Part 7 (1/2)
Cyril.
The literature of Coptic Christianity was almost wholly religious. Little else had an interest for the devoted adherents of the new faith. The romances which had delighted their forefathers were replaced by legends of the saints and martyrs, and Christian hymns succeeded to the poems of the past. We owe to this pa.s.sion for theology the preservation of productions of the Jewish and Christian Churches which would otherwise have been lost.
The Book of Enoch, quoted though it is by St. Jude, would have perished irrevocably had it not been for Coptic Christianity. The Church of Abyssinia, a daughter of that of Egypt, has preserved it in an Ethiopic translation, and portions of the Greek original from which the translation was made have been found in a tomb at Ekhmim, which was excavated in 1886.
It has long been known that the text used by the Abyssinian translator must have differed considerably from that of which extracts have been preserved for us in the Epistle of St. Jude and the writings of the Byzantine historians Kedrenos and George the Syncellus; the newly-discovered fragments now enable us to see what this text actually was like. If the original book was written in Aramaic it would seem that at least two authorised Greek versions of it existed, one of which was used in Europe and Syria, the other in Egypt. Which was the older and more faithful we have yet to learn.
The excavations at Ekhmim have brought to light fragments of two other works, both belonging to the early days of Christianity and long since lost. One of these is supposed by its first editor, M. Bouriant, to be the Apocalypse of St. Peter; it opens with an account of the Transfiguration, which is followed by a vision of heaven and h.e.l.l. The book appears to have been composed or interpolated by a Gnostic, as there is a reference in it to ”the aeon” in which Moses and Elias dwelt in glory. The other work is of more importance. It is the Gospel known to the early Church as that of St.
Peter, and the portion which is preserved contains the narrative of the Pa.s.sion and Resurrection of Christ. Throughout the narrative the responsibility for the death of our Lord is transferred from Pilate to the Jews; when the guard who watched the tomb under the centurion Petronius ran to tell Pilate of the resurrection they had witnessed, ”grieving greatly and saying: Truly he was the son of G.o.d”: he answered: ”I am clean of the blood of the son of G.o.d: I too thought he was so.” Docetic tendencies, however, are observable in the Gospel: at all events the cry of Christ on the cross is rendered, ”My power, (my) power, thou hast forsaken me!”
What further discoveries of the lost doc.u.ments of early Christianity still await us in Egypt it is impossible to say. It is only during the last few years that attention has been turned towards monuments which, to the students of Egyptian antiquity, seemed of too recent a date. Countless ma.n.u.scripts of priceless value have already perished through the ignorance of the _fellahin_ and the neglect of the tourist and _savan_, to whom the term ”Coptic” has been synonymous with ”worthless.” But the soil of Egypt is archaeologically almost inexhaustible, and the land of the Septuagint, of the Christian school of Alexandria, and of the pa.s.sionate theology of a later epoch, cannot fail to yield up other doc.u.ments that will throw a flood of light on the early history of our faith. It is only the other day that, among the Fayyum papyri now in the British Museum, there was found a fragment of the Septuagint version of the Psalms older than the oldest MS.
of the Bible hitherto known. And the traveller who still wishes to see the Nile at leisure and in his own way will find in the old Egyptian quarries behind Der Abu Hannes, but a little to the south of the city which Hadrian raised to the memory of Antinous, abundant ill.u.s.trations of the doctrine and wors.h.i.+p of the primitive Coptic Church. He can there study all the details of its ancient ecclesiastical architecture cut out of the living rock, and can trace how the home of a hermit became first a place of pilgrimage and then a chapel with its altar to the saints. The tombs themselves, inscribed with the Greek epitaphs of the sainted fugitives from persecution, still exist outside the caves in which they had dwelt.
We can even see the change taking place which transformed the Greek Church of Alexandria into the Coptic Church of Egypt. On either side of a richly-carved cross is the record of ”Papias, son of Melito the Isaurian,”
buried in the spot made holy by the body of St. Macarius, which is written on the one side in Greek, on the other side in Coptic. Henceforward Greek is superseded by Coptic, and the numerous pilgrims who ask St. Victor or St. Phbammon to pray for them write their names and prayers in the native language and the native alphabet. With the betrayal of Egypt to the Mohammedans by George the Makaukas the doom of the Greek language and Bible was sealed. Coptic had already become the language of the Egyptian Church, and though we still find quotations from the Greek New Testament painted here and there on the walls of rock-cut shrines they are little more than ornamental designs. Christian Egypt is native, not Greek.
CHAPTER VI. HERODOTOS IN EGYPT.
From Coptic Christianity, just preparing to confront twelve centuries of Mohammedan persecution, we must now turn back to Pagan Greece. The Persian wars have breathed a new life into Greece and its colonies, and given them a feeling of unity such as they never possessed before. Athens has taken its place as leader not only in art and literature, but also in war, and under the shelter of her name the Ionians of Asia Minor have ventured to defy their Persian lord, and the Ionic dialect has ceased to be an object of contempt. The Greek, always restless and curious to see and hear ”some new thing,” is now beginning to indulge his tastes at leisure, and to visit as a tourist the foreign sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean. Art has leaped at a single bound to its perfection in the sculptures of Pheidias; poetry has become divine in the tragedies of aeschylus and Sophocles, and history is preparing to take part in the general development. The modern world of Europe is already born.
