those who resisted the decrees of the council, were, from the leader of their party, called Jacobites. Afterwards, they were called Cophtes. Some have supposed, that they obtained this name from the Saracens having shortened the word, Jacobites, into that word: but it is generally understood, that they derive it from the city Coptos in the Saide. Except their errors respecting the second person of the blessed Trinity, little distinguishes them from the general body of Roman Catholics: but their aversion from the Roman Catholics is great, and they constantly brand them with the name of Nestorians. They are governed by a patriarch. He has under him eleven or twelve bishops, and several priests or deacons: his residence is at Grand Cairo. The monasteries of St. Paul, St. Anthony, and St. Macarius, are subject to him. The two first are in the Lower Thebaide; the last is in the desert of Sceté. A very interesting account is given by father Sicard, in the fifth volume of the new edition of the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, of these celebrated monasteries. Several families of the Cophtes reside in the Delta; but the greatest part of them inhabit the Saide, or the part of Egypt extending from Cairo upwards to Assouan or Syene. In 639, the Cophtes invited the Saracens into Egypt: and, in return, were for some 'time treated kindly by them. But afterwards, the Saracens made no distinction between them and their other Greek subjects. About the end of the

fifth century of the Hegira, the Caliph Walid I. prohibited the Greek tongue throughout his whole empire. From that time the Cophtic, like the other languages of the nations subdued by the Saracens, ceased to be a spoken language: but it has been preserved in the Scriptures and books of devotion. Mr. Volney observes, that "the form of "the Cophtic letters, and the greater part of "their words, demonstrate, that the Greek na"tion, during the thousand years it continued in Egypt, has left deep marks of its power and "influence. But, on the other hand, the Cophtic

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alphabet has five letters, and the language a "number of words, which may be considered as "the remains of the ancient Egyptian." Its last existence was among the rude peasants of the Nile. The hopes that valuable manuscripts might be discovered in some of the Cophtic monasteries, are not encouraged by the accounts given of these monasteries, by father Sicard.

The Cophtic version was printed with a Latin translation at Oxford, in 1716, by David Wilkins, properly Wilkie, a native of Memel in Prussia. He afterwards published an edition of the Pentateuch, in the same language, London, 1731. La Croze, Thesaur. Epistol. tom. iii. p. 154, says he was imperfectly acquainted with it. The editor of Ernesti's Institutio fixes its age at the fifth century: he says, that it contains several excellent readings, coinciding in general with those of the

Alexandrine fathers. The indefatigable industry of the moderns has discovered a version yet in manuscript, called the Sahidic version, from its being in the language of the nation which inhabits the Upper Egypt, or the part which lies between Cahera and Assevan, called in Arabic, Said, It is supposed by Dr. Woide to have been made in the second century. All the fragments of the version were prepared for the press, by the late Dr. Woide. They have been splendidly printed at the Clarendon press, under the care of Dr. Ford, with this title: Appendix ad Editionem Novi Testamenti Græci, e codice MS. Alexandrino a Carolo Godofredo Woide descripti, in quá continentur Fragmenta Novi Testamenti juxta interpretationem Dialecti superioris Ægypti, quæ Thebaica vel Sahidica appellatur, e codicibus Oxoniensibus maxima ex parte desumpta, cum Dissertatione de versione bibliorum Egyptiaca, quibus subjicitur Codicis Vaticani Collatio. Oxonii e typographeo Clarendoniano. 1799.

XIII. 3. The first name, by which we know Ethiopia in history, is Lud. It is the name given to it by Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezechiel. About the time when the Israelites quitted Egypt, a nation of blacks, who dwelt on the banks of the Indus, and are called Chusites in the Old Testament, established a powerful empire in the African Lydia, and called it Æthiopia. Towards the end of the reign of Constantine the Great, they were

conquered by the Abyssinians, who came from the southern part of the Happy Arabia, and were called Homerites; Saba was the capital of the kingdom. The Queen, whom Solomon's wisdom attracted to Palestine, was sovereign of that country. They were converted to Christianity in the fourth century; and, towards the ninth, embraced the errors of Dioscorus, respecting the two natures of the second person of the blessed Trinity. The Ethiopic language, into which the translations of the Holy Writings were made, is the ancient language of Abyssinia, not the language now in use. The language, which it nearest resembles, is the Arabic; but from that, and all the kindred languages of the east, it differs, as it is written from the left to the right hand, and expresses the vowels by determinate characters, and not by points. The religion now established in the country is a mixture of Judaism, Christianity and Heathenish superstition.

An Ethiopic version was published at Rome, in 1548 and 1549, from a defective copy; that, from which the Æthiopic version in the London Polyglott was printed, was still more defective.

XIII. 4. Armenia is divided between the Turks and the Persians. The greater part of it belongs to the former. Erzerom is its capital. Erevan is the capital of the Persian part. The Armenian alphabet is not earlier than the fourth century. Miesrob, minister of state and secretary to Waras

dates and Arsaces the IVth, kings of Armenia, and contemporaries with Theodosius the IId, invented it; and to him, the unanimous testimony of the Armenian writers ascribes the translation of their Scriptures. In the thirteenth century, the Churches of the Lesser Armenia and Cilicia submitted to the Pope and Haitho, their king, became a Franciscan friar. He published a new edition of the Armenian Bible. It is asserted, that he made the ancient text conform throughout, to the Latin Vulgate. This is a point of the utmost importance, in Biblical criticism: but probably it will remain in uncertainty, till the discovery of a copy of the version prior to the time of Haitho. Should such a manuscript be discovered, and should there appear a general conformity between it and the Latan Vulgate, then, as the antiquity of the Armenian version would be unquestionable, and there is great reason to suppose it was executed with great care and skill, the value of each of the versions, and particularly that of the Latin Vulgate, will be considerably increased.

An Armenian version was printed at Amsterdam, in 1666, in quarto; an edition in octavo was printed there in 1668. The former includes both the Old and the New Testament; the latter contains the New Testament only. An edition in that language of the New Testament was published in duodecimo, in 1698.

XIII. 5. The language of the Arabs was, during