The Greek and Eastern Churches/Part 2/Division 5/Chapter 3

by Walter Frederic Adeney

 

CHAPTER III

THE COPTS UNDER THE CALIPHATE

 

(a) The Arabian authors; John of Nikiou, Chronicle; Makrizi; Eutychius; Amelineau, Étude sur le Christianisme au Égypte au Septième Siècle (containing translation of Life of Abbot Pisentius); Renaudot, Historia Patriarcharum Alexandrinorum; Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, 1741; Abu Salik, The Churches and Monasteries of Egypt (died a.d. 900; Eng. trans. 1895).

(b) Gibbon, chap. li.; Neale, Patriarchate of Alexandria; Mrs. Butcher, History of the Church in Egypt, 1897; Lane Poole, Hist. of Egypt in the Middle Ages, 1907.

 

The Coptic monks of this period, first harried by the Persians, next persecuted by the Melchites, and then oppressed by the Arabs, were now at their highest stage of culture. The mission of scholars from Syria to an Egyptian monastery for the revision of their own Scriptures is one sign of this fact. It seems clear that the Melchites studied the Greek classics as well as the Church Fathers. This is shown by classical allusions in their writings. How far these studies were shared by the Copts, however, is not quite evident. But under the liberal rule of John the Almoner there was more friendly communication between the two churches than at any other time either before or after. Sophronius, the orthodox opponent of the Ecthesis, came from Alexandria, and he composed an elegy on the Holy Places in Anacreontic verse,—but of course he was a Melchite. A friend of John the Almoner and Sophronius, John Moschus, gives an account of his visits to Egyptian monasteries in a famous book, entitled Spiritual Pastures.^[1] These two men afford considerable information regarding the manners and customs of the churches and monasteries of Egypt in their day, and show how full of intellectual life they were. For instance, in his account of a monk whom he calls "Cosmas the Student," John Moschus says, "We shall write nothing from hearsay—only what we have seen with our own eyes. He was a simple-minded man, abstemious and clean living: he was easy tempered and sociable, given to hospitality, a friend of the poor. He rendered us the very greatest service, not only by his speculation and his teaching, but because he possessed the finest private library in Alexandria, and freely lent his books to all readers. He was very poor, and the whole of his house, which was full of books, contained no furniture but a bed and a table. His library was open to all comers. Every reader could ask for the book lie wanted and there read it. Day by day I visited Cosmas, and it is a mere fact that I never once entered his house without finding him engaged either in reading or in writing against the Jews. He was very reluctant to leave his library, so that he often sent me out to argue with some of the Jews from the manuscript he had written." Cosmos told John that he had lived there for thirty-three years. When asked what he had learnt during all this long time of study, he answered that the three principal things were "not to laugh, not to swear, and not to lie."^[2]

The monks were diligent students and copyists of books. Coptic illuminated manuscripts, some of which are dated as early as this period, are reckoned as among the treasures of art on their own account, and also because their decorative work set an example for the mediæval monks. The church architecture of the Copts had attained to real splendour, and was developing germs of an originality that was destined to have a remarkable effect on Saracenic and Gothic building. Instead of the uniform classic capital, a new foliation now appeared. Mosaic work in brilliant coloured glass, which we think of as essentially Byzantine, was also developed by the Copts. About this time also they began to produce the highly wrought marble carving known as Opus Alexandrinum. Mr. Lethaby has recently pointed out the remarkable resemblance between the Coptic textiles of the fifth and sixth centuries, in which knotted and plaited work is used freely, and old Saxon ornamentation. Not only may Coptic vestments devised in this style have found their way to Britain, but the flight of the monks, first before the Persians and later before the Arabs, may have resulted in some of them coming themselves as far west Mr. Lethaby remarks: "Such a theory would account for a sudden appearance of this type over a wide field. The fact that the earliest examples of Arabic silks made in Egypt (seventh and eighth centuries) are ornamented with bands of braided patterns which are obviously a continuation of the Coptic designs, goes to show how powerful the tradition was. The time of Theodore, the eastern Archbishop of Canterbury (669–690), would be particularly favourable for the migration of monks and artists from the Orient. Only a few years after the death of Theodore, the Lindisfarne book was written and decorated, and about the same time knot-work first appears in Italian stone carving."^[3]

