FOREWORD

The following pages contain in brief outline some notes on the history of the Church of Abyssinia, more properly known as the Church of Ethiopia. Unfortunately they cannot be woven into a consecutive and interesting, narrative because there are a number of quite serious gaps in the records available, but even the items here related serve to give some idea of the Ethiopian Church, its constitution, worship, and its close relation to the Egyptian Church, which is indeed the most important feature in its history, the more so because the Ethiopian Church has preserved features which have become obsolete in the parent Church of Egypt. The chief native authority is the Kebri-Neghest, or "Glories of the Kingdoms", but this is mainly concerned with tracing the descent of the kings from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, whose name we are told was Maqueda and who bore Solomon a son named Menelik, a genealogy which can hardly be treated as serious. The Arabic historian Umari tried to form a history by extracting items from the letters written from Ethiopia to the Sultans of Egypt asking permission to procure an Abuna, or Archbishop, from the Patriarch of Alexandria, and the replies sent to these letters, and this seems the best starting point as these contacts between Ethiopia and Egypt furnish our best items of information, fragmentary as they are, and they form the basis of the matter given in these pages.

 

 

I. THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE

II. THE FOUNDATION OF THE ETHIOPIAN CHURCH

III. THE GREAT SCHISM

IV. THE ETHIOPIAN CONQUEST OF YEMEN

V. THE EXPANSION OF ISLAM

VI. THE PERIOD OF ISOLATION 

VII. DIFFICULTIES WITH THE MUSLIM RULERS OF EGYPT

VIII. LALIBALA, A NATIONAL HERO

IX. EARLIER PHASE OF EUROPEAN PENETRATION 

X. COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL PENETRATION

 

I

THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE

 

The land of Abyssinia and its people have a very definite claim on our interest. In the first place, they retain intact a Christianity which came to them in the fourth-fifth century, and which they, isolated in the midst of pagans and Muslims, have held tenaciously in the fare of steady, constant opposition. The history of Abyssinia is mainly that of its Church, as the Church has been the one binding power which has steadily held together what has otherwise been a collection of independent nobles, each with his own following and often at war with his neighbor: only occasionally has a king arisen able, even for a while, to hold together these discordant units. Throughout Abyssinian history its Church is its guide and the centre of national unity. In the second place, Abyssinia is the one native African state which has hitherto maintained its independence and defended it efficiently by arms. Thirdly, it has long been a land of mystery, very little known to the world outside: it was only at the peril of his life that Sir Richard Burton penetrated in disguise to Harar in 1855. Conditions have now changed, and it is possible to travel by rail from Djibouti in French Somaliland to Addis Ababa, the present Abyssinian capital, though the greater part of the interior has been closed to travelers, not because there was anything to conceal, but because the native tribesmen viewed foreigners with hostile eyes and the ruling powers were unwill­ing to accept the responsibility of travelers' safety. Then the coronation of the present ruler, Haile Selassie, as Emperor in 1930, became "front page ...news," and journalists dilated on the mediaeval splendor of the ceremonies.

Europeans commonly speak of the country as Abyssinia, a term generally regarded as derived from khubasha, meaning "a mixed company of men from various tribes", and this, as suggesting a race mingled with alien elements, is regarded as offensive by the ruling Amhari, who take great pride in their claim to racial purity. The people of the country prefer to be known as Ethiopian, their land as "Ethiopia", the usual Greek name for all Africa south of Egypt. In the following pages, therefore, the name Ethiopia is used in place of the Abyssinia to which objection is made. 

Ethiopia lies well inland from the southern end of the Red Sea, but this is only because the treaty made with Italy in 1896 allowed the Genoese ship-owners to purchase a strip of land along the coast and thus cut off Ethiopia from the sea. In earlier times Ethiopia not only had a coast, but was a leading naval power in the Red Sea. The inland country is a high table-land, averaging some 8,000 feet above sea level, so that, though only 8 to 10 degrees from the equator, it has a temperate climate, only a little warmer than the summer of southern Spain, and at night the air often becomes distinctly cold. The great elevation brings its own trials, and strangers suffer from the rarefied atmosphere in which active exercise produces extreme fatigue and causes the sensation of struggling for breath.

The country has an area of about 350,000 square miles, and it is claimed that in 1935 it had 2,000 kilometres of made roads, but many of these are of soft earth fitted for only moderate traffic. Ford cars are much in evidence, and a taxi service exists in all the leading towns. The cost of bringing a car into the country is, however, heavy, and the price of, petrol is excessive. Formerly the usual port of approach was Zeila, but now this is generally replaced by Djibouti in French Somaliland, from which a railway goes inland to the present capital, Addis Ababa, crossing the Ethiopian frontier at Douenle. The journey takes three days, and only two trains a week run; but in the dry season there is an express which does the whole run in thirty-six hours.

The table-land which forms the chief part of Ethiopia is fertile and well favored, partly agricultural, partly pastoral. The ruling race is known as the Amharic and is of Semitic origin, closely akin in culture, language, and race to the ancient inhabitants of South Arabia, the Sabaeans and Minaeans of history, who are now absorbed into the north Arabs in Arabia itself, so that the Ethiopians are today the only living representatives of the ancient South Arabian culture. The Amharic tribes penetrated inland to an elevated plateau of exceptional fertility surrounding Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile, a stream flowing at the rate of 500.000 cubic feet per second as against the White Nile's 14,000, though the White Nile is the parent stream. To the north of the Amharic territory is the Tigré country, now partly included in French Somaliland, but its chief city within the Ethiopian frontier is Axum, which was the ancient capital of Ethiopia and around which are most of the remains of Ethiopian antiquity, including many Himyaritic inscriptions, stone pedestals, which once bore metal statues of kings, and about fifty monoliths and obelisks, only one of which remains standing upright.. Beyond the high table­land occupied by the Amharic and Tigré tribes are still loftier mountains where live other tribes, amongst them some aboriginal races which have been driven back to the higher ground by the invading Amhari; such are the Afar, Bilin, Saho, Kafar, the pagan Kamant near Gondar, and others of whom the outside world so far knows very little. 

At present the Amhari are estimated at some 2,500,000, and all the more important posts in the country are in their hands. They are a warlike race and deeply imbued with a sense of caste superiority, scornful in their attitude towards the negro races, which in East Africa are held in slight esteem, and with a strong anti-foreign prejudice. The social order is semi-feudal; the men are warriors following the banner of a local noble and ready to fight his battles. In such a condition the king is largely dependent on the good-will and voluntary co-operation of the nobles, and united action is possible only in face of very obvious peril or by the use of great tact; it is a state of danger when the country is faced by Euro­pean aggression. The policy of the Emperor was to replace these semi-independent feudal forces by a united national army, but in this he met with much opposition from the nobles who saw their independence threatened. In 1935 the Emperor published a decree demanding universal military service in the national army.

North of the land of Amhar is Tigré, whose inhabitants are closely akin to the Amhari and speak a kindred language, but are generally regarded as a somewhat inferior race.

To the south are the Gallas, a distinctly inferior, possibly a decadent, race estimated at some 4,000,000 persons. They are not, of the same stock as the Amhari and Tigré. Both Gallas and Tigré people are Muslim, though there are many Christians amongst the Gallas.

To the south and west are the Danakil and Somali tribes, uncivilized, treacherous, and dangerous, though their kinsmen settled under French and English rule are peaceable and orderly. The Falashas are a community Jewish by religion, but certainly not by race, which has kept itself very much apart from outsiders and whose history and present affairs are very little known. Possibly they trace back to one of the South Arabian Jewish kingdoms of the fourth-sixth century a.d. and migrated across the Red Sea like other South Arabian colonists.

The Ethiopians, best represented by the Amhari because they have been least tolerant of intermarriage with the native African races, we assume to be a branch of the South Arabian stock separated from the parent family at no very remote date. Their language is Semitic, closely akin to Arabic, but with very definitely marked characteristics of its own: it is not an Arabic dialect, much less a mixture of Arabic and something else, but is derived from an ancient Semitic speech which was also the parent of Arabic. Their culture is obviously derived from that of South Arabia of Sabaean and Minaean times: the early pagan colonists worshipped the deities whose names are mentioned in South Arabian inscriptions, and seem to have had very much the same forms of worship, as well as similar marriage customs, etc.; the script they still use in writing is derived from that employed in South Arabian inscriptions, though vocalized by a method unknown in those inscriptions. Obviously Ethiopian culture is derived from that of ancient South Arabia after that had reached fair maturity. Common language and common culture do not prove a common racial origin, but in this case the very full and close resemblance seems to endorse the belief, strongly supported by physiological type, that the Ethiopians were originally Arabian colonists. For a considerable period the two communities in Arabia and Africa were under one ruler, and during a good part of this time the ruler was in Africa, for Ethiopia showed itself to contain the more vigorous and enterprising element.

The passage across the Red Sea was in use at an early date; we know that the Red Sea was navigated by the Egyptians at least as early as the XVIII Dynasty (roughly 1380-1350 B.C.). Probably there were a series of early colonizing movements, some possibly of quite early date. The colonists respon­sible for the settlement of Ethiopia most likely came from Yemen in south-west Arabia and passed over to the port of Adulis, which is now known as Zeila or Zula to the south of Djibouti.

The older Arabic geographers whom we should expect to supply us with information mention only one town in Ethiopia, an unidentified Jarori, which shows that they relied exclusively on the map prepared by al-Khwarizmi for the use of the Khalif al-Mamun (813-833), and which he drew from information obtained from the Greek geographer Ptolemy. The Arabic historian Masudi says that there are many towns in Abyssinia, as he calls the country, but mentions only one name, Kabar, which may be Ancobar. Of later geographers al-Idrisi refers to several towns, but none of these can be identified. It was not until the fifteenth century and the days of the Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi that the Muslim world began to get reliable information about the land of Ethiopia; from the eighth to the fifteenth century it seems to have been a dark mystery to the Muslims.

