and India thereafter raised Coptos to great commercial prosperity; but in A.D. 292 its share in the rebellion against Diocletian led to an almost total devastation. It again appears, however, as a place of importance, and as the seat of a considerable Christian community, though the stream of traffic turned aside to the neighbouring Ķūṣ. During part of the 7th century it was called Justinianopolis in honour of the emperor Justinian.
The local god of Coptos, as of Khemmis (Akhmīm, q.v.), was the ithyphallic Min; but in late times Isis was of equal importance in the city. Min was especially the god of the desert routes. Petrie’s excavations on the site of the temple brought to light remains of all periods, the most remarkable objects being three very primitive limestone statues of the god with figures of an elephant, swords of sword-fish, sea-shells, &c., engraved upon them: there were also found some very peculiar terra-cottas of the Old Kingdom, and the decree of an Antef belonging to the latter part of the Middle Kingdom, deposing the monarch for siding with the king’s enemy.
COPTS, the early native Christians of Egypt and their successors
of the Monophysite sect, now racially the purest representatives
of the ancient Egyptians. The name is a Europeanized
form, dating perhaps from the 14th century, of the Arabic Ķibt
(or Ķubt), which, in turn, is derived from the Greek Αἰγύπτιοι, “Egyptians” (the Copts in the Coptic language likewise style
themselves ⲣⲉⲙ̀ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ, “people of Egypt,” “Egyptians”).
The limited application of the name is explained by the circumstances of the time when Mahomet sent forth his challenge to the world and ‛Amr conquered Egypt (A.D. 627–641). At that time the population of Egypt was wholly Christian (except for a sprinkling of Jews, &c.), divided into two fiercely hostile sects, the Monophysites and the Melkites. The division was in great measure racial. The Melkites, adherents of the orthodox or court religion sanctioned by the council of Chalcedon, were mainly of foreign extraction, from the various Hellenistic races which peopled the Eastern Roman empire, while the bulk of the population, the true Egyptians, were Monophysite. Amongst the latter political aspirations, apart from religion, may be said not to have existed. It has generally been held that the Copts invited and aided the Moslems to seize the country in order that at all costs they might be freed from the yoke of the state religion imposed by the Eastern Roman Empire; but Dr A. J. Butler has shown this view to be untenable, while admitting that the religious feuds of the Christians made the task of the Arabs easy. The mysterious Muķauķis, who treacherously handed over Alexandria, impregnable as it was for Arab warriors, and then capitulated, was none other than Cyrus, the Melkite patriarch and governor of Egypt; the native Monophysite party, however, smarting under the persecution of the Emperor Heraclius, seemed to have most to gain by a change of masters. The prophet Mahomet himself had prescribed indulgence to the Copts before his death, and ‛Amr was mercifully disposed to them. Although they offered resistance in some places, after the Roman forces had been destroyed or had abandoned Egypt they generally acquiesced in the inevitable; and when in 646 a Roman fleet and army recaptured Alexandria and harried the Delta, the Copts helped the Moslems to cast out the Christian invaders. Some of the Copts embraced Islam at once, but as yet they formed practically a solid Christian nation under the protection of the conquering Arabs, and the religious and political distinction between the “true believers” and the Christians was so sharp that a native Christian turning Moslem was no longer a Copt, i.e. Egyptian; he practically changed his nationality.
The beginnings of Christianity in Egypt are obscure; the existence of it among the natives (as opposed to the mixed “Greek” population of Egypt and Alexandria which produced so many leading figures and originated leading doctrines in the early church) can be traced back as far as the Decian persecution (A.D. 249–251) in the purely Egyptian names of several martyrs. St Anthony (c. A.D. 270) was a Copt; so also was Pachomius, the founder of Egyptian monasticism at the beginning of the 4th century. The scriptures were translated into Coptic not later than the 4th century. A religion founded on morality and with a clear doctrine of life after death was especially congenial to the Egyptians; thus the lower orders in the country embraced Christianity fervently, while the Alexandrian pagans were lost in philosophical speculation and Neoplatonism was spread amongst the rich “Greek” landowners; these last, partly out of religious enthusiasm, partly from greed, annoyed and oppressed their Christian peasantry. Egypt was then terribly impoverished; the upper country was constantly overrun by raiders from Nubia and the desert; and the authority of the imperial government was too weak to interfere actively on behalf of the Christians. The monasteries, however, were refuges that could bid defiance to the most powerful of the pagan aristocracy as well as to barbarian hordes, and became centres of united action that, at the summons of Shenoute, the organizer of the national church, swept away the idols of the oppressors in riot and bloodshed. In the course of the 5th century the Christians reached a position in which they were able to treat the pagans mercifully as a feeble remnant.
The Copts had little interest in theology; they were content to take their doctrine as prepared for them by the subtler minds of their Greek leaders at Alexandria, choosing the simplest form when disputes arose. In 325 their elected patriarch, Athanasius, and his following of Greeks and Copts, triumphed at the council of Nicaea against Arius; but in 451 the banishment of Dioscorus, patriarch of Alexandria, by the council of Chalcedon created a great schism, the Egyptian church holding to his Monophysite tenets (see Coptic Church, below), while the Catholic and imperial party at Constantinople ever sought to further the “Melkite” cause in Egypt at the expense of the native church. Thenceforward there were generally two patriarchs, belonging to the rival communities, and the Copts were oppressed by the Melkites; Heraclius, in 638 after the repulse of the Persians, endeavoured to unite the churches, but, failing in that, he persecuted the Monophysites more severely than ever before, until ‛Amr brought Egypt under the Moslem rule of ‛Omar, as has been related above. Under the persecution many Copts had gone over to the Melkites, but now it was the turn of the Melkites, as supporters of the emperor of Constantinople, to suffer, and they almost entirely disappeared from Egypt, though a remnant headed by a patriarch of Alexandria of the Orthodox Christians has survived to this day.
But after a few years of the mild rule of ‛Amr the Egyptians began to be squeezed for the benefit of the Moslem exchequer and persecuted for their religion. Many of the more thoughtful and sober Christians must long have been disgusted with religious strife, and had already embraced the simple and congenial doctrines of Islam; others went over for the sake of material gain. Conflicts arose from time to time between the Mahommedan minority and the Christians. The Copts were excellent scribes and accountants and were continued in their posts under the Arab rule; the government offices were full of them; sometimes even the wazirate (vizierate) was held by a Copt, and that too in a time of persecution of the Christians. The pride of the Copts, still seen in the objection which the poorest among them have to engaging in any mean work or trade, was a serious danger, perhaps even a chief source of their troubles, in earlier days; devout Moslems on more than one occasion stirred the mob to fury when they saw Christians lording it over “true believers.” The lower orders of the Copts were continually oppressed. Thus there was every inducement amongst the Christians to turn Mahommedan. Arab tribes, too, were encouraged to settle in Egypt until the Mahommedans exceeded the Copts in numbers.
The history of the Copts consists on the one hand of the record of religious strife, of growing scandals in the church, such as simony, and attempted reforms; and on the other hand of persecutions at the hands of the Moslems. As examples of the severity of the persecutions, it may be noted that, in the 8th century, the monks not only were compelled to pay a capitation tax, but were branded with name and number, civilians were oppressed with heavy taxation, churches demolished, pictures and crosses destroyed (722–723). Degrading dresses were imposed upon the Christians (849–850); later, under Hakim (997), they