At the later period when Saracenic architecture began to develop as a new order astounding the world with its delicate beauty, the actual work was primarily dependent on Greek and Coptic designing and handicraft. Mosques were planned by Greek architects, and their fine decorative work executed by Coptic craftsmen. The Arabs were warriors and rulers; they were not builders and artists. Their natural home was the desert tent, and when they indulged in the luxury of cities they were dependent on the skill of the conquered peoples whom they forced into their service. At first pillars were torn from Christian churches to be used in the construction of Moslem mosques. When the Mohammedans began to make the shafts of pillars, they crowned them with stolen Christian capitals, and when they had entirely new work done this was executed by men of the Christian stock, although in many cases these men conformed to Islam. All along North Africa and even in Spain the Arabesque designs are largely of Coptic and almost entirely of Christian origin. Being adopted by Mohammedans, they are adapted to the principles of the Koran. The Alhambra may have reminiscences of the Bedouin tent in its domestic arrangements, but its architectural style is a direct descendant and development of the Alexandrian.

Cyrus died soon after the Arab conquest of Egypt. He was nominally succeeded by a Melchite patriarch named Peter, who found it convenient to retire to Constantinople, where he persuaded the Emperor Constans to substitute the Type for the Ecthesis.^[4] After his death there was no Melchite patriarch of Alexandria for more than seventy years (a.d. 654–727). Such priests of the orthodox Church as still came to minister to its few Greek adherents in Egypt then obtained their ordination in Syria. Meanwhile the national Church, which had enjoyed a measure of favour under Amr', was not long in discovering the real significance of the rule of Islam. Benjamin was succeeded in the patriarchate by Agatho (a.d. 659), who had to confine himself in his own house for a time to escape from the demands of a priest of the orthodox communion named Theodosius. This man had succeeded in obtaining from the Caliph Yezid a grant of contributions from the Coptic patriarchate. When Agatho died, Theodosius boldly took possession of the patriarch's residence and affixed his seal to all that it contained. This was going too far. Abdel-Aziz, the governor of Egypt, interfered, and the impudent priest was forced to beat a hasty retreat. The new Coptic patriarch was John Semnudæus, who took advantage of the temporary favour of the government to advance the interests of the Copts.

This was perhaps the most flourishing time of the Coptic Church. The Mohammedan government was friendly, the Melchites were unable to annoy, and the mills and oil presses of the patriarchate were bringing in good revenue, which the patriarch used to relieve distress throughout the whole country during a time of famine. So John Semnudæus was a second Joseph. But he was not permitted to end his days in peace. John attempted to act as mediator between the Emperor of Ethiopia and the King of Nubia, who were at war. Abdel-Aziz was induced to treat this action as a political intrigue for the overthrow of the power of Islam, and he condemned the patriarch to be beheaded. Happily the governor was persuaded to spare John's life, and he contented himself with ending the incident by ordering certain sentences affirming the Mussulman faith to be written on the church doors.^[5]

Something more nearly approaching real persecution was practised by the emir's eldest son, Asabah, who was influenced by an apostate Copt named Benjamin. He laid a capitation tax of a gold piece on every monk and a tax of a thousand pieces of gold on every bishop, and he forbade anybody for the future to take monastic vows. The father and the son died near the same time; but this did not mend matters. The Caliph Abdel-Melech appointed his son Abdallah to be governor of Egypt (a.d. 705). He proved to be a savage tyrant after the fashion of one of the monsters of cruelty in the Arabian Nights. For instance, he would order a guest's head to be taken off while sitting with him at table. When the patriarch Alexander ventured to enter the palace to do homage to the new emir, Abdallah flung him into prison and demanded 3,000 pieces of gold as the price of his freedom. This governor of a province of the Mussulman Empire was acting just like a brigand from the mountains. The patriarch had no means for raising his ransom till George his deacon obtained leave for his liberation to go round the towns and villages collecting the money, promising to bring him back at the end of two months. From being the distributor of bounty to the poor of the land the patriarch of Egypt was now reduced to the humiliating necessity of tramping from place to place among his flock in order to save his life and liberty. By this means the money was obtained. But that did not satisfy the rapacious emir. He had churches despoiled of their treasures, and Christians who had not registered in his census—which was only an expedient for extortion—branded on their forehead or hands. At last he pressed his extortions by torture. This provoked a rising in Upper Egypt, which was quickly quelled, with the inevitable result that the persecution became more severe.