In early days, no doubt, there was nothing like a political capital, but there seems to have been a chief city in the sense of a sanctuary which served as a tribal meeting-place, probably on the occasion of religious festivals. This was the town of Yeha or Awa, where there are still traces of monoliths very like those connected with early Arabian religion, as well as inscriptions recording gifts to the god ''Ilmaqqahu lord of Awa", a deity whose name occurs very often in South Arabian inscriptions, though later the favorite deity of the Arabian colonists was Astar. For some reason, probably for security from attack, the sanctuary was removed from Awa inland to Axum, which thus became the holy city of the Semites and remains still today the sacred metropolis of Ethiopia. Axum itself was the stronghold and sanctuary, but its dependent territory extended to the Red Sea shore and included the port of Adulis. It was by contact with that port that the Greek navigators of the Red Sea obtained their first knowledge of the kingdom of Axum, of which we have evidence in the Greek inscription of Adulis of the second century A.D. Of a later date, somewhere about 340 a.d., was the Greek inscription of king Aizanas "ruler of Axum, Saba, Raidan, and Himyar", and we must now note how those other states were brought into subjection to Axum.

In the first century B.C. the kingdom of Saba in South Arabia conquered and annexed the neighboring land of Raidan, which is the territory now known as Hadramaut, and we find a series of twenty-eight kings who are styled "kings of Saba and lords of Raidan''. Then, probably near the beginning of the Christian era, the kingdom of Himyar in Arabia ab­sorbed both Saba and Raidan, and finally, in the fourth century A.D., these Arabian states were conquered by the king of Axum in Ethiopia, who forthwith assumed the title, ''Lord of Axum, Saba, Raidan, and Himyar", as in the Adulis inscription of 340 A.D.

The early politics of Ethiopia were mainly con­cerned with the control of the Red Sea, and this naturally involved the effort to control both the two opposite coasts. Early in the Christian era a Greek pilot named Hippalus had discovered that it was quite easy to get to India by sea. For six months in the year the current carries from west to east and shipping can drift from the Red Sea to the Indian coast, then for the other six months the current flows in the opposite direction and they can drift back. Until then the Roman world had to depend on the trade routes across Asia for the luxury trade with the East, and that meant a journey across Persia, an unfriendly and avaricious power: Hippalus discovery opened up a new route free from Persian interference. By this route ships either passed up the Red Sea or else landed goods on the Arabian coast to be carried up through Arabia by land. In either case the Greek and Roman merchants were brought into contact with the growing power of Axum, which was in a position to control the entrance to the Red Sea and the overland route through Arabia.

Although the earliest Axumite inscriptions are in Greek, the Greek script was not ultimately adopted by the Axumites, who preferred to employ the script already used by the South Arabians in their inscriptions, and this, with certain modifications, remains the script employed by the Ethiopians in their writing to the present day. Like all early Semitic script it was unvocalized. At a later date the Jews, Arabs, Syrians, and northern Semites generally introduced vowel signs written above or below the consonant letters, but the Ethiopians adopted another system and made alterations in the form of the consonant itself to denote the following vowel, a system which renders Ethiopian writing one of the most laborious and cumbersome methods possible. The South Arabian inscriptions being engraved on stone were angular in their letters: the later Ethiopian script was written with pens on parchment and so became slightly more cursive and snowed a difference between thick and fine lines, which was not possible in the graven letters of the inscriptions.

About the middle of the fourth century Axum had attained a certain political importance and was sought in alliance by the Byzantine Empire: it was recognized as the leading power on the shores of the Red Sea, controlling the two opposite shores and possessing the important port of Adulis. That port was visited by Greek merchants and mariners, and Greek inscriptions have been found there. At that time the Roman or Byzantine Empire had its capital at New Rome or Byzantium, our Constantinople, and was practically Christian; as yet the Church was not established, but Christianity was more than a tolerated religion; it was the religion professed at the Imperial court, the decrees of Church councils were enforced by the civil law, and the missionary activity of the Church was utilized to serve the political ambitions of the state. It was the policy of Byzantium to encourage friendly relations with Axum and thereby to obtain. security for the Indian sea trade and to check any advance on the part of Persia, which was already trying to get a footing in Arabia. The older classical language of Ethiopia, still used in the services of the Church, is known as Ge'ez, a word which means "free" and so denotes the language of the ruling classes who were not slaves. It ceased to be a spoken tongue in the fourteenth century. Most of the literature existing in Ge'ez is theological in character and takes the Ge'ez version of the Scriptures as its literary model. After the decay of the Sa'idic (Upper Egyptian) language, Arabic translations of the lives of the saints and other theological material was brought to Ethiopia and translated into Ethiopian, and there are several cases in which a lost Egyptian work is known to us in its Ethiopian translation, as for example the valuable history of John of Nikiu. The Ethiopian version of the Scriptures had certain apocryphal books attached, such as the Book of Enoch, as well as a Synodus or collection of 470 to 480 ecclesiastical canons translated from the Arabic, later revised from Coptic and Arabic texts. The one branch of native literature which attained vigorous life was poetry, almost exclusively of a religious character. The hymn books compiled in the seventh and following centuries in Ethiopian contain some fine compositions, though for the most part imitated from the psalms; Later poetry is mainly encomia on the saints, and such is usually on conventional lines.

The Ge'ez version of the Scriptures exists in two forms, one possibly of the fifth century, the other not earlier than the twelfth, both probably revised by the aid of an Arabic version made from the Coptic and so of quite secondary value as textual authorities.

The modern vernacular of Ethiopia is Amharic, not derived from Ge'ez but from a sister language now extinct; its use in a literary form began about the fifteenth century. It has been the language of the ruling dynasty since 1270. Another dialect is Tigrina, which is current in north Ethiopia, but is very much influenced by the dominant Amharic. Yet another is Tigré, which is used in the Italian colony of Eritrea and in the island of Dahlak, a language which by reason of its more isolated position has preserved some archaic forms. Amharic is written in the Ge’ez letters with the addition of special signs to denote sounds which do not occur in the older language.

 

 

 

II

THE FOUNDATION OF THE ETHIOPIAN CHURCH

 

 

The story of Frumentius reads rather like a romance, but in its main features probably represents fact: That Christianity in Ethiopia dates from the middle of the fourth century may be taken as fairly assured: it was the period at which Byzantium was beginning to take notice of the political conditions in the Red Sea, and Greek mariners and merchants were using that sea very freely. In the post-Nicene period the imperial expansion of Byzantium was closely associated with the expansion of Christianity, and the fact that the Ethiopian Church is an off­shoot of the Alexandrian is self-evident, the only possible explanation of conditions is actually existing. There are no indications of any Christian contacts in Ethiopia earlier than the middle of the fourth century, no mention of Ethiopian bishops, no reference to Ethiopian martyrs even during the reign of Diocletian when the whole church was fruitful in martyrs. Obviously Ethiopia had no ecclesiastical history before St. Athanasius. The story of Frumentius and his conversion of Ethiopia rests on the authority of Rufinus the historian, who says that he had personal contact with Frumentius. The accounts given by other historians—Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret—are merely reproductions from Rufinus.

In 356, when the imperial court favored the Arians, St. Athanasius was expelled from Alexandria and replaced by an Arian bishop named George. Soon after this the emperor Constantius sent a letter to Abraha and Azbeha, the rulers of Ethiopia, asking them to depose Frumentius as a partisan of St. Athanasius, and appoint a certain Arian named Theophilus in his place; sending Frumentius to Alexandria to be instructed in the (Arian) faith. This letter is preserved in Athanasius' Apology to Constantine and is extremely interesting; it shows that the recently founded Church in Ethiopia was well-known at the Byzantine court. Incidentally it places the date of Frumentius' consecration as a little before 356.

That certain Jewish customs still prevail in the Ethiopian Church seems to present a difficult problem. Popular opinion traces this back to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, but that is legend, not history; it is given fully in the Kebri Neghest, or "Glories of the Kingdoms", a mediaeval Ethio­pian chronicle. Probably it simply represents an excessive zeal on the part of the Ethiopian converts, who tried to reproduce all the rules they could find. Thus we find the Ethiopian poets praising the kings Abraha and Azbeha for their brotherly love and for their great piety in obeying the law of Moses as well as the Gospel of Christ. Certainly this Mosaic observance has nothing to do with the Jewish tribe of Falasha, who have no intercourse with the Christian community, follow their own customs, and have no knowledge of Hebrew or of the traditions in the Talmud. As regards circumcision, this prevails amongst the Arabs as well as the Jews, but amongst the Arabs it really has no religious bearing, being the survival of an ancient form of tribal initiation. As to the law of the levirate, that was by no means exclusively Jewish, but a social usage fairly widely spread in communities at an early stage of cultural development. We may take it that the customs which are definitely Jewish were introduced by devout Ethiopians who wished to perform works of supererogation.

 

 

III

THE GREAT SCHISM

 

We have now traced in outline the extension of Christianity to Ethiopia and the foundation of the Ethiopian Church. That Church still exists flourishing and strong, but it has ceased all intercourse with the Greek and Latin Churches, denouncing them as heretical, and shares the life of a group of separated churches which have long lived a life apart in the Near East. How did this separation come about? Already in the third century many Christians had tried to make the theological teaching of the Church fit in with the philosophy and science taught in the great academies of Athens, Alexandria, and Antioch. From this arose a series of controversies chiefly concerned with the description of the Person of Christ and the attempt to explain the precise relation between the Deity and Manhood which were brought together in the Incarnation. It is a great mistake to regard these controversies as merely concerned with theological quibbles; they were issues fought out by men who clearly perceived that the interpretation of the gospel depended very much on the view taken as to the Person of Christ; gradually the Catholic Church evolved more and more clearly the expression of its teaching on this essential point, and excluded from communion those who refused to accept its definition. At the same time it must be admitted that there were racial and national rivalries mixed up in the resulting disputes, and that the adherents of different doctrines had a strong tendency to call in the secular power to enforce their views and penalize those who differed from them, whenever this was possible.

In these controversies the Ethiopian Church had no part; it was too remote and probably entirely, ignorant of the philosophies on which the controversies depended. But it was an off-shoot of the Church of Alexandria which was very much involved, so loyally and without question it followed the majority of Egyptian Christians, even, though this led to separation from the Orthodox Communion.

