banishment for work in the cause to which he was devoted, and on each restoration he used his success with a moderation in marked contrast to the persecuting policy of his enemies. His name and person were at last known to the whole empire, which unconsciously recognized in him an ecclesiastical ruler of Christendom, rather than the chief prelate of a province. He was more a man of action than of thought, more an adminis trator than a student, but his intrepid patience, his moderation, and his indomitable energy, all directed to the welfare of the church and to no personal ends, gave him an influence never after wards obtained with out the support of avast ecclesiastical machinery. His is the latest character which was formed upon the model of St Paul s, and the most remarkable of his age. He died A.D. 373, at the moment when an Arian persecution began. The reign of Theodosius I. witnessed the overthrow of Arianism, which was followed by the suppression of Paganism, against which a final edict was promulgated A.D. 390. In Egypt, the year before, the temple of Sarapis at Alexandria had been destroyed, and to the same period we must assign the beginning of a partial destruction of those Egyptian temples which had escaped the Persian conquerors. Generally the Coptic Christians were content to build their churches within the ancient temples, plastering over or effacing the sculptures which were nearest to the ground and in the way of the worship pers. They do not seem to have been very zealous in the work of destruction. The native religion was already dead and they had no fear of it. The prosperity of the church was the sign of its decay, and before long we find persecution and injustice dis gracing the sent of Athanasius. Cyril the patriarch of Alexandria expelled the Jews from the capital with the aid of the mob, and by the murder of the beautiful philosopher Hypatia marked the lowest depth to which ignorant fanaticism could descend. A schism now produced lengthened eivil war, and alienated Egypt from the empire. The Monophysites, after a struggle of two cen turies and a half, became utterly hostile to the Greek inle. It was in these circumstances that a country which, remote from the great conflicts that destroyed the Western Empire and threatened the existence of the Eastern, had enjoyed uninter rupted freedom from an invader since its conquest by Zenobia, and had known no rebellion since that of Achilk-us, fell without a