One of the reasons that Ethiopia was never invaded and conquered by foreigners (except for the unique period of Benito Mussolini's fascists) was/is because of its "remote" location. To invade Ethiopia, one would have to know exactly how to climb into the rugged mountains, some of which are over a mile high. As one who has seen this countryside with my own eyes, if a would-be conqueror had arrived at Adulis and wished to conquer Axum, how would said conqueror have known the correct (not to mention safe!) mountain road to Axum?

There is an ancient monastery on top of a mountain near Nefasit, Abyssinia. Women are not allowed. I took the train from Massaua to Nefasit and climbed Mount Bizen one morning. It was an easy hike, but there were a couple of places along the trail where, if I had not had a guide, I would not have known which path to take.

All over Ethiopia/Eritrea/Tigré, there are male-only monasteries, often located on the tops of mountain plateaus, like Bizen. When I was in the Peace Corps, there was one American colleague, who tried to enter the Debra Damo mountaintop monastery near Makele; and since he was rather effeminate-looking to start with, the monks demanded that he drop his pants and show them his penis -- which, fortunately for him, since he was a Jew, was circumcised, so the monks apologized and let him pass on by to climb the rope to the mountain plateau monastery.

No female animal of any kind is allowed into these remote monasteries. The monks have to allow female birds because they cannot control the flying of the birds, so they also allow hens, who lay eggs. But beyond that, no female of any species is allowed. There are warning signs at the bottoms of these mountains that access by females is forbidden. Any woman who would attempt to defy these warnings and enter these male enclaves would risk being murdered and never heard from again.

It was thrilling beyond words to stand on top of Bizen Mountain and gaze down at the valleys below. I was able to take some terrific photographs, particularly of the zigzag Italian highway climbing the Hamasien Mountain to Asmara, across the Nefasit Gorge.

The following information is long, but it is fascinating; and I hope that it is made even more so by my parenthetical comments. Ethiopia was a major "player" on the historical stage of the Ancient World, from the time of Solomon and Sheba until even our 20th Century and the rule of Emperor Haile Selassie I. This information concerning Ethiopia adds additional depth to our already general knowledge of ancient history from the Greco-Roman and Assyro-Hittite realms, not to mention Egypt and Israel. The following information is taken from A HISTORY OF ETHIOPIA by A.H.M. Jones and Elizabeth Monroe, Oxford, 1935. I have edited it a bit in terms of grammar, and I've run it through a spell-checker. However, since I don't plan to read it carefully word for word again, if anyone nevertheless spots some typographical error, please let me know. A spell-checker can't understand if you type "for" in place of "from", for example. The following information comes from the 1962 Exeter edition, pages 10-43. Roberto

The kings of Ethiopia -- for the Abyssinians reject the name which the European and Arabic world gives to them and prefer to call themselves Ethiopians -- trace the origin of their line to King Solomon. The most generally accepted version of the story runs thus: When Solomon was building the temple, he sent messages to all the merchants of the four quarters of the world to bring him what he required and he would pay them in gold and silver. Among the merchants who responded to the call was Tamrin, the merchant of Makeda, the Queen of Ethiopia, who brought red gold and sapphires and black wood that could not be eaten by worms. He was struck with amazement at the splendour of Solomon's kingdom and the wisdom of Solomon himself and brought such a marvellous report of him to the queen that she determined to visit him herself.

[COMMENT: There is more to the story than is related here. Don't fail to recall that this era of Solomon and Sheba was during the previous tethering of The Cosmic Tree, and so to them, it was a common sight -- and what's more, belief in "gods" would have been much more serious and widespread than in later times after 687 BCE. According to the legend that I heard, a dragon was terrifying the people of Ethiopia. This "dragon" was probably some "reptile" from Planet X Nibiru, The Cosmic Tree. The Ethiopians held a meeting and decided that whoever could kill the dragon would be proclaimed the new king. One man decided to feed some poison to a goat and then feed the goat to the dragon, and poison the dragon. This plan worked, and the dragon was slain. The man was proclaimed king, but soon thereafter he died. His daughter Makeda Saba, the Queen of Sheba, was crowned the new monarch of the realm. RS]

So she set forth with a great caravan of seven hundred and ninety-seven camels and mules and asses innumerable laden with gifts, and arriving at Jerusalem presented herself to the king. Solomon entertained her honourably, giving her food in abundance and eleven changes of raiment every day. She stayed many months, marvelling at the wisdom with which Solomon directed the artificers and communing with him on matters of religion, and before long she abandoned the worship of the sun and the moon and the stars and worshipped the God of Israel.

[COMMENT: In traditional Ethiopian religious art, a scene is included of various people travelling in a boat up and down the Red Sea to Israel. However, back in those days, before the construction of the Suez Canal, there was an unobstructed land-passage from Alexandria to Jerusalem. So the Queen of Sheba could have travelled from Axum to Gondar to Lake Tsana, then down the Blue Nile from the falls, along a riverbank road into Nubia and then on into Egypt and Israel by road, probably following alongside the Nile riverbank to supply the travellers with water. We today certainly underestimate the ability of these more "primitive" people to get around quickly. The Queen of Sheba could have made it from Axum to Jerusalem easily in one month, stayed six months, and returned home in another month, avoiding completely any travel during the heavy rainy-season months. RS]

At length, after six months she resolved that she must return and look to her kingdom. When Solomon heard of her purpose, he said in his heart, "A woman of such splendid beauty has come to me from the ends of the earth. Will God give me seed in her?" The chronicler is here at some pains to justify the polygamous habits of Solomon, which, he explains, were not due to lust but to the desire to raise up many sons who would inherit the cities of the heathens and destroy their idols. So Solomon determined to fulfill his purpose, and he invited the queen to a great farewell feast, and served dishes full of pepper and vinegar such as would make her thirst.

At the conclusion of the feast, since it had drawn late, he invited the queen to sleep in his palace. The queen hesitated, but at length consented if Solomon would swear not to take her by force, for she was a virgin. The king agreed, and demanded from her in return an oath that she would not take by force anything that was in his palace. To this she agreed without demur, protesting that she was not a thief. So two beds were spread on either side of the royal bedchamber, and they retired.

The queen slept a little, but presently she awoke and her throat was parched. Now the king had bidden his servants to set a jar of water in the centre of the room. The queen espied it and was filled with longing, and when she thought that Solomon was asleep, she crept out of her bed and put her hand to the jar. But Solomon had not been asleep, and he leapt out and seized her arm and said: "Thou has broken the oath that thou has sworn not to take anything by force that is in my palace."

The queen protested that the oath did not apply to water, but the king replied that there was nothing upon earth more precious than water. The queen admitted that she was wrong, but begged that she might drink. So Solomon was released from his oath and he worked his will on her, and they slept together. And as he slept, the king dreamed a dream; and he saw that the sun came down to the land of Judah and illumined it very brightly, and presently it removed to Ethiopia and shone there. And a second time it came to the land of Judah, but the Jews hated it and strove to destroy it, and it departed to the lands of Rome and Ethiopia.

[COMMENT: In another version of this story, often depicted in murals, of which I have one myself, hanging right in front of me on the wall behind my computer, King Solomon also slept with the handmaiden of the queen. The handmaiden also got pregnant; and after the queen and handmaiden returned to Ethiopia and gave birth at the same time, since they were impregnated on the same occasion, the two boys grew up together, playing like twin-brothers. And this idea of "twin brothers" occurs later within the context of the introduction of Christianity to Ethiopia. RS]

Next day, Solomon gave to the queen a ring, saying: "If thou hast a son, give it to him and send him to me." And the queen departed to Ethiopia and she bore a son, and she called his name Menelik. And when he had come to man's estate, he wished to go to his father. And the queen gave him the ring, and sent him forth with a great retinue under the charge of Tamrin the merchant, and she bade Tamrin ask King Solomon to anoint Menelik king and make a law that from henceforth none but the male issue of Menelik should rule in Ethiopia -- for hitherto queens had reigned in Ethiopia. And so Menelik travelled to the land of Judah, and when he came to Gaza, the people made obeisance to him and cried, "Hail the king liveth." And others said, "The king is in Jerusalem, building the temple."

