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In this blog post, author Bill Manley reflects on the origins of Sahidic Coptic and how its influence can still be felt today.
The end of ancient Egypt; the fall of the Roman Empire; early books; the early Bible; Orthodox Christianity; the Byzantine Empire; the history of religious persecution; Europe’s mediaeval monasteries; the rise of Islam; Egyptian society today; even the decipherment of hieroglyphs—these are a handful of the ‘big’ stories that cannot be told properly without some awareness of the tens of thousands of Sahidic Coptic texts from Late Antique Egypt. Often, they are among our most detailed sources for any of these subjects.
‘Copt’ comes via Arabic al-Qibṭiy from Greek Aiguptioi ‘Egyptians’, and evokes three centuries of Roman rule in Egypt; when a Greek-speaking ruling class treated native Egyptian speakers as social and political inferiors. The land had been brought under Roman rule in 30 BC, at the death of the notorious Queen Cleopatra VII. Subsequently, the indigenous language was excluded from public life, and Egypt’s institutions came to be viewed as collaborators. Resistance to Rome became identified with the systematic executions of Egyptian Christians; especially during the reign of Diocletian (284–305). Following an imperial about-face and edicts of religious toleration in the early 300s, Egypt was revealed to be a majority Christian nation where the ancient temples were repurposed as churches, and the spread of monasteries would be the most dynamic, transformative socio-economic phenomenon of the new age.
As the temples’ authority had dwindled among the people, so had that of the ancient hieroglyphic script: identified since the dawn of history with the kingship and priesthood. As with their rejection of traditional education and governance, the ‘Copts’ also devised an alphabet as an alternative for writing their language and promoting Christian scripture in translation. Sahidic Coptic is the normative literary dialect, whose influence is apparent in almost all Egyptian texts from Late Antiquity. Consequently, the usual definition of the word Copt today is ‘Egyptian Christian’. Even though Coptic is no longer spoken, most of the millions of modern Copts are Arabic-speakers, and the Coptic Orthodox churches have a global presence.
The relevance of Sahidic Coptic writing stretches far beyond Egypt. A single case in point would be the monk Pahom (St Pachomius), who first wrote down the rules for living in a monastery. His aptitude for organising large numbers in close proximity stemmed from his first career in the Roman Army. Pahom was baptised upon his discharge from the army, when Diocletian’s murders had barely ended, and was leading four ‘communities’ within a few years. In keeping with the meandering River Nile, a monastery was a scattered agricultural collective whose members came together to eat, pray, sing, and tend the poor, sick and elderly. Routines were organised along traditional patterns of life, but Pahom’s rules gave mettle to the collective. For instance, he advocated social distancing to limit the spread of contraband or disease: ‘No-one shall hold his companion’s hand nor any part of him. Instead leave a cubit between you and them whether you are sitting, standing or walking.’
By adopting his principles, tens of thousands of men and women, Egyptian and immigrant, organised themselves to live a ‘life in common’ – instead of the solitary practices of St Antony and the hermits – among them writers who were influential in Europe, such as Evagrius Ponticus, Palladius of Galatia and the Romanian, John Cassian.
Pahom died in 346 because he was neither the first nor the last in charge of infection control to ignore his own rules. He took ‘a great fever’ but ‘did not tell any of the brothers that he was ill nor confide about his illness, as was his way. Instead, gathering all his strength, he went with them to the harvest … However, while harvesting he fell flat on his face’. On his last night, he asked his friend Theodore not to leave his body in its grave ‘in case people stole his body and built a martyr’s shrine round it’ because he ‘did not approve of those who acted so’.
Despite his humbling demise, Pahom’s legacy was greater than he might have envisioned: John Cassian transplanted the monastic life to Marseilles, where he settled in 415 and founded several new communities. In turn, Pahom’s rules became the basis of the mediaeval monastic code of Benedict. So, the next time you pass Westminster Abbey, Durham Cathedral, Paisley Abbey, Mont-St-Michel, or any of western Europe’s magnificent abbey churches; take a moment to consider how these towering bastions of civilisation are just two steps removed from Pahom, and a single page from the story of the early ‘Copts’.
Bill Manley is the author of Sahidic Coptic. This concise textbook teaches beginner students the grammar of documents written in Sahidic Coptic, and provides the historical and cultural context required for reading primary sources through informal as well as more formal and religious texts.