The founder of literary history-of history, that is to say, which aims at literary form and interest-was Herodotos of Halikarna.s.sos. If Greek tradition may be trusted, his uncle had been put to death by Lygdamis, the despot of the city, and the subsequent expulsion of the tyrant was in some measure due to the political zeal of the future historian. Herodotos was wealthy and well educated, as fond of travel as the majority of his countrymen, and not behind them in curiosity and vanity. He had cultivated the literary dialect of Ionia, perhaps during his stay in Samos, and had made good use there of the library of Polykrates, the friend and correspondent of Amasis. What other libraries he may have consulted we do not know, but his history shows that he had a considerable acquaintance with the works of his predecessors, whom he desired to eclipse and supersede. Hekataeus of Miletus, who had travelled in Egypt as far south as Thebes, if not a.s.suan, and had written a full account of the country, its people and its history, Xanthus, the Lydian, who had compiled the annals of his native land, beside numberless other authors, historians and geographers, poets and dramatists, philosophers and physicists, had been made to contribute to his work. Now and again he refers to the older historians when he wishes to correct or contradict them; more frequently he silently incorporates their statements and words without mentioning them by name. It was thus, we are told by Porphyry, that he ”stole” the accounts given by Hekataeus of the crocodile, the hippopotamus and the phnix, and the incorrectness of his description of that marvellous bird, which, like Hekataeus, he likens to an eagle, proves that the charge is correct. Reviewers did not exist in his days, nor were marks of quotation or even footnotes as yet invented, and Herodotos might therefore plead that, although he quoted freely without acknowledgment, he was not in any real sense a plagiarist. He only acted like other Greek writers of his time, and if his plagiarisms exceeded theirs it was only because he had read more and made a more diligent use of his note-book.
It is we, and not the Greek world for which he wrote, who are the sufferers. It is frequently difficult, if not impossible, for us to tell whether Herodotos is speaking from his own experience or quoting from others, whose trustworthiness is doubtful or whose statements may have been misunderstood. From time to time internal evidence a.s.sures us that we are dealing, not with Herodotos himself, but with some other writer whose remarks he has embodied. His commentators have continually argued on the supposition that, wherever the first person is used, it is Herodotos himself who is speaking. Statements of his accordingly have been declared to be true, in spite of the contrary evidence of oriental research, because, it is urged, he is a trustworthy witness and has reported honestly what he heard and saw. But if he did not hear and see the supposed facts, the case is altered and the argument falls to the ground.
Herodotos took part in the foundation of the colony of Thurii in southern Italy in B.C. 445, and there, rather than at the Olympic festival, as later legend believed, he read to the a.s.sembled Greeks the whole or a part of his history. His travels in Egypt, therefore, must have already taken place. Their approximate date, indeed, is fixed by what he tells us about the battlefield of Papremis (iii. 12).
At Papremis, for the first time, an Egyptian army defeated the Persian forces. Its leader was Inaros the Libyan, and doubtless a large body of Libyans was enrolled in it. Along with Amyrtaeos he had led the Egyptians to revolt in the fifth year of the reign of Artaxerxes I. (B.C. 460).
Akhaemenes, the satrap of Egypt, was routed and slain, and for six years Egypt maintained a precarious freedom. The fortresses at Memphis and Pelusium, however, remained in the hands of the Persians, and in spite of all the efforts of the Egyptians, they could not be dislodged. Greek aid accordingly was sought, and the Athenians, still at war with Persia, sent two hundred s.h.i.+ps from Cyprus to the help of the insurgents. The s.h.i.+ps sailed up the Nile as far as Memphis, where the Persian garrison still held out.
All attempts to oust it proved unavailing, and the approach of a great Persian army under Megabyzos obliged the Greeks to retreat to the island of Prosopites. Here they were blockaded for a year and a half; then the besiegers turned the river aside and marched over its dry bed against the camp of the allies, which they took by storm. The Greek expedition was annihilated, and Inaros fell into the hands of his enemies, who sent him to Persia and there impaled him. Amyrtaeos, however, still maintained himself in the marshes of the Delta, and in B.C. 449 Kimon sent sixty s.h.i.+ps of the Athenian fleet to a.s.sist him in the struggle. But before they could reach the coast of Egypt news arrived of the death of Kimon, and the s.h.i.+ps returned home. Four years later, if we may trust Philokhorus, another Egyptian prince, Psammetikhos, who seems to have succeeded Amyrtaeos, sent 72,000 bushels of wheat to Athens in the hope of buying therewith Athenian help. But it does not appear to have been given, and Egypt once more sullenly obeyed the Persian rule. We learn from Herodotos (iii. 15) that ”the great king” even allowed Thannyras and Pausiris, the sons of his inveterate enemies Inaros and Amyrtaeos, to succeed to the princ.i.p.alities of their fathers.
