252 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



and supreme governor -who accepted his subordinate's arrangement and 

 reported it to the emperor. 



The whole question really turns on the respective credibility of the 

 two or three Coptic authorities and the whole series of Arabic historians. 

 Now Mr. Butler himself admits* that ' the historical value of these 

 Coptic documents is not very great. The writers were set upon 

 recording matters of Church interest — the more miraculous the better 

 — and their minds were almost closed to the great movements of the 

 world about them.' And referring to Severus, be adds that this 

 historian mentions ' that he had recourse to some Copts to get Greek 

 and Coptic documents turned into Arabic, as the two former languages 

 even then were unknown to most Christians. This is interesting as 

 showing the state of decay reached by Coptic and Greek, and as showing 

 Sevenis' own ignorance of both languages. Indeed the evidence as 

 regards Coptic is so remarkable as to seem barely credible.'! It is 

 clear, then, that the Copts as a rule got their historical information 

 through the Arabic. In studying Arabic .chroniclers Severus would 

 find that el-Mukawkis made a treaty of surrender to the Arabs ; if he 

 read Tabari, as he probably did, for Tabari's work was a standard 

 authority in the Patimid library at Cairo, and Severus was a persona 

 grata at the Fatimid caliph's court, he would also find that a 

 eatholicos came to 'Amr and treated for peace. He might naturally 

 put the two statements together, and being a Jacobite bishop not 

 averse to believing every evil of a ' Chalcedonian ' patriarch, he might 

 very well saddle Cyrus with the shame of betraying Christian Egypt 

 to the Muslims. As soon as we realize that the Ai'abic sources were 

 older than Severus, and were probably under his eye, and that he 



* Arab Conquest, x. t Ibid., xiv. 



