The History Of The Coptic Language
Definition
The Coptic Language is
the name used to refer to the last stage of the written Egyptian language.
Coptic should more correctly be used to refer to the script rather than the
language itself. Even though this script was introduced as far back as the 2nd
century BC., it is usually applied to the writing of the Egyptian language from
the first century AD. to the present day.
Short History Of The Egyptian Language Before Coptic
The ancient Egyptians
devised a writing system to record their spoken language over 60 centuries ago.
The first application seems to have been the calendar. The system started by
giving each word a symbol, called hieroglyph. This convention was of course
doomed because of the tremendous vocabulary it would have generated. Out of
such ideas they took some of these hieroglyphs and associated a sound value to
them which, when combined together, would spell out the spoken word. The sound
values of such characters depended mostly on the pronunciation of the word that
it denoted in the early stage. Thus the hieroglyph for mouth, pronounced 'ro' became the sound 'r' in the
new system. About 130 hieroglyphs have been identified as voiced characters.
Some represented a single sound, others a two-character sound, and some a
three-character sound. Many more hieroglyphs were added to represent the idea
or to enhance the meaning of the word. These are commonly referred to as
'ideograms' and they brought the number of identified hieroglyphs to over 4,000.
This script, popularly called hieroglyphic, was both beautifully drawn as well
colorfully painted. It was used for inscription on Egyptian monuments as well
as a variety of written texts on papyrus.
In parallel with the
development of the hieroglyphic script, a second script came to light. Such
script was a mere simplification of the artistic, and sometimes laborious,
hieroglyphic. It was originally devised by the priests to record the records of
the temples and then became a tool of the government servants, educated by the
learned priests, who used it to record the affairs of the state. Due to the
priestly origin of the script the name 'hieretic' was
popularly affixed to it. This script used the same symbols, drawn in a
simplified way. There is no indication that script had as many ideograms as the
hieroglyphic had.
With the decline of the
state such a cumbersome writing method became impossible to preserve it as is. So in the fifth century BC. a new
script was devised that was both simpler to write and included about ten
percent of the total number of hieroglyphs used previously. This new script
came to be referred to as 'Demotic'. The cursive, and relatively ugly
appearance of characters, in comparison to the hieroglyphic, was compensated
for by its relative compactness. Many written records were preserved in that
script but they dared not inscribe it on temple walls.
Origin Of Coptic Among Egyptian Pagans
In 313 BC. Alexander the Great invaded Egypt. His legacy
was carried on by his general Ptolemeus and his
successors in Egypt. That legacy, simply stated, was to have a universal
culture. Such culture would of course be the Greek or Hellenistic one. With the
culture comes the language, so it became the proper way for the educated
classes to learn Greek and encourage their children to learn it for the
economical as well as the social advantages. In script, the Greek was far
superior to the Demotic, the last surviving Egyptian script at the time. It
offered 24 characters all pronounceable as opposed to over 400 symbols that
only a small percentage represented sounds and the rest were ideograms.
It is important to note
here that the Greeks learned their writing system from the Egyptians through
the frequent travelers of the ancient world, the Phoenicians. In the course of
their commercial dealings with the Egyptians, the Phoenicians imported the
Egyptian script and molded it into an alphabet with a far smaller number of
characters, all pronounceable and all consonants.
As they traveled the Mediterranean
and traded with the inhabitants of the Greek Isles, they gave their version of
the Egyptian writing system to the Greeks. They in turn revised its orthography
and added a number of written vowels. A system that
eventually became the basis for the new Egyptian script, i.e. the Coptic.
The pagan Egyptian
priests, as a result of the invasion of the Greek language, found themselves at
a disadvantage. The source of income as well as the power of their temples
depended a great deal on the making and the sales of magical amulets. Now these
amulets, written in Egyptian, can not be pronounced
by those who can afford to pay for them. If they can not
use, properly or at all, it is safe to say that they would not buy it. To avert
such economic and religious massacre, they reverted to a transliteration system
of these amulets. This new system used the Greek characters along with several
other characters borrowed from the Demotic to denote sounds not available in
Greek. The economic success of such system made them extend its use to other
applications such as horoscopes and the like. The number of
borrowed Demotic characters eventually were reduced. The resultant
script was highly standardized, in the common tradition of the Ancient
Egyptians.
