responsibility in the government, the Moslems, in general,
are obliged to content themselves with the subordinate posts which in
the past they left to the Copts. Some Copts have attained high office,
and in 1908 a Copt became prime minister. Moreover, the Copts have to a
certain extent made up for the ground they lose elsewhere by engaging in
agriculture and banking, and there are now to be found many rich Coptic
landowners and farmers, especially in Upper Egypt.

_Language._--The language spoken by the Copts was of various dialects,
named Sahidic, Akhmimic, Fayumic, &c., descended from the ancient
Egyptian with more or less admixture of Greek (for the Coptic dialects
see EGYPT: Language). Coptic, however, has been entirely extinct as a
spoken language for over 200 years, having been supplanted by Arabic; in
the 13th century it was already so much decayed that Arabic translations
of the liturgies were necessary. The Gospels, however, are still read in
the churches in the Bohairic dialect. This dialect appears in
literature later than the others, having become of importance only with
the extinction of Greek in Lower Egypt; for a time it shared the field
with Sahidic, after the disappearance of Akhmimic and Fayumic, but
eventually displaced it in the churches, where it now survives alone.

Coptic literature is almost entirely religious, and consists mainly of
translations from the Greek. Such was the enthusiasm for Christianity
amongst the lower classes in Egypt that translations of the Bible were
made into three of the dialects of Coptic before the council of
Chalcedon; they probably date back at least as early as the middle of
the 4th century. For the dwellers in the Delta the Greek version was
probably sufficient, until the break with the Greek (Melkite) Church in
the 5th century induced them to make a separate translation in their own
native northern or Bohairic dialect. The Gnostic heresy, otherwise known
only through the works of its opponents, is illustrated in some Coptic
MSS. of the 4th century, the so-called _Pistis Sophia_ or Askew Codex,
and the Bruce Codex, respectively in the British Museum and Bodleian
Libraries. According to Schmidt and Harnack, they are translations
dating from the 3rd century and belong to an ascetic or encratitic sect
of the Gnostics which arose in Egypt itself. There is abundance of
apocryphal works, of apocalypses, of patristic writings from Athanasius
to the council of Chalcedon, hom