 Coptic itself, or Old Coptic, takes root in the first century.The transition from the older Egyptian scripts to the newly adapted Coptic alphabet was in part due to the decline of the traditional role played by the priestly class of ancient Egyptian religion, who, unlike most ordinary Egyptians, were literate in the temple scriptoria.Old Coptic is represented mostly by non-Christian texts such as Egyptian pagan prayers and magical and astrological papyri.