[COMMENT: This detail concerning the fact that only queens had previously ruled in Ethiopia is new to me. Perhaps I heard it before, but I don't recall it; yet there is a legend of an Ethiopian Queen Cassiopeia, the mother of Andromeda, after whom a northern polar constellation has been named. It seems, however, to contradict the legend mentioned earlier of the dragon and the first king, the father of the Queen of Sheba. RS]

And they were perplexed and sent messengers to Jerusalem, and there they found King Solomon and they said to him: "Behold, one has come to our land who resembleth thee in every feature." And Solomon asked whence the stranger came and they said, "We asked him not, for he seemed to be one of great authority, but his followers said that they were of Ethiopia." And King Solomon rejoiced in his heart, for, though he had married many wives, God had confounded his purposes and he had but one son, Rehoboam, a boy of seven years. And he summoned Menelik to Jerusalem, and Menelik gave to him the ring, but Solomon said, "What need is there for the ring? Without a sign I know thee that thou art my son."

Then the merchant Tamrin delivered the message that the queen had given to him. And Solomon tried to persuade Menelik to stay and reign in Israel, for he was his first-born son. But Menelik would not. And so King Solomon anointed Menelik with the holy oil of kingship, and named his name David, and made a law that henceforth only his male issue should reign in Ethiopia. And Zadok the high priest expounded to him the law of Israel and pronounced upon him blessings if he should keep it and curses if he should leave it.

And Menelik, for so his mother had commanded him, begged of Solomon a piece of the fringe of the covering of the Ark of the Covenant, that the Ethiopians might reverence it, and Solomon summoned his counsellors and officers and said to them: "I am sending my first-born son to rule in Ethiopia. Do ye also send your first-born sons to be his counsellors and officers." And they obeyed the king's command.

And when the time came to set forth, the sons of the nobles of Israel were sorrowful at leaving their native land and secretly reviled Solomon. Here the chronicler inserts an excursus on the wickedness of reviling kings and murmuring against them. But their greatest sorrow was that they must leave Our Lady of Zion, that is, the Ark of the Covenant. And Azariah, son of Zadok the high priest, thought of a design, and binding the others to silence, he revealed it to them, and they rejoiced greatly. And they each gave to him ten didrachmas of silver, and he went to a carpenter and said to him: "Build me a raft; for we are to journey across the sea; and, if the ship sink, so shall I be saved." And he gave to the carpenter the measurements of the Ark of the Covenant. And the night before they were to depart, he took the raft, which was of the form of the Ark, and went to the temple and entered into the sanctuary -- for the angel of the Lord opened the doors for him -- and he took the Ark and put in its place the raft and covered it with the three coverings of the ark so that none could see the change.

And the next day Solomon bade Zadok take the outer covering of the Ark and bring it to him. And Solomon gave it to Menelik and Menelik rejoiced in the gift. And Menelik and the first-born sons of the nobles of Israel set forth in a great train of wagons. And the wagons were lifted up about a cubit from the earth and they sped quickly like eagles, and in one day they went thirteen days' journey. And when they came to the land of Egypt, the sons of the nobles of Israel revealed to Menelik how they had brought the Ark with them, and Menelik was filled with joy and skipped like a young ram before the Ark. And they went on their journey and came to Ethiopia. And Menelik ruled in Ethiopia and his sons after him, and the sons of the nobles of Israel and their sons after them were the counsellors and officers of the kingdom.

And when Menelik had departed, Solomon was sad at heart, and he told Zadok of the dream that he had dreamed the night that he lay with the Queen of Ethiopia. And Zadok was smitten with fear and said: "Would that you had told me of this dream before, for I fear that Our Lady of Zion is departed." And he went into the sanctuary and took off the two under-coverings and beheld the raft of planks which Azariah his son had caused to be made. And he wept and beat his breast and fell in a swoon.

And presently another came and saw and brought word to Solomon. And Solomon arose with his host and marched to Egypt, and he questioned the Egyptians when the Ethiopians had passed. And they answered that they had passed many days before. And Solomon despaired of pursuing them and lamented greatly. But the spirit of prophecy comforted him saying: "Our Lady of Zion has not been given to an alien but to thine own first-born son." And Solomon was comforted and returned to Jerusalem. And he charged all his counsellors and officers to keep secret the loss of the Ark of the Covenant, and so the children of Israel knew not that it had departed.

[COMMENT: In a slightly different version of the legend, this chicanery by Zadok's son is omitted. King Solomon simply gave the Ark of the Covenant to Menelik, who carried it back to Ethiopia on top of his head. Still today in Ethiopia, there is a ritualistic symbolism of this, when on holy days the priests circle the cathedrals, carrying a talisman of the Ark on top of their heads. RS]

Now Balthazar, king of Rome, had no son but only three daughters. And he sent to King Solomon and asked that he would send one of his sons to marry one of his daughters and rule over the kingdom of Rome. And Solomon sent Adramis, his youngest son, and with him the youngest sons of his counsellors and officers. And Rehoboam ruled over Judah, and Menelik ruled over all the lands to the south and to the east, and Adramis ruled over all the lands to the north and to the west. And so was fulfilled the prophecy that kings of the seed of David and Solomon should rule over all the world.

And there was another prophecy that the king of Rome and the king of Ethiopia should rule the whole world, their kingdoms meeting in Jerusalem. And this was fulfilled in the latter days, for the Jews lost their birthright, slaying the Son of God, and Justin, king of Rome, and Kaleb, king of Ethiopia, destroyed their kingdom. And after that the kings of Rome also lost their birthright, being led astray by Arius and Nestorius and abandoning the true faith, which is the faith of Alexandria. And so the kings of Ethiopia, the descendants of the first-born of Solomon, alone are the heirs of the promises.

[COMMENT: The above is a very peculiar paragraph, when considered in the context of Apollonius Tyanaeus. It deserves further thought and investigation. RS]

The legend is, it need hardly be said, entirely apocryphal. It is a sufficient refutation of it that the kings of Axum down to the fourth century A.D. were pagans and boast on their monuments their descent from Mahrem, a god of war. Its motives are fairly plain.

Three principal motives operated in forming the legend. The first was the desire of the Abyssinian people to prove their ancient origin. Parvenu peoples, like parvenu individuals, hanker after ancestors, and peoples have as little scruple in forging family trees as have individuals. The Romans, when they came into contact with the older civilization of Greece, became painfully aware of their recent origin, and, searching among the epic legends describing the fall of Troy and the wanderings of the heroes, grafted on to them the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who migrated to Italy and whose descendants founded Rome.

Similarly the Abyssinians, coming into contact with the civilization of the Christian East, desired to find a place for themselves in its ancient history. The only historical literature which the Abyssinians possessed was the scriptures, and so they searched the scriptures for allusions to themselves. Their earlier efforts were rather unhappy. They knew that the Greeks called their country Ethiopia. In the scriptures they found that Ethiops was the son of Ham -- for in the Septuagint Cush is rendered Ethiops. They therefore proudly adopted the name of Ethiopians, the name by which they call themselves to this day, thus affiliating themselves to Noah. Their choice of an ancestor was not altogether fortunate, for although there are a few complimentary references to Ethiopia in the scriptures, such as "Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God", there is no doubt that Ethiops with all the descendants of Ham fall under the curse of Noah, that they shall be slaves. An affiliation to the more honourable house of Shem was clearly desirable.

At this point the second motive comes into play. God had given great promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. The Jews had forfeited their birthright by rejecting the Messiah. In a spiritual sense no doubt the Christian Church was the heir to the promises, for all Christians were spiritually of the seed of Abraham. But this spiritual interpretation has failed to satisfy many simple minds, who crave for a literal fulfilment of the promises in favour of the blood descendants of Abraham, and, observing that their own nation is obviously the chosen people, by a very natural inference deduce that it must be descended from Abraham. The desire to inherit the promises has produced in modern times among persons who should know better many fantastic legends, according to which the Saxons are the sons of Isaac and the British Empire the promised kingdom. The Abyssinians may therefore be pardoned if they, moved by the same desire, concocted a legend which is at any rate more plausible than the theories of the British Israelites.

The obvious starting-point of the legend was that mysterious Queen of Sheba who came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and of whom our Lord had said, "The Queen of the South shall rise up in judgement with the men of this generation and shall condemn them." Her enigmatic figure had gathered round itself a tangle of fantastic legends, many of which are reproduced in the Koran. Her dominions had already in the first century A.D. been located by Josephus in Egypt and Ethiopia.

Footnote: In the Septuagint Sheba is spelt identically with Seba, the son of Cush (Ethiops). This is probably the reason why Sheba was placed in Africa and not, where it really was, in Arabia.

