the coptic contribution to christian civilisation - Fatherjacob.org

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know how much we in the British Isles owe to these remotehermits. It is more than probable that to them we are indebtedfor the first preaching of the Gospel in England, where, till thecoming of Augustine, the Egyptian monastic rule prevailed. Butmore important is the belief that Irish Christianity, the greatcivilizing agent of the early Middle Ages among the northernnations, was the child of the Egyptian Church. Seven Egyptianmonks are buried at Disert Uldith and there is much in theceremonies and architecture of Ireland in the earliest time thatreminds one of still earlier Christian remains in Egypt. Everyoneknows that the handicraft of the Irish monks in the ninth andtenth centuries far excelled anything that could be foundelsewhere in Europe, and if the Byzantine-looking decoration oftheir splendid gold and silver work, and their unrivalledilluminations, can be traced to the influence of Egyptianmissionaries, we have more to thank the Copts for than hadbeen imagined.Even when we review Coptic heresies and heretics, it behovesus to consider how these ardent sons of the Nile, forbidden topractice the beliefs of their sects within the Pax Romana,crossed the frontiers of the empire to the unknown realms of thebarbarians and there freely preached Christianity in accordancewith their convictions. Perhaps the most striking feature in thehistory of the barbarians as they descended on the RomanEmpire was the spread of Arianism in their midst. The Goths,Visigoths, Vandals, Burgundians, and Lombards must have hadtheir apostles of Arian Christianity. Perhaps the best known isUlphilas (ca. 311-83), apostle to the Goths, who was probablyof Cappadocian birth, who knew the Gothic language as well asGreek, and who translated the Bible into the Gothic tongue forthe first time. But Arianism, it must be remembered, was purelyan Alexandrine creation, and its founder was the heresiarchArius, a Libyan native of Alexandria. It is only logical to assume25
that the followers of Arius or their disciples were responsiblefor the spread of that heresy from Egypt to the Germanic andbarbarian tribes beyond the Danube and the Rhine.COPTIC MUSICOn the subject of music, we are constrained to seek the opinionof the specialist. In 1927 the great English musicologist ErnestNewlandsmith of Oxford and London Universities spent severalmonths in Egypt listening to the old native chanters of theCoptic Church and reducing their tunes to notation. Hemanaged to compile a number of volumes and declared that theresults of his pursuit exceeded his wildest expectations. We cando no better than quote his verdict. "What we understand todayas Oriental music," he proclaimed, "appears simply adegradation of what was once a great art. This music, which hasbeen handed down for untold centuries within the CopticChurch, should be a bridge between East and West, and place anew idiom at the disposal of the western musicians. It is a lofty,noble, and great art, especially in the element of the infinitewhich is lacking today.” Newlandsmith is apparently of theopinion that, to quote his own words, "Western music has itsorigin in ancient Egypt." If we believe this renowned Englishmusicologist, then we must accept the thesis that Coptic Churchmusic is a bridge between the music of ancient Egypt andwestern music in some way. It is not inconceivable that theCoptic missionaries who crossed over to Europe at the dawn ofour era could have carried with them the essence of the nativeCoptic chanting. The theory that there had been interactionbetween that Coptic vocal music and the Gregorian chants,though still debatable, seems to have more than a little historicalsupport. At the present juncture, we can only say with the26
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