round, with a dome. Over the door is sculptured their crowned lion. Within there is a broad passage around the central choir and sanctuary. This has a wall all round it up to the roof, and beyond, for it rises above the outer wall and becomes the drum of the dome. The central space is divided by a straight screen across it into choir and sanctuary. The arrangement of the altar, vessels, and so on, is sufficiently Coptic to justify a reference in general to that use (pp. 267-270). They have, of course, no statues, but numbers of paintings of our Lord and of saints. All the Abyssinian paintings I have seen are exceedingly rude, without artistic merit of any kind,[1] but very curious and interesting.[2]
The ark (tābōt) on every Ethiopic altar has puzzled many people.[3] The Abyssinians say that the Queen of Sheba brought the ark of the Covenant back with her to Aksum, where it is kept in the Metropolitan church.[4] Every other church has a tābōt, a copy of the one at Aksum. They pay enormous reverence to the tābōt. Their liturgy contains a special prayer for blessing it;[5] they carry it in processions, bless with it, bow down before it. What then, exactly, is this ark? It is tempting to suppose that it must be a vessel containing the Holy Eucharist, as Neale thinks.[6] It seems, however, that it is not so. The Abyssinians have, at least now, no reservation of the Holy Eucharist (cf. p. 286). The real explanation is a simple one. The tābōt is the Coptic pitote, a box, otherwise empty, in which the chalice stands
- ↑ Coptic paintings are rude too, in the sense of showing very naïve drawing and ignorance of all the usual rules; but the older ones have great artistic beauty. I do not think the most enthusiastic archæologist could find any beauty at all in Abyssinian painting, though much of their ornament form (crosses, geometric patterns, and so on) shows a sense of design and Coptic influence.
- ↑ Some curious Abyssinian paintings, ornaments and church vessels (brought back by the expedition of 1867), may be seen in the British Museum (Christian Room, wall-cases 16-18). But the guide to this room (by Mr. C. H. Read) contains many bad blunders, including the amazing statement that Ge'z is written from right to left (p. 96).
- ↑ Renaudot: Liturg. Orient. Coll. i. 498; Neale: Holy Eastern Church, Gen. Introd. i. 185-186.
- ↑ For this legend see Ludolf: Hist. Aethiop. L. ii. cap. iii. § 8. For the tābōt in other churches, ib. L. iii. c. vi. § 62. The tābōt at Aksum is magnificent, covered with gold and jewels. Abū Ṣāliḥ describes it (Churches and Monasteries, pp. 287-288).
- ↑ Renaudot: loc. cit. i. 474.
- ↑ Loc. cit. i. 186.