[COMMENT: In Abyssinian the word is "Saba". The word "Nighisti" means Queen, and the Queen of Sheba is referred to as Nighisti Makeda Saba. Obviously Jones and Monroe believe in the mainstream false theory that the "Land of Sheba" was in Yemen, or southern Arabia, where most establishment historians place it. But "Saba" is a feminine name, like "Maria"; it is not the name of a land, but a woman. However, Josephus' statement that this "Land of Sheba" was located in Egypt and Ethiopia conforms to the theory of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky that Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt was also Nighisti Makeda Saba and ruled both at Thebes and Axum. Queen Hatshepsut was succeeded by her son Amenhotep II, whom Dr. Velikovsky identifies with "Zerah" of the Scriptures and Menelik I of Ethiopia. It would have been an easy journey from Thebes to Axum; and although Queen Hatshepsut's memory was defaced at Thebes and Deir El-Bahari (which I have visited), she was, and still is, revered in Axum, her place of birth. RS]

It was only necessary to give her a son by Solomon to link the blood royal of Ethiopia with the house of David. The kingdom of Ethiopia was thus affiliated to the kingdom of Israel, and to assure the seniority of the Ethiopian kingdom, Menelik was made the first-born son of Solomon and the Ethiopian nobility were made the first-born sons of the nobles of Israel, and finally the Ark, the visible sign of God's presence among his chosen people, was transferred to Axum. But the Abyssinians were not churlishly exclusive. They recognized that all Christian kings had an equal right to inherit the promises, and they therefore traced back the lineage of the only other Christian king of whom they knew, the Roman emperor, to Solomon, but to a younger son.

The third motive is the desire of the royal house of Abyssinia to assert their divine right to the throne. By tracing their descent to Solomon, by making him anoint the first king of their line with the holy oil of kingship, and by attributing to him the Salic law of Ethiopia, the kings of Abyssinia invested themselves with an aura of divinity. Revolt against them was sacrilege, for were they not the cousins of Christ?

[COMMENT: Emperor Haile Selassie I was directly descended from Menelik I. He was deposed by Marxist revolutionaries in 1974, imprisoned and then murdered in 1975. Since that time, Ethiopia and Eritrea have been governed by politicians and warlords, unrelated to the royal line. Amongst the descendants of Haile Selassie, there is an on-going movement to restore the monarchy in Addis Ababa, but nobody is particularly fond of Crown-Prince Asfa Wossen, if he is even still alive. The last I heard he was living somewhere in France or England. But there are numerous other royal candidates, including some sophisticated grandchildren of the Emperor, who could be restored to power. Haile Selassie's official title was "His Imperial Majesty Ras Tafari Makonnen Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, Elect of God, King of Kings, Lion of Judah". RS]

The date at which the legend was formed cannot be fixed with any precision.

[COMMENT: This "legend" formed at the time that the Queen of Sheba visited King Solomon in Jerusalem, for crying out loud! Didn't these writers even visit Axum? RS]

What may be called the authorized version of the legend, the KEBRA NAGAST, or Glory of Kings, was composed at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and was evidently intended to justify and glorify a new dynasty which had ascended the throne in about A.D. 1270 and which claimed to be a restoration of the Solomonian line. The legend was, however, not, as might have been suspected, invented for the benefit of this dynasty. A colophon to the KEBRA NAGAST states that it is a translation from an Arabic version made in A.D. 1225 from a Coptic original in the patriarchal library of Alexandria. This is not very good evidence, but it is fortunately confirmed by an impartial outside authority.

Abu Salih, who wrote a history of the churches and monasteries of Egypt at the beginning of the thirteenth century, knew of the legend. He records that the Abyssinians possess the Ark of the Covenant, in which lie the two tables of the Law, written by the hand of God. He adds that the kings of Abyssinia are not of the house of David but are descended from Moses. These words imply that the legitimate royal house was that of David, and the dynasty which reigned in Abu Salih's own day, the Zagué kings who were ejected in 1270, were intruders. It is suggestive that these kings claimed a pre-Solomonic descent -- their connexion with Moses, of which nothing else is recorded, was presumably based on Numbers 12:1, where it is stated that Moses took a Cushite (in the Septuagint, Ethiopian) wife. It suggests that they had found it necessary to raise a counter-claim against the dynasty which they ejected, and that that dynasty, which fell in about 1150, already claimed Solomonic descent. The legend can thus be traced to the beginning of the second millennium A.D., for the Greek writers of that date know nothing of it but state that the Abyssinians are a colony of Syrians transplanted to Ethiopia by Alexander the Great.

[COMMENT: Again, here is another observation which needs further investigation. If the Abyssinians were transplanted "Syrians", then Apollonius ("Balinas") might have had another reason for travelling there. And Alexander was connected to the legend of the "Emerald Tablet", perhaps the "Table of the Sun" or Stone Tablets upon which were written the Ten Commandments of God, given to Moses. RS]

Footnote: A highly obscure and abbreviated Greek inscription on the coins of one of the early Abyssinian kings (fourth to sixth century) has been read "King of Habesh, King of Sion", but the interpretation is so doubtful that it cannot be treated as evidence.

It was, then, probably in the dark centuries that followed the rise of Islam, when the Abyssinians were cut off from all contact with the rest of the Christian world, that the legend arose. It had already taken firm root by the middle of the eleventh century and rendered the position of the usurping Zagué kings precarious. During the dominion of the Zagué kings it was reduced to literary form at Alexandria, the patriarchs of which seem, as the spiritual heads of the Abyssinian kingdom, to have opposed the intruding dynasty at first. This literary version was finally translated into Ge'ez under the auspices of the new dynasty which overthrew the Zagué kings and claimed, whether truly or not cannot be said, to be a restoration of the old Solomonian line. Thereafter, the legend was canonical.

[COMMENT: Ge'ez (pronounced "geh-ease") was the "Latin" of Ethiopia. It was, and still is, similar to the Coptic language of Egypt at the time of Apollonius Tyanaeus. Even today, it remains the liturgical language of Ethiopia/Eritrea, and all the priests of the Coptic Church can read it. Many local Bibles are written in Ge'ez. Just as Italian, Spanish and French descended from Latin, so did Amharinya (Amharic), Tigrinya and Gallinya descend from Ge'ez. I have a couple of little souvenir parchment scrolls that are written in Ge'ez. RS]

In the early sixteenth century, when first we have an account of Abyssinia by a European, it was firmly believed that the Ark of the Covenant reposed in the cathedral of Axum, that the royal line was descended from Solomon, that the hereditary officers of the royal court were Israelites, and that the hereditary order of priests who served the royal churches were of the line of Zadok. Belief in the legend has continued to flourish down to modern times. The royal copy of the KEBRA NAGAST came to be regarded with superstitious reverence and when it was carried off to England by Napier in 1868, John IV, the successor of Theodore, found that his subjects would not recognize his authority. He wrote in 1872 to Lord Granville:

"There is a book called KEBRA NAGAST which contains the law of the whole of Ethiopia and the names of the princes and churches and provinces are in the book. I pray you will find out who has this book and send it to me, for in my country my people will not obey my orders without it."

The Trustees of the British Museum were moved by this pathetic request and restored the book to the king.

The legend of the Queen of the South has had an importance in Abyssinian history quite out of proportion to its historical value. The consciousness that they were the chosen people, the guardians of the Ark of the Covenant, and the heirs to the promises made to Abraham, has done as much as their pride in upholding the orthodox faith of Alexandria to maintain the courage of the Abyssinians in their perpetual wars against their Moslem and pagan enemies. Their belief that their royal house is descended from the royal house of Judah has given a remarkable stability and continuity to the kingdom and has maintained the unity of a country which is from its geographical structure difficult to hold together. The dynasty which established itself in A.D. 1270 reigned with scarcely a break till 1855.

Footnote: The present dynasty [that of Haile Selassie I, at the time of this writing] claims Solomonian descent, but only through the female line.

During the last century of its existence, it is true, it reigned but did not rule, but few kingdoms can boast a dynasty that reigned for nearly six hundred years and ruled effectively for nearly five hundred. There have been rebellions and civil wars in plenty in Abyssinian history, but the ideal unity of the kingdom under its divinely appointed dynasty has always remained in the background, to re-emerge when a strong king of the line of Solomon arose to reassert his prerogatives.

The first European visitors to Abyssinia were the Greek admirals sent out in the third century B.C. by Ptolemy II and III of Egypt to explore the western coast of the Red Sea. The object of these expeditions was partly to open up trade with the interior, but more particularly to capture African elephants which the Ptolemaic kings trained for military purposes and pitted against the Indian elephants of their rivals the Seleucids. The Ptolemies established a number of trading and hunting stations along the coast, one of which, Berenice the All Golden, probably occupied the Site of Adulis, the future port of the kingdom of Axum. As the Ptolemaic power declined, these stations were gradually abandoned, but the commercial relations which had been formed were kept up.

