Coptic emerged as the written form of the Egyptian language in the third century, when Greek was still the official language in Egypt. By the time of the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641, Coptic had almost achieved official status, but only after an unusually prolonged period of stagnation. Jean-Luc Fournet traces this complex history, showing how the rise of Coptic took place amid profound cultural, religious, and political changes in late antiquity.
For some three hundred years after its introduction into the written culture of Egypt, Coptic was limited to biblical translation and private and monastic correspondence, while Greek retained its monopoly on administrative, legal, and literary writing. This changed during the sixth century, when Coptic began to penetrate domains that were once closed to it, such as literature, liturgy, regulated transactions between individuals, and communications between the state and its subjects. Fournet examines the reasons for Coptic’s late development as a competing language—which was unlike what happened with other vernacular languages in Near Eastern Greek-speaking societies—and explains why Coptic eventually succeeded in being recognized with Greek as an official language.
Incisively written and rich with insights, The Rise of Coptic draws on a wealth of archival evidence to shed new light on the role of monasticism in the growing use of Coptic before the Arab conquest.
Author(s): Jean-Luc Fournet
Series: The Rostovtzeff Lectures
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: xii+206
Cover
The Rise of Coptic: Egyptian versus Greek in Late Antiquity
Contents
List of Images
Preface
1 An Egyptian Exception?
The Egyptian Situation (250–550)
The LegalSystem on the Scale of the Empire: Legal Sources and Near Eastern Papyri
2 Why Was Greek Preferred to Coptic?
The Obstacle of Multidialecticism
The Advantages of Greek, an “Inhibiting” Competitor
The Church Was Also Greek-Speaking
The Crushing Weight of the Past: The Institutional Marginalization of Egyptian
Coptic as a “Victim” of Its Origins
3 The Rise of Legal Coptic and the Byzantine State
Coptic Legal Documents Finally Come into Being!
Diplomatic Types: Notarized Documents That Are Not Actually Notarized
Types of Transaction: Restraint Was Still Necessary!
The Writers: Digraphic Scribes
Provenances: The Exclusivity of the South
Chronology: Coptic and the Political Situation
Greek Culture Losing Its Momentum
A Crisis of Judicial Institutions?
Justice in Coptic
4 The Role of the Church and Monasticism in the Growth of Legal Coptic
A Graeco-Coptic Codex from the Louvre: Monasticism and Taxation
The Wills of the Monastery of St. Phoebammon: Greek Documents in Coptic Dress?
The Legal Documents of Abraham, Bishop of Hermonthis: The Decisive Role of the Theban Bishops
Typology of the Texts
The Transposition Process
The Problem of Legal Value
Why in Coptic?
Appendix 1. Coptic Endorsements in Greek Legal Texts
Appendix 2. Five Samples of Fourth-Century Coptic Letters
1. P.Kellis VII 84 (Kellis, House 3)
2. P.Kellis VII 107 (Kellis, House 3)
3. P.Neph. 15 (= SBKopt. II 899) [Fig. 6] (Archive of the Hathor Monastery)
4. SBKopt. IV 1695 (Archive of Apa John)
5. P.Nag Hamm. C 4 (Nag Hammadi)
Appendix 3. The First Legal Documents in Coptic before the Arab Conquest
Bibliography
General Index
Index of Ancient Sources