Origin Of Coptic Among Christians In Egypt
Christianity in Egypt
owes its formal introduction to St. Mark the Evangelist. He most likely came
first to Alexandria in the early fifties of the first century AD., accompanying
his uncle St. Barnabas. This came as a result of the news of Apollo, who
represented an imperfect Christianity that existed in Alexandria at the time.
After the repose of St. Barnabas in Cyprus, St. Mark came again by himself and
started proclaiming the word of God among the Jews. The legacy that St. Mark
left in Egypt was a Christian community made up primarily of converted hellenized Jews.
Christianity remained
eclipsed by the powerful Jewish community in Alexandria at the time. After the Jewish Revolt in the first quarter of the second century
AD. and subsequent annihilation of the Jews in
Alexandria, the Christians of Egypt became visible to the world.
The first visible signs
of such presence were rather blemishing to the character of the Church. Two
teachers of Gnostic, heterodox repute, traveled abroad at different times
during the middle of the second century AD. They were Basilides
and Valentinus. The latter became infamous due to his
quest to be the bishop of Rome. In any case, these teachers influenced the
arrival of Pantanus, the missionary, presumably to
introduce the orthodox teachings of Christianity to a seemingly Gnostic
community. After his arrival he discovered that this was not exactly the case
and there was a strong orthodox community present as a result of the
evangelizing work of St. Mark and his successors. Being a renowned Christian
teacher he was put in charge of the Christian school of Alexandria, a rather
small school that taught those who are willing to serve the Lord the
fundamentals of Christianity. Shortly after his arrival, St. Demetrius, the
first bishop of Egyptian origin, became the bishop of Alexandria about 189 AD.
The contact between Pantaenus, the missionary, and St. Demetrius the
representative of the large and mostly non-Christian Egyptians was truly a
match made in Heaven. As a result a missionary movement to convert the Egyptian
peasants began. The School of Alexandria probably became a school to prepare
the missionaries and direct their activities.
The dilemma faced by
those responsible for directing such missionary work was the uniformity of the
message to be given to the Egyptians. The missionaries knew how to read Greek
but not Demotic. The Egyptian peasants did not know how to read either but they
understood the sounds of the language written by the Demotic script, i.e.
Egyptian. To insure that the Word of God, written in the Scriptures, be
preached the same by the different missionaries, it had to be written in a way
that the missionaries can read and the Egyptians can understood when it was
read to them. So the missionaries translated the Scriptures into the Egyptian
tongue but wrote them using the Greek characters they are familiar with. These
attempts differed from those of the pagans in that they did not use any Demotic
character in the beginning. The shortcomings of that system were eventually
realized and more characters, borrowed from the Demotic, were added to bring
them to the current six or seven additional characters that survived in the Sahidic and Bohairic dialects
respectively.
Dialects
N
ow we see two
independent attempts to write the Egyptian language in new script. Each attempt
was unique in its motive, approach, and audience. Due to the distribution of
the population along the length of the Nile, many dialects developed. Each was
characterized by the use of different vowels in pronouncing the same words as
well as some distinct variation in the vocabulary. The pagans attempted from
the start to develop a uniform written language in a neutral Dialect, the Sahidic. Because of their early start, they were successful
in their efforts and nearly erased any influence that such regional dialects
had on their own version of Coptic. The Christians on the other hand put the
benefit of the people ahead of proper language development and resurrected all
these regional dialects in a written form. Eventually most of these dialects
fell into disuse as the uniform Sahidic became the
more dominant again. Another factor that affected these the
dialects was the fact that the Coptic language was generally weakened by the
influence of Arabic.
All the dialects were to
a large extent geographically-dependent. Their spanned the entire length of the
Nile Valley. Based on literary records we have such dialects as the Akhmimic and the Lycopolitan (Asyutic) dialects of Upper Egypt, the Middle Egyptian and
the Fayoumic of Middle Egypt, and the Bohairic of the Delta. Then there is the Sahidic dialect that became, from the earliest times, a
neutral dialect used throughout Egypt and eventually gained literary dominance
with the extensive writings of St. Shenouda the Archimandrite. There is also a
host of minor dialects as well as subdialects to the
ones mentioned above.
Now Bohairic
is the only surviving dialect of Coptic. It was kept alive first by the
strength of the monastic communities of Wadi n' Natrun which used it extensively. Then with the move of the
Patriarchate from Alexandria to Cairo in the 11th century, Bohairic,
the dialect of the District, became the official dialect of the Church
replacing the Sahidic.