[COMMENT: Today Adulis is known as Zula. It is south of Massaua, where I used to live. Adulis/Zula would have been the ancient port of departure for boat travel to Israel. Probably Apollonius and Damis went by road from Axum to Adulis and there caught a "dhow" up the coast for their return to Egypt in the fall of 69 CE. This would have been just as easy a journey then as now, since many fishermen and others still use the same style of boat that was used in the time of Apollonius. RS]

The Abyssinian kingdom is first mentioned in the PERIPLUS OF THE ERYTHRAEAN SEA, a description of the coasts of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean written in the latter half of the first century A.D. The author describes the port of Adulis and state that eight day's journey inland lay the metropolis of the Axumites, whither was carried all the ivory from beyond the Nile and whence it was exported to Adulis and so to the Roman Empire. The king of all these regions, he adds, is Zoscales, "a covetous and grasping man but otherwise noble and imbued with a Greek education". Zoscales must then rank as the first historical king of Abyssinia, and in his day civilization was already following in the footsteps of commerce.

[COMMENT: Here are a couple of most fascinating remarks. This first-century author states that from Adulis to Axum was an 8-day trip, presumably by foot, since a lot of Abyssinians walk from place to place. A traveller like Apollonius (or a marching army) was said to be able to walk at a rate of about 20 stadia an hour. One stadia was slightly longer than two football fields, at 630 feet or about 200 meters. There are 8.5 stadia in one mile (1.6 kilometers). Thus, if one walked for 20 stadia in one hour, one would walk about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers). This is a very leisurely pace. I myself walk fairly rapidly, and I can cover 3 miles in one hour. So if some of these ancient foot-travellers like Apollonius and Damis walked from Axum to Adulis in 8 days, they would have walked, at a rate of six hours per day, about (6 X 2.5 X 8 =) 120 miles (192 kilometers), which is a good approximation of the road distance from Axum to Adulis. Also, if King Zoscales ruled during the visit of Apollonius to Ethiopia, then he and Apollonius would have had no trouble at all in communicating, for Zoscales had been "imbued with a Greek education"! RS]

Our next item of information comes from a curious source, the CHRISTIAN COSMOGRAPHY of Cosmas. Cosmas was a merchant, probably of Alexandria, who sailed the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean in the early sixth century A.D. In his declining years he retired into a monastery and devoted the remainder of his days to writing a book to refute the impious pagan theory that the world was spherical in shape and prove that it was in fact a flat oblong, twice as long from east to west as it was broad from north to south. To prove his thesis Cosmas draws principally upon the Scriptures and upon the works of pagan men of learning, whom he delights to refute out of their own mouth. But occasionally he justifies his argument from his personal experiences. In one of these personal anecdotes he relates that while he was on a visit to Adulis, the king of Axum sent orders to the governor of Adulis to copy two ancient Greek inscriptions in the town. The governor requested the learned merchant to do this for him, and Cosmas took two copies, one of which was dispatched to the king and the other was published subsequently in the CHRISTIAN COSMOGRAPHY. One of the inscriptions dates from the period when Adulis was a Ptolemaic station and records the exploits of Ptolemy III. In the other an Abyssinian king recounts his numerous warlike expeditions. Most of these were directed against people of Tigré, but some penetrated farther afield. The king subdued the mountainous country of Simien, south of the Takazzé (which he calls the Nile). He conquered the peoples of the vast waterless plains whence came incense and perfumes (Danakil). He penetrated even to the straits (of Aden). To the north he subdued the Bejas, the nomad tribes who inhabit the desert behind Suakim. To the north-west he subdued the Tangaites "who dwell up to the bounds of Egypt" and caused a road to be constructed from his own kingdom as far as Egypt. Finally he crossed the sea and conquered the peoples of the Arrabites and Kinaedocolpites, who probably occupied the Hejjaz, and compelled their kings to pay him tribute and to guarantee the security of the trade routes by land and by sea. He concludes:

"Of the kings that went before me, I am the first and only one to have subdued all these peoples by the grace granted to me by my mighty god Ares, who also begat me. It is through him that I have subdued all the peoples that border upon my empire, to the east as far as the land of perfumes, to the west as far as the land of Ethiopia and Sasu. Some I fought myself, against others I sent my armies. When I had established peace in the lands subject to me, I came to Adulis to sacrifice on behalf of those who voyage on the sea to Zeus, Ares, and Poseidon. Having assembled all my armies, I have set up here this throne and have consecrated it to Ares in the twenty-seventh year of my reign."

Footnote: It may be noted that the king of Axum regards Ethiopia as a foreign country at this period. Ethiopia designates Nubia.

[COMMENT: Nubia would be the modern-day Sudan. Axum is today the capital of Tigré Province, Ethiopia. The Tigré people (who speak Tigrai, which is another little used language that sprang from Ge'ez) are the ones who cut the "Number 11 Scar" on the foreheads of young boys, just above their eyebrows, like the original scar that can be seen above the left eyebrow of Apollonius on the marble bust in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, in Italia, not to mention the Shroud of Turin. These Tigré peoples have always considered themselves to be a different "country" from Amharic Ethiopia and Tigrinyan Eritrea. But such "distinctions" as these are usually noticed only by Abyssinians. To foreigners, other than language, there is little apparent difference between the Ethiopians, the Tigrés and the Eritreans. RS]

After making due allowance for royal braggadocio, it is nevertheless evident that this king was a great conqueror and may justly be styled the founder of the Abyssinian Empire. Unfortunately, the beginning of the inscription was missing when Cosmas saw it, or at any rate Cosmas did not transcribe it. The name and date of the king are thus unknown. By internal evidence the date may be fixed to the third century A.D. The name of the king may be Aphilas. Aphilas was at any rate an important Axumite king of this period; many of his coins are extant.

[COMMENT: So this king himself lived in the third century A.D., which would have been the 200s. That was the century of Philostratus and Manes. Thus, Ethiopian society at that time still worshipped the Greek gods, specifically Zeus, Ares and Poseidon, to whom King Aphilas dedicated his sacrifice at Adulis. And, when I was in Ethiopia, there were all sorts of ancient coins for sale. I bought quite a few of them, including some with engravings of images of Menelik I. This statement by these writers is completely accurate. By now, however, I am sure that all the authentic ancient coins have been bought by collectors, and any for sale today are probably counterfeits. RS]

The next king of Axum of whom we have any information is Aeizanas, son of Ella Amida, who reigned in the second quarter of the fourth century. This king has made known his exploits to posterity in a series of inscriptions, one in Greek, Ge'ez and Sabaean (the language of Yemen), one in Sabaean, the rest in Ge'ez. These inscriptions thus reveal a native culture growing up beside the imported culture of Greece. In his royal protocol he styles himself "king of Axum, Himyar, Raidon, Saba, Salhim, Siamo, Bega, and Kasu, king of kings, son of the unconquered Mahrem (in Greek Ares)". The mention of Saba and Himyar shows that since the days of Aphilas (?) the Abyssinian Empire had been enlarged to include Yemen. It is less certain that Aeizanas actually ruled south-western Arabia. His campaigns are all in Africa. The trilingual inscription records the suppression of a revolt of the Bejas by the king's brothers Sazanas and Hadefan. The other inscriptions mostly record campaigns against unknown peoples. The last, which relates a series of campaigns against the Nubians, is of more interest.

The Nubians, according to the king, had shown a haughty and rebellious spirit. They had said in their hearts: "They will not dare to cross the Takazzé"; they had attacked their neighbours; the black people had fought against the red. Finally, when Aeizanas had sent envoys to reprove them, they had insulted and robbed them. Provoked by this insolence, Aeizanas resolved on a punitive expedition. He won a battle at a ford of the Takazzé and pursued the fugitives westward to the Seda (Blue Nile), where many of them were drowned. He destroyed their towns, both those built of stone and those of thatch, and burned their stores of corn and cotton.

Footnote: Cotton is probably indigenous in the Sudan and has been cultivated from time immemorial.

[COMMENT: The Abyssinian people consider themselves to be "red" in color, not black. They are a dark-skinned, finely-featured Semitic people, quite unlike the black Negroid races of equatorial and southern Africa. RS]

He then marched down the Blue Nile into the land of the Red Nubians and subdued them also. The distinction drawn in the inscription between the red people and the black is interesting. The former are the original Hamitic population who built up the Meroitic civilization. The latter are the Nilotic negroes who were already filtering into these regions. In northern Nubia the original population was apparently still undisturbed. In the south the two populations lived side by side, the civilized Hamites in stone-built towns, the negroes in their thatch villages.

The inscription has a greater interest than this. It is the first Christian document of Abyssinia.

