This course will focus on a particular Upper Egyptian dialect of Coptic known as Sahidic which is the dialect that is normally taught in academic settings due to the vast amount of texts written in this dialect in comparison to other dialects. In this first lesson, I discuss the etymology of the word "Copt" which ultimately derives from a Kemetic word Hut ka Ptah "The Enclosure of the ka of Ptah," which referred to a vast Temple complex in Memphis which, along with Alexandria, functioned as the administrative capitols during the Greek control of Kemet. I highlight the importance of Memphis in this lesson by referring to the text known as "the Memphite Theology" on the monument of the 25th Dynasty Nubian/Kushite Ruler commonly known as the "Shabaka stone."

This course will be much more than a language course and will attempt to contextualize major features of Kemetic culture as it interacted with Greco-Roman culture before and after the rise of Coptic. We will deeply discuss many texts in this course, especially dealing with issues of religion and spirituality (i.e. translations of Biblical texts, Gnostic texts, the Hermetic corpus, etc.)

The main book that will be used for this course is Thomas Lambdin, Introduction to Sahidic Coptic which will be supplemented by reference to other Coptic grammars as needed. I have attached this book for you in this lesson. This is going to be a long journey, so I also spend some time in this lesson focusing on what I think is an effective method to approach learning this language, with or without note cards, that simply requires very small efforts at daily engagement, preferably immediately before you go to bed to allow the information to slowly but surely consolidate in your mind over time.  

Assignments

1.  Jacob Carruthers- Memphite Theology in Mdw Ntr
2. Memphite Theology

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In the latter part of this lesson, I introduce some key vocabulary in Greek for the names of Egypt (i.e. Aiguptos), Memphis, and philosophy. I narratively discuss the importance of Theophile Obenga's linguistic intervention on the etymology of the word sophos (i.e. skilled in sciences, learned, profound, wise). Obenga argues that since this word has no known etymology in the Greek language, it is logical to look for one in Egypt since many Greek scholars went to study in Egypt under Egyptian priests, most notably Thales, Pythagoras, and Plato. Obenga offers the Kemetic word seba "to teach, to learn" as the etymology for the word sophos and provides a rich discussion on the historical background of Egyptian-Greek intellectual interaction. I have attached the chapter entitled "The African Origins of Philosophy" from Obenga's book entitled Ancient Egypt and Black Africa (1992). I have also attached a more technical discussion of this etymology in French from his work entitled L'Egypte, La Grece et L'Ecole D'Alexandrie. 

Assignments

1. Theophile Obenga- The African Origin of Philosophy in Ancient Egypt and Black Africa
2. Hardy Hansen and Gerald Quinn- Introduction in Greek- An Intensive Course
3. Theophile Obenga- Seba as the Kemetic Origin of Greek Sophos in Egypt, Greece, and the Alexandrian School
4. Henry Liddell and Robert Scott- Greek-English Lexicon
5. Walter Crum- Coptic Dictionary

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I begin this lesson with highlighting the simple vowels in the Coptic language and providing illustrative vocabulary principally extracted from the Introduction of Lambdin's grammar book. I particularly focus on the semivowels ei = i and ou = “oo” as in food and demonstrate how these semivowels can combine with a preceding simple vowel to form various diphthongs (i.e. pairs of vowels pronounced together to produce one continuous sound). 

I then shift to explain that the presence of double vowels in a word generally indicates the presence of a glottal stop, i.e. the complete but brief stoppage of airflow in the glottis. I have already introduced the explanation superlinear strokes, but in this lesson I emphasize the following consonants that can commonly show this feature:  

b l m n r

These are known as the "blemner" consonants as an easy way to help you to remember them. I conclude the lesson by explaining a very important grammatical feature of Coptic referred to as "Assimilation," i.e. the alteration of a sound due to its proximity to another sound. In the Coptic language, the final N of prefixal elements (i.e. prepositions, particles, articles) is regularly assimilated to (i.e. changes to) M before p and m

All of the above information is taken from the Introduction to Lambdin’s grammar book. For the next lesson, please review my vocabulary note cards for the Introduction one time each night right before you go to bed. As I indicated in class, I will provide the Answer Key to all exercises in Lambdin’s book for you, but I would like for you to try to acquire as much vocabulary and grammar as possible before you attempt each exercise to test yourself on how much you are able to retain and take note of areas that you need to strengthen. This will be a slow process so take your time. 

