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and pass on till we reach a point where indisputable history begins. In the present case it may be doubtful whether, in treating of the religion of the country, we should begin with the Queen of Sheba, nearly three thousand years ago, or with Frumentius, little more than fifteen hundred after much consideration, we venture to brave the smiles of the incredulous, and commence with the former.

The narrative of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon is certainly authentic history. (1 Kings x.; 2 Chron. ix.) The only thing to be ascertained is whether she came from Arabia or from Africa; but this question after all does not suggest any insuperable difficulty. The Himyarite Arabs were on one side of Bab-el-mandeb, at the southern entrance of the Red Sea, and their neighbours, the Ethiopians of Africa, on the other: either party might at some time occupy both. It has been supposed, if not proved, that they were one people, and there have been times when both were under the same sovereign. They were in close communication, either for pacific intercourse, or for war, and some of their wars are on authentic record. It cannot be doubted that Abyssinia owes its distinctive population to Asia, not to Africa, whence could not have been derived the physiognomy they bear, nor the language they speak. Our Lord, making allusion to the event, says that *the Queen of the South...came from the uttermost parts of the earth' which, by one speaking in Palestine, may more properly be said of African Ethiopia than of Arabia-" to hear the wisdom of Solomon." Ludolph gives a summary of the Ethiopic history, or tradition, to the following effect;-" Maqueda, Queen of Ethiopia, when she had heard from her merchant, Tamerin, of the power and wisdom of Solomon, went to visit him with her princes, and with rich presents, and to learn of him the true worship of God. After some time had elapsed, she returned home, and gave birth to a son, whom she had by Solomon, and named him David. In due time she sent him to his father at Jerusalem, by whose command he was well instructed in the law of God; and being then anointed King of Ethiopia, he was sent back again, attended by some noble Israelites, to be his friends and servants in the new kingdom, ministers at court, and teachers of the law, with Azariah himself, son of Sadoc the High Priest, to be chief in matters religion; and to this event the kings of Abyssinia, and chief men of the nation, at this day trace up their origin."

However apocryphal the statement may sound, it is in no way inconsistent with later history, and it entirely agrees with some passages of Holy Scripture. "In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the King of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it......the Lord said, Like as My servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia," &c. (Isai. xx. 1-3.) Now unless there had been an established communication between Palestine, Egypt, and Ethiopia, the conduct and ministration of the prophet Isaiah could not have been a sign to the Ethiopians during the period specified, B.C. 713-710. So in a subsequent passage of the same book, (Isai. xlv. 14,) which we have above quoted, (p. 139,) the same relation is yet more clearly indicated

A later prophecy fully justifies the belief of the Abyssinians that Israelites went into their country, and that their ancestors had intimate relations with Jerusalem and the Holy Land: "From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia"-a land eminently remarkable for its rivers— "My suppliants, even the daughter of My dispersed, shall bring Mine offering." (Zeph. iii. 10; B.C. 630.)

If the Queen of Sheba and her people came over from Arabia to Abyssinia, for Sheba is said to have been in Arabia,-and if also Hebrews, either as messengers from Solomon, or as voluntary settlers, established themselves in the latter country, the superiority of the united race, and its distinctness, formerly as now, can be easily accounted for, and is in striking agreement with the report which Herodotus heard of them when in Egypt. Relating the account given him by the Egyptians of the attempt of Cambyses (B.c. 525) to open correspondence with the King, he writes: "In their customs they differ greatly from the rest of mankind, and particularly in the way they choose their kings; for they find out the man who is the tallest of all the citizens, and of strength equal to his height, and appoint him to rule over them." This report, indeed, differs from what is said of an hereditary monarchy in line of descent from Solomon; but it is quite conceivable that such was a popular report of them in Egypt; and the alleged message of their king to Cambyses is perfectly characteristic of the people as we know them now. "Bear him this bow, and say, 'The King of the Ethiops thus advises the King of the Persians: when the Persians can pull a bow of this strength thus easily, then let him come with an army of superior strength against the long-lived Ethiopians.'"*