The story of the evangelization of Abyssinia is thus told by Rufinus:

[Quote]

One Metrodorus, a philosopher, is said to have penetrated to further India in order to view places and see the world. Inspired by his example, one Meropius, a philosopher of Tyre, wished to visit India with a similar object, taking with him two small boys who were related to him and whom he was educating in humane studies. The younger of these was called Aedesius, the other Frumentius.

When, having seen and taken note of what his soul fed upon, the philosopher had begun to return, the ship on which he travelled put in for water or some other necessary at a certain port. It is the custom of the barbarians of these parts that, if ever the neighbouring tribes report that their treaty with the Romans is broken, all Romans found among them should be massacred. The philosopher's ship was boarded; all with himself were put to the sword. The boys were found studying under a tree and preparing their lessons, and, preserved by the mercy of the barbarians, were taken to the king.

He made one of them, Aedesius, his cupbearer. Frumentius, whom he had perceived to be sagacious and prudent, he made his treasurer and secretary. Thereafter they were held in great honour and affection by the king. The king died, leaving his wife with an infant son as heir to the bereaved kingdom. He gave the young men liberty to do what they pleased but the queen besought them with tears, since she had no more faithful subjects in the whole kingdom, to share with her the cares of governing the kingdom until her son should grow up, especially Frumentius, whose ability was equal to guiding the kingdom -- for the other, though loyal and honest of heart, was simple.

While they lived there and Frumentius held the reins of government in his hands, God stirred up his heart and he began to search out with care those of the Roman merchants who were Christians and to give them great influence and to urge them to establish in various places conventicles to which they might resort for prayer in the Roman manner. He himself, moreover, did the same and so encouraged the others, attracting them with his favour and his benefits, providing them with whatever was needed, supplying sites for buildings and other necessaries, and in every way promoting the growth of the seed of Christianity in the country.

When the prince for whom they exercised the regency had grown up, they completed and faithfully delivered over their trust, and, though the queen and her son sought greatly to detain them and begged them to remain, returned to the Roman Empire. Aedesius hastened to Tyre to revisit his parents and relatives. Frumentius went to Alexandria, saying that it was not right to hide the work of God. He laid the whole affair before the bishop and urged him to look for some worthy man to send as bishop over the many Christians already congregated and the churches built on the barbarian soil.

Then Athanasius (for he had recently assumed the episcopate), having carefully weighed and considered Frumentius' words and deeds, declared in a council of the Priests: "What other man shall we find in whom the Spirit of God is as in thee, who can accomplish these things?" And he consecrated him and bade him return in the grace of God whence he had come. And when he had arrived in India as bishop, such grace is said to have been given to him by God that apostolic miracles were wrought by him and a countless number of barbarians were converted by him to the faith.

From which time Christian peoples and churches have been created in the parts of India, and the priesthood has begun. These facts I know not from vulgar report but from the mouth of Aedesius himself, who had been Frumentius' companion and was later made a priest in Tyre.

[Unquote]

There is no doubt that this romantic story is authentic, for Rufinus lived in the latter part of the fourth century and may well have spoken with Aedesius, then an old man. The story is, moreover, supported by other pieces of evidence which prove that Rufinus' "India" is Abyssinia, and that the king who took Frumentius and Aedesius into his service was Ella Amida, and that the prince for whom they executed the regency was Aeizanas. The first confirmatory piece of evidence is a letter, cited by Athanasius, directed by the emperor Constantius to "his most precious brothers" Aeizanas and Sazanas (who it may be recalled is mentioned in Aeizanas' trilingual inscription), dynasts of the Axumites.

Frumentius, it will be remembered, had been consecrated by Athanasius, the champion of the Nicene faith, shortly after he became patriarch of Alexandria in 328. Since that date the tide had turned in ecclesiastical affairs; the Arian faith now triumphed under the patronage of Constantius and Athanasius had been expelled from the chair of Alexandria. The object of Constantius' letter is to urge Aeizanas to send Frumentius to Alexandria to be examined in the faith by George of Cappadocia, who supplanted Athanasius as patriarch of Alexandria in A.D. 356. The emperor's attempt to make Frumentius subscribe to the Arian faith does not seem to have been successful.

[COMMENT: The Arians differed from Catholic Christians in that the Arians did not believe in the divinity of the "Messiah". Thus, it is interesting to read that right after Emperor Constantine's Nicene creed, the subsequent Emperor renounced it and reappointed Arians to these positions. It is probably by sheer coincidence that the new Archbishop of Alexandria was from Cappadocia. RS]

The second piece of evidence is the already mentioned inscription of Aeizanas commemorating the conquest of the Nubians. In this inscription he no longer styles himself "son of the unconquered Mahrem" but simply "son of Ella Amida, the unconquered"; and he attributes his victories, not as heretofore, to his tutelary god Mahrem, but to "the Lord of the Heavens who has power over all beings in heaven and earth". This phrase is not perhaps quite explicit evidence of Christianity, but the coins of Aeizanas show that it is to be interpreted in a Christian sense. His early coins bear the pagan symbol of the crescent and the disk, his later coins bear the cross. It appears then that Frumentius, on his return to Axum as bishop, succeeded in converting the king to Christianity, not immediately, for the majority of Aeizanas' inscriptions and coins are pagan, but towards the end of his reign. The fact that this, Frumentius' crowning achievement, is not mentioned in Rufinus' story is good evidence of its authenticity. Aedesius, Rufinus' informant, could tell him of the part of Frumentius' career which he himself had witnessed; of his later evangelical work he had only the vaguest reports.

The Abyssinian story of their own conversion agrees substantially with Rufinus' account. A slight difficulty is caused in the Abyssinian account by the fact that they have applied to themselves, with all the other biblical references to Ethiopia, the famous story of Philip and the eunuch. Queen Candace as a matter of fact ruled in Meroe and was queen of Nubia and not of Abyssinia. The author of Acts, furthermore, never states that she was converted, and in point of fact Nubia remained pagan some two centuries after Abyssinia was converted. Abyssinian tradition, however, asserted that the eunuch whom Philip baptized had evangelized Abyssinia in the apostolic age. This was embarrassing, for it left Frumentius very little to do. The difficulty was successfully circumvented. The Abyssinians, it appears, received the true faith from the eunuch of Queen Candace, but, since he had never been consecrated bishop, they lacked the priesthood and the sacraments. Frumentius, or as he is more commonly called in the Abyssinian stories, Abba Salama (the father of peace), finding them already orthodox, had only to introduce to them the sacraments.

There is a second discrepancy in the Abyssinian version of the story. It knows nothing of Aeizanas, but makes two twin brothers, Atsbeha and Abraha, the first Christian kings of Ethiopia. In so doing Abyssinian tradition follows a very common tendency of popular history to attach famous events to famous names. For Atsbeha and Abraha were renowned champions of the Christian faith, but they flourished two centuries later than Aeizanas. The authentic story of these "twin brothers" is as follows:

Ella Atsbeha, or as the Greeks called him Ellesbaas or Ellestheacus, also known as Kaleb, reigned in Abyssinia in the second quarter of the sixth century. At this time Judaism had acquired great influence in Yemen and a Jewish king reigned over Himyar. This king began a great persecution of the Christians in his kingdom and massacred vast numbers of them. Ellesbaas then arose as champion of the Christians -- and incidentally of the lapsed suzerain rights of the kings of Axum over south-western Arabia. In the reign of Justin, about A.D. 525, he dispatched a great expedition to Himyar, the preparations for which were witnessed by Cosmas during that visit to Adulis when he copied the two inscriptions.

This expedition was completely successful, and Ellesbaas set up as tributary king of Himyar one Esimphaeus, a Christian Himyarite. A few years later the Abyssinian army of occupation in Himyar revolted against Esimphaeus and set up as king one Abraham, a Christian, formerly the slave of a Roman resident in Adulis. Ellesbaas sent two expeditions against Abraham, one of which went over to his side and the other was completely defeated. Discouraged by his reverses, Ellesbaas recognized Abraham, who on his side acknowledged the suzerainty of Ellesbaas and paid him tribute.

Ellesbaas won great renown by his suppression of the Jewish king of Himyar. In the KEBRA NAGAST this event is reckoned as the final catastrophe of the kingdom of Judah. Abraham also won great fame as a champion of Christianity. He built a magnificent church in Sana'a, his capital, which excited the wonder of the Arabs and bade fair to eclipse the Ka'aba at Mecca as a centre of pilgrimage. He even proposed to destroy the Ka'aba. This expedition plays a great part in the traditions of Islam. He is said to have marched against Mecca mounted on a mighty elephant and followed by a vast host. But God intervened to save the Ka'aba, which was destined to have so glorious a history. A flight of birds appeared over the army and dropped small stones upon it, and, where the soldiers were struck by the stones, pustules broke out and they sickened and died. It was in the Year of the Elephant, according to Moslem tradition, that the Prophet was born.

