life. She told her captor that she had a wonderful oil which made her invulnerable. Having aroused his curiosity about this oil, she undertook to show him its power. She anointed her neck and told him to strike with his sword. He did so and beheaded her. So she died (allowing for her mistaken conscience) a martyr.[1] The Coptic Patriarch Michael I (Ḫail, 743-766) spent a part of his reign in prison.
So far the Melkites have almost disappeared. Their see was vacant since the death of Peter II (654). The Moslems during this time acknowledged only the Copts as the Christian ḏimmis of Egypt. In spite of the fierce persecution which they themselves suffered, the Coptic Patriarchs used the help of the infidel Government to force all other Christians in the land to acknowledge their authority and to enter their communion. So we have the curious spectacle of these suffering Copts in their turn worrying Melkites and Gainites.
But the little Melkite community was never quite extinct. Now, in 727, they elected a certain needle-maker, Cosmas, to be their Patriarch (727-c. 775). Cosmas and his friends succeeded in obtaining recognition as a "nation" from the Amīr. Some at least of their churches were given back to them; so from now the Melkites have a fairly regular succession and reappear as a small group of ḏimmis, by the side of the Copts. But the persecution of all Christians went on. Maḳrīzī continues his woeful tale of massacre, famine, scourging, forced tribute. At times Christians are reduced to eating corpses;[2] there are spasmodic attempts at insurrection followed by ghastly general massacres.
During the reign of the Coptic Patriarch Michael I, one of the schisms occurred which frequently interrupt the generally friendly relations between the Monophysites of Egypt and Syria. The Jacobite see of Antioch was occupied, in defiance of the canons, by Isaac, Bishop of Ḥaran, in 754. The Copts refused to acknowledge him, and broke communion with the Jacobites. It was not restored till some time after Isaac's death (see p. 334). We have now a sufficient idea of the state of the Copts under Moslem rule. It is not necessary to continue the tedious story in detail. It is always the same wearisome series of ill-usage of all kinds.
