nople and the Greek Church are known as "Melchites," the followers of the imperial policy. The name "Copt" is an adaptation of the Greek Aiguptos, originally used for the Nile and then for the land of the Nile, which is a Hellenised form of the old Egyptian title, Ha-ka-Ptah—"Houses of Ptah," the and where Ptah dwells. The Arabs call the Copts Qubti. Thus the name simply means Egyptian.[1] It has come to have an ecclesiastical significance, because most of the Copts are of the Monophysite Church in Egypt, while the Mohammedans are known as Arabs, although in the mixture of races now occupying Egypt Berber and Nubian blood is mingled with that of the conquerors from Arabia as well as such of the native Egyptian stock as went over to the Muslim faith. In the towns the true Egyptians are mainly Christians; but the Fellaheen of the country, evidently constituting the original indigenous peasant race, as their resemblance to the ancient monuments testifies, have been absorbed to a great extent into Islam.
The Egyptian Church is undoubtedly one of the most ancient churches in the world, dating back almost if not quite to apostolic times, although, like the Eastern Syrian, and even the Roman churches, it can furnish no historical record of its origin. The commonly accepted tradition that it was founded by St. Mark cannot be traced with certainty earlier than the fourth century;[2] and the fact that this tradition is not to be found in Clement of Alexandria, Origen, or any other writer of the second and third centuries, raises our doubts about its historicity. On
- ↑ Vlieger, Origin and Early History of the Coptic Church, p. 7. This etymology is now almost universally accepted. Others, now rejected, are the derivation from the town Coptos, and worse than that, the derivation from the Greek κόπτω, indicating either (1) schism, or (2) circumcision.
- ↑ It is found in the apocryphal Acts of Barnabas, which may perhaps be as early as the third century. The first reference to it in history is by Eusebius, who only makes it in the form of an allusion to a tradition that he does not undertake to authenticate: "and they say that this Mark was the first that was sent to Egypt, and that he proclaimed the gospel which he had written, and first established churches in Alexandria" (Hist. Eccl. ii. 16). Eusebius says that Mark was succeeded by Annianus "when Nero was in the