Papremis was visited by Herodotos, and he saw there the sham fight between the priests at the door of the temple on the occasion of their chief festival. He also went to the site of the battle-field, and there beheld ”a great marvel.” The skeletons of the combatants lay on separate sides of the field just as they had fallen, and whereas the skulls of the Persians were so thin that they could be shattered by a pebble, those of the Egyptians were thick and strong enough to resist being battered with a stone. The cause of this difference was explained to him by the dragoman: the Egyptians shaved their heads from childhood and so hardened the bones of it against the sun, while the Persians shaded their heads by constantly wearing caps of thick felt.
Not many years could have elapsed since the battle had occurred. The visit of the Greek traveller to the scene of it may therefore be laid between B.C. 455 and 450. The patriots of Egypt must have been still struggling for their liberty among the marshes of the northern Delta.
But the rebellion must have been practically crushed. No Greek could have ventured into Persian territory while his countrymen were fighting against its Persian masters. The army of Megabyzos must have done its work, and the Athenian fleet been utterly destroyed. Moreover, it is evident that when Herodotos entered the valley of the Nile the country was at peace.
His references to the war are to a past event, and when he speaks of Inaros and Amyrtaeos it is of men who have ceased to be a danger to the foreign government. The pa.s.sage, indeed, in which he notices the peaceable appointment of their sons to the princ.i.p.alities of their fathers may have been inserted after his return to Greek lands, but this makes no difference as to the main fact. When he came to Egypt it had again lapsed into tranquil submission to the Persian power.
In B.C. 450, Kimon, the son of Miltiades, had destroyed the naval power of Persia, and in the following year Megabyzos was overthrown at Salamis. It was then that the ”peace of Kimon” is said to have been concluded between Athens and the Persian king, which put an end to the long Persian war, freed the Greek cities of Asia, and made the Mediterranean a Greek sea.
The reality of the peace has been doubted, because there is no allusion to it in the pages of Thucydides, and it may be that it was never formally drawn up. But the fact embodied by the story remains: for many years to come there was truce between Greece and Persia, and the independence of the Greek colonies in Asia Minor was acknowledged at the Persian court.
The year 449 marks the final triumph of Athens and the beginning of Persian decline.
Had Herodotos travelled in Egypt a year or two later, the ease and security with which he did so would be readily explained. But in this case we should be brought too near the time when his history was finished and he himself was a resident in Italy. We must therefore believe that he was there before the final blow had been struck at Persian supremacy in the Mediterranean, but when the Athenian invasion of Egypt was already a thing of the past, and the unarmed trader and tourist were once more able to move freely about.
For more than half a century Egypt had been closed to Greek curiosity.
There had been an earlier period, when the Delta at least had been well-known to the h.e.l.lenic world. The Pharos of the future Alexandria is already mentioned by Homer (_Od._ iv. 355); it was there, ”in front of Egypt,” that Menelaos moored his s.h.i.+ps and forced ”Egyptian Proteus” to declare to him his homeward road. Even ”Egyptian Thebes,” with its hundred temple-gates, is known both to the _Iliad_ (ix. 381) and to the _Odyssey_ (iv. 126), and the Pharaoh Polybos dwelt there when Alkandra, his wife, loaded Menelaos with gifts. Greek mercenaries enabled Psammetikhos to shake off the yoke of a.s.syria, and Greek traders made Naukratis and Daphnae wealthy centres of commerce. Solon visited Egypt while Athens was putting into practice the laws he had promulgated, and there he heard from the priest of Sais that, by the side of the unnumbered centuries of Egyptian culture, the Greeks were but children and their wisdom but the growth of to-day. Before the Ionic revolt had broken out, while Ionia and Egypt were still sister provinces of the same Persian empire, Hekataeos of Miletus had travelled through the valley of the Nile, enjoying advantages for information which no Greek could possess again till Egypt had become a Macedonian conquest, and embodying his knowledge and experiences in a lengthy book.
But the Persian wars had put an end to all this peaceful intercourse between Greece and the old land of the Pharaohs, and the Karian dragomen who had made their living by acting as interpreters between the Greeks and the Egyptians were forced to turn to other work. At length, however, Egypt was once more open to visitors, and once more, therefore, visitors came from Greece. Anaxagoras, the philosopher and friend of Perikles, was among the first to arrive and to investigate the causes of the rise and fall of the Nile. h.e.l.lanikos the historian, too, the older contemporary of Herodotos, seems to have travelled in Egypt, though doubt has been cast on the authenticity of the works in which he is supposed to have recorded his experiences of Egyptian travel. At any rate, Herodotos found a public fresh and eager to hear what he had to tell them about the dwellers on the Nile.
Herodotos must have reached Egypt in the summer. When he arrived, the whole of the Delta was under water. He describes with the vividness of an eye-witness how its towns appeared above the surface of the water, like the islands in the aegean, and how the traveller could sail, not along the river, but across the plain. At the time of the inundation, he says, all Egypt ”becomes a sea, above which the villages alone show themselves.” The voyage from Naukratis to Memphis was direct and rapid, and the tourists in making it pa.s.sed by the pyramids instead of the apex of the Delta.