The Golden Age Of Coptic
Coptic was used from its
Christian beginnings in the late second century AD. till
the time of the Great persecution of Diocletian in the early 4th century AD. predominantly as a translational tool from Greek to
Egyptian. After the persecution, the monastic movement picked up tremendous
steam. It was for the Copts the only way they can express their great love for God, that they earlier expressed with the willing sacrifice
of their most precious possession, their earthly lives. These monastic
communities were large and mostly Egyptian. This generated the need for the
abbots of these communities to write their rules in their own language, i.e.
Coptic. Also the Fathers of the Coptic Church, who usually wrote in Greek,
addressed some of their works to the Egyptian monks in Coptic.
So with monastic fathers
like St. Antony, St. Pachomius, and St. Macarius and their respective disciples writing to their
monks; and Church Fathers like St. Athanasius, St. Theophilius,
and St. Cyril writing also to them in Coptic, the Golden Age of Coptic was
about to begin. It was not until St. Shenouda the Archimandrite came on the
scene that Coptic really achieved its literary excellence. St.
Shenouda who lived from 348 to 466 AD. was able
to transform the language form a tool to communicate instructions to the monks
to a wide-variety literary language that addressed monks, ecclesiastic
authorities, laymen, and even government officials. His charisma, knowledge of
Greek language and rhetoric, and his innovative mind gave him the necessary
tools to elevate the Coptic language, in content and style, to a literary height
never achieved before nor equaled since. The Coptic scholars are constantly
astounded by his great writings as more and more of them are being studied and
accurately published.
This literary legacy
continued to a lesser degree through the writings of his disciple St. Besa in the second half of the fifth century. But such
writings were mostly for the edification of the large monastic community in the
White Monastery. later in the sixth and seventh
centuries other fathers wrote many works in Coptic like Rufus of Shotep, Constantine of Asyut, and Pisentius
of Qift.
Coptic During the Early Arabic Period (7th to 10th Century AD)
By the middle of the
seventh century, Egypt came under the dominance of Arab rulers that eventually
tried to force the Copts to learn Arabic to keep their government jobs. This
policy slowly eroded the number of Coptic lay readers who were mostly from the
ranks of these government workers and their families. In other words the
pressure put on such families to learn Arabic to ensure their continuing
service in the government and the inheritance of such work by their offspring,
made them slowly neglect educating their children in literary Coptic. Within a
few hundred years Bishop Severus of Al-Ashmunain
found it necessary to write his 'History of the Patriarchs' in Arabic to
address such a drastic decline.
Ecclesiastically, the
language continued strong. In fact, a great number of Hagiographic texts were
composed during the early parts of this period. Coptic continued to be used in
the Church with Greek as the second language, as seen from the texts that
survived from the period. However a relatively small number of liturgical
manuscripts survived from such period to show how it was being used. This was
due to the heavy use that such manuscripts were subjected to, poor preservation
during the period of decline in use, and the parchment material they were
written on that did not lend itself to such heavy use.
During this period some
Arabic loan-words made their way into the language. But there was no indication
that the Arabic language was used in the Church. There were no Coptic-Arabic
manuscripts that belong to this period or any literary citation to indicate its
possible use. Coptic was also the spoken language of the peasants and probably
the clergy.
Coptic versus Arabic
(from 11th to 14th Century AD)
As the 11th century
approached, the excellent relations between the rulers of Egypt and the Church
were drastically changed as the Hakem-bi-Amr-Allah became the ruler. His violent mood swings took
their toll on the Christians who were periodically subjected to open
persecutions, had their churches closed for up to two years at time, and saw
their language being prohibited from use. Through God's grace, this period did
not last long, but it definitely left open the door for further decline in
Coptic use.
During the same period,
the European Crusaders waged their wars against the Moslem rulers of the Middle
East in an effort to secure the holy places. Their presence in the area
generated waves of persecutions and oppressions against the Copts. This was due
to the Moslems seeing in the sign of the Cross, displayed by the Crusaders, an
implied alliance of the Copts with those invaders and a great threat to the
country. Of course there was no chance of such alliance, for the Crusaders
considered the Copts as heretics and treated them worse than they treated the
Moslems, as sad as it might sounds. Introduction of Arabic in the 12th century
by Patriarch Gabriel ibn Turaik
was probably an attempt to show the Moslems that the Copts are different from
real enemy that they were fighting.
