Page:Early Christianity in Arabia.djvu/138

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EARLY CHRISTIANITY

Arabs, and his son after him, ardently supported their cause amongst the tribes of Ghassan, and received under his protection Paul the patriarch of Antioch, and other bishops who fled from the persecution of Justinian;[1] a Christian king of Hirah resolutely withstood the pressing importunities of the Chalcedonian bishops;[2] and the Jacobite faith was established at the two widely separated towns of Nadjran and Hormus, and amongst all the Scenite tribes.[3] The designs of Baradæus were seconded by the chiefs of the desert, and he was carried from place to place on the swiftest dromedaries of an Arab king.[4] By his zeal the anti-Chalcedonian doctrines were supported also in the southern peninsula, and amongst the distant Christians of Ethiopia.

The Abyssinian Christians have always acknowledged as their head the primate of Alexandria.[5] They seem to have received at an early period the

  1. Asseman. tom. ii. p. 326, 331. tom. iii. p. dcvi. Paul was made patriarch of Antioch by Baradæus. Tom. ii. p. 63.
  2. Theodoras Lector, Excerpt. p. 564.
  3. Asseman. tom. ii. p. dcv.
  4. It was الملك الحرث البدوي‎ king Hareth the Beduite, according to Amrus, ap. Assem. tom. ii. p. 63.
  5. Abudacnus, Hist. Copt. c. 2. p. 3. The Abyssinians were under the same rule and discipline as the Copts. Rogatus Tecla Maria, Abyssinus presbyter, an a Coptis Abyssini discreparent, respondet, nullam esse differentiam inter eos et in omnibus rebus concordare. Esse etiam sub ejusdem patriarchæ imperio. Hottinger, Hist. Eccl. Sec. 16. part i. p. 44.