COPTS, a name given to the schismatic Christians of Egypt who are of the Mono physite sect, similar in belief with the Jacobites of Asia. The Monophysites and Jacobites are followers of Dioscnrus, patriarch of Alexan dria, who was deposed by the Council of Chal cedon in 451, because he maintained there was only one nature in Christ. The Copts were of pure Egyptian blood, and at first were more numerous than their adversaries, the Melkites, who were Greeks in origin and believers in Christ as taught by the Church. Officials who were considered orthodox were sent from Con stantinople to govern Egypt, and many of the Copts fled to Upper Egypt and some went to the Arabs. So incensed were they with their rulers that when an opportunity occurred, they betrayed their country to the Saracens, who drove the Greeks and Romans out of the land. But the Copts soon found that their privileges would be of little avail, and their wealth, numbers and respectability rapidly de clined, and though rarely intermarrying with their conquerors, and preservitheir features, manners and religion unaltered they soon lost their language, which had resisted the influence of a Grecian court for so many ages. In per son and features the Copts differ much from the other natives of Egypt, and are evidently a distinct race. According to the younger Champollion they are the result of a mixture of all the different races that have ruled over Egypt. Reduced by a long course of oppression and misrule to a state of almost degradation, their number and national character have de clined; their number was estimated in 1907 at 706,322. Their costume resembles that of the Moslems, but they are in the habit of wearing a black turban for distinction's sake. They also commonly wear a black or dark-colored outer robe. In their general customs there is little to distinguish them from the other inhabitants of the country. They are chiefly employed as clerks, secretaries, etc. The women go out with veiled faces, like the other females of the coun try. They have numerous schools for their male children, but very few of the females are taught to read. In doctrine they agree almost
wholly with the Roman Catholic Church, ex cept on the one point which caused the sepa ration,— the two natures in Christ. They cele brate mass in the old Coptic language, as with them now the Arabic is the common tongue. Their supreme head is the Monophysite patriarch of Alexandria, who is chosen from among the monks; then come the bishops, priests, deacons, inferior clergy and monks. The priests may be married according to the Eastern discipline, and as they receive but little by way of support' from their congregations, they are generally engaged in the ordinary occupations of the place in which they live.
(See JACOBITE CHRISTIANS; MELCHITES). They have four seasons of fasting, all of which are scrupulously observed. Their Lent begins nine days earlier than that observed by the Roman Catholic Church. The doctrine of the sacra ments does not vary from that of the Latin Church, but they have a peculiar ritual in the administration of the sacrament of extreme unction, which they give with the sacrament of penance, even when there is no bodily illness, to heal the disease of the soul. The curious custom exists of blessing the bathing water stored in large tanIcs•, and to appease or "lease the Mohammedans, they have adopted circum cision. Within recent years a large body of the Copts made corporate reunion with the Roman Catholic Church, and there is a Catholic Vicar Apostolic of the Coptic rite for the Copts of t.
EgYhe Coptic language fiourished from the 3d to the 16th century, but is now extinct as a vernacular. It is of great linguistic im portance because of its descent from the Ancient Egyptian. Its literature is of little importance; it borrowed extensively from Greek and Latin but is free from any ad mixture of Arabic. It was divided into five principal dialects— the Sahidic and Achmimic in Upper Egypt, the Boheiric and Memphitic in Lower Egypt, and the Fayumic or so-called Bashmunc in Central Egypt. Ilhe Sahidic is the liturgical dialect of the Coptic Church and in it is contained by far the greater amount of the •Coptic literature extant.