In the year 451 a general council was held at Chalcedon to decide between those who held that the Deity and the Human Spirit were fused together in the Person of Christ, and those who held that they were simply united. The Council accepted the doctrine of union as best representing the belief of the Church and thus this became the accepted defini­tion in the Greek and Latin communions and was supported by the authority of the state, and all who refused to accept the definition adopted by the Council were treated as heretics. But a large number of Syrian Christians and practically the whole Egyptian Church refused to accept the decisions of Chalcedon and refused to hold communion with those who did so, and thus Eastern Christendom was divided into two sections, each excommunicating the other. The history of the Church in Egypt from 451 to the end of the seventh century is the record by a series of attempts on the part of the Byzantine government to force the Egyptians to accept the decrees of Chalcedon and of the stubborn resistance of the Egyptians. When at length the Muslim Arabs conquered the country, the Copts or native Christians welcomed the invaders as deliverers: they did not treat one church differently from another, but ruled them alike whether they were pro- or anti-Chalcedon. The separation begun in 451 still continues, embittered by centuries of conflict, and in the separation the church of Ethiopia adheres loyally to the Coptic Church, which it still regards as the living representative of the ancient Church of Alexandria, and joins with it in repudiating the Greek, Latin, and every other church which accepts the decisions of Chalcedon.

Throughout the Near East it was at that time very usual to call those who adhered to the Chalcedonian definition "melkites" ("royalists")—i.e., the state church, which it was as long as the Byzantine Empire lasted. The Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria is quite distinct from the Coptic or Egyptian Church with a rival Patriarch and its own bishops, and it is from this Coptic Church that the Ethiopians receive their Abuna and to which they adhere. Theologians call this separated body in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Syria by the name of "Monophysite" or "single nature", referring to the doctrine of fusion in the person of Christ, the view rejected by the Council of Chalcedon, but such a name is confined to theological text­books and is not recognized by the Copts or Ethiopians. More often the separatists are called "Jacobites" after a certain monk, Jacob Burdeana, "Jacob of the horse-cloth" (his usual garment), who travelled about in the years 541-578 and organized the separatists into a corporate church, forming dioceses and provinces on lines similar to those in the state Church: he himself was consecrated bishop by Theodosius, Patriarch of Alexandria, who was detained as a kind of prisoner of state at Constantinople. 

The name of the Ethiopian Church never once occurs in the history of the Chalcedonian schism, but that schism has a very intimate bearing on the history and present position of that Church. The Abuna or metropolitan is always a Coptic monk appointed and consecrated by the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria, and the whole Ethiopian Church is in communion with the Coptic Church and its sister church in Syria, but refuses communion with the Greek and Latin or with the Anglican Churches, all of whom it denounces as following the Chalcedonian heresy. The Coptic canon law holds good in Ethiopia: as in the other Eastern Churches, bishops and dignitaries are selected only from the monks; an ordinary priest is ineligible. Priests other than monks must be married before ordination; no unmarried person who is not a monk is ordained, but marriage after ordination is not allowed: on being left a widower a priest must become a monk. Undoubtedly a certain degree of theological and literary scholarship exists in some of the monasteries, and there are monks who are famous for beautiful calligraphy. In some at least there is a real devotional life. In Curzon's Monasteries of the Levant (ch. 8.) there is an interesting account of an Ethiopian college (no longer existing) in the Wadi Natrun, south of Alexandria, and those who have visited Jerusalem are no doubt familiar with the Ethiopian monastery attached to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a monastery now handed over to the Copts. The Ethiopian Church has done its best to assert its place in the community to which it belongs, but suffers from the limitations of that community, which has been separated from the broader life of the Greek and Latin Churches. More than once efforts have been made by Greeks and Latins to heal the schism and reunite, but the Ethiopians have always fiercely resisted those efforts, steadily maintaining its position as a daughter of the Church of Alexandria which refused to accept the decisions of Chalcedon.

The Council of Chalcedon was held in 451. Not long afterwards, somewhere between 460 and 480, when a ruler named Alamid was king in Axum, a body of ten monks arrived in Ethiopia from "Rome"—that is, from some part of the Byzantine Empire: their names were Michael (Araguai), Alef, Gair, Adimata, Cuba, Garima, Salam, Lebanos, and Pantaleon. All these are venerated as saints in the Ethiopian Church and are the subjects of many legends which are favorite topics of the native poets. Pantaleon especially is famed for his miracles: he is said to have raised the dead and healed many sick. It is related of Lebanos that when he was at prayer his fingers burned like candles, and at one time when he held a staff it was seen that his fingers were perforated. The coming of these monks must have introduced the monastic idea into the Ethiopian Church, though the organiza­tion of monasticism belonged to a later period. The Menology of the Greek Church commemorates several martyrs and ascetes of the Ethiopian Church.

 

 

IV

THE ETHIOPIAN CONQUEST OF YEMEN

 

In spite of theological differences, the Emperor Justinian had friendly relations with Ethiopia, which was then in possession of a coast line and in a position to hinder or to assist the navigation of the Red Sea. The Byzantine Emperor, no longer able to spare ships for patrolling the Red Sea, whose coasts were the haunt of pirates, had the idea that the Axumites might be employed as auxiliaries to police the sea. In 522 Justinian urged the king of Axum, whose name is cited as Hellenestus, to renew his control over the Arabian kingdoms on the east side of the Red Sea and to extend his power northwards along the trade route which passed through Mecca, a move designed to check the spread of Persian control which had been pushing down along the east coast of Arabia and then round the south. The Emperor sent a certain Julian as envoy to Axum and he succeeded in stirring up the king to an attack upon Arabia. Muslim tradition describes this attempt as due to a desire to avenge the slaughter of the Christian citizens of Nejran by a Jewish tyrant named Dhu Nawas who tried to compel the citizens to embrace Judaism and on their refusal slaughtered the governor, Arethas, and some 280 of his fellow-Christians. On hearing of this, Justinian directed Timothy III, the Patriarch of Alexandria, to instruct the king of Axum, whose name is now given as Caleb, to invade Arabia and avenge the martyred saints. To do this the Ethiopians sent an army of 120,000 men, who were conveyed across the Red Sea in 23 Byzantine ships, defeated Dhu Nawas, restored Nejran to the Christians, and placed a son of the martyr Arethas upon the throne of Himyar, where a Christian dynasty ruled to the days of Muhammad. In this narrative it is assumed that the king of Axum was a Christian and accepted the suzerainty of the Roman Emperor. The narrative is based on a Christian tradition which goes back to the sixth century and so is very nearly contemporary. Its sources appear in the Syriac Book of the Himyarites in the Syriac Letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham, and the Greek narrative of the Martyrdom of St. Arethas, all describing the persecution at Nejran and the martyrdom of Arethas and his companions.

Quite a different account of these events is given by Nicephorus Callistus, who relates that the king of Axum was then a pagan, but on hearing the atrocities committed by Dhu Nawas vowed that he would become a Christian if the Christian God enabled him to chastise the persecutors. Both John of Asia and the letter of Simeon refer to such a vow. Although a Church had been founded in Ethiopia, it does not follow that every chieftain chosen to the kingship was actually a Christian: an inscription of date later than 400 a.d. noted by Bent in 1892 invokes the goddess Astar.

After the 522 expedition, Ethiopian rule seems to have become effective in the kingdoms of south­west Arabia, though in theory Axum was a mandatory power under the Byzantine Emperor. It is worthy of note that after the date of this expedition the Byzantines withdrew from the Red Sea and relied entirely on the Axumites to police it, so that from 522 onwards Axum or Ethiopia, the ally of Byzantium, was the dominant naval power in the Red Sea and as such controlled the trade with India. As Frankel has pointed out, most of the older Arabic nautical terms are loan-words from the Ethiopian, and Ibn Hisham's Sira or "Life of the Apostle of God" describes the earlier followers of Muhammad as going across the Red Sea in Ethiopian ships to escape persecution in Mecca.

After the 522 expedition the Ethiopian governor of Yemen or South-West Arabia was Sumaefa, or Esumphaeus, but he was defeated by the Himyarites and supplanted by an official named Ashram Abraha, or Auganes, originally the slave of a Roman merchant of Adel in Ethiopia, who at first tried to set himself up as an independent ruler but finally settled down as Ethiopian viceroy. The extant inscription on the dam of Marib in Himyar names Abraha as the viceroy who restored the dam after its destruction in a great flood and that inscription contains an invocation of the Holy Trinity in definitely Christian terms.

Tradition relates that Abraha took steps to conquer Mecca and that his army was led by a commander who rode upon an elephant, for which reason the year of the expedition, said to have been the year immediately preceding the birth of Muhammad, was known as "the year of the elephant", to which reference is made in the Quran. It may be, as Lammens suggests, that the ''elephant'', in Arabic al-fil, is a mistake for Alfilas the Ethiopian admiral in charge of the expedition. It is interesting to note that the traveler Cosmas Indicopleustes actually was in the port of Adulis and saw the fleet being fitted out to carry over the Ethiopians for the attack on Mecca.

The harsh rule of Abraha and his two immediate successors led to much dissatisfaction amongst the Arabians, and as the Ethiopians were the allies of Byzantium they very naturally appealed to the king of Persia, the rival of Byzantium, at the suggestion of the Arab king of Hira, who was in the employ of the Persians as guardian of the frontier. At the time the Persians already held the eastern coast of Arabia along the Persian Gulf and were steadily advancing along the south coast with the object of checking the sea trade with India which interfered with their monopoly of the trade through Central Asia. As a result of this appeal the Persians pushed westwards and extended their authority to the Red Sea, expelling the Ethiopians and putting an end to their Arabian Empire. Persian governors ruled over Yemen from 570 to the days of Muham­mad (622-632).

Even in Muhammad's time there were traces of Ethiopian influence still in evidence. The merchants of Mecca employed a militia composed of Ethiopian warriors who came over and hired themselves out as mercenaries. Besides this there were, it would appear, many Ethiopian residents in Mecca, mostly of the craftsmen class, and it is not at all improbable that Muhammad obtained his very imperfect knowledge of Christianity from the oral accounts given by these Ethiopian residents in Mecca. As K. Ahrens has shown, there are a good many Ethiopian terms employed in the Quran.

