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S. Rappoport - History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12)

S >> S. Rappoport >> History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12)




The ignorant in all ages of Christianity seem to have held nearly the
same opinion in one form or other, thinking that sin has arisen either
from a wicked being or from the wickedness of the flesh itself. The Jews
alone proclaimed that God created good and God created evil. But we know
of few writers who have ever owned themselves Manicheans, though many
have been reproached as such; their doctrine is now known only in the
works written against it. Of all heresies among the Christians this is
the one most denounced by the ecclesiastical writers, and most severely
threatened by the laws when the law makers became Christian; and of
all the accusations of the angry controversialists this was the most
reproachful. We might almost think that the numerous fathers who have
written against the Manicheans must have had an easy victory when the
enemy never appeared in the field, when their writings were scarcely
answered, or their arguments denied; but perhaps a juster view would
lead us to remark how much the writers, as well as the readers, must
have felt the difficulty of accounting for the origin of evil, since men
have run into such wild opinions to explain it.

Another heresy, which for a time made even as much noise as the last,
was that of Hieracas of Leontopolis. Even in Egypt, where for two
thousand years it had been the custom to make the bodies of the dead
into mummies, to embalm them against the day of resurrection, a custom
which had been usually practised by the Christians, this native Egyptian
ventured to teach that nothing but the soul would rise from the dead,
and that we must look forward to only a spiritual resurrection. Hieracas
was a man of some learning, and, much to the vexation of those who
opposed his arguments, he could repeat nearly the whole Bible by heart.

The Bishop Hesychius, the martyr in the late persecution, was one of
the learned men of the time. He had published a new edition of the
Septuagint Old Testament, and also of the New Testament. This edition
was valued and chiefly used in Egypt, while that by Lucianus,
who suffered in the same persecution, was read in Asia Minor from
Constantinople to Antioch, and the older edition by Origen remained in
use in Palestine. But such was the credit of Alexandria, as the chief
seat of Christian learning, that distant churches sent there for
copies of the Scriptures, foreign translations were mostly made from
Alexandrian copies, and the greater number of Christians even now read
the Bible according to the edition by Hesychius. We must, however, fear
that these editors were by no means judicious in their labours.

[Illustration: 184.jpg DOME PALM OF UPPER EGYPT]

From the text itself we can learn that the early copiers of the Bible
thought those manuscripts most valuable which were most full. Many a
gloss and marginal note got written into the text. Their devotional
feelings blinded their critical judgment; and they never ventured to put
aside a modern addition as spurious. This mistaken view of their
duty had of old guided the Hebrew copiers in Jerusalem; and though in
Alexandria a juster criticism had been applied to the copies of Homer,
it was not thought proper to use the same good sense when making copies
of the Bible. So strong was the habit of grafting the additions into
the text that the Greek translation became more copious than the Hebrew
original, as the Latin soon afterwards became more copious than the
Greek.

It was about this time, at least after Theodotion's translation of
Daniel had received the sanction of the Alexandrian church, and when the
teachers of Christianity found willing hearers in every city of Egypt,
that the Bible was translated into the language of the country. We have
now parts of several Koptic versions. They are translated closely, and
nearly word by word from the Greek; and, being meant for a people among
whom that language had been spoken for centuries, about one word in five
is Greek. The Thebaic and Bashmuric versions may have been translated
from the edition by Hesychius; but the Koptic version seems older, and
its value to the Biblical critic is very great, as it helps us, with
the quotations in Origen and Clemens, to distinguish the edition of
the sacred text which was then used in Alexandria, and is shown in the
celebrated Vatican manuscript, from the later editions used afterwards
in Constantinople and Italy, when Christian literature flourished in
those countries.