These two great champions of the Christian faith, about whom a maze of legends has gathered in Abyssinian and Arabic tradition, became eventually the twin brothers who introduced Christianity to Abyssinia.

[COMMENT: Recently during a discussion between Nicolas Verger and me, the subject of Emperor Justinian arose. I transcribed some information from Professor Smith's Dictionary of Biography, Volume II, Page 660ff. At the time, I was amused by the ironical observation of Gibbon, quoted below. A single victory here by Ethiopia could have prevented the rise of Islam. What an idea! And the socio-political setting was discussed in this present book, quoted above. Thus, I'm glad that the subject of Justinian arose before I undertook this transcription. The pertinent parts follow and are quoted verbatim from Professor Smith. Eleesbam is a variant of Ellesbaas. And notice the wording "Nonnosus ascended the Nile" to reach Axum.

[Both Apollonius and later Nonnosus would have boarded a felucca around "Memphis" or modern Cairo. They would have sailed down the Nile to the Cataracts, at modern Aswan. The Aswan High Dam dammed all the cataracts to the level of the highest one. In previous days, one had to disembark from a boat at Aswan and travel overland, whether by foot or camel or automobile, to the level of the river above the third cataract, or waterfall. From there southwards to modern Khartoum, once again it was smooth, fast sailing by felucca. At Khartoum the Blue and White Niles split. The Blue Nile would be navigable for a long stretch until it reached the mountains of western Ethiopia. Then again, the traveller would have had to disembark and go overland, following the riverbank, a couple of weeks travel, to reach modern Bahar Dar, Ethiopia. This town is located below the Blue Nile Falls and Lake Tsana. From Bahar Dar, the traveller would go overland to nearby Gondar and then through the Simien mountain passes to Axum. And as was noted above, from Axum to Adulis was an 8-day journey by foot. Apollonius and Damis, or the Ambassador Nonnosus, could easily have made this journey in a matter of months. Apollonius and Damis left Alexandria in July and returned in October. This was certainly possible, then or now. RS

[JUSTINIANUS, I. FLAVIUS ANICIUS, surnamed MAGNUS, or THE GREAT, emperor of Constantinople and Rome from A.D. 527 to 565. ... The date of the birth of Justinian is fixed on the 11th of May, A.D. 483. ...

[After the accession of his uncle Justin to the imperial throne, in 518, he rose to eminence, and prepared his own fortune by securing that of the emperor. ... In reward for his faithful allegiance, Justinian was made commander-in-chief of the armies in Asia; but he was no warrior, and preferred remaining at Constantinople, where he canvassed the friendship of the clergy and the senators. ...

[In the beginning of the Persian war Justinian concluded a singular alliance. At that time there was a Christian kingdom in Southern Arabia, which extended over the provinces of Yemen and Hadhramaut, and was then commonly called the kingdom of the Homeritae. Danaan having seized the supreme power, persecuted the Christians, who found assistance in the person of Eleesbam, the Negus or Christian king of Abyssinia, who came over to Arabia, and made himself master of the Homeritic kingdom.

[With this Eleesbam Justinian entered into negotiations, and in 553 despatched Nonnosus as ambassador to him, to induce him to unite his forum with the Romans against the Persians, and to protect the trade between Egypt and India, especially that of silk, which Justinian wished to establish by sea, through the assistance of the inhabitants of Abyssinia and Arabia. Nonnosus ascended the Nile, and was received by Eleesbam at Axum, but he did not attain his objects.

[Soon afterwards the Homeritae freed themselves from the Abyssinian supremacy; but the rise of Mohammedanism proved the ruin of the Christians in Arabia, for the power of the Abyssinian kings in Africa was weakened through internal discord and revolutions. Gibbon remarks with great justness that "those obscure and remote events are not foreign to the decline and fall of the Roman empire. If a Christian power had been maintained in Arabia, Mohammed must have been crushed in his cradle, and Abyssinia would have prevented a revolution which has changed the civil and religious state of the world."]

Of Abyssinian civilization at this period we have only a few tantalizing glimpses. Cosmas gives a curious picture of the commercial relations of the Abyssinians with the interior in the sixth century A.D. Every other year, he says, the king of the Axumites sends through the governor of Agau (by which is presumably meant the Hamitic peoples on the southern edge of the kingdom around Lake Tsana) special agents to the land of Sasu, where gold is mined. These agents are accompanied by a large number of merchants, more than five hundred, and the caravan takes with it cattle and bars of salt and iron.

When they reach the borders of Sasu, they pitch a camp and fence it with a great hedge of thorns, and on the hedge they lay the bars of salt and iron and pieces of meat. Presently the natives arrive and lay nuggets of gold, the size of beans, on the objects which they want to buy, and then retire. If the merchant is satisfied with the price offered he removes the gold, and the purchaser then removes the meat or salt or iron. If the merchant is dissatisfied, he leaves the gold and waits for the purchaser to add more, if he still wishes to buy, or to take away his gold if he thinks the price too high. The haggling generally takes about five days, the whole expedition about six months. The caravan travels well armed for fear of being robbed by the savage tribes through whose territory it passes. On its outward journey it has to move slowly on account of the cattle; on its homeward way, it travels as fast as it can for fear of being caught by the rains.

We also possess a brief description of the Abyssinian court in the sixth century A.D. The emperor Justinian sent an ambassador, a certain Julian, to Ellesbaas with the object of developing trade connexions with India via Abyssinia. The Roman Empire imported large quantities of silk from India, whither it was brought from China, and this trade had hitherto passed through the Persian Empire via the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia. Justinian was at war with the Persian king and had no desire to enrich him with the profits of this trade; and he conceived the idea that the Abyssinian kingdom, a friendly Christian power, might open direct communication by sea with India and so cut out the Persians.

This scheme miscarried, for the Abyssinians did not venture farther than the ports of the Persian Gulf, and there they were naturally unable to break the monopoly of the Persian merchants, who bought every Indian cargo directly it arrived. But Julian, the ambassador of Justinian, wrote a description of the Abyssinian court of which a fragment has survived. The king, he wrote, was naked, wearing only a garment of linen embroidered with gold from his waist to his loins and straps set with pearls over his back and stomach. He wore golden bracelets on his arms, and on his head a turban of linen embroidered with gold from which hung four fillets on either side; around his neck was a golden collar. He stood on a four-wheeled chariot drawn by four elephants; the body of the chariot was high and covered with gold plates. The king stood on top, carrying a small gilded shield and holding in his hands two small gilded spears. His council stood around similarly armed and flutes played. Julian, on being introduced, knelt and made obeisance, but the king bade him rise. He was brought forward and presented the emperor's letter. The king kissed the seal and expressed great pleasure at the gifts which were produced. Then he opened the letter, and it was read to him by an interpreter.

This picture of the barbaric splendour of the early kings of Axum accords well with the only material relic they have left behind them, the so-called obelisks of Axum. The largest of these gigantic granite monoliths surpass in size the largest obelisks in Egypt. Their purpose in unknown, for they are uninscribed; they may, like the obelisks of Egypt, be dedicated to a god of the sky; they may be funerary monuments of kings. The origin of their form is equally obscure.

[COMMENT: It is surprising to read this, because it is common knowledge all over Ethiopia that these obelisks were built by Menelik I to commemorate the memories of his father King Solomon and mother Nighisti Makeda Saba. Around World War II, the Italians removed the tallest obelisk to Rome and placed it near the Arch of Constantine. However, in recent years, this precious obelisk has been returned to Axum. As for the origin of their form, they were undoubtedly designed to resemble The Cosmic Tree. To see a picture of these obelisks, CLICK HERE. RS]

Though superficially they resemble the Egyptian obelisks and may owe their inspiration partly to them, they differ from them in many important details. They are oblong and not square in plan, and the most highly finished examples terminate not in a pyramidal cap but in a crescent and disk, a religious symbol familiar from the coinage of the Axumite kings. Their decoration is most peculiar. It consists of an imitation door at the bottom and above it several tiers of imitation windows, separated by imitation log floors. They are in fact models of towers, cut out of a single block of stone, and seem to represent a fusion of the monolithic funerary stelae characteristic of Arabia and the tomb towers of which those of Palmyra are the most famous. But whatever their purpose and origin, they are an impressive testimony to the magnificence of the last pagan and first Christian kings of Abyssinia.