On the death of the Caliph Abdel-Melech, and the succession of his son Walid, Abdallah was superseded by Korah-ben-Serik as Emir of Egypt. For the unhappy Christians every change was only a change for the worse. When Alexander presented himself before Korah to offer the expected homage of the patriarch to the governor, he was met with the same demand that Abdallah had made, and showing he had no means of paying, set off to Upper Egypt to collect the money. After two years' wandering he was only able to obtain a third of the amount required. The emir was suspicious, and believing a report that Alexander had a private mint, sent for it to his residence, where, since no trace of it could be found, the patriarch and his attendants were savagely scourged. The persecution was continued under the next emir, Amasa, with much cruelty. The repeated exactions of money, which were among its chief characteristics, give it a wretchedly sordid appearance. The motive was so evidently selfish greed rather than high policy of state.

At length the Melchites ventured in electing a patriarch to the post that had been vacant so long, and their choice fell on a needle-maker, Cosmas, who could neither read nor write, but who justified their wisdom in appointing him by bis able management of a peculiarly difficult position. He took a jouniey to Damascus and there had an audience with the caliph, wlioni he succeeded in convincing that he was in the true line of the ancient patriarchate of Alexandria, and so got several of the churches taken from the Copts and given up to him. It was a most unhappy revival of the old intrusion of the Greek Church in Egypt, and one more trouble for the much afflicted native Church. After this the Copts had great difficulty in electing a patriarch for their own communion. When they had succeeded in coming to an agreement on Chail i., the governor loaded them with fresh money exactions, in order to pay which some sold their cattle, and some even their children. Many bishops fled and hid in the monasteries.

In the year 748 a new governor, Hassan, was appointed, and for a time he was friendly towards the Christians. It is pitiable to see that one consequence was that both parties—the Melchites and the Copts—appealed to the government in a dispute about the possession of a church—St. Mennas in the Mareotis. This appears to be the first case in which two bodies of Christians have brought their quarrel into a Mohammedan court of law. The emir gave his decision in favour of the national Church. The glint of favour was but transient. A little later the emir threw Chail into a dungeon, together with three hundred Christians of both sexes. The patriarch was only liberated in order to undertake the weary work of collecting money for their ransom in Upper Egypt.

The emir became so tyrannical that he drove the Copts in Upper Egypt to another rebellion. Both the patriarchs, Cosmas the Melchite and Chail the Copt, were taken prisoners; the former was let off on payment of a ransom, and the latter was employed to use his influence with his flock in bringing them to submission. The war was complicated by the quarrels now going on among the Mohammedans, and the Christians joined the faction of the Abbasidæ. Their success brought immediate relief to the Church.

A curious sidelight is thrown on the status of the Coptic Christians in the eighth century by the Mohammedan historian Makrizi. Under the favour of the new line of caliphs and their emirs in Egypt, they now entered on a temporary era of prosperity, which was viewed with jealousy by their Mussulman fellow-subjects. According to Makrizi, they assumed a proud bearing and flaunting airs. "It came to this," he says, "that one of the Christian secretaries passed before the Mosque el Azher in el Kahira (Cairo) riding in boots with spurs, and white bands round his head after the fashion of Alexandria, with footmen going before him to drive away the people lest they should throng him, and behind him a number of slaves in costly apparel on prancing steeds. A lot of Mussulmans then present ill-brooked this; so they rose up against him," etc.^[6] The result was a disturbance in which the proud Copt was roughly handled. This passage is very significant. In the first place it indicates the prosperity of the Copts who had succeeded in making their way into official positions. Then, as in the present day, it would seem that their special aptitude for clerkships and secretaryships gave them an advantage over the Arabs in regard to these offices. The pride of a member of a persecuted community during a short interval of immunity may seem surprising. But such a man as we see here is lifted out of the common rut by his official rank. The reference to Alexandria is peculiarly interesting. Cairo was a Mohammedan city from its foundation; but Alexandria was the old Christian capital. Alexandrian manners would seem to have retained a flavour of the old Roman imperial temper. But anything of the kind was certainly out of place in Cairo under a Mussulman emir. We are not surprised to learn that Christians who made any assumption of self-importance were roughly treated by the Cairene mob. There were times when it was not safe for any Christians to show themselves in the streets, when they were compelled to stay indoors for their lives. Makrizi goes on to tell how after this the Christians were forbidden to enter the public service even if they embraced Islam, and ordered to attend five prayers and the Friday assembly at the mosques and other places of gathering for prayer.^[7]