Assignments

1. Herbert Smyth- Greek Grammar- Ancient Greek Pronunciation- Diphthongs

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The second part of this lesson seeks to begin to provide a complex foundation to understanding Kemetic cultural interactions with the Greeks under Greek governmental domination. When Alexander came to Kemet as a conqueror in 332 BCE, he went to Memphis and made a sacrifice to the Apis Bull. The Apis Bull is important to understand as part of the background that leads up to the Ptolemaic creation of the divinity Serapis (i.e. an amalgamation of Osiris and Apis in etymology). The Apis Bull is documented at the very beginning of Kemet as a unified country and obviously speaks to the power of cattle culture among Nile Valley African populations that actually preceded Kemet. The course of the Apis Bull was linked to the Ruler, the Cosmos (i.e. the movement of celestial phenomena), and the social order, especially in terms of the annual flooding of the Nile and the power and fertility of cattle herds. The living Memphite Apis Bull became a form and representative of the divinity Ptah. I make reference to Jacob Carruthers presentation and examination of "the Memphite Theology" (i.e. the Shabaka text) emphasizing the power of Ptah through creative speech that arises from sensory perception to produce the forms and elements of the world. Ptah is often invoked as the sacred patron of crafts persons (i.e. builders, sculptors, painters, etc.) because Ptah speaks to the power of the intellectual principle animating creation and its material realization in the substance of the created world. 

I conclude this lesson by highlighting select passages from Dorothy Thompson's chapter entitled "Apis and Other Cults" in her important work on Memphis Under the Ptolemies. 

Assignments

1. Dorothy Thompson- Apis and Other Cults in Memphis Under the Ptolemies
2. Jacob Carruthers- Memphite Theology in Mdw Ntr
3. Thomas Lambdin- Introduction to Sahidic Coptic- Lesson 1 Exercise Key and Historical Observations of Grammar

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The exact date of this lesson, January 6th, marks an important day in the calendars of the Egyptian Coptic Church and Ethiopian Orthodox Church that historically marked the birth, baptism, and/or manifestation (i.e. "epiphany") of Jesus Christ. Of course, the calendar of the Egyptian Coptic Church is the Kemetic Calendar, a solar calendar of 365 days that was subsequently used by both the Greeks and Romans to mark time. The perpetual cosmic rhythms of the seasons with 4 months each (Akhet- Inundation; Peret- the Emergence or Coming Forth; Shemu- the Harvest) were peppered with numerous festivals that brought the larger society together. There is no statement or commentary on a specific day of the birth of Jesus Christ in the Bible and there are no theological discussions documented within the 1st and 2nd centuries AD on the topic. In fact, we have evidence that some early highly respected Christian theologians (i.e. Clement of Alexandria and Origen) actually thought that it was not proper and inappropriate to even search for the day of Jesus' birth and observed that "pagan" Egyptians engaged in assigning birthdays to divinities. In the Kemetic Calendar, January 6th marked part of the sacred celebrations of the mysteries of Osiris and Isis during the 4th month of Khoiak (i.e. the last month of the Inundation season) going into the month of Tubi (i.e. the first month of the Peret season).

The earliest documented attempts that we have of a search for an actual birth day of Jesus Christ come from Clement of Alexandria in the late 2nd-early 3rd c. AD who is actually reporting on the ideas of a small community of Gnostic Christians who minimized the focus on the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus and attempted to frame him as a wise teacher who brought the light of gnosis, i.e. knowledge to the world. According to Clement of Alexandria, these Christians in Alexandria had their own internal diversity and provided different dates for the birth (i.e. May 20th= 25th day of 9th month of Pachon; April 19th and 20th= 24th and 25th days of 8th month of Pharmouti; January 6th= 11th day of 5th month of Tubi). This diversity really speaks to their pragmatic attempt to mirror the power and presence of major feasts in the Kemetic calendar as a way to expand community interests in their relatively new theological ideas. 

In the late 3rd century AD, the Roman Emperor Aurelian promoted the cult of the Sol Invictus (i.e., the Invincible or Unconquered Sun god). There were major festivals linked to the sun that actually became additional days theorized as the birth of Jesus Christ (i.e. March 25th marking the Spring Equinox and December 25th marking the Winter Solstice). Aurelian made December 25th the birthday of Sol Invictus and it became a major festival day in the Roman Empire. The Roman Emperor Constantine (306-337 AD) who was a devotee of the Sol Invictus and eventual convert to Christianity is the political figure that facilitated the marriage of Christianity with the might of the Roman Empire and provided Christianity with a leverage, status, and power that it lacked before his reign. It is within this political environment that we first receive a formal communication from a Church in Rome decreeing December 25th as the birthday of Jesus Christ without any explanation. And this theological decision was obviously made to rebrand the festival of Sol Invictus under a new name in the Roman Empire. The Egyptian Coptic Church resisted this change until 431 AD. 

