old Ethiopian language was so closely allied to the Egyptian
as is the Sahidic dialect to the Copticthis however is Georgi’s
hypothesis. The Ammonians of Herodotus were the inhabitants
of the Oasis of Augila, containing, the" temple of
Jupiter Ammon, who under Justinian were, as Procopius“
asserts, converted from the worship of Ammon and of
Alexander to the Christian religion, and obtained a bishop,
who was present at the great assembly of the Christian church
in 553, in Constantinople. Since the new converts must
have stood in need of a version of the Scriptures into their
language, it is probable that one was actually made, and
the third Egyptian version, which ts a translation independent
of the others, and taken immediately from the Greek
original, may have been that of which the fragments have
come to light. M. Georgi is. less specious-in .his attempt to
show that this so termed Ammonian dialect is the same as the
Psamyrian or the Bashmuric of the Coptidwriters. There is,
indeed, a city of Bashmur mentioned by" Abulfeda in thed-eSser
Delta, but this seems here to be out of the question. Indeed
the accurate D’Anville writes the name Bashmout. This name
rather agreea with the- Coptic ir-aa-fin?- and applies ;&\a
country resembling that termed by Strabo irspaia, meaning
the region to the westward of the Nile. Here, according—to
Eimacin, lived the Bashmurians or Psamyrii who, by a na^
tive writer cited by Renaudot, are said to have revolted
against the khalif Abdolmalek, and to have allied tbemselves
with the neighbouring Negro tribes. To Michaelis this hypo-'
thesis of Georgi appears extremely improbable,- because the
Psamyrians of Eimacin were a people unlikely to have spoken
any cognate dialect of the Coptic.* Their language is described
as differing essentially from both of the Egyptian
dialects. The third dialect of the Borgian manuscripts,
wherever it may have been spoken, is, on the other hand, but
a slight modification of the Sahidic. Professor Miinter, of
Copenhagen, considered it indeed as differing from that idiom
only in an accidental variation of orthography.f It continues,
* TVfirharfis N. Orient. Biblioth. Th. viii.
+ M. Frid. Miinteri Commentatio de indole Vers. N. T. Sahidic». Accedunt
fragm. Epist. Paulli ad Tim. ex membrtfnia Sahidic. Mus. Borgian Velitris.
Hafn. 1789. Michaelis, N. Or. Bibl. Th. vii. See also Th. iii. N. 66.
however* to be termed, after Georgi’s improbable supposition,
Bashmuric, in the .latest and most - accurate works on |5bptiC
literature.
, The remains of'Coptic and Sahidic can only- bb, considered
as representing^ fhe Egyptian language during' a comparatively
short, period of its history. Bot$' Of these-dialects have
long been extinct. The Sahidic, appears to have been in use
in thè time- ofMacrizi, in the ■ ninth.’ century, pfï the Hegira,
but in thé early part of the' twelfth cfehtury of our era, the
Coptic, had ceased tVbe intelligible t'0 thepéoplè of the middle
region off Egypt. It surviyeq’however" among a'few persons,
and the last old man who had learnt it as" his mother-
tongue, is said to have, died in 1633. It is probable that the
extant" re liS o f the- Egyptian dialects* belong, for ;the‘ most
part, .to. a-somewhat early periocfbf Christianity. The dates
of the Coptic and Sahidic1»’version haf e héén computed with
i'some variety of,opinion.* Theipelebrated David Wilkins, who
was -the editoivof the Coptic New Testament published by
the -flniversity of Oxford in 1716, supposed the »‘Coptic kerb
sioni-to have already been in existence about", the. year of our
Lord 271. His principal argument.is founded on the*account
of*-the ascetic Antonius or St. Anthony, who lived about that
time, and who, though ignorant of Greek, is; known .to have
read tHè/New Testament. This reason appeared <to the editors
of the Acta Eruditorum and to Michaelis unsatisfactory :
it only proves that there existed in Egypt, at that -time, an
Egyptian version of the Scriptures; and Michaelis was inclined
tor believe that this perhaps older versibn was the Sahidic.
A confirmation of this • ëönjecture is the,Tact that
epistles are mentioned by St. Jcrbme as written by St. Anthony
to the churches of Egypt, in the Egyptian language,
and that some fragments of ^epistles ascribed to St. Anthony,
have been published by Mingarelli which are’ actually in
the Sahidic dialectif According to P. Georgi, with whom
* At a synod of Jacobite patriarchs héld at Alexandria between 1130 and 1140,
it was ordained that the Symbolum Fidel and the Oratio Dominica , should he explained
to the people in their vernacular tongue ?. the^to^e formulae having be-
cóme, as it would appear, unintelligible.; Vater, Mitlpjl|g78.
' f Quatremère, Litt. Egypte.—Mingarelli or Dorn. Johann. .Aloysius Minga