In the course of the civil war that broke out after the death of the famous Caliph Aaron-al-Raschid, the Spanish Arabs of the house of the Ommiadæ, which had been superseded by the Abbasidæ, invaded Egypt and made slaves of their prisoners of war. Mark the Coptic patriarch offered to buy all these slaves, and his offer was gladly welcomed, so that 6,000 prisoners were liberated in this way.^[8] Alexandria was captured, but while the besiegers were resting off their guard the Arabs rose and commenced an indiscriminate slaughter of Jews and Christians as well as Spanish troops. Mark escaped to the desert, where he remained in hiding for five years.

Much of the Coptic history of this period consists of little else than stories of the successive patriarchs, few of whom seem to have been men of any power or importance. The patriarch Jacob, who was at the head of the Coptic Church early in the ninth century, attained to some fame, which induced his brother patriarch at Antioch, Dionysius, the author of the Chronicle from the beginning of the World to his own times, to pay him a visit. Yucab, who became Coptic patriarch in or near the year 837,^[9] consecrated bishops for the more remote parts of his diocese, especially by the borders of the Red Sea. He also cultivated an intimate friendship with the Melchite patriarch Sophronius. But though for the time being this may have softened the acerbity of sectarian animosity between the two parties, it did not lead to any steps towards bringing them together. Yucab died in the year 850, and was succeeded by Chail, the second Coptic patriarch of that name. Almost immediately after this the peace which the Church had enjoyed, broken only by temporary outbreaks, for nearly fifty years, came to an end, and the old trouble caused by the rapacity of the emirs was vexing it again. The patriarch even had to sell the sacred vessels of his church to meet the demands of the civil governor. The Caliph Mutawekkil now lays down many vexatious regulations for the Christians. They are to wear honey-coloured cloth, or a distinguishing patch on their garments; the men are to have a girdle after the style of women; they are to put up a wooden image of a devil, an ape, or a dog over their doors; no crosses may be shown; neither may they have processions through the streets with lights; they may not ride on horses; nothing must be set up on their graves to mark them. Still annoying and insulting as all this is, it cannot be compared with the violent persecutions of earlier and of later periods. After the year 856 most of the emirs were Turks, since men of this race were now coming more and more to the front in the army and government of the caliphate, while the old vigour of the desert warriors was deserting the Arab families amid the luxury and sensuality of their life in cities. The Turkish emirs of Egypt were able men, and some of them mild and merciful rulers. During the patriarchate of Chenouda, a man of great influence in the Coptic Church, the governor Abdallah doubled or trebled the taxation of the Christians. His difficulty was with the monks, who owned no property, and he put a tax on their fruit and vegetables. Chenouda retired into seclusion for a time, but subsequently he came out and presented himself before the emir, who then came to terms with him. It was the same perpetual question of how much money could be squeezed out of the Christians which had so long disgraced the story of the emirs in Egypt. In this agreement between Abdallah and Chenouda it was settled that the Church of Alexandria should pay an annual tribute of 2,000 and the monasteries of 2,300 pieces of gold.

The greatest of the Turkish emirs was Ibn Tulun, who has left his name on a famous mosque at Cairo. This man was originally a Turkish slave. He married the daughter of the Emir Bargug, who gave him a free hand, so that at the age of thirty-three he became really the governor of Egypt (a.d. 868). Then he began to live in kingly state. Tulun was no friend to the Christians. He ruthlessly levelled the Christian graves for a new town between Fustât and the Mokattam hills. In the year 878 he renounced allegiance to the caliph, took Damascus, captured and sacked Antioch. This was the first mutiny in Egypt since the Arab conquest. Although Tulun was a fierce and ruthless destroyer when on the warpath, he revived the power of Egypt in the East, and beautified Cairo with some of the finest work of Saracenic architecture. He died of the fatigues of his tremendous life when on his travels, in the year 884, before he was fifty years of age.