 

V

THE EXPANSION OF ISLAM

 

We have already noted that the schism which followed the Council of Chalcedon in 451 tended to isolate the Church of Alexandria and separate it from the wider life of the Greek and Latin Churches. Now, in the course of the seventh century, another event took place which tended still further to remove from the general life of Christendom the Church of Alexandria and its daughter in Ethiopia. In 642 Egypt was conquered by the Muslim Arabs and so passed away from the Byzantine Empire and became the subject of the Arab Khalif, who, after an interval, made his capital in Damascus. Thus the Christians of Egypt passed under the rule of a non-Christian power, though they were allowed to follow their own religion and to govern themselves according to their own laws, subject only to the payment of a tax to their Arab rulers, and avaricious rulers often made the taxation very heavy. The fancy picture of the Muslim Arabs as fanatics pouring out from the desert with sword in one hand, the Quran in the other, giving the conquered a choice of death or conversion, is a picture entirely without basis in fact. Muslim fanaticism is true enough, but the fanatical Muslims were Turks or Africans and belonged to a later stage of history; the earlier Arab Muslims were rather of a cynical type, by no means wholeheartedly devoted to their religion, but all with a keen eye on the main chance. They would not allow the conquered Christians to serve in the army or to share in the booty taken from the conquered, but made them pay a tax, which they regarded as a confession of servitude, instead, a thing which thoroughly pleased the Egyptians, who hated, and still hate, military service because it involves absence from the paternal farm, but are not unwilling to pay for exemption. In theory the Christians were not allowed to build new churches, but they usually obtained permission to do so when they wanted to. The only real act of intolerant severity was the penalty of death on anyone who was apostate from Islam, and occasionally, not always, this penalty was inflicted. In many cases relations between members of the two religions were fairly friendly. The civil service was composed almost entirely of Christian clerks; Arabs had been tried but failed to do the work. Very often the governors, and later on the Fatimid khalifs, went out to spend their summer holidays in a Christian monastery, and it was generally agreed that the wealthiest man in Egypt was the Christian Patriarch. On the whole the Christians lived fairly comfortably under the earlier khalifs, save for the vexatious taxation: they were free from the interference of the Byzantine court in favor of the state church, and the Copts recovered the churches and monasteries which the Greeks had taken from them. Under Muslim rule in Egypt the Patriarch of Alexandria continued to exercise his supremacy over the Church of Ethiopia, though the fact that he was the subject of the Arab ruler made it necessary to obtain the governor's permission before envoys sent from Ethiopia could enter the country, or before a Coptic monk consecrated as Abuna could leave Egypt. But these difficulties, usually solved by the payment of a fee, were small matters compared with the estrangement suffered by the separated churches by being under a non-Christian power and by transference to an oriental atmosphere in which they became almost forgotten by the main body of Christendom.

At first the Muslim conquest was rather a boon to the Coptic Church and to Egypt generally. A strong government, even though an exacting and a non-Christian one, replaced a period of disorder and strife in which the Copts had suffered from a Persian invasion, the tyranny of Heraclius, and a series of raids by the Berber tribes of the desert. The Patriarch Benjamin, about 650, was able to devote himself to the reorganization and reform of the Egyptian Church and to the rebuilding of the ruined churches and monasteries. He was mindful also of the claims of Ethiopia and consecrated as Abuna a devout monk named Cyril, who carried; some of Benjamin's reforming zeal to the distant highlands of Ethiopia. Incidentally we may note that the appointment of this. Arjuna is the only event recorded in connection with the Church of Ethiopia for the two centuries between the conquest of Yemen and the year 840.

 

 

VI

THE PERIOD OF ISOLATION

 

Remote in position, cut off from intercourse with the main body of Christendom by schism and by the fact of living beyond its range in the outer world of the non-Christian Orient, the Church of Ethiopia passed its days in a profound obscurity which is not easily penetrated. Occasionally we glean items which are no more than disconnected anecdotes but which often throw a curious light on Ethiopian conditions, indeed from this point of view are often more informative and instructive than carefully kept chronicles would be.

One such occurs with an Abuna named John, who held office somewhere about 820-840 A.D., when the throne of Axum was still occupied by the dynasty descended from the Caleb whom the Patriarch Timothy had called to invade Arabia. At one time the king was absent 6n war and left his wife to act as regent in his absence, but as regent she quarrelled with the Abuna John, and even made an attempt on his life. At this the Abuna fled the country, retired to his monastery in Egypt, and sent the Patriarch a report of the events which had taken place. But when the king of Axum returned home he was greatly annoyed to hear what had happened and sent a letter of apology to the Patriarch begging that the Abuna might be sent back. So the Abuna returned and was welcomed by the ruler and his people. One can well understand that a Coptic monk called from the seclusion of his monastery and sent to occupy a post of great responsibility amongst the wild tribesmen of the Ethiopian highlands must often have had very lurid experiences, of which the intrigues and rivalries inseparable from an Oriental court were not the least. It is note­worthy how much of this intrigue is associated with a dowager queen and her train.

In the latter part of the ninth century circumstances led to the entire cessation of intercourse between Egypt and Ethiopia. The Muslim dynasty ruling at Damascus, on the whole a tolerant though avaricious authority, came to an end by the revolt of the Abbasids, who established a new dynasty at Baghdad. The early Abbasid rulers showed no fanaticism, but with the accession of the Khalif Mutawakkil in 847 the caliphate changed its char­acter and began to manifest an intolerant and perse­cuting spirit which had been unknown to the Islam of earlier days: the various laws against Christians and Jews all date from that reign. In Egypt Mutawakkil's reign was a time of great disorder: in 854 the Baga people of Nubia made an attack on Egypt and plundered the country as far north as Esneh and Edfu, sending the population fleeing before them in panic. The Egyptian government made great preparations for a punitive expedition by land and sea, and the armour-clad Muslim army crossed the desert and penetrated the Sudan, where they quickly reduced the naked native warriors. It was this state of affairs, no doubt, which intercepted intercourse between Egypt and Ethiopia, as Nubia and the Sudan lay between the two countries and the line of communication passed across the war area. The cessation of intercourse led to one curious result: then, as now, the ever-powerful Church was the ever-present rival of the secular state, the clergy far outnumbering the military forces of the crown and having their representatives in every village. But the rupture of intercourse with. Egypt put the Ethiopian Church at a disadvantage: it had no Abuna at the time nor was able to obtain one, and, in the absence of canonical authority, it fell entirely under the control of the king, who appointed one of the bishops to act as Abuna, though, of course, this was entirely contrary to ecclesiastical law.

This state of affairs lasted, until about 930, when the dynasty of kings descended from king Caleb came to an end after occupying the throne for some two centuries. This change of dynasty was the result of a great upheaval which seems to have taken place somewhere between 925 and 960 and was due to a revolt of the Falasha tribe, the Jewish Ethiopians settled in the mountains north of Lake Tana. These Falasha, though practising the Jewish religion, are not of Hebrew descent, have no knowledge of the Talmud or of the Hebrew language, and seem to be descended from Arab proselytes. They are much disliked by other Ethiopians, as they are suspected of sorcery. Led by a queen named Judith, these rose in revolt, massacred the royal family with the exception of one member, and established a Falasha tyranny which lasted forty years. It had been the custom for the reigning monarch to con­fine all other members of the royal family in one of the natural fortresses known as an Amba: it was in the amba at Debin Damo that Judith massacred the members of the Caleb dynasty.

But these Falasha usurpers soon had to meet a sturdy opposition from the Ethiopians and defeat at the hands of a chieftain who assumed the crown and took the name of Zague. This Zague dynasty held the sovereignty for some three centuries. One of Zague’s first acts was to send an embassy to the Patriarch of Alexandria, either Cosmas II (923-931) or Macarius (933-953), asking him to consecrate a new Abuna. At the time Zague was in bad health and he desired the Abuna to be his adviser and the instructor of his sons. In response to this appeal the Patriarch consecrated a monk named Peter, who went to Axum and was received there with great honor. Sometime after­wards the king died, after appointing the Abuna regent and instructing him to observe carefully the two young princes and, when they reached full age, to select the one whom he considered best fitted to rule the country. In accordance with these instructions Peter selected the younger son and his elder brother acquiesced in the choice.

Now we get one of those anecdotes which are not mere embellishments but throw a valuable side light upon history and social condition of the country. We hear that two vagrant monks from Egypt ppeared in Ethiopia and applied to Peter for assistance, but were refused. At this they were greatly annoyed and determined on revenge. One of the two, named Menas, forged a letter claiming to be from the Patriarch of Alexandria in which Peter was denounced as an impostor who had never been consecrated or authorized to go to Axum; it was further asserted that Menas was the true Abuna and should be so recognized by the faithful, who were called upon to expel Peter, dethrone the king, and set his elder brother on the throne. Menas showed this letter to the displaced elder brother, who was very pleased to assert his claim to the throne, and forthwith the whole country was plunged in civil, war which, after all, was its normal condition. In the course of this war the ruling prince was taken prisoner, Peter was sent into exile, and Menas was installed as Abuna. But very often rogues fall out, and Menas' success aroused envy, we may hope also compunction, in the mind of Victor, his fellow-monk, who went back to Alexandria and disclosed all that had happened to the Patriarch, who at once excommunicated Menas. When news of this excommunication reached Axum the king promptly executed Menas and sent messengers to invite Peter to return, but it was found that he was dead. The messengers, however, found the chaplain, who had been Peter's constant companion and confidant, and brought him to Axum, where he was elected Abuna; but the king refused to allow him to go to Alexandria for consecration and kept him a close prisoner, employing him only to register royal decrees and carry out the king's wishes, so once more the Church of Ethiopia became a state institution. This canonically irregular condition lasted about seventy years.