As time advances, the evidence of a Hebrew element in the population grows more and more distinct, and a great increase of such a population was what might even be expected from the large deportations of Jews from Judæa into Egypt which took place in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. It is quite probable that in troublous times many of them would make their way up the valley of the Nile into the island of Meroë, or Sabea, as it was called, nearly answering to the present provinces of Dembea and Gojam. The Ethiopian eunuch, treasurer of Queen Candace, of whose conversion to Christianity we read in the Acts of the Apostles, (viii.,) was a Jew who came to worship at Jerusalem, and who as he journeyed read from a roll of the Scriptures a prophecy of Isaiah. Whence he came is placed beyond doubt, not only by the road he took in returning home, by way of Gaza, but by the very name of his queen, Candace. A passage of Pliny corroborates this. After describing the town of Meroë, this historian adds :— "They say that a woman named Candace reigns there, that being the name borne by the queens of this country for many years past." Strabo, about half a century earlier, had borne the same testimony; and if it be true that the name Candace has not yet been found in the lists of Ethiopian sovereigns, the silence of native witnesses cannot

* Rawlinson's Herodotus, book iii., chaps. 20, 21.

. Hist. Nat., vi., 35.

outweigh the concurrent evidence of independent and almost contemporaneous authorities. They do not appear to have preserved the names of any queens.

Our present purpose is to trace the continuity of Jewish influence, confining our attention to this feature of Abyssinian history, as essential to a clear apprehension of the religion of the people. We refrain therefore from touching on matters of general import, which have been discussed by writers of great eminence, most of them embarrassed, however, by the scantiness of authentic information, and whose labours may soon be superseded by discoveries of the learned men attached to the present military expedition. Keeping, accordingly, to this line of observation, we proceed to speak of the conversion of Abyssinia.

Early in the fourth century (about the year 326) two Roman boys, Frumentius and his younger brother Edesius, were landed on the shore of the Red Sea, made prisoners, taken to the King at Axum, employed in his household, and soon promoted to places of trust. Frumentius, it is related, used to inquire after Christians in the crews of vessels that put into port, and not only invited them on shore to join in Christian worship, but, when he had risen to power, built churches for Christian congregations. There is a tradition that the Ethiopians already believed in Christ, worshipped the Trinity, and wore crosses; but the last particular is quite inconsistent with the practice of Christians before Constantine, and the whole statement is more than doubtful. It is remarkable that the Gospel was received so readily. No hostile priesthood, nor any idolatrous superstition, appears to have hindered the progress of the truth, although the Arabs were altogether given to idolatry, and the old Ethiopians, like their African successors, were devoted to serpent-worship, and sunk in brutal superstitions. It is evident, indeed, from all that we can gather from Ruffinus, Athanasius, and Theodoret, that no obstruction was thrown in the way of the evangelists, but rather the contrary; and as there was no trace of worship offered to false gods, it remains undoubted that the worship of the true God must in their time have already become prevalent. The tradition in Abyssinia is that the Queen of Sheba learned that worship in Jerusalem. The statement of the sacred historians is, that, having "heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions;" that "Solomon told her all her questions ;" and that, full of admiration of his wisdom and prosperity, and having seen, amidst his royal state, "his ascent by which he went up," or, as the Vulgate renders, "his holocausts which he offered up, in the house of the Lord," she said, "Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel: because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made He thee king, to do judgment and justice." The Caughter of Pharaoh, Solomon's principal wife, is not known to have made any such profession of reverence to his God; and as for his other heathen wives, they eventually turned away his heart from Him; but it should not be overlooked that this "Queen of the South, who came from the uttermost parts of the carth to hear " the King's wisdom, and who on that account "shall rise up in the judgment" against many

unbelievers-that this woman was honourably distinguished from them all. It is no matter of wonder, then, that a successor of hers, also a queen, should have sent her treasurer to worship at Jerusalem; nor that, on his returning to her court a Christian, even if Christianity was not then accepted by a second person, which is unlikely, the establishment of the worship of the God of Israel was alone sufficient preparation for it at some future time.

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The Ethiopic Liturgy now in use contains this prayer:-" O Lord, remember the kings of Ethiopia, Abrehá, and Atzbehá." And an old Ethiopian poet has lines to the following effect :

"Peace to Abrchá and Atzbehá, who sat

In one kingdom loving one another.

