Of late pagan and early Christian Egypt very much that is new has been
discovered during the last few years. The period of the Lower Empire
has yielded much to the explorers of Oxyrrhynchus, and many papyri of
interest belonging to this period have been published by Mr. Kenyon in
his _Catalogue of the Greek Papyri in the British Museum_, especially
the letters of Flavius Abinaeus, a military officer of the fourth
century. The papyri of this period are full of the high-flown titles
and affected phraseology which was so beloved of Byzantine scribes.
"Glorious Dukes of the Thebaid," "most magnificent counts and
lieutenants," "all-praiseworthy secretaries," and the like strut across
the pages of the letters and documents which begin "In the name of Our
Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, the God and Saviour of us all, in
the year x of the reign of the most divine and praised, great, and
beneficent Lord Flavius Heraclius (or other) the eternal Augustus and
Auto-krator, month x, year x of the In diction." It is an extraordinary
period, this of the sixth and seventh centuries, which we have now
entered, with its bizarre combination of the official titulary of
the divine and eternal Caesars Imperatores Augusti with the initial
invocation of Christ and the Trinity. It is the transition from the
ancient to the modern world, and as such has an interest all its own.
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