Of the days of the earlier kings of the Zague dynasty we get another illuminating anecdote. The throne was usurped by two queen-regents in succes­sion, each of whom tried to secure her position by putting to death any of the descendants of the preceding sovereign, whose name is not given; but one member of the royal family escaped with his life, raised a rebellion and secured the throne. He then appealed for help to the Patriarch of Alexandria, sending his letter through the medium of the Christian king of Nubia, whose dominions lay between Egypt and Ethiopia. In this letter he complained that the Patriarchs seemed to have ceased to care for the spiritual needs of the Ethiopians as they had left them without an Abuna. This appeal reached the Patriarch Philotheos (981-1002), who forthwith consecrated a monk named Daniel, an inmate of the monastery of Abu Maqar in the Wadi n-Natrun, which at the time was the seat of the Patriarch and his court. Daniel was then sent to Axum, where he arrived in 995 and soon showed himself a reformer as well as a spiritual influence. Shortly afterwards the young king expelled the surviving queen-regent and secured his position on the throne. Nearly always the queen-dowager seems to act as the sinister influence in Ethiopian politics, and this traditional tendency shows itself, as we shall see, well into the twentieth century.

 

VII

DIFFICULTIES WITH THE MUSLIM RULERS OF EGYPT

 

 

It is curious to note that for centuries of Arab Muslim rule over Egypt there seems to have been no interference on the part of the Egyptian ruler, governor; Khalif, or sultan with the Patriarch's dealings with Ethiopia, though, of course, all the time the Patriarch was a subject of the Egyptian government. But this did not always remain the case, and towards the end of the eleventh century difficulties began to arise. The first of these was with the Patriarch Christodoulos who, shortly before his death in 1078, was cast into prison because complaint was made that a newly consecrated Abuna appointed by him had entertained Muslim guests and had persuaded them to drink wine in violation of the sacred law of Islam. But Christodoulos pleaded that there must be some misunderstanding; intact he had not consecrated an Abuna, although at the time a monk named Cyril had been selected for the post and had applied to him for consecration, and he wagon the point of sending Mercurius, bishop of Wissim (Awsim), to take part in the service. This satisfied Bedr, who was the vizier of the Fatimid Khalif then ruling in Egypt, himself an Armenian but not a Christian. On this explanation Christodoulos was set free and Mercurius was allowed to depart on his journey. But there seems to have been some irregularity in Cyril's consecration: the Ethiopian lists note him as a usurper thrust upon the Church of Ethiopia. Aware of this, an ambitious Egyptian monk named Severus formed the idea of supplanting him and to this end obtained the support of Bedr, promising to build four mosques in Ethiopia and assist the propagation of Islam. Bedr then sent a demand to the Patriarch Cyril II, who had succeeded Christodoulos, ordering him to consecrate Severus, and the Patriarch complied. After his consecration Severus proceeded to Ethiopia, where he was accepted as Abuna, and the ex-Abuna Cyril fled to Egypt, where he was arrested and executed, though it is not obvious why.

The next reference we find to the course of events in Ethiopia is in the reign of the Patriarch Michael IV of Alexandria (1092-1102). The Khalif Mustanzir (1036-1094) who was then reigning in Cairo, anxious at the abnormally low Nile, sent the Patriarch to Ethiopia to make enquiries, as it was generally known that Lake Tana was the source of the Blue Nile, which was the more important of the Nile's parent streams. The king of Axum met Michael and asked him the reason for his journey. When the Patriarch related the great suffering caused in Egypt by lack of water the king at once ordered a large enclosed valley to be opened by the cutting of a dam. As soon as this was done the Nile rose ten feet in a single night and the whole land of Egypt was irrigated: on his return the Patriarch was received with great enthusiasm.

The Abuna Severus died in 1100 or 1102 and the king of Axum sent to Michael for a new Abuna. Michael selected a monk named George, who was duly consecrated and sent to Ethiopia. But this George was avaricious, a taker of bribes and withholder of Church funds. At last there was a general outbreak against his extortions; the king made him refund his unjust gains and sent him back to Egypt where he was cast into prison.

In 1140 the Patriarch Gabriel II of Alexandria received an embassy from Ethiopia asking for an increase of bishops. So far the Ethiopian bishops had been limited to seven, and as the canons of the Church of Alexandria forbade the consecration of a patriarch by less than twelve bishops this served as a precaution against the Ethiopians appointing a patriarch of their own and so becoming an inde­pendent church. At the same time letters to similar effect were sent to the Khalif ruling in Cairo. Although the Khalif saw no ill in the request and advised that it be granted, the Patriarch took a different view and preferred to retain his hold on Ethiopia, so refused the request.

 

VIII

LALIBALA, A NATIONAL HERO

 

We now reach what is generally regarded as the golden age of the Church of Ethiopia, the reign of king Lalibala (about 1200 to 1230) and his immediate successors. The dynasty of Zague, which had succeeded that of king Caleb after the Falasha revolt, had been originally of the province of Lasta in Tigré, and Lalibala is the name of a place in that province where are the most remarkable monuments to be found in Ethiopia. These are the ten (or eleven) rock churches excavated in the hills nearby. Two of these are cut in one rock and are reckoned as one or as two churches, hence the difference in total numbers. One of the churches is excavated in a single block. The churches are in two groups of six and four churches respectively, while one (St. George) stands alone. The largest and finest of these churches is that known as "Metone-Allem", meaning "Savior of the world"; it stands in a court­ard which has been cut out of the solid rock and its walls are in places over 6’5 feet thick. The whole of these edifices, windows, doors, arches, buttresses, is cut out from the solid rock in the same manner as some of the ancient Egyptian rock-hewn temples, which possibly suggested the colossal and wonderful work at Alaibala. The churches are quite obviously of Christian origin and designed for Christian worship. Tradition relates that architects and engineers were brought from Alexandria for the execution of this work. King Lalibala became a national hero, famous for his wisdom and piety, and is now revered as a saint.

The Ethiopian Church, however, was unfortunate in his days. He sent to Alexandria to the Patriarch John VI (1189-1216) asking him to provide a new Abuna for the Ethiopians. To satisfy this request John visited various monasteries in Egypt. But the envoys became impatient, and so to pacify them he appointed Kilus, bishop of Fueh, who had been driven from his own see by persecution, although this translation of a bishop from one see to another was contrary to the canons. Kilus was duly invested and welcomed in Ethiopia by the king and people. At the end of four years Kilus returned to Egypt, complaining that he had been deprived of office by one of the bishops whom he had consecrated and who was the brother of the queen Mascal-Gabrit; attempts had been made on his life, but he had escaped with a hundred followers, of whom only one man and one woman survived. The whole story seemed so extraordinary that the Patriarch detained Kilus in Cairo and sent a commission to Ethiopia to investigate. A year later the commission returned and brought with them reports which threw a new light on Kilus' complaint. It seems that a gold pastoral staff had been stolen from the cathedral and Kilus had accused the Treasurer of the theft and had scourged him so severely that he died. This produced a general rising of the people, and Kilus, seized with panic, had fled before them; all the rest of the Abuna's story was pure invention, and the king begged the Patriarch to send out a new Abuna. The Patriarch summoned a synod and laid before it the report received from Ethiopia, and it was decided that Kilus should be deposed and degraded; this was done publicly in the presence of a large crowd of Muslims and Christians. The Patriarch then appointed a monk of the Monastery of St. Antony in the Eastern Desert, one Isaac by name, a saintly man who received the warm support of the king and people of Ethiopia. Isaac seems to have held office between 1210 and 1225, and was succeeded by George (1225-1280); then came the great St. Takla Haymanot, whose fame has raised him to the position of patron saint of Ethiopia and has spread his cult into Egypt, where, however, he is specially invoked as one who delivers from the effects of the bite of a mad dog. Takla is famous for a three-fold constitution which he drew up in agreement with the king: (1) The ruling king of the house of Zague, Nakueto Laab, who had succeeded Lalibala in 1230, was to resign the kingship in favor of the king of Shoa, by name Yekuno Amlak, who claimed to be descended from the ancient rulers of Ethiopia, a legitimist whose claim, no doubt based on some traditions now forgotten, it is difficult for us to appreciate. But the king, who resigned, and his descendants were to retain for ever the outward signs of kingship, the silver kettle-drums, etc., and were to be confirmed in the monarchy of Lasta, the province over which the house of Zague had ruled before it was called to the throne. (2) The Church was to hold one-third of all property in Ethiopia; this has not actually been fulfilled, but the possessions of the Church; are very substantial. And (3) the Abuna must never be a native Ethiopian.

From the first of these three principles laid down by St. Takla Haymanot we learn that the royal house of Shoa had legitimist claims based upon the tradition of descent from King Solomon. Obviously three centuries' tenure of office had not removed the taint of usurpation from the Zague dynasty, possibly due to its Tigré origin. The nature of the Shoa claim is difficult to ascertain; possibly the Amhari tribes had been converted to Judaism before their conversion to Christianity. We know that there had been a widespread and successful Jewish propaganda amongst the Arabs who, as Edomites, were admitted as kinsmen of the Israelites. The claim to descent from King Solomon is inherited by the present Emperor. In theory, Ethiopia is a federation of states—Amhar, Tigré, Shoa, and Godjam—each with its own king; supreme over all is the "King of Kings", a title which Europeans commonly render as "Emperor". The second principle laid down by Takla Haymanot never was carried out; the position and resources of the Church in Ethiopia are much exaggerated. The Church's wealth is unduly great, but hardly one-third of all the property in Ethiopia. The third principle, that no Abuna may be a native-born Ethiopian, reads rather like a protest against the attempts made by some of the kings to appoint Abunas and bring the Church under their own secular control.

The two centuries following 1271 are a total blank in the annals of Ethiopia. From other sources we hear of a missionary effort on the part of the Dominican friars who towards the latter end of that period of the Crusades made several efforts at missionary propaganda in the Near East. The Dominicans were the pioneers of Oriental scholarship in Christendom and the leaders of missionary enterprise in Africa.

 

IX

EARLIER PHASE OF EUROPEAN PENETRATION

 

We now reach the point at which European penetration begins. This penetration falls into two clearly distinguished phases: (1.) that inspired by missionary aims and chiefly carried out by the Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits, and (2.) that directed by political and commercial projects in the general competition to divide and annex Africa.