The Emperor Maximin died at Tarsus in A.D. 313, after being defeated by
Licinius, who like himself had been raised to the rank of Augustus by
Galerius, and to whom the empire of Egypt and the East then fell,
while Constantine, the son of Constantius, governed Italy and the West.
Licinius held his empire for ten years against the growing strength of
his colleague and rival; but the ambition of Constantine increased with
his power, and Licinius was at last forced to gather together his army
in Thrace, to defend himself from an attack. His forces consisted of
one hundred and fifty thousand foot, fifteen thousand horse, and three
hundred and fifty triremes, of which Egypt furnished eighty. He was
defeated near Adrianople; and then, upon a promise that his life should
be spared, he surrendered to Constantine at Nicomedia. But the promise
was forgotten and Licinius hanged, and the Roman world was once more
governed by a single emperor. The growing strength of his colleague and
rival; but the ambition of Constantine increased with his power, and
Licinius was at last forced to gather together his army in Thrace, to
defend himself from an attack. His forces consisted of one hundred and
fifty thousand foot, fifteen thousand horse, and three hundred and
fifty triremes, of which Egypt furnished eighty. He was defeated near
Adrianople; and then, upon a promise that his life should be spared, he
surrendered to Constantine at Nicomedia. But the promise was forgotten
and Licinius hanged, and the Roman world was once more governed by a
single emperor.




CHAPTER II.--THE CHRISTIAN PERIOD IN EGYPT


_The Ascendency of the new religion: The Arian controversies: The
Zenith of monasticism: The final struggle of Paganism: The decline of
Alexandria._


Coming under the Roman sway, the Greek world underwent, not only
politically but also intellectually, a complete change. As the
Roman conquest had worn away all political differences and national
divergences, and, by uniting the various races under the rule of the
empire was bringing to its consummation the work begun by the Macedonian
conqueror, it could not fail to influence the train of thought. On the
one hand the political and ideal structure of Greek life was crumbling
and bringing down the support and guiding principle supplied by the
duties of citizenship and the devotion to the commonwealth. Man was
thrown upon himself to find the principles of conduct. The customary
morality and religion had been shaken in their foundations. The
belief in the old gods and the old religion was undermined. Philosophy
endeavoured to occupy the place left vacant by the gradual decay of the
national religion. The individual, seeking for support and spiritual
guidance, found it, or at least imagined he had found it, in philosophy.
The conduct of life became the fundamental problem, and philosophy
assumed a practical aspect. It aimed at finding a complete art of
living. It had a thoroughly ethical stamp, and became more and more a
rival of and opposed to religion. Such were the tendencies of the Stoic
and Epicurean schools. The Roman rule was greatly favourable to such
a development of thought. The Romans were a practical nation, had no
conception of nor appreciation for purely theoretical problems, and
demanded practical lessons and philosophical investigations which would
serve as a guide for life. Thus the political tendency of the time
towards practical wisdom had imparted a new direction to philosophical
thought. Yet, as time went on, a deep feeling of dissatisfaction seized
the ancient world in the midst of all the glories of the Roman rule.
This huge empire could offer to the peoples, which it had welded
into one mighty unit, no compensation for the loss of their national
independence; it offered them no inner worth nor outer fortune. There
was a complete discord running through the entire civilisation of the
Graeco-Roman world. The social condition of the empire had brought with
it extreme contrasts in the daily life. The contrasts had become more
pronounced. Abundance and luxury existed side by side with misery
and starvation. Millions were excluded from the very necessaries of
existence. With the sense of injustice and revolt against the
existing inequality of the state of society, the hope for some future
compensation arose. The millions excluded from the worldly possessions
turned longingly to a better world. The thoughts of man were turned
to something beyond terrestrial life, to heaven instead of earth.
Philosophy, too, had failed to give complete satisfaction. Man had
realised his utter inability to find knowledge in himself by his
unaided efforts. He despaired to arrive at it without the help of some
transcendental power and its kind assistance. Salvation was not to be
found in man's own nature, but in a world beyond that of the senses.
Philosophy could not satisfy the cultured man by the presentation of its
ethical ideal of life, could not secure for him the promised happiness.
Philosophy, therefore, turned to religion for help. At Alexandria,
where, in the active work of its museum, all treasures of Grecian
culture were garnered, all religions and forms of worship crowded
together in the great throng of the commercial metropolis to seek a
scientific clarification of the feelings that surged and stormed within
them. The cosmopolitan spirit and broad-mindedness which had brought
nations together under the Egyptian government, which had gathered
scholars from all parts in the library and the museum, was favourable
also to the fusion and reconciliation in the evolution of thought.