Such move may have been
considered wise at the time but it actually opened the flood gates. Christians
Arabic literature flourished afterward. Later in the period, Arabic invaded the
liturgical books, replacing Greek in bilingual texts and intruding on
traditionally non-bilingual ones. Even purely Arabic liturgical texts began to
appear, indicating that Arabic moved from a mere reference translation to
actual use in the churches. Original composition in Coptic became limited to
liturgical hymns and prayers. The only Coptic literary texts composed in the
later part of the period were the martyrdom of St. John of Phanidijoit,
written as such to shield from the eyes of the Moslems, and compositions,
urging the Copts to revive their language.
Further testimony to the
gradual decline of the language as a reading tool was supplied by the many
lexicographic works that were introduced during the period. They were in the
form of Muqadimat (Grammar) and Salalem
(Scalae or word lists). Another sign of decline was
Arabic texts circulating among the monks but written in Coptic characters, as
they could not still read the Arabic script. This eventually was replaced with
the writing of Coptic text in Arabic letters that we see nowadays in the Coptic
Church.
In summary, this period
saw the decline of Coptic literary use in its last stronghold, the Church.
Eventually, it led to the weakening of the Church which subsequently weakened
the language more, a natural chain reaction. The number of Christians declined
due to conversion to Islam. This can probably be attributed to the decline in
Coptic which represented a cultural barrier for the Copts from the
Arabic-Moslem Culture. But now the increasing use of Arabic bridged that
barrier and made it easier for the border-line Christians to cross to seemingly
greener grounds!
Coptic Decline as a
Spoken Language (to 17th Century)
After
the 14th century
the Church experienced a decline spiritually and in numbers. The dominance of
the Ottoman Empire over Egypt in the early 16th century seemed to accelerate
such decline. Production of Coptic Manuscripts slowed down to a trickle. This
is an indication that Coptic books were not used as often as before in the
Church, so there was no need to produce more. Tradition still mandated that
Coptic be used in Church services but in a decaying fashion. Eventually Vansleb, the French traveler, concluded upon seeing an old
man speaking in Coptic that with his death (the man's) Coptic will die. Such
observation may not have been completely accurate but it gave an indication
that Arabic has replaced Coptic as the primary spoken language among the Copts,
if not the only one!
Revival of Coptic in the
19th Century AD
God, in His great mercy,
did not let that decline goes unchecked. In His usual fashion, He brought forth
a gleam of light in the midst of that self-imposed darkness. Such light was St.
Cyril IV, Patriarch of Alexandria in the beginning years of the second half of
the 19th century. St. Cyril started a Church-sponsored movement to educate the
clergy and the new generations. Revival of Coptic seemed to be a necessary tool
for such a movement. So Coptic language education was offered in all the
schools that he built alongside the other curriculums that was needed to make a
new, better, and educated generation.
St. Cyril did not last
long on the throne of St. Mark. In fact too short of time for
such a great figure in Church history. His death was in part brought
upon by opponents of his reforms. But he laid the ground work for such movement
to continue. In the last half quarter of that century the movement to revive
the Coptic language intensified. The eyes of those in that movement turned to
Greece in an effort to establish a standardized method of pronouncing Coptic.
It was felt that Greek preserved the original sound value of many of the
characters in Coptic because of its close association with Coptic in its early
days. However the Greek tongue underwent some modifications due to the effect
of 150 years of Turkish (Ottoman) dominance. Because of the lack of any other
available means, a new pronunciation system was established for Coptic that
made it sounds not as Egyptian as it should have sounded.
In spite of the above
shortcoming, those dedicated people spread the language among the masses. They
printed many of the Coptic service books for the first time, as they were only
extant in manuscript form. Thus reviving the use of Coptic in
the Church services. Several works of grammar was produced as a result
along with a more comprehensive dictionary that was available before. The
establishment of the Clerical College also aided in the propagation of the
movement.
Coptic in the 20th
Century
Coptic continued its
growth in the Church and among the Ecclesiastically-educated groups that were
produced in the early parts of the 20th century. Coptic schools, instituted by
St. Cyril IV and others that emulated them, continued their valuable work among
the Coptic community. The clerical college also continued the tradition of the
19th century revival of Coptic. However, the pronunciation system established
seemed to be a hindrance to the spread of the language among the masses. With
the advent of the revolution of 1952, Arabic became more prominent in Egypt and
eventually it had an influential effect on the new educated classes among the
Copts. As members of these groups were called upon to serve the Church, they
brought with them a preaching spirit that put Arabic in a new prominent
position in the services, i.e. sermons. Unintentionally, and in spite of the
good will of such people and their love of the tradition of the Church, they
introduced again an element that eventually weakened the revival process. If
such process is not wisely put in check and eventually reversed, we are liable
to face in the future a Church with a lost identity. May God have mercy on
those who would contribute to such a sorry end!
