In the year 330 after the birth of our Saviour, Meropius, a merchant of
Tyre, having undertaken a commercial voyage to India, landed on the
coast of Ethiopia, where he was murdered by the barbarians, and his two
sons, Frumentius and Edesius, both devout men, being made prisoners,
were carried as slaves before the Emperor. The abilities, the
information, and the peaceable demeanour of the brothers, soon gained
not only their release, but high office in the court; and living in the
full confidence of the monarch until his decease, and subsequently under
the protection of the queen-mother, they soon secured the good-will of
the entire nation. The work of conversion was commenced, and having
proceeded with wonderful rapidity and success, a thriving branch was
shortly added to the great Eastern church.
Bearing the happy tidings, Frumentius appeared in Alexandria, where he
was received with open arms by the patriarch Athanasius. Loaded with
honours, and consecrated the first bishop of Ethiopia, a relation was
thus happily commenced with Egypt, which has remained firm and friendly
to the present day, and throughout fifteen centuries has bestowed upon a
Coptish priest the high office of Patriarch Abuna of the Ethiopic
church.
On his return to the country of his hopes, Frumentius found that the
spark of life had spread rapidly throughout the gloomy darkness of the
land. Baptism was instituted, deacons and presbyters appointed,
churches erected, and a firm foundation laid whereon to establish the
Christian religion in Abyssinia. Frumentius was deservedly honoured
with a favoured niche in the annals of her church history, and, under
the title of "Salama," formed the subject of high praise to all the
sacred poets of Ethiopia.
"Hail him with the voice of joy, sing praises to Salama,
The door of pity and of mercy and of pleasant grace;
Salute those blessed hands bearing the pure torch of the Gospel,
For the splendour of Christ's church has enlightened our darkness."
During the succeeding century, priests and apostles, men of wonderful
sanctity, flocked into the empire from all parts of the East, and
miracles the most stupendous are related in the legends of those days.
Mountains were removed, and the storms of the angry ocean stilled by the
mere application of the staff. The adder and the basilisk glided
harmless under foot, and rivers stayed their roaring torrent, that the
sandal of the holy man should remain unstained by the flood. Aragawi
raised the dead--the fingers of Likanos flamed like tapers of fire--
Samuel rode upon his lion; and thus the kingdom of Arwe, the old serpent
of Ethiop, was utterly overthrown.
The Abyssinians now became subtle casuists and disputants. Abstruse
doctrines were propounded, and speculative theories largely indulged in;
and the generation passed away ere the knotty points had been
satisfactorily determined, how long Adam remained in Paradise before his
fall? and whether in his present state he held dominion over the angels?
In the year 481, the celebrated council of Chalcedon lighted up the
torch of misunderstanding regarding the two natures of Christ. The
Eastern church split and separated in mortal feud, and the Saracen
pounced upon Egypt, rent and wasted by discord and distraction. The
Abyssinians, denouncing the council a meeting of fools, concurred in the
opinion of the Alexandrian patriarch. The faith of the Monophysite was
declared to be the one only true and orthodox, and the banished
Dioscorus received all the honours of a martyr.
"The kings of the earth divided the unity of God and man,
Sing praises to the martyr who laughed their religion to scorn.
He was treated with indignity, they plucked out his flowing beard,
Yea, and tore the teeth from his venerable face;
But in heaven a halo of honour shall encircle Dioscorus."
But during the ensuing oppressions and exactions of the Moslem, the
successor of Saint Mark could barely retain his own existence in Egypt;
and Ethiopia, his remote charge, now nearly isolated from the remainder
of the world, rested for the next ten centuries a sealed book to
European history, preserving her independence from all foreign yoke, and
guarding in safety the flame of that faith which she had inherited from
her fathers.
The reign of the ascetics succeeded to that of disputation, and men
lacerated their bodies, and lived in holes and caves of the earth like
wild beasts. Tekla Haimanot and Eustathius were the great founders of
monkery in the land. An angel announced the birth of one, and the other
floated over the sea, borne in safety amidst the folds of his leathern
garment. Miracles still continued to be occasionally performed.
Sanctity was further enhanced by mortification of the flesh, and
austerity of life was highly praised and followed by the admiring mob.
