§ 145. THE MONOPHYSITE SECTS. 771
have an influence on. the final destiny of the departed. Like the orthodox Greeks, they honor pictures and relics of the Baints, but not in the same degree. Scriptnre and tradition are with them coordinate sources of revelation and rules of faith. The reading of the Bible is not forbidden, but is limited by the ignorance of the people themselves. They use in worship the ancient vernacular tongues, which, however, are now dead languages to them.
There are four branches of the Monophysites : the Syrian Jacobites ; the Copts, including the Abyssinians ; the Armenians ; and the less ancient Maronites.
I. The Jacobites in Syria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia. Their name comes down from their ecumenical ' metropolitan Jacob, sui-named Baradai, or Zanzalus." This remarkable man, in the middle of the sixth century, devoted himself for seven and thirty years (541-578), with unwearied zeal to the interests of the persecuted Monophysites. '• Light-footed as Asahel," ' and in the garb of a beggar, he journeyed hither and thither amid the greatest dangers and privations; revived the patriarchate of Antioch ; ordained bishoj^s, priests, and deacons ; organized churches ; healed divisions ; and thus saved the Monophysite body from impending extinc tion.
/ The patriarch 'bears the title of patriarch of Antioch, because the succession is traced back to Severus of Antioch ; but he commonly resides in Diarbekir, or other towns or monasteries. Since the fourteenth century, the patriarch has always borne the name Ignatius, after the famous martyr and bishop of Antioch. The Jacobite monks are noted for gross superstition and rigorous asceticism. A part of the Jacobites have united with the chm'ch of Home. Lately some Protestant
' Ecumenical, i. e., not restricted to any particular province.
' From his beggarly clothing. Baradai signifies in Arabic and Syriac horse blanket, of coarse cloth, and TCav^aKoy is vile aliquid et tritum (see Rodiger in He* zog's Encycl. vi. 401).
= 2 Sam. ii. 18.
776 THIKD PEKIOD. A.D. 311-590.
missionaries from America have also found entrance amon^^ them.
II. The Copts,' in Egypt, are in nationality the genuine descendants of the ancient Egyptians, though with an admixture of Greek and Arab hlood. Soon after the council of Chalcedon, they chose Tiraotheus ^hirus in opposition to the patriarch Proterius. After varying foitunes, they have, since 636, had their own patriarch of Alexandria, who, like most of the Egyptian dignitaries, commonly resides at Cairo. He accounts himself the true successor of the evangelist Mark, St. Athanasius, and Cyril. He is always chosen from among the monks, and, in rigid adherence to the traditionary nolo episcopari, he is elected against his will ; he is obliged to lead a strict ascetic life, and at night is waked every quarter of an hour for a short prayer. He alone has the power to ordain, and he performs this function not by imposition of hands, but by breathing on and anointing the candidate. His jurisdiction extends over the churches of Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssin ia, or Ethiopia. He chooses and anoints the Abuna (i. e., Our Father), or patriarch for Abyssinia. Under him are twelve bishops, some with real jurisdiction, some titular; and under these again other clergy, down to readers and exorcists. There are still extant two incomplete Coptic versions of the Scriptures, the Upper Egyptian or Thebaic, called also, after the Arabic name of the province, the Sahidic, i. e.. Highland version ; and the Lower Egyptian or Memphitic.^
Tlie Copts were much more numerous than the Catholics, whom they scoftingly nicknamed jrelchitcs,^ or Cccsar-Chi'istlans. They lived with them on terms of deadly enmity, and facilitated the conquest of Egypt by the Saracens (641). But they were afterwards cruelly persecuted by these very Sara-
' From alf7U7rTos, Guptos, and not, as some suppose, from the town Koptos, nor from an abbreviation of Jacobite. They are the most ancient, but Christian Egyp' tians, in distinction from the Pharaonic (Chem), those of the Old Testament (Mizrim), ihe Macedonian or Greek {a.iy.\ and the modern Arab Egyptians (Misr).
* Of this latter II. Tattam and T. Biitticher (1852) have lately published consid OTable fragments.
• From the Hebrew melech, king.