THE ETHIOPIANS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 243, 11 September 1935, Page 5

THE ETHIOPIANS

LINK WITH KING SOLOMON

THE ARK OF THE COVENANT

Lieut.-Colonel C. P. Hawkes writes in the London Times: —The ItaloAbyssinian crisis exhibits the curious anomaly of the threat of war between two Christian States both bound by tlie solemn obligations of the League Covenant, the one a first-class modern European Power within the area of whose territory resides the traditional representative of St. Peter, the other an African people of immemorial antiquity, hunters, herdsmen, and slave-holders, professing a Christianity essentially the same today as it was in the earliest beginnings of their common Faith and presenting, moreover, many features that link it with primitive Judaism. The language of tiro Tigre highlanders who inhabit the northern and more mountainous province . of tlie Ethiopian Empire is a dialect of the old Ghis language mixed with Hebrew and Arabic words, while that of the people of the southern Amharii province contains a large proportion of similar words. Both sections of the population belong to a branch of the ancient Coptic Church, but the Tigre preserve with pride a multitude of Jewish notions and ceremonies. The most probable historical explanation of these is that they are the legacy of a settlement of exiled Jews, expelled from Arabia some time before the Mohammedan conquest of Western Asia.

AB YSSINIA N TRADITION. This derivation, however, does not satisfy the Ethiopians ‘themselves. Throughout the Empire they believe that their best blood and oldest traditions have no meaner source than King Solomon himself, the templebuilder of Jerusalem. They assert that the Queen of Sheba —then their sovereign and for whom their name is “Azeb” or “Maqueda,” but whom the Koran calls “Balkis” —had by him a son Menelek. horn after her visit to Solomon’s capital. Menelek, they say, succeeded her at the age of '25 and was crowned King of Ethiopia in Solomon’s temple. He then returned to his own country with a numerous retinue of the firstborn of Israel and Judah, who brought with them a share of the Divine blessing vouchsafed to the Jews. It is therefore held by the Abyssinians that tlreir Christianity, first imparted to them by the Apostle Philip through the famous eunuch who was treasurer to their Queen Candace, was grafted on to a pre-existent Judaism. To this day the Ethiopian Christians bake their bread in thin round cakes similar to the Jewish Passover bread, and their creed. though mainly a modification of that professed by the Coptic and Orthodox Churches, involves a considerable admixture of Hebrew ritual and belief. The adoration of The Host, for instance, is accompanied by that of the Ark of the Covenant.

Apart from the legend of Queen Candace’s eunuch, more solid historical ground exists for believing that Christianity was introduceu _ into Ethiopia bv Frumentius, a Tyrian merchant who was ordained A.l). 3m by the Patriarch Athanasius of Alexandria and who became the first Bishop of Axum, the old Ethiopian metropolis whose ruins are near Adowa. Invested l>v him and his successors with ecclesiastical as well as temporal 1 unctions in virtue of their descent from Solomon, the rulers of Abyssinia became in medieval tunes the' subject of fabulous rumours surrounding the name and identity of Prester John. Neither the Portuguese military adventurers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries nor the later Jesuit missionaries ever succeeded in induc-

ing the Abyssinians to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy of the Pope. They recognised then, as now, only the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria, from whom the Abuna, or Abyssinian Archbishop, must receive his official consecration.

CIRCULAR CHURCHES

The Abyssinian Christians observe the Jewish Sabbath as well as Sunday, fast every Wednesday and I riday and during several Lents, and keep most of the festivals and penitential periods of both the Greek and Roman Churches. They abstain from pork and other “unclean” food, and adore ikons of the Blessed Virgin anil the Saints. Every one must wear a blue thread round his or her neck as a badge of Christianity. Vet all boast, a descent from the holy seed oi Israel and obey many, prescriptions from Deuteronomy and Leviticus. In the north the churches are built square, but in the south they are circular, like those of the Templars. In Abyssinia ordinary marriage is a civil contract dissoluble at will by' either party, a matter merely of public presentation and acceptance and involving wide polygamy. But there is also a special marriage with ecclesiastical sanction and restricted to a single wife, whose children take precedence in the family and who becomes, legally and socially, her husband’s absolute equal. The laity are not allowed to read the Gospels or writings of the Apostles, but only David’s Psalter. This, though over 90 per cent, of them are illiterate, they know by heart and sing on every possible ceremonial occasion.