People, especially
Copts, often ask why do they need to study Coptic. The
cause of their dilemma is that Coptic is rarely used even in its last
stronghold, the Coptic Church. The answer to such a perplexing question lies in
two distinct but closely related principles. The first is called the
Ecclesiastical Principle and the second is referred to as the Coptic Principle.
Both of these principles hold explanation for the importance as well as the
necessity for keeping such language alive among people in general and Copts in
particular.
The Ecclesiastical Principle
The Ecclesiastical
Principle is a 3-component concept that describes the Coptic Church in general
terms. Its components are derived from the official name used by the Church but
in reverse order. These components are as follows:
1. Church: The first Component, the Church can be assumed
to be the substance of Christianity, i.e., the Bible. This is due to the fact
that the Coptic Church like any true Christian Church is build upon the Bible,
the authentic Word of God.
2. Orthodox: The Orthodox component is understood as the
authority of the fathers of the Church within the confines of the Coptic
Church. An authority that is second only to the Bible because their writings
are mere inspired explanation and expansion of the meaning of the Bible.
3. Coptic: The last component of this trio is Coptic. The
value of this component is embodied in the second principle to be discussed
here, the Coptic Principle. It suffices to say here that this component is what
gives the Coptic Church its identity and its distinctive flavor that sets it
apart from any other Christian Church.
The Coptic Principle
The Coptic Principle is
an extension of the third component of the Ecclesiastical principle. It is in
turn explained within the concept of a 3-component system. Such system will
help explain the great benefits that can be achieved by the Copts or others
when they learn the language. These components are as follows:
1. Identity: The Coptic language provides a Copt with an
identity that spells out an impressive commentary upon the character of such
person. It exemplifies in him an unyielding spirit that was tried and came out
victorious. A spirit that had to endure endless attempts by those that ruled
Egypt for the past 2300 years to replace such language with that of their own.
If such was achieved then they can subject the Copts to cultural and religious
slavery that would forever made them subservient to such foreign rulers. It was
attempted first by the Greeks, through their Helenizing
approach. Then it was continued along the same principles by the successive
Arabic and Moslem dynasties that ruled Egypt since the 7th century AD. The
significance of such character can also inspire the Coptic youth to fight off
the many harmful pressures, whether in spirit or in body, that are facing them
in this turbulent Society of ours.
2. Link to the Past: The Coptic language is the bridge that links
the Copts with their ancient Egyptian roots. It provides them with a continuous
written record of their civilization that span over 6000 years, the longest in
existence. A civilization that is truly been considered, then and now, a marvel
of human achievement. Their accomplishments encompassed most areas of human
endeavors such as art, architecture, medicine, and of course their remarkable
embalming techniques. A recount of such achievements and others will require
many volumes. And to do them justice, it is best left for the experts who have
already scratched the surface but has not yet gone deep enough. One last word
that needs to be said about such link is that to successfully claim such
lineage to greatness, a common language is needed. Coptic, of course, is such a
language. It embodies the same Egyptian language of ancient times that was
formerly written in the picturesque Hieroglyphs, the practical Hieratic, and
the handy Demotic characters.
3. Key to the Treasures
of the Coptic Church: This third and final
category of the Coptic Principle has the most significant values that Coptic
brings. By learning Coptic the hidden treasure of the church, the source of its
greatness, will become accessible. This will make the Copt more rooted in his
Church that has truly survived the test of time.