What we may term the rediscovery of Ethiopia is due to a Venetian painter, Francisco de Branca Leone, who turns up unexpectedly in Ethiopia and begins practising there his art. How and why he arrived there is unknown. He painted a picture of Baeda Maryam—that is, the Blessed Virgin—in which the Madonna was represented holding the infant Savior in her arms. This picture greatly pleased the king Iskender Qastantinos (Alexander Constantine), who had it placed in the principal church; but it caused great offence to the priesthood because the Holy Child was represented as resting on the left arm of the Madonna, not on the right as tradition demanded. The clergy protested and demanded that the picture be burned as contrary to sound religion; the king refused and forthwith came a civil war in the usual Ethiopian fashion. Presumably the rebels were put down, as we hear no more about the discontented priesthood or about the artist.

In 1490, or soon after, a Portuguese explorer named Pedro Cavilham arrived in Ethiopia. He had been sent by king John II of Portugal with a kind of roving commission to discover the kingdom of the legendary "Prester John". Cavilham, with a companion named Alphonso Payo, reached the coast of East Africa and there heard rumors of a Christian kingdom in the interior, which seemed to agree with the stories of Prester John. Both Cavilham and Payo were familiar with Arabic and came down through Egypt and the Red Sea. But before going up into Ethiopia, Cavilham passed over to the Indies, and on his return found Payo dead. He adhered, however, to his determination to visit Ethiopia, landed on the west coast of the Red Sea, and made the journey to Axum, where he was kindly received by king Iskender. But Iskender died in 1494 and, after the brief reign of Anda Sejon II, the throne passed to Iskender's son Naod (1494-1506), who treated Cavilham as a spy and refused to permit him to leave the country or to communicate with the king of Portugal. Naod died in 1506 and was succeeded by David (Lebna Dengel), at that time but a child, Naod's mother Helena acting as regent; Cavilham's visit had early fruit, for very shortly after we find a small band of four Ethiopians settled at Rome as students and arousing a good deal of curiosity there. By their labors portions of the Ethiopian scriptures were printed and published, the Ethiopian type causing excessive trouble. Thus the Psalms appeared in 1513, the New Testament in 1548-9. These were the first attempts made in Europe to print any Oriental language.

About that time the Turks were pushing down the coast of Arabia and along the shores of the Red Sea, determined to get control of the Indian trade which passed that way to Egypt. During the reign of king David they made, an attack upon Ethiopia, which they perceived to be enriched by Indian commerce. In this attack they were allied with the Somali tribes dwelling along the coast, and entered Ethiopia under the leadership of a Somali or Danakil chieftain named Ahmad Gran, who founded the Sultanate of Adel, removing thence to Harar in 1521. From this time forth Harar became the chief focus of Muslim power and Ethiopia's leading foe. The subsequent history of Harar shows it to have been fanatical in the extreme, as African Islam often tends to be, and for many centuries the city was inaccessible to Chris­tians; it was a great feat of Sir Richard Burton when he penetrated in disguise and entered Harar, an adventurous journey of which he has left a description in his "First Footsteps in East Africa". The establishment of Gran at Harar brought a dangerous and relentless foe to the very threshold of Ethiopia, and for many years the history of the kingdom was a struggle to get free from the strangle-hold of the sultan of Harar. Gran was able to make himself master of the coast, which had hitherto been the means of Ethiopian trade and of intercourse with the outer world. This loss has never been made good, and has done more than anything else to isolate Ethiopia and hinder its progress. Gran's forces, Turkish troops and wild tribesmen from Danakil and Somaliland, came down upon Ethiopia like a devastating cyclone, and the young king David found himself entrusted with the defence of his country and people. The queen-regent was well disposed towards Cavilham, and at his advice sent an Armenian envoy to Portugal to ask for help in expelling the Turks from the Red Sea and assisting Ethiopia, but for some time this appeal met with no response. Letters still exist addressed by king David to Pope Clement VII asking for a nuncio to be sent to Ethiopia and expressing his desire for closer contact with the Romans and other Christians. In another letter sent to Emmanuel the son of king John of Portugal, he says that he had not been aware hitherto that there were Christians in the world other than those in Ethiopia, but now that he discovered that there were others he desired alliance with them against the Muslims and pagans threatening the existence of his kingdom.

At length, in 1520, there came a small party of Portuguese envoys instructed to make a closer examination of Ethiopia and report their information. These envoys found Cavilham already domiciled in the country, as well as a party of sixteen refugees who had escaped from Turkish servitude in Jeddah and made their way across the Red Sea to seek the protection of Christian Ethiopia. Public opinion in Ethiopia has varied from time to time with respect to foreigners, but usually it has shown an attitude of suspicion. King David and the queen-regent were pro-Portuguese, hoping for their assistance in the struggle against Gran, and on this friendly attitude the Portuguese and Roman authorities built a sanguine confidence that the Ethiopian Church would be reconciled to Rome and accept the Papal jurisdiction.

These Portuguese envoys remained six years in the country, and amongst them were two priests, Joas Bermudez, who afterwards took a prominent place in Ethiopian ecclesiastical history, and Francisco Alvarez, who about 1550 wrote an account of the visit to Ethiopia, and thus stands at the head of European explorers who have recorded their observations on the country.

In 1530 the Abuna Mark became too infirm to continue to discharge his duties, and was persuaded by king David to consecrate the Portuguese priest, Joas Bermudez, as his successor. Shortly after being consecrated, Bermudez set out on an embassy to Rome and Lisbon, seeking help against Gran, who was becoming more and more a serious danger to Ethiopia, and also to obtain the Pope’s ratification of his consecration as metropolitan of Ethiopia. He reached Rome in 1538, and was well received by Pope Paul III, who recognized the validity of his episcopal orders, although they had been conferred by a single bishop instead of the three consecrators required by the canons. At Lisbon he could obtain no more than promises, and returned to Ethiopia to find king David dead and the country plunged in civil war.

The Portuguese, however, did not altogether neglect the Ethiopian appeal, and sent out a body of forty-five musketeers under the leadership of Don Cristofore da Gama, brother of the great explorer, and these landed at Massowah in 1541. With these reinforcements a battle was fought with Gran, but this resulted in the total defeat of the Ethiopians and the death of da Gama. The beaten army was rallied by Pedro Leon, da Gama's body servant, and king Claudius, who had succeeded David, and this time Gran was routed and slain, an event which finally checked the attempted Muslim conquest of Ethiopia.

But the new king, Claudius or Asnaf Sagad, was strongly nationalist, and an adherent of the traditional dependence on the Church of Alexandria, and so firmly opposed to submission to Rome. Bermudez tried all manner of argument to induce him to change his views, and in all discussions was able to defeat the arguments of the king and the Ethiopian clergy, but this did not change their views, and they remained obstinately attached to the traditional Alexandrian connection. King Claudius wrote to the Patriarch Gabriel of Alexandria asking for a new Abuna duly consecrated according to the Alexandrian rite, and in response to this Gabriel consecrated Joseph (1547-1551), who was duly received in Ethiopia as lawful Abuna, Bermudez’ appointment being altogether ignored. When Joseph died in 1551 the Alexandrian Patriarch consecrated Peter V as Abuna, in spite of the protests of Bermudez and his adherents. At length Bermudez was arrested and kept captive for several months in a mountain fortress, then sent to Goa for repatriation in Portugal.

In 1558 St. Ignatius Loyola was in Rome engaged in the formation of the Society of Jesus and begged the Pope to send him as a missionary to Ethiopia. This was refused, but Nuaes Baretto was consecrated as Patriarch of Ethiopia and with him two suffragan bishops, Andrew Oviedo and Melchior Carneiro. All three sailed to Goa, where Baretto and Carneiro remained, Oviedo proceeding alone to Ethiopia, where he was friendlily received by the king Claudius (Admas Sagad I), but it was made plain to him that the Ethiopians were determined to adhere to their traditional communion with Alexandria. 

As Oviedo charged the Ethiopian Church with heresy the king made a profession of faith in which he asserted his steadfast adherence to the doctrine taught by the Apostles, the Seventy-two Disciples, and the Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus, though admitting the survival of some customs of Jewish origin such as the observance of both Saturday and Sunday. But Oviedo persisted, and induced the King to hold a conference which was followed by a war of pamphlets until at length Oviedo discovered that the controversy only confirmed the Ethiopians in their nationalism. 

Finally, on February 2, 1659, he published a sentence of excommunication against the whole Ethiopian Church, but this produced no effect. Soon after this Ethiopia was invaded by the Gallas from the south and south-west, who entered the country and laid it waste. This was a foe more savage and barbaric than the Turks had been, and once more the very existence of Ethiopia was imperiled, but the Gallas were defeated after a severe struggle, although in this king Claudius was slain; but the Gallas, though defeated, were never expelled from the country.

The next ruler was Malak Sagad (1563-1597), who at once declared himself a decided opponent of the Roman party. Oviedo was cast into prison and threatened with death, unless he ceased to advocate submission to Rome. The Jesuit, as might be ex­pected, remained steadfast and prepared for martyrdom. But there came a new Muslim attack instigated, it was believed, by the Portuguese, and in the struggle that ensued king Malak was killed. He was succeeded by Menas (1559-1563), who was too much occupied in warfare to interfere with the Jesuit mission. Menas died in 1563, and a little before that, in December, 1562, Baretto, who had been consecrated Patriarch of Ethiopia but had never entered the country, died at Goa. At once Oviedo declared himself Patriarch, and wrote to the General of the Society of Jesus asking that Portuguese troops might be sent, as only by their help could Ethiopia be reduced to obedience to the Holy See. This re­quest was forwarded to the Portuguese Cardinal, Don Henry, who appealed to the Pope to assist in carrying out the proposed military enterprise, but the Pope recalled Oviedo and his companions from work in Ethiopia (on February 1, 1567), and sent them on a mission to China and Japan. Oviedo, however, died a few months later in Fremona.

The Ethiopian Church was in no way concerned with these events or with the project of a Portuguese Patriarch, and shortly before Oviedo's death the Alexandrian Patriarch Gabriel VII (1526-1569) consecrated a new Abuna Mark (1567-1590) to preside over the Church in Ethiopia.

At the death of Oviedo only three priests of the Jesuit mission to Ethiopia survived; of these Manuel Fernandez died at Fremona in 1583, Antony Fernandez in 1593, and Francisco Lopez in 1597. During those years various attempts were made to renew control over the Ethiopian Church, but without result, so that this first Portuguese mission ended in failure.

