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 334 COPTS they are not found. The history of the Copts in Egypt, from the time of St. Mark to the Arabic conquest, is the history of the land itself. The names of their patriarchs, schol- ars, and anchorites, Clement, Origen, Athana- sius, Cyril, Dionysius, Anthony, Macarius, and many more, belong to the annals of the Chris- tian church, and are commemorated both in the Roman and Greek calendars. From the 3d to the 6th century Egypt had great influence in settling the doctrines of faith; its patriarch was the rival of the Roman bishop ; its her- mitages were the most attractive shrines of pilgrimage, and in its solitudes the persecuted believers found safety. From the latter half of the 5th century the controversy between the Melchite or royalist party, who adhered to the creed of the Greeks, and the Jacobite party, who were Eutychians, was vehemently maintained for more than a century, the vic- tory inclining more and more to the Jacobite party. The pacific policy of Zeno for a time restrained open warfare ; but in the succeed- ing reigns of Justin, Justinian, Phocas, and Heraclius the strife of arms was added to the strife of words, and bloody persecutions were carried on. In vain Apollinarius, at once prefect and patriarch, attempted by threaten- ing and massacre to convert the Jacobite mass- es ; roused by their zealous bishops, they re- turned defiance, and early in the 7th century all Christian faith not Monophysite was heresy from Alexandria to Syene. To quarrels with the Greeks succeeded quarrels with each other about minor points. Theodore and Themis- tius discussed the question concerning the wis- dom of Jesus, the latter expressing the belief that Jesus was not omniscient. John the Grammarian affirmed that there were three Gods, and rejected the word unity from the doctrine of the being of God. In the five years of his administration as patriarch, from A. D. 611, John the Almsgiver made more con- verts by his zeal in good works than by his zeal against the Greek heresy ; yet he was not acknowledged as a genuine patriarch, since he was appointed to office by the emperor, and followed the imperial party when it was driv- en from Alexandria by the invading Persians. In the ten years of Persian rule the patriarch was a true Copt. When the Romans regained power, the Jacobite Benjamin was displaced, and for a short time the church of Egypt had a ruler whose opinion was a compromise be- tween the Greek and Jacobite views, main- taining two natures in Christ, but only a single will. In the great strife between the Greeks and the Arabs, which occupied the succeeding years, the Coptic church secretly inclined to the Moslem party, and it has been charged against them that their connivance with Amru and his army decided the contest in favor of the religion of the prophet. ' But if they were promised amnesty and protection, the promise was not long kept. Within a century from the fall of Alexandria the hands of monks were branded, and heavy annual imposts ex- acted of them, and such as refused to pay were scourged, outraged, and even beheaded ; many of the churches, too, were destroyed and plundered. In the reign of the caliph Hashem (724-743), the Melchito dispute was revived by the restoration of some of the Greek bishops to their ancient sees in Nubia, and bribes by one and the other party swayed the authorities in either direction. In 755 it was forbidden to any Copt to hold any public office, even if he should embrace Islamism. In the time of the Abbasside dynasty the hu- miliations of the Copts were multiplied ; the caliph Mutawackel compelled them to wear disgraceful articles of dress, and to fasten on their doors pictures of devils ; and a century and a half later the mad Fatimite caliph Hakein prescribed for them the black robe and turban, ordered them to wear suspended from their necks a heavy wooden cross, confiscated their churches, and finally decreed their banishment. To save themselves from these heavy penal- ties great numbers apostatized, and in the following centuries the number of Chris- tians steadily decreased. In 1301 an edict was issued requiring all Christians to wear blue turbans, and forbidding them to ride on horses or mules. Fresh conversions to Islam were the result of this edict. In 1321, by a bold conspiracy, the Moslem zealots destroyed simultaneously all the Egyptian churches, many of which were overturned from the foundations. The Christians retalia- ted by burning in Fostat and Cairo a large number of houses, palaces, and mosques. The punishment for these outrages, though it fell upon some of the Arabs, bore more severely upon the Christians. Some were hanged, some were burned alive, and leave was given to all Moslem subjects to rob and murder any Christian who might be seen wearing the white turban. No government official was permitted to employ a Copt. At the baths they were distinguished by a bell hung from the neck. Very numerous changes of faith resulted from this persecution, and at the end of the 14th century the condition of the Copts in numbers and influence had reached its low- est point, at which it continued with but little variation until the present century. Under Mehemet Ali and his successors, the Copts have had no occasion to complain of unreason- able taxation or of violated rights. Their ex- emption from military service, which seems to be a disgrace, is in reality a privilege, and is so regarded by most of their body. A full state- ment of Coptic history may be found in vol. ii. of Quatremere's Memoires geographiques et historiques. The most condensed account of their manners and customs is given in Lane's " Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyp- tians." Sir Gardner Wilkinson has given some valuable notices of the Copts in his work on Egypt, and Mr. Curzon has described the .appearance and condition of their convents