During the first six centuries of its existence, the indigenous culture of the Abyssinian kingdom was steadily developing and ousting the imported culture of Greece.

[COMMENT: This is misleading. These authors really mean "during the first six centuries" of the A.D. era. The Kingdom of Ethiopia had already been in existence from about 900 BCE, the time of Menelik I. And I must admit that I am surprised to find that "ancient" Ethiopia had adopted the Greek culture. But why not? The Ptolemies were Greeks. Ethiopia and Egypt have always been linked politically and culturally. Even today, a light-skinned Ethiopian is often described as looking like an "Egyptian", and this is meant in a sort of sarcastic manner. These two countries have been and always will be linked together, like Russia and Ukraine, USA and Canada. If the Greek language were spoken in Ethiopia, then Apollonius would have no trouble at all communicating with them, which removes one of the "unknown factors" from previous hypothesizing about languages. RS]

The first king of whom we know had a Greek education; his successors in the third century used Greek as the official language of their public documents. In the fourth century Ge'ez was supplanting Greek as an official language, and the knowledge of Greek was probably declining. This would explain the rapid rise of Frumentius in the royal service: Ella Amida must have found a young man who had received a Greek literary education very useful to conduct his diplomatic correspondence. By the sixth century the governor of Adulis knew no Greek, since he had to call upon a passing Roman merchant to read the Greek inscriptions of Ptolemy III and Aphilas (?). Ellesbaas himself seems to have known no Greek; he used an interpreter to read Justinian's letter. The coins continue to bear Greek legends in his reign and even later, but coins are always conservative, especially among backward peoples, who will only accept a familiar type; the early caliphs had to issue copies of Byzantine coins, charged with the cross, and in Abyssinia copies of Maria Theresa dollars were the only currency down to the end of the last century and are still widely used.

[COMMENT: I have a sizable collection of these Maria Theresa dollars myself. They are quite impressive. They were for sale in all the Ethiopian bazaars during the 1960s, but by now, I am sure that they have all been sold to tourists and coin collectors. RS]

The primitive language of the Abyssinian Church was, it may be presumed, Greek, since its nucleus was formed by Roman merchants resident in the country. The liturgy and the scriptures were first translated into Ge'ez in the latter part of the fifth century, when, presumably, the number of native converts was becoming considerable. The translators were a group of holy men celebrated in Abyssinian legend as the Nine Saints. They seem to have been learned monks who migrated from Syria. The Ge'ez version of the New Testament is not, as might have been expected, based on the Alexandrian text, but on that of Antioch. One of the sacred works which the Nine Saints introduced, the KERLOS, a Christological treatise formed of extracts from the Fathers, mostly from Cyril himself, is also probably of Syrian origin. It is a confutation of Nestorianism, which never penetrated Abyssinia and had no influence in Egypt, but was a dangerous rival of the orthodox and monophysite faiths in Syria.

The Nine Saints are credited with having introduced monastic institutions into Abyssinia; another of their translations is the Rule of Pachomius, the founder of Eastern monasticism. The version of the scriptures which they gave to the Abyssinian Church is of high interest to us, since it contains several apocryphal works current in the fifth and sixth centuries, the originals of which have since perished; their entirety -- only through the Ge'ez version. The translations made by this school include only one work of secular learning, the PHYSIOLOGUS, a pseudo-scientific treatise. These works formed for centuries the whole literature of Abyssinia.

Frumentius, the first bishop of Axum, was consecrated by Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria. Ever since that day the head of Abyssinian Church has, with hardly an exception, been nominated by the head of the Egyptian Church. The Alexandrian patriarchate has, from its inception, possessed a far more centralized structure than the other Eastern patriarchates. Throughout Egypt the patriarch alone has, and always has had, the right of consecrating bishops; his metropolitan exercise only a delegated authority and are not, as elsewhere in the East, independent within their own provinces. The same policy of centralization which prevailed in Egypt was applied to the outlying province of Abyssinia. The head of the Abyssinian Church, though he bears the exalted title of Catholicus, second only in dignity to Partiarch, has always been a nominee of the patriarch of Alexandria and has strictly limited prerogatives in his own province.

In order that there may be no doubt in this question, the Copts have forged a canon of the Council of Nicaea -- which incidentally was held some years before the Abyssinian Church existed -- in which it is specifically laid down that the Ethiopians shall not choose their own Catholicus, but that he shall be appointed by the patriarch of Alexandria, and that, though in honour he is like a patriarch, he has no patriarchal power, in particular he cannot appoint metropolitans. The apocryphal canon also provides that, in the unlikely contingency of an oecumenical council being held under the presidency of the patriarch of Rome, the Catholicus of Ethiopia shall be ninth in order of precedence among the bishops of all Christendom. The prerogatives of the Catholicus, or, as he is usually called, the Abuna (our father), in Abyssinia are somewhat obscure. In point of fact, he seems during the greater part of Abyssinian history to have been the only bishop in the country. He had, however, in earlier times the power of consecrating bishops up to the number of seven. The number of bishops was limited lest they should, in defiance of the apocryphal canon of Nicaea, elect their own catholicus; twelve bishops are required by Coptic canon law for this purpose.

The Abyssinian Church, being so closely dependent on that of Egypt, has naturally followed its lead implicitly on doctrinal questions. When Frumentius was appointed, the patriarchate of Alexandria, under the leadership of Athanasius, was the stronghold of the Nicene faith against Arianism. During the Arian reaction which took place under Constantius, Athanasius was expelled and an intruder, George of Cappadocia, put in his place; but Egypt as a whole held by Athanasius and the Nicene faith, and Abyssinia seems to have followed suit. Constantius sent a letter to Aeizanas, urging him to send Frumentius to receive instruction from George, but apparently without effect. He later sent one Theophilus, a native of Socotra, to preach Arianism in Himyar and Saba [Axum. RS] and Abyssinia.

Philostorgius, an Arian historian, recounts his triumph in Himyar and Saba, but from his guarded reference to Abyssinia it may be inferred that Theophilus was not successful there. On the accession of Theodosius I the faith of Nicaea, as taught by the bishops of Rome and Alexandria, was finally recognized as orthodox. The patriarchs of Alexandria continued to be champions of orthodoxy, combating the Macedonian and Apollinarian heresies, which were condemned at the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381, and Nestorianism, which was condemned at the council of Ephesus in A.D. 431.

But leaning from Nestorianism too strongly, they toppled off the narrow path of orthodoxy. So anxious were they to refute the Nestorian view that the man Christ was clothed with Godhead as with a garment that they asserted that the manhood of Christ was absorbed in his divinity. This view that Christ had one nature was condemned by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451, which laid down that there were two natures, one human, one divine, in Christ.

[COMMENT: This was contemporaneous with the Ambassadorship of Apollinaris Sidonius from Burgus/Burdigala/Bordeaux to Rome, the son-in-law of the Emperor Avitus; Bishop Nemesius of Emesa, Syria, the birthplace of Empress Julia Domna, daughter of High Priest Bassianus of Emesa, who obtained the scrapbook of Damis and commissioned Flavius Philostratus; and Pope Leo I, who commissioned Sidonius to write a biography of Apollonius, which biography is lost. This century of the 400s was crucial to the attempted "plot" to eliminate the memory of Apollonius from history, until Aldus Manutius resurrected it a thousand years later with his republication of Philostratus' biography of Apollonius. RS]

The Chalcedonian faith, which both the Western Churches and the Greek Orthodox Church of the East hold, has never been accepted by the Church of Alexandria. In the years that followed Chalcedon there was a prolonged struggle between the Roman government, which was generally Chalcedonian, and the people of Egypt, which was stubbornly monophysite. From time to time Chalcedonian patriarchs were enthroned at Alexandria by armed force, but they never commanded the allegiance of the clergy and people. Eventually under Justinian there was a definite schism, and a monophysite Egyptian (Coptic) patriarch ruled side by side with a Chalcedonian imperialist (Melkite) patriarch. There can be little doubt which side the Abyssinian Church took in this struggle. One of its earliest sacred books, the KERLOS, has a distinctly monophysite flavour, and there can be little doubt that the Nine Saints who brought it with them from Syria were monophysite confessors expelled from Syria, another stronghold of the monophysite faith, after Chalcedon. Certainly ever since the Arab conquest of Egypt, which was the death-blow of the Melkite cause in that country, the Abyssinian Church has shared the monophysite faith of the Coptic Church.

