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THE COPTIC CHURCH IN THE PAST

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Maḳrīzī,[1] AlMakīn,[2] Renaudot.[3] Another modern compilation from these sources is Dr. Neale's History of the Patriarchate of Alexandria.[4] Abū-Daḳn's little book[5] contains some curious information. Mrs. Butcher's Story of the Church of Egypt[6] has no value at all; she has not the most elementary notion of either Church history or theology.

1. The Copts in the Roman Empire

The name Copt means simply Egyptian. It is an Arabic form of the Greek for Egypt or Egyptian.[7] Its present ecclesiastical sense is not very old. The Arab conquerors called all the natives they found in Egypt by this name, without any idea of a religious connotation. But since these natives practically all were members of the Monophysite national Church,[8] from about the 14th century Europeans have used the word Copt for a member of that Church. In this sense it is now universal. A Copt is a member of the Monophysite Church of Egypt.[9]

It is not necessary to begin our account of the Coptic Church at the first evangelizing of their land, nor to discuss the doubtful authenticity of the tradition that St. Mark brought the Gospel

1 Taḳīyu-dDīn alMaḳrīzī, a Moslem writer in Egypt († 1441), wrote a history ("Book of Exhortation and Consideration," Kitāb alMuwa'aẓ wa- ll'tabār), which contains a long account of the Copts. This part has been edited in Arabic and German by F. Wüstenfeld: Macrizi's Gesch. der Copten (Göttingen, 1845).

2 AlMakīn († 1275): Historia Saracenica (Arab. and Latin), ed. T. Erpenius, Leiden, 1625.

3 Historia Patriarcharum Alexandr. Jacobit. (Paris, 1713), mostly taken from Severus of Al-Ushmunain.

7 Ḳibṭ, Ḳibṭi, from (Greek characters). This derivation is now admitted by almost everyone. The loss of the first syllable is quite in accordance with Arabic philology. They would consider it as waṣla, then drop it. So bu for abu, -bn for ibn, etc. A further consideration is whether (Greek characters) comes from Ha-ka-ptah, "Houses of Ptah." The Arabic for Egypt is miṣr, the old Semitic name (Hebr. miṣraim).

9 It is better not to call them Jacobites, keeping that name for their co- religionists in Syria, where it is much more suitable (see pp. 9, 336).

  1. ↑ 1
  2. ↑ 2
  3. ↑ 3
  4. ↑ History of the Holy Eastern Church, vols. iv. and v. (London, Masters, 1847).
  5. ↑ Joseph Abudacnus: Hist. Jacobitarum seu Coptorum, Oxford, 1675.
  6. ↑ London, Smith, Elder, 2 vols., 1897.
  7. ↑ 7
  8. ↑ A handful of native Egyptians has always been Melkite.
  9. ↑ 9
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