These were dark times for the Copts. The Melchite party had come into temporary favour and the national Church was under a cloud, when a deacon, maintaining that he had been wrongly treated by Chenouda, appealed to the governor Ahmed, who thereupon summoned all the Coptic bishops to his presence. Chenouda had gone into hiding, but he was discovered and dragged out. The bishops were stripped of their episcopal robes, and, clad as simple monks, led through the streets on the backs of asses without saddles amidst the jeers of the mob. The patriarch was flung into a dungeon and kept there for thirty days, in the hope that he would pay a handsome ransom, which, however, was not forthcoming. This incident ended strangely. The accusing deacon professed penitence, and Chenouda granted him absolution; but the penitent soon proved his insincerity by bringing various false accusations against Christians. When his villainy was discovered the emir had him scourged almost to death. Chenouda died in or about the year 881, after a patriarchate full of trouble and vexation. Great as was his influence among his own people, he seems to have been a weak, timorous man, unsuited to the rough times in which his lot was cast. But Egypt was not the soil to bring forth a Hildebrand or a Thomas à Becket, and even if one of those heroes of ecclesiasticism had appeared under the rule of Islam, it is difficult to see how he could have developed his powers.

Chenouda's successor, Chail iii., had as troublesome a time as that of the unhappy patriarch whom he was called to follow. His misfortunes sprang from what occurred during his visit to Xois, in the diocese of Saca, for the consecration of a new church. The service was unaccountably delayed by the absence of the bishop, till it was discovered that he was entertaining his friends at a preliminary banquet which was unduly protracted. On learning this, the indignant patriarch commenced the service. When the bishop came in and saw what was happening he flew into a rage, seized the bread of the Eucharist and flung it on the ground. The next day Chail and the other assembled bishops met and excommunicated the offender. This man then went to the Emir Tulun, and informed him that the patriarch had enough wealth to pay for his projected military expedition. Chail was summoned, and ordered to give up everything belonging to the Christian worship except the vestments. Eefusing to do this, he was sent to prison and kept there for a twelvemonth. Then he was let out on the condition that he should procure 20,000 pieces of gold, one-half in a month, the rest in four months. Chail took refuge in a Melchite church, and apparently did nothing towards accomplishing his really impossible task, till it was pointed out to him that there were ten vacant bishoprics, by charging fees for the appointment to which he might raise money. By this and other disgraceful means he got a considerable amount, but not nearly half what was required. As a last resource he went to Alexandria and bargained with the clergy for their church ornaments in return for a pledge to pay the Alexandrian Church a thousand pieces of gold every year in perpetuity. Even then he had only half the huge sum demanded of him by the emir, who, however, died before taking measures to force the wretched patriarch to make still further efforts at obtaining the rest of the money.

The practice of taking money for appointments to bishoprics invented by Chail iii. was often adopted by subsequent patriarchs. The Alexandrian tribute and the exactions of the government were the excuses for a custom that the Church has always condemned as simoniacal. The money was not taken for the personal advantage of the vendors. It was requisitioned as an absolute necessity for the payment of obligatory dues. Still, the practice was owned to be a scandalous evil, and the better patriarchs endeavoured to break it off. Chail himself ended his days as a penitent mourning for his double offence of violating the canons and alienating the property of the Church.

The condition of Egypt under the Mohammedan rule was now going from bad to worse. The caliphs endeavoured to retain their power over it by a frequent change of emirs, so that no one governor should have time to establish himself in independence. Emirs would bribe the caliphs for appointment and reappointment, and, of course, wring the money for this backshish from their miserable subjects, the Christians always being the greatest sufferers. But, on the occasion of one of these emirs imposing a new tribute on bishops and monks, a deputation of Christians went to Bagdad to represent to the caliph the intolerable condition of affairs, and succeeded in obtaining an order that nothing beyond the usual tax should be exacted from them. While they were being bled the Christians were also being starved. One emir ordered that neither Christians nor Jews should be employed in any other way than as physicians and tradesmen.