This lesson primarily utilizes the work of Joseph Kelly entitled The Origins of Christmas to ground this discussion. I have attached a kind of standard encyclopedia entry on Christmas from Everett Ferguson, Ed., Encyclopedia of Early Christianity for comparative purposes. I have also attached an excerpt from Echoes of the Old Darkland by Charles Finch. And finally, I provide you with a chapter entitled "History as Celebration" from the work by Erik Hornung, Idea Into Image: Essays in Ancient Egyptian Thought (p. 163) referenced in the lesson. 

Assignments

1. Joseph Kelly- Creating Christmas Day and the Christmas Season in his The Origins of Christmas
2. Erik Hornung- History As Celebration in his Idea Into Image- Essays on Ancient Egyptian Thought
3. Everett Ferguson- Encyclopedia of Early Christianity- Entry on Christmas
4. Charles Finch- Osiris - the Egyptian Funerary Ritual - and the Birth of Christianity- in his Echoes of the Old Darkland

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This particular lesson focuses on part of Chapter 2 in Lambdin. I introduce indefinite articles and the genitive (i.e. possession). In the next lesson, I will focus on sentence structure as explained in this chapter. For your reference, I have attached the full answer key to exercises in Chapter 2. 

I devote the second half of this lesson to providing an examination of an important Coptic vocabulary word that was introduced in this chapter: "Pharoah." In his Egyptian Grammar book (p.75), Sir Alan Gardiner presents a sense of the historical evolution of the word Pharoah beginning in the Old Kingdom from the word per aa "Great House" designating a palace and continuing to evolve as an indirect reference to the Ruler during the reign of Akhenaten (1350-1334 BCE) to finally becoming a title directly followed by a proper name during the 22nd Libyan dynasty. Gardiner is descriptive, not explanatory; in presenting this brief historical evolution and one can come away with the understanding that calling a Ruler Pharoah X (name) could just be considered a normal part of the evolution of the word from the internal frame of reference of Kemetic governance. I problematize the emergence of the new semantic sense of Pharoah as a title followed by a name by locating it squarely within the coming of the Libyan dynasty and theorizing as to why this change could have occurred during this time period as a result of the influence of the social structure and governance ideas of the Libyans. I cite from the Introduction of Robert Ritner's book on The Libyan Anarchy: Inscriptions from Egypt's Third Intermediate Period to support this train of thought. 

In the final analysis, upon a close review of a significant amount of literature on this topic, it became clear to me that most treatments are repeating the frame and outline of Gardiner and that is not problematic intrinsically. What is problematic for me is that there needs to be much more explanatory work done on this topic engaging a wide range of literature, not just the very few sources that Gardiner presents. In addition, the late period semantic sense of the word Pharoah followed by a proper name significantly deviates from normative ideas of Kemetic naming protocol in governance and the dynamics of the 22nd Libyan dynasty should be examined much closer to theorize why this transformation occurs during this period.

Assignments

1. Sir Alan Gardiner- Egyptian Grammar- Titulary and Other Designations of the King
2. Thomas Lambdin- Introduction to Sahidic Coptic - Lesson 2 Exercise Key
3. Robert Ritner- Introduction - The Libyan Anarchy

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I begin this lesson by providing you with some common linguistic terminology which is used to describe the basic sentence structures in Lesson 1 and 2 in Lambdin's grammar book. These sentence structures are referred to as Bipartite constructions meaning that they are composed of a subject (nominal or pronominal) followed by a predicate (i.e. in this lesson the predicate is adverbial consisting of a preposition plus a noun). The nominal subject can be definite or indefinite. I discuss the contrast between sentences with a definite and indefinite subject and their respective negations. These Bipartite constructions are also commonly referred to as "durative" in the sense that the predicates express an enduring, ongoing, or general action, process, or state.

I then shift to elaborating more on the historical background, connection, and influence of Isis on the figure of the Virgin Mary. I highlight a chapter called "The Pauline View" in R.E. Witt's Isis in the Ancient World to establish the point that virtually everywhere that Paul is said to travel the presence of Isis was significant because she had taken on a universal power as part of the Roman empire. I discuss Theophile Obenga's major article entitled "The Goddess Isis and her Odyssey in Western Europe" to further emphasize her expansiveness in antiquity. Obenga places special emphasis on the Temple of Isis at Pompeii in Italy (destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 79 AD) as an exemplar of her worship. Obenga also spends a significant part of this article showing how Isis became a prototype and paradigm for the figure of the Virgin Mary. 