The original discipline of the anchorite was severe in the extreme. He
was to be continually girt around the loins with heavy chains, or to
remain for days immersed in the cold mountain stream--to recline upon
the bare earth, and to subsist upon a scanty vegetable diet.
Monasteries were at length founded, and fields and revenues set apart
for the convenience of their inmates; and although a visiting superior
was appointed to check corruption and punish innovation or
transgression, the asperities of the monastic life gradually softened
down. The Etchegue, or grand prior of the monasteries, preferred the
comforts of a settled abode to wearisome tours and visitations. Further
immunities were granted to all loving a life of ease and spiritual
licence; and the commonwealth had to deplore the loss of a large portion
of her subjects, who neither contributed tax, nor assisted in military
service.
Thus converted at an early period of the Christian age, Ethiopia spread
her new religion deep into the recesses of heathen Africa. Extending
her wide empire on every side, the praise of the Redeemer soon arose
from the wildest valleys and the most secluded mountains. From the
great river Gochob to the frontiers of Nubia, the crutch and the cowl
pervaded the land. Churches were erected in every convenient spot; and
the blue badge of nominal Christianity encircled the necks of an
ignorant multitude. The usual wars and rebellions arose, and schisms
and sects fill up the archives of ten centuries with all the
uninteresting precision of more civilised countries. But still the
church flourished; the patriarch was regularly received from Alexandria,
and a long list of ninety-five Abunas flows quietly through the dull
pages of Abyssinian record, from the time of Frumentius the First, until
the days of the venerable Simeon, who, whilst gallantly defending the
faith of his fathers, was barbarously murdered by the European partisans
of the Italian Jesuit.
The rise of the Mohammadan power in Arabia, and the rapid spread of
Islamism, first circumscribed the limits of the empire, and begirt it
round with foes. But although the nation was now called upon to repel
the fierce assaults both of the heathen and of the fanatic followers of
the false prophet, the measure of her oppression was not filled until
the cup had been deeply drained of the converting zeal of European
priesthood. The usual horrors attendant upon religious war were then
painfully undergone, and the blood of her children was unsparingly
poured out. Nearest and dearest relatives rallied under opposite
standards; and the same cry of destruction rang from either host, "The
glory of the true faith."
The zeal of the Jesuit has seldom been displayed in more glowing
colours, or in more decided defeat, than in the attempts so
perseveringly made to draw within the meshes of his net the remote
church of Ethiopia. And although the means employed are to be justly
condemned, still that ardour must be the theme of the high praise of
all, which impelled old men and young to dare the difficulties and the
dangers of a rude uncivilised land, with exposure to the prejudices of a
people as bigoted as themselves in the cause of their religion.
But the wily system of establishing rival orders and monasteries of
mortification--of snapping asunder domestic ties, and of collecting
together bands of discontented enthusiasts--well served the interests of
the Catholic faith; and there were always to be found obedient servants
to bear instructions to the farthest corners of the earth;--men who
relinquished few comforts or enjoyments on quitting their austere cells,
who were prepared at all hazards, and in all manners, to carry into
execution the will of their superiors, and who gloried in the
alternative of erecting an eternal fabric in honour of their order, or
of obtaining the crown of martyrdom.
The custom of ages had, however, struck too deeply into the heart of the
Abyssinian. The power of the officiating clergy was paramount in the
land. All the passions and the prejudices of the multitude were too
firmly enlisted in the cause of ancient belief; and degraded as was the
Christianity of the country, its forms and tenets were not more absurd,
and not less pertinaciously supported, than those Romish innovations
which were so fiercely, though so ineffectually, attempted.
The soft wily speech and the thunder of excommunication were alike
disregarded. Treachery and force were both tried and found equally
unavailing. Blood flowed for a season like water, and the sound of
wailing was heard from the palace to the peasant's hut; but the storm
expended itself, and finally passed away; and after the struggle of a
century, the discomfited monks relinquished their attempts upon the
church of the Monophysite, without leaving behind one solitary convert
to their faith, and bearing along with them the loud maledictions of an
exasperated nation.
Volume 3, Chapter XII.