Eutychius, commonly known as Said, the chronicler of this period of Coptic history, was a Melchite patriarch early in the ninth century. He was a man of some culture, who had studied and practised medicine and written a treatise on that subject. He was also the author of a disputation between a Christian and a heretic, and a work on the history of Sicily after the invasion. But his best known work is his annals of Alexandrian history, entitled Contexture of Gems, a dreary book revealing a credulous mind on the part of its author. During Said's patriarchate the petty Melchite community was disturbed by internal quarrels, which led to the interference of the emir, who took occasion to seize the Church treasures—said by the Copts to be very great—and transport them to his palace at Misr. He only allowed them to be redeemed on payment of 5,000 pieces of gold. The caliphate had now declined to a state of miserable weakness. In fact it was a mere shadow, and each emir ruled in his own province. Thus Mohammed Akchid, the emir in Egypt at this time, became an independent governor. It was useless to appeal against him to the caliph as the Copts of an earlier period had appealed to the caliph of their day. Therefore the independence of Egypt only meant more misery for the Egyptians, and that without hope of redress.

Theophanius, a Coptic patriarch who began his rule in the year 954, added to the troubles of the times by developing madness. He was taken by water to Misr for medical treatment; but one night during the voyage his delirious screams so alarmed his fellow-passengers, that one of the bishops descended to the hold and killed him—by suffocation or, as some said, by poison.

On the death of Akchid, who seems to have been a strong ruler, Mazzin of the Fatimite family—the rivals of the feeble remnant of the Abbasidæ line—-succeeded in taking Egypt. Thus there was established the Fatimite caliphate in Egypt, They settled their headquarters at Cairo in the year 970. This dynasty lasted for two centuries. At first promising reform under a strenuous government, it rapidly degenerated, most of the sovereigns being absorbed in their own pleasures and displaying no great ideas and no ambitions.^[10] But for the Christians much of this period afforded a breathing space between their long harassing persecutions. Just as in the old Roman times the strong and good emperors persecuted the Church, and the weak and bad emperors let it alone, so under the Mohammedan rule, while the fierce fanatics of Islam bore hardly on the "infidels," the negligent, sensual Fatimites treated them with easy toleranace.

The best of the Fatimite caliphs was El-Aziz (a.d. 975–996). He had a Christian wife, one of whose two brothers was appointed by the caliph as Melchite patriarch of Alexandria, and the other as Melchite patriarch of Jerusalem. The Christians were never so well treated under Mohammedan rule in Egypt as during this reign.^[11] Although the caliph had married a Melchite, this sect was not selected for exclusive favour. The Coptic patriarch Ephraim was highly honoured at court, and he obtained leave to rebuild the ruined church of St. Mercurius. The caliph encouraged Severus, the bishop of Ushmuneyu, to discuss questions of theology with Mussulman scholars in his presence. Severus is chiefly known to us by his history, on which Renaudot based much of his narrative. Like all the literature of the time, it is credulous and tedious. Severus was a voluminous writer, composing an exposition of the faith, a treatise against Eutychius, an explanation of the mystery of the Incarnation, a commentary on the Gospels, and other works.

The liberal-minded Caliph El-Aziz even refused to punish a Mohammedan who had turned Christian—a capital offence according to the law of Islam. On the other hand, he appointed Christian Copts to high offices under his government. This course of action excited the jealousy of the Mohammedans, who obtained the removal of some of these officials. But in course of time the caliph restored them to their posts. Meanwhile El-Aziz was living in luxury and splendour; so that for this brief interval the members of the much persecuted Coptic Church were able to enjoy the good things of the world, and to look back on the dark days of their fathers as a horror of the past.

Too often when the sunshine of worldly prosperity has shone on the Church, this has been almost fatal to her spiritual life and character. This appears to have been the case under the Fatimite complacent rule. Thus the patriarch Philotheus is charged with the sin of simony, of which we hear so much in the annals of the Church in Egypt, but without the excuse of his predecessors in the old hard times; for he is said to have lived in luxury, and to have devoted himself to the pleasures of the table and the bath like any effete Oriental, ignoring the duties of his office and neglecting his flock.