In 1588 two Spanish priests, Pedro Paez and Antonio de Monserrat, both members of the Society of Jesus, were chosen to go to Ethiopia and went their way disguised as Turks. Their ship was wrecked on the Arabian coast of the Red Sea, but the two priests were saved. As soon, however, as it was discovered that they were Christian priest they were made slaves and remained in slavery for seven years. News of this was carried to Dom Alexo de Menezes, the Archbishop of Goa, and he sent a Maronite Jesuit named Abraham to replace them in their work, but at Massowah this Maronite was murdered by the governor, a fanatical Muslim pervert from Christianity. Shortly afterwards a bishop named John-Baptist was consecrated by Pope Gregory XVIII and sent on a mission to the Patriarch John XIV of Alexandria to try to induce the Alexandrian Church to seek reconciliation with the Papacy, but without result. This same bishop was afterwards sent by Pope Sixtus V to the Patriarch Gabriel VII, still without effect. After this second repulse Bishop John-Baptist went to Ethiopia in the hope that his efforts might be more effective there, but at Massowah was murdered by the governor. Meanwhile, in 1590, the Alexandrian Patriarch con­secrated a new Abuna for Ethiopia, Christodoulus by name, and in 1597 a new Emperor Malak Sagad II ascended the Ethiopian throne. In this latter year the Archbishop of Goa sent a priest, a converted Brahmin who had assumed the name of da Sylva, to Ethiopia. He reached his destination in safety and presented the Abuna with a letter in which he was informed that the Coptic Patriarch Gabriel VIII had formally submitted to Pope Clement VIII; this seems to have been very generally believed at the time, but was entirely untrue.

By 1604 the Spanish Jesuit Pedro Paez managed to get freedom and joined da Sylva at Fremona, sending a letter to the Ethiopian prince Jacob, natural son of Malak Sagad II, offering to place his services at Jacob's disposal. Fostered by court intrigue, of which the missionaries seem to have been well aware, a rebellion was raised by Jacob or Za Dengel, nephew of the late king Malak Sagad I, and for a brief period (1603-1604) Jacob usurped the throne of Ethiopia. During this period Pedro contrived to make himself the favorite and trusted counselor of the Emperor Jacob and induced him to make formal submission to the Pope and to write to Rome asking that a Patriarch of Roman consecration might be sent to reform the Ethiopian Church as well as a number of friars who would assist in carrying out the reforms. At the news of this the Ethiopians generally were greatly indignant and broke out in civil war, asserting their determination to maintain their traditional adherence to the see of Alexandria. A battle ensued and Za Dengel (Jacob) was slain. There was some discussion as to his successor; certain of the chieftains wanted to have Sousinyous, the grandson of the late Emperor David, but others wished for the restoration of the defeated and dethroned Jacob. For some time events favoured Sousinyous, then the army went over to Jacob and Sousinyous had to seek refuge in the mountains. Finally a battle took place in March, 1607, in which Jacob was slain, and Sousinyous, emerging from his highland retreat, assumed the crown as Malak Sagad III (1607-1632). About the same time a new Abuna Peter was consecrated by the Patriarch of Alexandria.

Malak Sagad III was a great friend of Pedro Paez and held many conversations with him in the course of which he became convinced of the validity of Roman claims and of the more complete orthodoxy of Roman doctrine, and therefore resolved to bring the Ethiopian Church completely under Papal jurisdiction. Before this was done the Emperor's brother, Ras Cella Christos, made his submission and was formally reconciled to the Roman Church by Pedro. In 1613 Malak Sagad sent a letter to Pope Paul V affirming his submission to Rome and accepting the Papal supremacy over the Church of Ethiopia, but at the same time asking the Pope to get the king of Portugal to send a body of soldiers to assist him in putting down any resistance on the part of the nationalist party in Ethiopia. The news of what Malak had done produced a very unfavourable impression on the Ethiopians generally, but they relied on the Abuna Simeon, who had replaced Peter, to defend their traditional usages. Public conferences were held at which the Abuna was present, but the Jesuits proved themselves very much the abler controversialists. At length a rising broke out under the leadership of Julius, the viceroy of Tigre, and the Abuna joined the revolutionary troops, but in the battle which ensued the Emperor was victorious, and both Julius and the Abuna were killed (1617).

This victory left Malak Sagad in a more autocratic position, and he determined to eradicate the peculiar local customs still surviving in the Ethiopian Church. Under severe penalties he forbade the observance of the Sabbath on Saturday in addition to the Lord's Day, which became for the time being the test of Alexandrian as distinguished from Roman, though the Alexandrian Church itself did not follow the usage of a seventh-day Sabbath. This caused a new revolt, quite futile in character. He then published a proclamation announcing the complete submission of the Ethiopian Church to Rome, attacking the Alexandrian Church as heretical, and reviling the Abunas of Ethiopia, some of whom were generally regarded as saints.

In 1624 Alphonso Mendez was consecrated at Lisbon as Patriarch of Ethiopia, and James Seco and John da Rocha were consecrated as his suffragans; all these were members of the Society of Jesus. In the autumn they reached Goa, and whilst there Mendez received a letter of welcome from the Emperor of Ethiopia. In due course they reached the capital, where they preached before the Emperor, and he, with the book of the Gospels in his hand, made public submission to the Papacy. In this he was followed by the princes, viceroys, and court ecclesiastics, who all knelt in turn and swore allegiance to Rome. Mendez then pronounced a solemn excommunication against any who violated this oath. The ceremony finished, the Emperor formally invested Mendez with the property which traditionally formed the endowment of the Abuna, as well as several valuable estates to provide for the foundation of a missionary college for sixty students. Mendez now regarded the reconciliation of Ethiopia with Rome as complete, but beneath the surface the people viewed these changes with resentment. Travelling in Tigré, two of the Patriarch's priests said mass in the Ethiopian church, but were found murdered the following day.

For a moment we must leave Ethiopia and turn to Europe. In order to reform and educate the Ethiopian priesthood, four Ethiopians were sent to Rome for instruction under the guidance of Propaganda. Here they met a German named Job Ludolf, who was greatly interested in these Ethiopians and what they had to tell about their country and their Church. For three years Ludolf studied Amharic and the classical Ge'ez under the instruction of these Ethiopian visitors, and became the father of Ethiopian studies in Europe, the author of a grammar, a dictionary, and a history of Ethiopia. Ludolf himself never visited Ethiopia, but for students of Ethiopia he remains a primary authority. The Duke of Saxe-Gotha was very interested in Ludolf’s work, and under his protection and encouragement a Swiss named Michael Wansleb was sent out to study Amharic and to explore Ethiopia. Wansleb was on the whole unlucky; he tried to visit the Coptic monasteries in the Wadi n-Natrun but was prevented by a robbery, of which he was the victim, in Cairo. He procured a number of Coptic manuscripts, however, and most of these are now in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris; a note of their being procured by "Vansleb" will be found inside the cover. Wansleb then travelled some way up the Nile, but did not reach Ethiopia; however, he procured a number of Ethiopian manuscripts, and between 1661 and 1667 published editions of Ethiopian liturgies and other material.

Returning now to Ethiopia itself. Annoyed at Portuguese interference with their traditional customs, the discontented people broke out into open revolt under the leadership of Takla Guergos (George), the Emperor's son-in-law, who had succeeded his brother-in-law Julius as viceroy of Tigré, and was a sturdy nationalist. This revolt was put down and Takla hanged, after which there was a general persecution of all those who opposed the reconciliation with Rome. Many of the nationalists took to the mountains and hid in caves, but were tracked down, dug out of their holes, and burned as heretics or suffocated with smoke in the caves. But this only led to increased opposition by the nationalists, who hated Mendez for his severity. Now, however, jealousies broke out between the Emperor and his brother; the latter, hitherto a whole-hearted supporter of the Jesuits, changed over and became a leader of the nationalists. About the same time the Emperor modified his views and proclaimed toleration, to which Mendez made an indignant protest.

There followed another rebellion, led by the viceroy of Gogam, but this was quickly put down by the Emperor's son Basilides, who, though a nationalist, was loyal to his father. But another rebellion, this time by the peasants of Lasta, led to the defeat of the royal troops, and the Emperor reaffirmed the decree of toleration. Then came another rising, which was put down with great severity. As the victorious Emperor surveyed the field of battle he was approached by his wife, son, and others of the court, who ventured to remonstrate with him. "This", they said, ''is not a victory gained over Muslims or pagans, but over our own kinsmen, men of our own flesh and blood; we are only weakening ourselves before our foes and inviting defeat at their hands". The Emperor saw the justice of this and called a council at which it was unanimously decided to restore the much desired Alexandrian rite and canon law, but to leave the people at liberty to follow Rome or Alexandria at their discretion. Mendez was greatly disturbed, and on June 20, 1632, he waited on Malak Sagad and urged him to stand firm in the Roman obedience, but the earnest entreaties of the people caused the Emperor to proclaim "the restoration of the religion of your fathers so that your own priests may resume possession of your churches". This decree was received with general enthusiasm and for a while Ethiopia was at peace.

In September, 1632, the Emperor died and was succeeded by his son, Fasilidas (Basilides), who ordered Mendez and his supporters to surrender their arms and retire to Fremona. To this Mendez demurred and sent the Emperor a protest in cour­teous terms requesting that he might have a conference and discussion with the leading ecclesiastics of the Ethiopian Church. But Basilides refused, reminding Mendez of the many years of civil war which had followed his arrival in Ethiopia, how greatly the refusal of the chalice to the laity had caused dissatisfaction, as well as the insistence on rebaptism and refusal to recognize Ethiopian orders: he reproached Mendez for all his cruelties and informed him that he was asking the Patriarch of Alexandria to send him an Abuna without delay, adding a request that Mendez would at once retire to Fremona. On the eve of departure Mendez sent letters to Basilides threatening excommunication against any who tried to turn away any who had accepted Roman jurisdiction from their loyalty to the Pope and to make them acquiesce in the usages of Alexandria.

