THE CHRISTIAN COPTS
Many of the students of the Asyut Training College are Copts. They
belong to that class of natives who are said to be the only direct
descendants of the ancient Egyptians. The Copts are more intelligent
than the Mohammedans. They take naturally to education, and about four
Copts go to school to every one Moslem. They are also shrewd clerks and,
many of them being educated men, they have a large number of the minor
government appointments. The British, however, tried to be partial to the
Mohammedans because they form the great majority of the population, and
to give them offices in preference to the Copts. During Lord Cromer’s
administration, a committee of Copts objected to his crowding out these
native Christians and giving their places to the followers of the
Prophet. Applicants for any government posts or for training schools have
to give their names, and the Copts can thus be easily distinguished from
the Mohammedans. The Christian boys get their names from the characters
of the Bible, while the names of the Mohammedan boys come from the Koran.
When the examination papers were turned in, the judges were said to have
been instructed to mark down all those bearing such names as Moses and
Jacob, Peter and Paul, and to recommend for appointment the Mohammeds,
the Alis, and the Hassans. The British governing class considered that
the Copt and the Mussulman, being alike natives, were generally not
capable of holding any responsible position. And now it is said also that
it would be bad policy to put the Christian Egyptian over the Moslem.
The Copts are the sharpest business men of Egypt. It is a common saying
here that no Jew can compete with them and they have driven the Jews out
of the upper part of the Nile valley. In Asyut there are a number of rich
Copts who have become Protestant Christians, and some of these men are
very charitable. One, for instance, built a Protestant native church,
after a visit to England, where he was much impressed by Westminster
Abbey. Upon his return he said he was going to build a church for Asyut
on the plan of Westminster. The missionaries advised him to make his
building rectangular instead. But no! it must be Westminster Abbey or
nothing; and the result is a great T-shaped structure of wood with a
long hall in the centre and wings at the end. The church cost about
twenty thousand dollars and will seat one thousand five hundred people.
I attended it last Sunday and found the main hall filled with dark-faced
men in gowns and fezzes. The wings were shut off by curtains, but I
was seated in front and so near one side that I could look through the
cracks. Each wing was filled with women clad in black balloon-like
garments and veiled so as to conceal all but their eyes. Yet a few women
wore European clothes and French hats, showing how the new civilization
is coming in.
Another rich Copt established two large primary schools at Asyut, one for
boys and the other for girls. In the boys’ school there are five hundred
and fifty pupils, and in that for the girls more than two hundred. These
schools are taught by native Protestants, and not one cent of American
money is spent upon them.
I am much interested in the Copts. There are about eight hundred and
fifty thousand of them in the country. They look very much like the
Egyptians and dress in about the same fashion. The women veil their
faces, both in public and private, and until about a generation ago the
unmarried women wore white veils.
These people believe in the ancient form of Christianity. They are indeed
the same Christians that Egypt had in Roman times. They claim St. Mark as
their first patriarch and say that he preached the Gospel at Alexandria
and started the sect there. They have a patriarch to-day, with twelve
bishops and a large number of priests and deacons under him. They have
their monks and nuns, who lead rigorous lives; they fast and pray, wear
shirts of rough wool, and live upon vegetables.
The Copts believe in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ as his
Son. They believe in prayer, and like the Mohammedans, pray five or six
times a day. They begin their devotions at daybreak and are supposed to
make five separate petitions before dark and to close with a final prayer
at midnight. As they pray they recite a Psalm or chapter from the Gospel,
and some have rosaries of beads on which they count forty-one times,
saying the words:
“Oh! my Lord, have mercy.”
After this they end with a short petition. They wash before praying, and
worship with their faces turned toward the east. They believe in baptism
and think that an unbaptized child will be blind in the next life. They
have fixed times for baptism, a boy baby being baptized at forty days
and a girl baby at eighty days after birth.
There are Coptic churches all over Egypt, and I find several here at
Asyut. The church usually consists of four or five buildings surrounding
a court, and includes a chapel, a hall of worship, the residence of the
bishop, and other rooms. The sanctuary proper contains an altar separated
from the rest of the rooms by a screen, covered by a curtain with a cross
worked upon it. Before this curtain stand the priest, the choir, and the
more influential members of the congregation. Beyond them is a lattice
work, on the other side of which are the less important men, with the
women in the rear. Everyone is expected to take off his shoes when he
comes in, and in many of the halls of worship, as there are no seats, the
people lean upon sticks while the sermon is preached. The service begins
at daybreak and often lasts four or five hours, so that it is no wonder
that some of the members of the congregation fall to chatting during the
preaching, and discuss business and social matters.
I am told that the Copts do not trust their wives any too much. Each
has but one, but he does not make her his confidante, never tells her
his business secrets, and pays her much less respect than the native
Protestant Christians show their wives. He seldom sees his wife until he
is married and is forbidden by his religion to marry any one but a Copt.
As among the Mohammedans, marriages are usually a matter of business,
with a dowry bargained for beforehand. The favourite wedding time is
Saturday night, and the marriage feasts last through the following
week. When the marriage contract is made all the parties to it say the
Lord’s Prayer three times. Before the ceremonies are completed the
bride and the bridegroom go separately to church where the Eucharist
is administered to them. Just before her marriage, the bride is given
a steam bath, and her finger nails and toe nails are stained red with
henna. Immediately before the ceremony she sends the groom a suit of
clothing, and a woman from her house goes to him to see that it is
delivered properly and that he is taken to the bath. This provision
ensures that both start the married life comparatively clean.