the East," "Bow to the Lord in fear," "Peace to all," "Salute each other with a holy kiss," and so on), are Greek too. This means that such short formulas were so well known and universally understood[1] that it was not worth while to translate them. Moreover, short liturgical formulas always have less tendency to change. In the Coptic rite, all short formulas and dialogues (e.g. "Sursum corda," etc.) and, oddly, most rubrics ("the deacon says," "silently," etc.) remain Greek.
That the Egyptian service was originally Greek follows naturally from the history of Christianity in this country. The Gospel was first preached at Alexandria, a thoroughly Hellenized city. But in the first centuries no one had any idea of a special liturgical language. As the faith spread to the villages of Upper Egypt the same prayers were, as a matter of course, translated into the popular language of the country. The first translators certainly did not think that thereby they were sealing Coptic as a sacred language, and giving it a liturgical life which would last for centuries after it had otherwise died out. A detail of the life of St. Antony, "Father of Abbots," throws light on the date when the liturgy was first celebrated in Coptic. As a young man he heard in church our Lord's words: "If thou wouldst be perfect, go sell what thou hast," etc.,[2] and, applying them to himself, went to be a hermit.[3] Now Antony was no scholar; he was a man of Upper Egypt, living about the middle of the 3rd century. He must have heard that text in Coptic, or he would not have understood it. So at least the gospel was read in Coptic in his time. We are further told that St. Pachomius translated the psalms into Coptic about the year 300;[4] and there are further indications in Palladius of regular services among the first Egyptian hermits, which must have been in their own language. Certainly the fathers of the desert knew no Greek and did not say their prayers in it. We may take it then, that at least since the 3rd century the liturgy in Egypt was translated into Coptic for the use of the