If Alexandria was the birthplace of that intellectual movement which has
been described, this was not only the result of the prevailing spirit of
the age, but was due to the influence of ideas; salvation could only be
found in the reconciliation of ideas. The geographical centre of this
movement of fusion and reconciliation was, however, in Alexandria.
After having been the town of the museum and the library, of criticism
and literary erudition, Alexandria became once again the meeting-place
of philosophical schools and religious sects; communication had become
easier, and various fundamentally different inhabitants belonging to
distinct social groups met on the banks of the Nile. Not only goods and
products of the soil were exchanged, but also ideas and thoughts. The
mental horizon was widened, comparisons ensued, and new ideas were
suggested and formed. This mixture of ideas necessarily created a
complex spirit where two currents of thought, of critical scepticism and
superstitious credulity, mixed and mingled. Another powerful factor was
the close contact in which Occidentalism or Greek culture found itself
with Orientalism. Here it was where the Greek and Oriental spirit mixed
and mingled, producing doctrines and religious systems containing germs
of tradition and science, of inspiration and reflection. Images and
formulas, method and ecstasy, were interwoven and intertwined. The
brilliant qualities of the Greek spirit, its sagacity and subtlety of
intelligence, its lucidity and facility of expression, were animated and
vivified by the Oriental spark, and gained new life and vigour. On
the other hand, the contemplative spirit of the Orient, which is
characterised by its aspiration towards the invisible and mysterious,
would never have produced a coherent system or theory had it not been
aided by Greek science. It was the latter that arranged and explained
the Oriental traditions, loosed their tongues, and produced those
religious doctrines and philosophical systems which culminated in
Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism, the Judaism of Philo, and the Polytheism of
Julian the Apostate.

It was the contemplative Oriental mind, with its tendency towards the
supernatural and miraculous, with its mysticism and religion, and Greece
with her subtle scrutinising and investigating spirit, which gave rise
to the peculiar phase of thought prevalent in Alexandria during the
first centuries of our era. It was tinctured with idealistic, mystic,
and yet speculative and scientific colours. Hence the religious spirit
in philosophy and the philosophic tendency in the religious system that
are the characteristic features. "East and West," says Baldwin,* "met
at Alexandria." The co-operative ideas of civilisations, cultures,
and religions of Rome, Greece, Palestine, and the farther East found
themselves in juxtaposition. Hence arose a new problem, developed partly
by Occidental thought, partly by Oriental aspiration. Religion and
philosophy became inextricably mixed, and the resultant doctrines
consequently belong to neither sphere proper, but are rather witnesses
of an attempt at combining both.

* Baldwin: Dictionary of Philosophy.

These efforts naturally came from two sides. On the one hand, the Jews
tried to accommodate their faith to the results of Western culture, in
which Greek culture predominated. On the other hand, thinkers whose
main impulse came from Greek philosophy attempted to accommodate their
doctrines to the distinctively religious problems which the Eastern
nations had brought with them. From whichever side the consequences be
viewed, they are to be characterised as theosophical rather than purely
philosophical, purely religious, or purely theological.

The reign of Constantine the Great, who became sole ruler of the East
and West in 323, after ten years' joint government with Licinius, is
remarkable for the change which was then wrought in the religion and
philosophy of the empire by the emperor's embracing the Christian
faith. His conversion occurred in 312, and on his coming to the united
sovereignty the Christians were at once released from every punishment
and disability on account of their religion, which was then more than
tolerated; they were put upon a nearly equal footing with the pagans,
and every minister of the Church was released from the burden of
civil and military duties. Whether the emperor's conversion arose from
education, from conviction, or from state policy, we have no means of
knowing; but Christianity did not reach the throne before it was the
religion of a most important class of his subjects, and the Egyptian
Christians soon found themselves numerous enough to call the Greek
Christians heretics, as the Greek Christians had already begun to
designate the Jewish.