This time of unusual good fortune for the Church in material affairs was followed by the very reverse, a more terrible persecution than any from which it had hitherto suffered under the yoke of Islam—the violent outbreak of the mad Caliph Hakim, to which attention was directed in an earlier part of this volume.^[12] Egypt came in for her full share of suffering. Unhappily the Church was in a deplorable condition at the time, owing to quarrels among the clergy. One of these quarrels brought about the interference of the government, and so precipitated the persecution. John, a priest of Abunefer, a village near the monastery of St. Macarius, who had already paid for his ambition wlien he was seeking a bishopric, by being thrown into a pit by an angry prelate, had extracted a promise from the patriarch Zacharias that he should receive appointment to another bishopric. Furious at the non-fulfilment of this promise, he appealed to El-Hakim. The caliph was only too glad to have an excuse for attacking the head of the Church in Egypt. He had Zacharias arrested, and,—as the story which the Arab historian Makrizi accepted, runs,—thrown into a den of lions, who were miraculously restrained from hurting him.^[13] In the later years of Hakim, when his fanaticism of self-deification was ripe, his persecution of the Copts was very severe. All Christian services were silenced, except in the remoter monasteries; there was a wholesale destruction of churches; Christians were ordered to wear heavy crosses and were subjected to various humiliations. A little while before he was assassinated, Hakim changed his policy towards the Christians, and ordered the rebuilding of their churches, and the removal of the worst of their restrictions. This is attributed to the favourable impression he had received when visiting Zacharias in prison, and observing the deference that was shown to the little old man in shabby clothes.

Zacharias died about the year 1012. He was succeeded by Chenouda, a monk of St. Macarius, whose simony in the sale of bishoprics was worse than that of any of his predecessors. The patriarch acted on the theory that on the death of a bishop his personal property passed over to the Church. Since Hakim's decree of toleration and restitution the Copts had enjoyed rest from persecution by the government; but now they were pillaged by their own patriarch, who practised both extortion and bribery, disgracing the free and peaceful times with corrupt Church government. Some mitigation of the evil was accomplished by a nobleman named Bekr. This generous reformer worked for the relief of the bishops. To that end he promised to pay to Alexandria the customary dues of the clergy^[14]—which were made up out of the bishops' fines on appointment—if the bishops in turn would undertake to give up their exactions. The bishops demurred, and Chenouda after signing tore up the document on which the terms of this offer were set forth. A scene of confusion followed. In the end Chenouda ordered Bekr to be arrested and publicly beaten.

This disgraceful patriarch dying in the year 1047 was succeeded by a reforming patriarch, Christobulus, who built new churches, conducted ordinations of many bishops, laid down and exacted rules of discipline,—mostly concerning the rubric,—and travelled to and fro settling the affairs of the Church. He much reduced the sale of offices, but could not abolish the scandalous practice. A fresh outbreak of persecution took place in the time of Christobulus, and orders went forth for the destruction of churches and the seizure of their treasures. But these orders were only partially executed. The Fatimite caliphs were now very weak, and the government fell more and more into the hands of their viziers. The situation was an Oriental counterpart of that of France under the Merovingian kings, when the affairs of the State were administered by the mayors of the palace. There was a quarrel between the Turks and the negro slaves, during which the rioters behaved as genuine barbarians, ravaging the country, scattering and destroying books and works of art. Many of these treasures from palaces and monasteries fell into the hands of the Berbers, who tore off the bindings of books to make slippers out of them. In desperation the caliph sent for the victorious General Bedr-el-Jamal and made him dictator in order to restore order. This one capable man of his time, though of course a Mussulman, even settled a quarrel in the Church.

 

1. Δειμὼν πνευματικός.
2. John Moschus, quoted by Butler, Arab Conquest of Egypt, pp. 99, 100.
3. The Origin of Knotted Ornamentation, "Burlington Magazine," January 1907, with references to Le Monastere … de Baôuit, Mémoires d'Archéologie," etc., vol. xii., Cairo, 1906.
4. See p. 129.
5. Neale calls this the "First Persecution under Abdel-Aziz.'
6. Malan, pp. 106 ff.
7. Malan, p. 108.
8. Neale, who always writes as a strong partisan of the Melchites, remarks on this noble deed, "Heresy probably thus reaped a harvest of converts," Patriarchate of Alexandria, vol. ii. p. 139.
9. According to Makrizi, in 842.
10. See S. Lane Poole, Hist. of Egypt, p. 116.
11. See S. Lane Poole, Hist. of Egypt, p. 119.
12. P. 244.
13. Neale magnanimously believes the story, although the miracle was for the benefit of a heretic, Patriarchate of Alexandria, vol. ii. p. 204.
14. See p. 697.