Peace to those ancient men who walked in the statutes of the law (of Moses),
By whose mouth was preached the word of the Gospel of Christ,

And by whose hands, also, his habitation was built.”*

The fact that the government was shared by two or more princes at this time is confirmed by a letter of the Arian Emperor, Constantius," against Frumentius, Bishop of Axum, written to the Tyrants of that place," and preserved by Athanasius. For anything that we can yet find to the contrary, these princes might have been Judaizing Christians, at the same time observing the law of Moses, and "preaching," in their way, the Gospel of Christ; and, if it were so, we have at once a key to explain the peculiarity of Abyssinian Christianity, wherein it differs from all Christendom beside. Until the contrary be proved, it may be assumed that after the baptism of the queen's treasurer, on the way towards Gaza, there was a mingling of Christian doctrine, and even of Christian worship, with the Judaism previously existing; but that the rudiments of both were crudely mingled, and that the followers of an imperfectly developed Christianity were not gathered together under the care of pastors, and so formed into a church. Frumentius, acting under the sanction of the princes, who at the same time obeyed the Law [of Moses] and "preached" the Gospel of Christ, had not the New Testament in the language of the country, out of which he could teach the converts; nor does it appear that the Ethiopic version was made until some time after the Council of Chalcedon, probably in the sixth century; and even then its introduction into the churches must have been gradual, and perhaps very partial: so that the exhortations of St. Paul against Judaizing came too late to eradicate the evil which had grown up with the Ethiopian synagogue-church, during a period of at least five hundred years.

We have now just room enough to note some vestiges of Judaism even yet remaining in Abyssinia, as if to show what must have been the character of that community during the thousand years of its almost utter isolation from the world of Christendom.

Kings must have been, to some extent, its nursing fathers. We read in hymns yet extant of CALEB, who sent his crown to Jerusalem, there

* Ludolfi Hist. Ethiop., lib. ii., cap. iv.

Athanasii ad Imperat. Constant. Apologia.

to be suspended as a votive gift, perhaps in the splendid church which Justinian had just built in honour of the Virgin. We read of GABRA MASKAL, "servant-of-the-Cross," in whose reign the congregation recited the angelic hymn, as we sing the Te Deum, after his victory over his enemies. We read of NAWAYA CHRESTOS, "wealth-of-Christ," who excavated a church from the live rock, and exhausted all the royal treasury in adorning it; and of LALIBALA, who distinguished himself, during a reign of forty years, hewing out several structures of the same kind, and emulating the sepulchral magnificence of Egypt. Such churches are probably still to be found in the mountains.

*

But most to our present purpose are those marks of Judaism, which nothing has yet removed from the religion of Abyssinia. Circumcision, and the distinction of meats, are not indeed peculiar to that country, but common in the East; yet that Christianity should not have caused circumcision to be discontinued, is very remarkable indeed. Strangely holding by two incompatible dispensations, they observe two Sabbaths every week,-the Shanbat Kadameeth, or ancient Sabbath, and the Shanbata ehood, the Sabbath of the first day; and they quote for the latter the words of David, "This is the day the Lord hath made: we will rejoice in it and be glad." When a man's brother dies childless, their law, like that of Moses, requires him to marry the widow. (Deut. xxv. 5.) They abstain from eating the nerve which, as Jacob wrestled, shrank at the angel's touch. (Gen. xxxii. 32.) The solemn curse which their priest pronounces, bears a close literal resemblance to the Jewish Cherem, than which no anathema can be conceived more terrible. The Christian minister still bears the title of Cáhen, answering to the Cohen, or "priest," of the Old Testament; or, after the manner of the synagogue, he is designated Kasheesh, or, "elder." Retaining the style of the Hebrew Scriptures, they bave refused to say" Church," or " Basilic," after the Greeks in Egypt, and call the sacred edifice House of God, like the old "House of the Lord;" and, in close agreement with the Jews, they call the part of God's house accounted most sacred, Haikal, like the Hebrew Haichal," temple." Their Calendar abounds, beyond even that of the Copts, in Old-Testament saints; and their Bible, although interpolated, from Alexandria, with some apocryphal books, is, after the historical example of the Great Synagogue, divided into four volumes.

In Abyssinia, the Jews had all the benefits of citizenship, during ages when they were oppressed and slaughtered elsewhere. At one time they occupied, by their own right, as is said, the very heart of the country; a tract of territory comprehending Dembea, by the Lake of Tzana, with the imperial city of Gondar,-now sunk into insignificance, -and the regions of Samen and Wojjera. In later times their fortunes decayed, in common with those of the rest of the community; but they had their synagogues, and were most industrious and skilful artisans. So late as the year 1815, Mr. Pearce found four hundred of them in Gondar alone, answering to this description. It is important, moreover, to observe that the old Ethiopic language, although its gram

Ludolfi Hist. Ethiop, lib. ii., cap. iv., v.

VOL. XIV. FIFTH SERIES.

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