In its ritual, calendar, and customs the Abyssinian Church naturally follows the Coptic. Their liturgy follows the rite of St. Mark. They observe the very long and numerous fasts of Copts, who have, among other things, added ten extra days to Lent. Like the Copts they celebrate the anniversary of our Lord's Baptism (Epiphany) with ritual bathing. They reckon their years from the Era of the Martyrs. They use the Coptic calendar -- which is the ancient Egyptian modified by the insertion of an extra day at Leap Year and has twelve months of thirty days each and five (or six) extra days.

The Abyssinian Church has, however, many peculiar features. Some of these are survivals of paganism. Such are the barbaric dances and the beating of drums which enliven the liturgy on solemn occasions. Such again was the ancient practice, given canonical sanction by the Coptic patriarch in the ninth century, of sacrificing an ox, a ewe and a she-goat on the dedication of a church. The curious practice of celebrating certain feasts, the Nativity, Our Lady, St. Michael, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, once a month is also probably a concession to the pagan semitic calendar, which was strictly lunar. Other Abyssinian peculiarities have a curiously Jewish appearance. That they circumcise is of no significance; circumcision is by no means a peculiarly Jewish custom, being followed not only by the Moslems but also by the Copts, and it is a purely social custom in Abyssinia, celebrated by no religious ritual. It is, however, rather odd that the Abyssinians observe the Mosaic distinction between clean and unclean meat, rejecting the flesh of beasts that do not chew the cud and cleave the hoof or have been torn or strangled, that they regard those who have had sexual intercourse as impure for the following day, refusing them access to their churches, and furthermore that they observe the Sabbath as well as Sunday, celebrating the liturgy on both days alike and exempting both days from fasts.

If one could accept the national legend of Solomon and the Queen of the South as historical, these Judaisms would be simply explained.

[COMMENT: One wonders exactly why these two historians reject this "legend" of Solomon and Sheba. RS]

The Abyssinians, according to their own story, practised the law of Moses from the reign of Menelik onwards and clung to those remnants of the Mosaic law after their conversions to Christianity. The real explanation is uncertain. In part the Judaizing tendency of Abyssinian Christianity may be due to an uncritical reverence for the Old Testament. In modern Europe an intensive study of the scriptures, unguided by the tradition of the Church, has produced a markedly Judaic tone in some of the extremer Protestant Churches. The Abyssinians have considerably more excuse if they developed their religion on the same lines to more exaggerated degree. They were a people of Semitic culture, and many parts of the Mosaic law, embodying as they do the common heritage of the Semitic peoples, did not seem strange to them. They were never in close touch with the main body of the Church and only three centuries after their first evangelization were almost completely cut off from it, and left to study the holy books which had been delivered to them without any outside guidance. In these circumstances it is little wonder if they adopted various ceremonial laws which were laid down in the holy books and were, moreover, in accord with their cultural tradition. Some, at any rate, of their Jewish practices are, it may be noted, obviously conscious adaptations of the Mosaic law to Christian practice. Infants are, for instance, baptized on the fortieth day if males, or the eightieth if females, the Christian rite of baptism being governed by the Mosaic regulations on presentation at the Temple.

This is not, however, the whole explanation. The Jewish customs of the Abyssinians -- which it may be noted cannot be traced farther back than the Middle Ages -- might be thus explained. There still remains the curious circumstance that a number of Abyssinian words connected with religion -- Hell, idol, Easter, purification, alms -- are of Hebrew origin. These words must have been derived directly from a Jewish source, for the Abyssinian Church knows the scriptures only in a Ge'ez version made from the Septuagint.

There remains also that curious enigma, the black Jews of Abyssinia. The Falashas (exiles), as they are called by the Abyssinians, are not scattered individuals. They are a people, or were so until comparatively recent time. Their home is Simien, the very mountainous country north of Lake Tsana, where they used to live under their own kings. They are certainly not Jews by race. They are of the indigenous Agau stock of Abyssinia and speak a Hamitic language. They know no Hebrew, and their scriptures are the Ge'ez version of the Old Testament. Their Judaism is of a curiously archaic type. They do not possess the Mishna or the Talmud, and they do not observe the feast of Purim, nor do they celebrate the dedication or the destruction of the second temple.

On the other hand, their customs are contaminated by Christian influence. They have, for instance, a monastic system, introduced according to their own traditions in the fourth century A.D., and their priests, according to the custom of the Eastern Church, must marry once only. They are first mentioned in the works of Eldad the Danite, a Jewish traveller of the ninth century A.D., who was something of a romancer but seems to have picked up some genuine information about the obscurer Jewish communities of Africa and Asia. Eldad states that the Jews of Abyssinia are a portion of the Ten Tribes. Their own tradition agrees with that of Christian Abyssinia. They profess to be descended from the Israelites who accompanied Menelik on his return from the court of Solomon, and they traced their royal line back to Menelik. Some modern scholars have proposed to derive the Falashas from the Jewish colonies which are known to have existed in Upper Egypt in the fifth century B.C. and were probably formed by emigrants from Palestine after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. This theory is as untenable as those of Eldad the Danite and of the Falashas themselves, for the Judaism of the colonies of Upper Egypt was highly unorthodox, as the Aramaic papyri of Assouan [sic, i.e, Aswan] have proved, whereas the Judaism of the Falashas is of the normal post-exilic type.

[COMMENT: The very fact of the mysterious existence of this "lost tribe" of Jews in the Abyssinian Simien Mountains itself bolsters the idea of an Israelite origin for the dynasty of Menelik. For some reason, these writers cannot accept that fact; and as was noted earlier, they even adhered to the erroneous idea that the Queen of the South hailed from Yemen. As for these Falashas, about ten years ago, the Israeli Government sent airplanes to Ethiopia and accepted as Jewish Israeli citizens any of these Ethiopian Falashas who wished to emigrate "home" to Israel. The Israelis airlifted out about 100,000 of them. Some of them chose to remain in Ethiopia, which might have not been such a bad idea, since these dark-skinned Jews have faced racial discrimination in their new nation of Israel. RS]

The true explanation both of the Falashas and of the Hebrew words in Abyssinian probably lies in the strong Jewish influence which prevailed in the Hejjaz and Yemen in the centuries which preceded the rise of Islam. When Judaism began to propagate itself in these countries is uncertain, but it is probable that many Jews migrated beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire into southwestern Arabia after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and again after the suppression of the revolt of Bar-Cochba by Hadrian. It is at any rate certain that in the sixth and early seventh centuries Jews swarmed in the Hejjaz and Yemen and that, moreover, a great movement of proselytism had taken place and was still in progress.

The traditions of pre-Islamic Arabia are full of allusion to Jewish tribes and kingdoms, and it may be recalled that a Jewish king of Himyar was crushed by Ellesbaas early in the sixth century. It is a plausible conjecture that in Abyssinia, which had at this period very close commercial and political relations with southwestern Arabia and was, moreover, closely akin to it in language and culture, similar conditions may have prevailed, and Judaism may have been competing with Christianity to convert the heathen and may perhaps have had an earlier start. The conversion of the royal house to Christianity by Frumentius prevented Judaism from becoming the official religion of the Abyssinian kingdom, but was not in time to prevent the conversion of various independent Agau tribes to Judaism nor the adoption by the Abyssinians of certain Jewish practices.

[COMMENT: The previous paragraph is full of speculations, which would not be necessary if these authors simply accepted the history of Solomon and Sheba. RS]

Abyssinian Christianity is, then, at base the Coptic Christianity of Egypt contaminated by a number of pagan survivals and by certain Jewish elements introduced concurrently with or even before Christianity. Its many peculiarities are due in part to these contaminations, but for the most part to the isolation in which it developed. Unguided by the tradition of the Church, it struck out an eccentric line of growth inspired by an uncritical study of the scriptures. To similar causes is also in all probability to be attributed the archaic character of Falasha Judaism. The illiterate Agau tribes which adopted Judaism if they ever learned Hebrew must soon have forgotten it, and if ever they possessed any Hebrew books must soon have ceased to be able to read them. They had to rely on such sacred books as existed in the literary language of the country, Ge'ez, that is, on the Ge'ez version of the Old Testament made for the Abyssinian Church.

Footnote: According to Bruce, the Falashas in his day (1770-72) bought their copies of the Old Testament from the Christians, having no scribes of their own.

[COMMENT: James Bruce was a Protestant explorer, traveller and writer who journeyed to Abyssinia. RS]

Thus, when the connexions with the rest of Jewry were broken and the tradition handed down from the first missionaries grew more and more dim, they fell back on the written word and their religious institutions assumed a strongly archaistic and Mosaic character. Some traditional elements survived; for though they do not possess the Talmud, some of their customs show Talmudic influence. Certain Christian customs also were borrowed from their neighbours.