I use a small article by Arne Effenberger entitled "An Icon of Mary in Alexandria?" to highlight the fact that Mary was not officially recognized as "Mother of God" (i.e. Theotokos) until the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. Effenberger says "Only from that time onwards was Mary worshipped in the church." Effenberger does not provide specifics on the importance of this historical moment that pitted the well-known Alexandrian Bishop from Egypt named Cyril against Nestorius, the Bishop from Constantinople in debating the divinity of Christ, an enduring question in Christology. Cyril won this debate in Ephesus, but I allude to the intensity of the backroom politics behind the victory. I provide you with chapters from Philip Jenkins, Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years that provide you with some necessary background on these debates and also a chapter on the Council of Ephesus itself. 

I close this session on asking why it may have been so important for Cyril to attempt to prove that Mary was the "Mother of God" when other parts of the Christian world were not as vested as Cyril in demonstrating this type of idea. I assert that because Cyril is based in Alexandria and the power of Isis is still very much present on the Egyptian landscape, his theological position was influenced by a complex reading of his immediate environment. In other words, Isis was also the "Mother of God" (mwt netcher) and Ancient Egyptian spirituality was still considered the main challenge and opposition for Christianity as the balance of power shifted with the emergence of Emperor Constantine marrying and elevating the status of Christianity to the politics of the Roman Empire. This shift empowered figures like Cyril to be more aggressive and violent in their missionary work, but even demolishing sacred objects, shrines, and temples could not eradicate the depth of the continuity of Isis and Kemetic spirituality. In this environment, Cyril elevating a conception of the Virgin Mary as the "Mother of God" would function as an effective means to absorb the power of pre-existing spiritual ideas which could ease the way to converting more people to the new faith. I use excerpts from the book by Jennifer Westerfeld, Egyptian Hieroglyphs in the Late Antiqe Imagination, to demonstrate how Cyril was attempting to respond to and negate the power of Isis and Kemetic spirituality at the same time that he is attempting to elevate the status of the Virgin Mary. 

In the final analysis, I advocate reading widely and viewing these issues in a much more expansive sense within the pre-existing cultural and spiritual landscape of the geographical area being studied. I think much scholarship errs in isolating the theological debates and ritual practices of Christianity from the whole, complex environment that surrounds it and, indeed in every way, influences it.

1. Arne Effenberger- An Icon of Mary in Alexandria in Egypt- faith after the pharaohs
2. E.R. Witt- Isis in the Ancient World- The Pauline View- Ch. 19
3. Philip Jenkins- Jesus Wars- On Cyril vs. Nestorius at the Council of Ephesus 431 AD
4. Theophile Obenga- The Goddess Isis and her Odyssey in Western Europe
5. Philip Jenkins- Jesus Wars- The Heart of the Matter
6. Jennifer Westerfeld- Egyptian Hieroglyphs in the Late Antique Imagination- for Cyril and Theophilus on Egyptian hieroglyphs

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I begin this lesson by introducing you to all of the major vocabulary in Ch. 3 of Lambdin's book and then I introduce an explanation of the relative clause and its negation and provide translations of select exercises at the end of the chapter. 

I spend the balance of the class session focused on introducing and explaining the theological and political economic environment surrounding the creation of the God Serapis. From Plutarch's On Isis and Osiris, we receive the account of Serapis being created as an outgrowth of a dream by Ptolemy I Soter. The new God appears to him in the dream as a large statue residing at Sinope, a Greek colony on the Black Sea. The statue is brought back and its importance is interpreted by Timotheus the Eleusinian and the famous Egyptian priest Manetho. They said the image was of the Greek God Pluto of the netherworld and Manetho clearly made the correspondence of Pluto to Serapis which was said to be the name Pluto was called among the Egyptians. 

I use three chapters from Francoise Dunand and Christiane Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men in Egypt and an excerpt on Serapis from Robert Turcan, The Cults of the Roman Empire to complicate the origin story of Serapis. The etymology of the name is a fusion between Osiris and the Apis bull into Oserapis and it was clearly known and celebrated in Memphis significantly before Ptolemy I's dream. The image of Serapis as an old, bearded man was a Hellenized version of this old Memphite deity. Serapis wears a crown called a kalathos (i.e. a bushel or grain measure) which speaks to the critical role in the economy in terms of insuring good harvests. Good harvests in Egypt under Greek domination could not have occured without skilled Egyptian labor and the leadership of the priesthood and the important role that they played in the economy. The Greco-Roman temples in Egypt that are now major tourist attractions attest to the financing of temple construction to insure the support of the priesthood. In this lesson, I begin to explore the nexus between economic and theological power in Egypt both under Greek and Roman rule and the responses of the Kemetic priests.

1. Francoise Dunand and Christiane Zivie-Coche- 3 Chapters on the Ptolemies - Priest - and the Creation of Serapis
2. Robert Turcan- Zeus-Serapis and Hellenized Egypt in his The Cults of the Roman Empire

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