These treasures has come down primarily in literary form. They were
left by the fathers of the Coptic Church over the centuries as the fruit of
their labor of love for the Almighty. They cover many areas of Christian
knowledge and experiences that are essential for the spiritual well-being of
the Copts or anyone interested in learning about God. The discussion here will
cover the basics of such treasures but only briefly. These treasures are as
follows:
a. Language: The language, or
rather the development of the script is a treasure in itself. Among the
Christians, its appearance was a sign of Christian charity, for it was
developed for the primary purpose of translating the Scriptures in order to
preach the Gospel to the native population of Egypt. More details about such
work will be included in the discussion of the history of the language.
b. Bible: The Coptic Version of the Bible is truly the
greatest of all the treasures of the Coptic Heritage. Its value has been
recognized by biblical scholars from every corner of the Globe. Many reasons
contributed to such a high significance being attributed to it. First it
utilized Greek originals that did not survive the winds of the persecutions nor the sands of time. Secondly it reflected the
conservative, or orthodox, nature of the Egyptian Christians who translated
such sacred texts in a method as literal as possible. They even made special
adjustments in the grammatical system to project such a method. Thirdly they
presented a better ancient understanding of some certain obscure verses or
words in the Greek originals. This was due to the antiquity of the Version as
well as the scholarship of those that contributed to it. Because of these
factors and others, the Coptic Version is always used as an important witness
in the scholarly publications of the Greek Scriptures, Old and New Testaments.
c. Writings of the
Fathers: The Coptic language
handed to us a great collection of the writings of the fathers of the Church.
Such writings carry an authority in the Church second only to that of the
Scriptures. In essence they are an extension to the Bible. Such collection that
survived can be divided into two groups. The first one is a collection of
translation from Greek originals of writings of Egyptian and non-Egyptian
Church fathers. The second group is a collection of writings of Egyptian
Fathers.
The collection of
translations from Greek originals are characterized either as being
commentaries on the Bible or dealing with spiritual subjects that are suitable
more to the monastic community who used them more. The collection of original
Coptic writings featured a more variety of subjects. However they still
projected the monastic flavor. In other words, most of the Coptic writings did
not address the more theoretical aspects of theology as other Greek writings
did.
The value of the first
collection, that of translated texts, lies in either being an ancient witness
to the Greek original or at times the only surviving witness to such writings.
The Copts did not translated every
thing that came into their hands. They rather translated only those of
the more widely known or accepted fathers; and of course those which they
considered to be pertinent to their ascetic nature. The most popular writer was
St. John Chrysostom. The writings of Saints Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil of
Caesarea, and Gregory the Theologian were also popular but not as much as those
of St. John Chrysostom.
The second collection, that of original Coptic writings is the more
valuable one. It include writings from Alexandrian
fathers who usually wrote in Greek, like Saints Athanasius, Theophilius,
and Cyril the Great. They also included the monastic writings of St. Pachomius and his disciples as well as those of bishops
from the Pre-Arab invasion like Pisentius of Qift, Constantine of Asyut, Mena of Pshati,
and Rufus of Shotep. However the greatest of them all
is without a doubt the writings of St. Shenouda the Archimandrite, which was
the most voluminous with a wider variety of subjects. Worthy of mention here
are the substantial writings of St. Besa (Wissa), St. Shenouda's disciple.
The writings of St.
Shenouda the Archimandrite are truly the crown jewels of Coptic Literature.
Their style, their variety, and their subject matters make them worthy of such
distinction. The literary style of St. Shenouda was a unique one. It blended many
of the great feature of his time as well as his own
added flavor. It dealt with more subjects that are not normally expected to be
seen within the writings of a monastic leader. They addressed laymen, clerics,
and even high government officials. Their subject matters dealt with what such
a variety of people needs along Christian lines. However they presented the
reader with a feature that is unprecedented. This feature was the
simplification of St. Cyril the Great's theoretical
theology into a practical one that the masses can understand and apply.
d. Lives of the Saints: The Coptic Church never had a shortage of
saints throughout its long illustrious history. Though many of the acts of such
saints have survived to this day, still many more perished as a result of the
gradual loss of the language. The importance of the lives of the saints lies in
the simple fact that they present to us portraits of the living Bible. They
furnish proofs for the authenticity of the Bible teachings and the application
of its teachings in people's life. Lives of the Saints are available in many
languages and churches other than those in use in Egypt and recognized in the
Coptic Church, Coptic Lives however provide a unique brand. They consist of two
major collections. The first are those of the martyrs who watered the flowering
Church with their blood. The second are those of the monastic fathers who
converted the desolate desert from an abode for demons to a haven for saints.
There are also many acts of clergy as well as laymen that have reached this
honored status.
The value of the Coptic
lives lie in their antiquity as compared to the parallel ones available in
Arabic and also in their exclusive presence in such language. The Coptic Synaxarium, being the most complete record of the saints of
the Coptic Church, preserves only mention of names of some of these saints
while their complete acts are preserved in Coptic. This category covers many of
the saints of Upper Egypt who seem to have been forgotten by the compilers of
the Synaxarium who lived mostly in Lower Egypt.
