However, all this represents the very best the Copts could expect. At intervals under a humane governor they enjoyed so much of contemptuous toleration; but we must remember that all the time they were utterly at the mercy of an alien power, which hated and despised them. Egypt under Moslem rule had even for a Moslem state an exceptionally large proportion of fiendish lunatics as governors. Such men always, besides behaving abominably to their own co-religionists, begin torturing, persecuting, massacring the helpless Christians. Even a good governor often acquired conscientious scruples about leaving unbelievers in peace. So the story of the Copts under Moslem rule, in spite of interludes, is really one long and sickening account of horrible persecution. During this time enormous numbers apostatized. That is not surprising. It was so easy, during a general massacre of Christians, to escape torture and death by professing Islam. Then it was death to go back. The wonder is rather that any Copts at all kept the faith during these hideous centuries.
When there was no actual persecution, Copts were able to serve their masters in many ways because of their superior civilization. One of the commonest professions for a Copt was to be writer (kātib, secretary) to the Moslem governor of some province. The Coptic kātib became a recognized institution; even now in Egyptian books and plays he appears, generally as a comic character, an ingenious rascal, whose astuteness is finally defeated by True Believing honesty. Meanwhile the Coptic language slowly died out. When the Arabs came all Egypt talked Coptic, except a handful of Greek Melkites. Coptic is the direct descendant, or later form, of the old Egyptian language of the hieroglyphs.[1] The Arabs brought their own totally different Semitic speech to Egypt. This became the language of the governing class; Copts had to acquire it, in order to talk to their masters; so very slowly their own language disappeared. It did not disappear altogether till the 17th century. Now it exists only as their liturgical language (p. 274). All Copts talk Arabic.
- ↑ As a matter of fact, interest in Coptic and its study among Europeans is chiefly due to its usefulness in deciphering the hieroglyphs. The pronunciation of many words represented by ideograms is made conjecturally from Coptic.
