Chapter IV. Egyptian Or Coptic Versions.

The critical worth of the Egyptian versions has only recently been appreciated as it deserves, and the reader is indebted for the following account of them to the liberal kindness of one of the few English scholars acquainted with the languages in which they are written, the Rev. J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., then Canon of St. Paul's, and Hulsean Professor of Divinity at Cambridge; who, in the midst of varied and pressing occupations, found time to comply with my urgent, though somewhat unreasonable, request for his invaluable aid in this particular for the benefit of the second edition of the present work. His yet more arduous labours, as Bishop of Durham (cui quando ullum inveniemus parem?) did not hinder him from revising his contribution for the enriching of the third edition of this work. In this, the fourth edition, the Editor has the pleasure of acknowledging the most valuable help of the Rev. G. Horner, who has in particular revised the description of the MSS. of the Bohairic version, and of the Rev. A. C. Headlam, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, who has added the result of more recent research. Mr. Headlam's additions, are, wherever it is possible, distinguished by being enclosed in square brackets.

(1) The Egyptian or Coptic Versions.

Most ancient authors, from Herodotus downwards, referring to the heathen period of Egyptian history, mention two distinct modes of writing; the sacred and the common. In place of the former, however, Clement of Alexandria (Strom. v. 4, p. 657), who has left the most precise account of Egyptian writing, substitutes two modes, which he designates hieroglyphic and hieratic (or [pg 092] priestly) respectively; but since the hieratic is only a cursive adaptation of the hieroglyphic, the two are treated as one by other writers under the common designation of “sacred” (ἱερά). Both these forms of the sacred writing are abundantly represented in extant monuments, the one chiefly in sculptured stone, the other on papyrus rolls, as we might have anticipated.

The common writing is designated by various names. It is sometimes the “demotic” or “vulgar” (δημοτικά Herod. ii. 36, δημώδη Diod. iii. 3); sometimes the “native” or “enchorial” (ἐγχωρία in the trilingual inscriptions of Rosetta and Philae); sometimes “epistolographic” or letter-writer's character (Clem. Alex. l. c.); and in a bilingual inscription recently (1866) discovered at Tanis (Reinisch u. Roesler, Die zweisprachige Inschrift von Tanis, Wien, 1866, p. 55), it is called “Egyptian” simply (ἱεροῖς γράμμασιν καὶ Αἰγυπτίοις καὶ Ἑλληνικοῖς). This last designation, as Lepsius remarks (Zeitschr. f. Aegyptische Sprache, iv. p. 30, 1866), shows how completely the common writing had outstripped the two forms of sacred character at the time of this inscription, the ninth year of Ptolemy Euergetes I. This demotic character also is represented in a large number of extant papyri of various ages.

These two modes of writing, however—the sacred and the vulgar—besides the difference in external character exhibit also two different languages, or rather (to speak more correctly) two different forms of the same language. Of ancient writers indeed the Egyptian Manetho alone mentions the existence of two such forms (Joseph. c. Ap. i. 14), saying that in the word Hyksos the first syllable is taken from “the sacred tongue” (τὴν ἱερὰν γλῶσσαν), the second from the “common dialect” (τὴν κοινὴν διάλεκτον): but this solitary and incidental notice is fully borne out by the extant monuments. The sacred character, whether hieroglyphic or hieratic, presents a much more archaic type of the Egyptian language than the demotic, differing from it very considerably, though the two are used concurrently. The connexion of the two may be illustrated by the relation of the Latin and the Italian, as the ecclesiastical and vulgar tongues respectively of mediaeval Italy. The sacred language had originally been the ordinary speech of Egypt; but having become antiquated in common conversation it survived for sacred uses alone. Unlike the Latin however, it retained its archaic written character [pg 093] along with its archaic grammatical forms. (See Brugsch, De Natura et Indole Linguae Popularis Aegyptiorum, Berlin, 1850, p. 1 sq.)