Meanwhile the Patriarch Mendez and his adherents got into touch with one of the nobles who was in revolt against the Emperor, promising to get Portuguese ships to help him against Basilides: but after a long wait no reinforcements arrived, so he sold the ships to the Turks at Massowah, who for all this plundered him and his companions and held them to ransom. The ransom was raised and paid and Mendez and his companions went on to Suakim, where they were again plundered and held to ransom. At last Mendez with two companions, the sole survivors of the party, reached Goa in 1636.

Later on four of the Jesuit fathers made another attempt to enter Ethiopia, but were arrested for treason and banished, but before they could get out of the country they were seized by the populace and hanged. Greatly dejected at these events, Mendez made formal application to the Portuguese court to get a military force sent to Ethiopia, but none could be spared. Then in 1656 the king of Portugal nominated Mendez to the archbishopric of Goa, an office which he never held as he died en route.

The death of Mendez marked the definite failure of the Portuguese Jesuit mission to Ethiopia. It is true that after his death a body of Capuchins was sent, but all these were murdered before they were able to reach Axum. For a long time afterwards Roman Catholic missionaries were excluded from Ethiopia, but at length the prohibition was relaxed and there is now a Lazarist mission to the Amhara and a Capuchin mission to the Galla, each with a small body of Uniat followers.

Meanwhile Basilides set himself to recover the provinces which had fallen into the hands of his heathen neighbors. During his reign, however, Islam made marked progress amongst the Galla to the south-west. He finally made a treaty with the Turks, who promised to prevent any European missionaries from entering the area bordering on Ethiopia.

Basilides died in 1665 and was succeeded by his son, Alaf Sagued Johannes I (1665-1679). During the earlier part of this king's reign the Abuna was Christodorus, who was appointed to replace Mendez. At his death the Patriarch of Alexandria sent a new Abuna named Shenuda, but he seems to have been consecrated irregularly and was deposed: then another Abuna named Mark was appointed but was not consecrated until 1692. Johannes died in 1679 and was succeeded by Adam Sagued.

The Portuguese and Spanish missions having failed, at least for the time, an effort was made to employ French influence, and the Jesuits persuaded Louis XIV to send a French physician named Du Roule to prepare the way. Du Roule arrived at Sanaar, which is a Muslim state bordering on the north of, Ethiopia and thence sent an envoy to the Emperor TaTcla Haymanot (1706-1708), son of Adam Sagued who had recently succeeded his father, asking permission to enter Ethiopia, but was refused.

 

X

COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL PENETRATION

 

The closing years of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth saw the status of Ethiopia at its lowest: from 1769 onwards the Emperor was merely a figure-head set up for a brief period, deposed, sometimes poisoned, as circumstances required. All real power was in the hands of the Yedjow dynasty of Gallas, and about 1813 there were in the country no less than five ex-Emperors as well as the ruling sovereign. There can be little benefit in following the catalogue of these puppet kings.

During this period Ethiopia began to be explored by British and other travelers and so began to be somewhat better known. In 1796 Bruce visited the country and, as he brought with him letters of introduction from the Coptic Patriarch Mark VII in Cairo, was well received. He was so little familiar with the Coptic Church that he was under the impression that his credentials came from the Greek Patriarch. In 1805 Mr. Salt, the British Consul General in Egypt, visited Ethiopia and made special note of the antiquities still existing in the country; one of his more important finds was a bilingual inscription in Greek and Ge'ez, only thirty-one lines of the Greek remaining. The next British visitor was Bishop Gobat, who was sent out by the Church Missionary Society in 1825, a visit which led to the publication of an Amharic version of the Bible, a version already made by Abu Rumi. In 1833 Rüppell went out to Ethiopia and found two ancient Ge'ez inscriptions referring to kings of the sixth century. In 1839 Krapf visited Shoa, but was expelled in 1842 and went to the land of the Gallas where he founded the East African Mission. A little later, in 1842, the Roman Catholics divided their mission into two Apostolic Vicariates: (1.) Ethiopia proper, including Amhar, Tigré, and Gondar, which was assigned to the Lazarist Fathers, and (2.) Galla and Eritrea assigned to the Capuchins.

About the middle of the nineteenth century Ethiopia unexpectedly awoke from the oblivion to which the historian Gibbon supposed that it was consigned forever, an awakening due to a champion named Kassa, but better known to Europeans as Theodore. He was the son of a petty chieftain of Kuara and as a boy was imprisoned in a monastery; but in the course of the civil strife which formed the normal condition of that depressed period the monastery was pillaged and most of the monks slain. But the young Kassa escaped and became the head of a band of brigands by whose help he at length made himself master of territory in the Dambea district, and thus he became a territorial magnate and married the daughter of the Emperor Sahla Dengel (David). His power and fame were greatly increased by a defeat he inflicted on an attempted Egyptian invasion. But increasing success made Kassa overbearing and caused disputes with his father-in-law which led to his seizing Gondar, the capital city, and reducing to subjection all the constituent kingdoms of Ethiopia except Shoa. Then in 1855 he had himself solemnly crowned in the holy city of Axum and assumed the name of Theodore, by which he is generally known. A fortunate turn of events enabled him shortly afterwards to add the kingdom of Shoa to his dominions: at the death of its king, Haile Melikot, the young heir, Shehala Maryam, was made a prisoner and kept in honorable but close captivity whilst the kingdom was absorbed in Theodore's dominions. But success produced a marked deterioration in Theodore's character; he became self-indulgent, intemperate, incontinent, and devoid of self-control, so that many of the chieftains were irritated at his conduct towards them and broke out in revolt. At this juncture Shehala Maryam escaped from captivity, placed himself at the head of the malcontents, and took possession of Shoa, where his father had been king. It was soon after this that Theodore, in resentment at a fancied slight from the British authorities, cast into prison some British officials and missionaries. The result of this imprudence was a British expedition under Lord Napier in 1867-8 in which the great natural stronghold of Magdala was captured and the Ethiopians defeated. After this disaster the Emperor Theodore committed suicide, and the British placed on the throne the Tigré chieftain Ras Kassa who had been their ally during the expedition, and in January, 1872, he was crowned Emperor as Johannes.

During Theodore’s reign the Patriarch Cyril IV of Alexandria visited Ethiopia and stayed there two years. The Emperor was an ardent supporter of the Ethiopian Church, and those who accepted the Roman jurisdiction had to suffer a good deal of persecution. He was even more hostile to the Muslims. Johannes followed in his footsteps.

But Johannes had a very difficult task, not only in reducing the local princes, but also in driving off the Darwishes and the Egyptians, both of whom tried to invade the country. But he was successful in resisting them, and in 1875 captured the important city of Harar, the chief stronghold of the Muslims. He never succeeded in reducing either Shoa or Godjam, and before long Shehala Maryam of Shoa laid claim to the throne and so once more the country was plunged in civil war. At the last moment, however, when the two armies were facing one another, terms were arranged: Shehala was secured in possession of the kingdom of Shoa, but Johannes was to be recognized as suzerain (March, 1878). This treaty was sealed by a marriage between Johannes' son and Shehala's daughter.

In 1880 the Emperor issued an edict against Islam ordering all Muslims to accept Christianity or to migrate from Ethiopia, but three years later a new decree was issued granting toleration to the Muslims of Serae, Hamasen, and certain other districts, on condition that they lived in segregation and had no intercourse with the Christian community.

In 1889 Johannes was killed in war with the Darwishes and Sehala claimed the throne and was crowned at Entato, which had been made capital in place of Gondar, and assumed the name of Menelik II. The new sovereign imposed his authority on the local princes, enlarged the territory under his rule, and showed himself favorably disposed towards the introduction of European inventions. His fame in Ethiopia and his rather exaggerated esteem abroad rested mainly upon his defeat of the Italians in 1896, a defeat largely due to the leadership on the part of the Italians, who entirely underestimated their opponents. Menelik's greatness was made complete in 1901, when he was able to assume control of the kingdom of Godjam at king Takla Haymanot's death.

At Menelik's death in 1913 he left only two daughters, Shoaraga and Zauditu, the former of whom was married to a prince named Ras Mikhael and had a son Lej Yasu. It was decided that this son was to be heir to the throne subject to a council of regency during his minority. But Lej Yasu turned out ill: he found his friends and companions amongst Muslims, the hereditary enemies of Ethiopia, and was so far attracted by them as to adopt the wearing of Arab clothes in his private life. Then in the course of the Great War he chose to carry on secret intrigues with the Turks and Germans. But they were not secret enough. The British Intelligence was aware of his doings and sent Colonel Lawrence on a visit to Ethiopia. Lawrence managed to secure photographs of Lej Yasu in Arab costume and surrounded by obviously Muslim intimates, and had these photographs broadcast over the country. This inflamed the suspicion with which he was already regarded, a rising against him took place, and on September 27, 1916, he was formally deposed.

At the deposition of Lej Yasu, Menelik's daughter Zauditu was declared Empress and Menelik's grand-nephew Tafari Makonnen was appointed regent. Zauditu was formally crowned on February 11, 1917. She soon showed herself a strong reactionary and intensely hostile to the introduction of anything European or to intercourse with foreigners, whilst the regent Tafari was of progressive tendencies and anxious to secure for Ethiopia recognition in the comity of nations. The deposed Lej Yasu was taken prisoner in Tigré in 1921 and still remains a captive. In 1932 Hailu, the king of Godjam, revolted and tried to restore Lej Yasu, who was his son-in-law, but this revolt was put down and Hailu was made a prisoner and so remained. Tafari had now greatly strengthened his own position, and on November 7, 1928, was crowned with great ceremonial, Zauditu being left the rank and title of Empress but deprived of any political power. In April, 1930, she died, and in the following November Tafari, or Haile Selassie as he is now known, was crowned "King of Kings" at Addis Ababa, a residence of the late Empress which had recently been raised to the dignity of capital. He has since done much to help Ethiopia to take her place amongst modern powers: she had already secured a seat on the League of Nations in September, 1923. We may regret the disappearance of the Ethiopian Empire, the sole surviving independent state of native Africa, but it seems the inevitable fate of a backward community in face of the relentless pressure of economic and social conditions which are forcing the western nations to expand. Nor need it be an unmixed disaster for the Ethiopian people, least of all for their ancient and venerable Church.