The collection of Coptic
martyrdoms mostly includes those martyrs of the Diocletian Persecution (303-311
AD.) The most notable ones are those of St. Menas,
St. Anoub, St. George, St. Theodore, and countless
others. There are also acts of martyrs of earlier persecutions such as St. Mercurius, and those of later ones such as St. Macarius of Tkoou. There is even
a 13th century Coptic martyrdom, that of St. John of Phanidjoit.
The collection of lives
of monastic fathers includes Those of the early
fathers such as St. Antony the Great, St. Pachomius
and his disciples, St. Macarius and his disciples,
St. Onophrius, and St. Shenouda the Archimandite. It also include
those of the later fathers such as St. Samuel of Qalamun,
St. Apollo, and many others.
Unfortunately the hand
of man sometimes corrupts the natural beauty of such acts with unnecessary
fabricated details. Such wild imagination distorts the saintly image of these
acts and their value for the edification of the Christians as they were meant
to be. However sorting the truth from fiction is not an easy task because what
would sounds like a fabrication to some may still be factual. Careful study of
these acts, God's willing, will yield desirable fruits. But caution should be
exercised before deleting any details unless they are judged to be impossible
to have occurred on historical, theological, and spiritual grounds. May God
help those who undertake this worthy and blessed task.
e. Liturgical Services: The Coptic Church, in extension of its
religious practices and beliefs of ancient times, regulated man's interface
with God through an elaborate and comprehensive system of liturgical services.
These services cover every aspect of human life in order to strengthen the tie
between the Creator and His beloved creation and regulate man's life in
accordance with what God has intended. Such services are made of selections
from the Bible mixed the writings of the fathers of the Church and handed down
by the saints of the Church. A powerful combination indeed!
All these services are
made even more beautiful by their poetical arrangement and the magnificent
Coptic music that accompanies them. The beautiful melodies that are
collectively called Coptic Music has been determined,
by the musicologists that studied it, as the richest in Christendom. If music
moves the soul then Coptic music must makes it dance. The Church fathers used
this powerful tool not only to beautify the words of the services but to vary
and enhance their meanings. I would dare to say that in the case of the Coptic
Liturgy, the music is responsible for up to 50 percent of the meaning being
conveyed. Moreover, the varying tunes provide the believers with an instant way
of sharing in the spirit of the Church commemorations. If what was just said is
unclear, then one should only observe the services of the Holy Week and the
Resurrection service that follows it for instant clarification.
The services include the
three great liturgies, those of St. Basil, St. Gregory, and St. Cyril, where
man is elevated to heaven to partake in the greatest gift ever given, the Body
and Blood of our Savior Jesus Christ. Other services include Baptism and
Confirmation that make the person eligible to partake in the sacraments. Also
there are services for the sacrament of Marriage and that of Unction to
spiritually and physically heal, God's willing, man's
afflictions. Also the Church consoles her members through the beautifully
arranged funeral services. Every order in the Church, from a reader to a
patriarch, its possessor participates in ordination services that vary in
proportion to the rank being bestowed. There are also the magnificent services
of the Holy Week, the Washing of Feet or Laqan, and
the Genuflection among others.
f. Canon Law and
Documents: To regulate man
relationship to God, the Church instituted many laws that were based and
biblical principles as well as human needs. Coptic preserved the most ancient
of the manuscripts of the Apostolic constitutions,
which were last compiled in Egypt. Other collections in Coptic are those of the
Councils of Nice and Ephesus and those of St. Athanasius and St. Basil.
Another aspect of this
treasure is the documentary evidence that Coptic has yielded. These documents
include contracts such as those between individuals or between groups. It also
includes a collection of private letters. These documents that survived were
parts of archives of officials or towns. Their value lie
in that they provide us with a window to observe regional history as well as to
study the non-ecclesiastical common law that the people were practicing at the
time. This provides a great help in studying the real history of the Copts, not
only of Church dignitaries. These documents range in age from as early as the
4th century to as late as the 11th century. Such treasure has been nearly
untapped by Copts not only because of its relative non-ecclesiastical nature
but mostly because of the difficulty encountered in reading its script. To put
it in perspective, its documents look like something that a doctor might have
written!
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