The Greeks of Alexandria had formed rather a school of philosophy than
a religious sect. Before Alexander's conquest the Greek settlers
at Naucratis had thought it necessary to have their own temples and
sacrifices; but since the building of Alexandria they had been smitten
with the love of Eastern mysticism, and content to worship in the
temples of Serapis and Mithra, and to receive instruction from the
Egyptian priests. They had supported the religion of the conquered
Egyptians without wholly believing it; and had shaken by their ridicule
the respect for the very ceremonies which they upheld by law. Polytheism
among the Greeks had been further shaken by the platonists; and
Christianity spread in about equal proportions among the Greeks and the
Egyptians. Before the conversion of Constantine the Egyptian church
had already spread into every city of the province, and had a regular
episcopal government. Till the time of Heraclas and Dionysius, the
bishops had been always chosen by the votes of the presbyters, as the
archdeacons were by the deacons. Dionysius in his public epistles joins
with himself his fellow-presbyters as if he were only the first among
equals; but after that time some irregularities had crept into the
elections, and latterly the Church had become more monarchical. There
was a patriarch in Alexandria, with a bishop in every other large city,
each assisted by a body of priests and deacons. They had been clad in
faith, holiness, humility, and charity; but Constantine robed them in
honour, wealth, and power; and to this many of them soon added pride,
avarice, and ambition.

This reign is no less remarkable for the religious quarrel which then
divided the Christians, which set church against church and bishop
against bishop, as soon as they lost that great bond of union, the fear
of the pagans. Jesus of Nazareth was acknowledged by Constantine as
a divine person; and, in the attempt then made by the Alexandrians to
arrive at a more exact definition of his nature, while the emperor was
willing to be guided by the bishops in his theological opinions, he
was able to instruct them all in the more valuable lessons of mutual
toleration and forbearance. The followers of early religions held
different opinions, but distinguished themselves apart only by outward
modes of worship, such as by sacrifices among the Greeks and Romans,
and among the Jews and Egyptians by circumcision, and abstinence from
certain meats. When Jesus of Nazareth introduced his spiritual religion
of repentance and amendment of life, he taught that the test by which
his disciples wrere to be known was their love to one another. After
his death, however, the Christians gave more importance to opinions
in religion, and towards the end of the third century they proposed to
distinguish their fellow-worshippers in a mode hitherto unknown to the
world, namely, by the profession of belief in certain opinions; for as
yet there was no difference in their belief of historic facts. This gave
rise to numerous metaphysical discussions, particularly among the more
speculative and mystical.

At about this time the chief controversy was as to whether Christ was
of the _same_, or of _similar_ substance with God the Father, this being
the dispute which divided Christendom for centuries. This dispute and
others not quite so metaphysical were brought to the ears of the emperor
by Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, and Arius, the presbyter. The bishop
had been enquiring into the belief of the presbyter, and the latter
had argued against his superior and against the doctrine of the
_consubstantiality_ of the Father and the Son. The emperor's letter
to the theologians, in this first ecclesiastical quarrel that was ever
brought before a Christian monarch, is addressed to Alexander and Arius,
and he therein tells them that they are raising useless questions, which
it is not necessary to settle, and which, though a good exercise for the
understanding, only breed ill-will, and should be kept by each man in
his own breast. He regrets the religious madness which has seized all
Egypt; and lastly he orders the bishop not to question the priest as
to his belief, and orders the priest, if questioned, not to return an
answer. But this wise letter had no weight with the Alexandrian divines.
The quarrel gained in importance from being noticed by the emperor; the
civil government of the country was clogged; and Constantine, after
having once interfered, was persuaded to call a council of bishops to
settle the Christian faith for the future. Nicaea in Bithynia was chosen
as the spot most convenient for Eastern Christendom to meet in; and two
hundred and fifty bishops, followed by crowds of priests, there met
in council from Greece, Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, Arabia, Egypt, and
Libya, with one or two from Western Europe.

At this synod, held in the year 325, Athanasius, a young deacon in the
Alexandrian church, came for the first time into notice as the champion
of Alexander against Arius, who was then placed upon his trial. All the
authority, eloquence, and charity of the emperor were needed to quell
the tumultuous passions of the assembly. It ended its stormy labours by
voting what was called the Homoousian doctrine, that Jesus was of one
substance with God. They put forth to the world the celebrated creed,
named, from the city in which they met, the Nicene creed, and they
excommunicated Arius and his followers, who were then all banished by
the emperor. The meeting had afterwards less difficulty in coming to
an agreement about the true time of Easter, and in excommunicating the
Jews; and all except the Egyptians returned home with a wish that the
quarrel should be forgotten and forgiven.

This first attempt among the Christians at settling the true faith by
putting fetters on the mind, by drawing up a creed and punishing those
that disbelieved it, was but the beginning of theological difficulties.
These in Egypt arose as much from the difference of blood and language
of the races that inhabited the country as from their religious belief;
and Constantine must soon have seen that if as a theologian he had
decided right, yet as a statesman he had been helping the Egyptians
against the friends of his own Greek government in Alexandria.

After a reasonable delay, Arius addressed to the emperor a letter either
of explanation or apology, asserting his full belief in Christianity,
explaining his faith by using the words of the Apostles' Creed, and
begging to be re-admitted into the Church. The emperor, either from a
readiness to forgive, or from a change of policy, or from an ignorance
of the theological controversy, was satisfied with the apology, and
thereupon wrote a mild conciliatory letter to Athanasius, who had in
the meantime been made Bishop of Alexandria, expressing his wish
that forgiveness should at all times be offered to the repentant, and
ordering him to re-admit Arius to his rank in the Church. But the young
Athanasius, who had gained his favour with the Egyptian clergy, and had
been raised to his high seat by his zeal shown against Arius, refused
to obey the commands of the emperor, alleging that it was unlawful
to re-admit into the Church anybody who had once been excommunicated.
Constantine could hardly be expected to listen to this excuse, or
to overlook this direct refusal to obey his orders. The rebellious
Athanasius was ordered into the emperor's presence at Constantinople,
and soon afterwards, in 335, called before a council of bishops at Tyre,
where he was deposed and banished. At the same council, in the thirtieth
year of this reign, Arius was re-admitted into communion with the
Church, and after a few months he was allowed to return to Alexandria,
to the indignation of the popular party in that city, while Athanasius
remained in banishment during the rest of the reign, as a punishment for
his disobedience.

This practice of judging and condemning opinions gave power in the
Church to men who would otherwise have been least entitled to weight and
influence. Athanasius rose to his high rank over the heads of the elder
presbyters by his fitness for the harsher duties then required of an
archbishop. Theological opinions became the watchwords of two contending
parties; religion lost much of its empire over the heart; and the
mild spirit of Christianity gave way to angry quarrels and cruel
persecutions.

Another remarkable event of this reign was the foundation of the new
city of Constantinople, to which the emperor removed the seat of his
government. Rome lost much by the building of the new capital, although
the emperors had for some time past ceased to live in Italy; but
Alexandria lost the rank which it had long held as the centre of Greek
learning and Greek thought, and it felt a blow from which Rome was saved
by the difference of language. The patriarch of Alexandria was no longer
the head of Greek Christendom. That rank was granted to the bishop of
the imperial city; many of the philosophers who hung round the palace
at Constantinople would otherwise have studied and taught in the museum;
and the Greeks, by whose superiority Egypt had so long been kept in
subjection, gradually became the weaker party. In the opinion of the
historian, as in the map of the geographer, Alexandria had formerly been
a Greek state on the borders of Egypt; but since the rebellion in the
reign of Diocletian it was becoming more and more an Egyptian city; and
those who in religion and politics thought and felt as Egyptians soon
formed the larger half of the Alexandrians. The climate of Egypt was
hardly fitted for the Greek race. Their numbers never could have been
kept up by births alone, and they now began to lessen as the attraction
to newcomers ceased. The pure Greek names henceforth become less common;
and among the monks and writers we now meet with those named after the
old gods of the country.

[Illustration: 199.jpg THE ISLAND OF RHODHA]

Constantine removed an obelisk from Egypt for the ornament of his new
city, and he brought down another from Heliopolis to Alexandria; but he
died before the second left the country, and it was afterwards taken
by his son to Rome. These obelisks were covered with hieroglyphics,
as usual, and we have a translation said to be made from the latter by
Hermapion, an Egyptian priest. In order to take away its pagan character
from the religious ceremony with which the yearly rise of the Nile wras
celebrated in Alexandria, Constantine removed the sacred cubit from the
temple of Serapis to one of the Christian churches; and nothwithstanding
the gloomy forebodings of the people, the Nile rose as usual, and the
clergy afterwards celebrated the time of its overflow as a Christian
festival.

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