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CHAPTER V

ABYSSINIAN CHRISTIANITY

 

(a) Rufinus; Socrates; Sozomen; Theodoret; Nicephorus; Zonaras; Cedrenus; John of Ephesus; Arabian authorities; Alvarez (trans. by Lord Stanley of Alderley); Tellez, Historia de Ethiopia, 1660; Ludolphus, History of Ethiopia, 1684; Geddes, Church History of Ethiopia, 1696; Le Quien, Oriens. Christ. ii., 1741; Bruce, Travels, 1768–73.

(b) Reynolds in Smith's Dict. of Christian Biography, art. "Ethiopian Church"; Wright, Christianity in Arabia, 1855; Hotten, Abyssinia Described, 1868; Portal, My Mission to Abyssinia, 1892; Duchesne, Les Missions Chrétiens au sud de l'empire Romain, 1896; Lauribar, Douze ans en Abysinnie, 1898.

 

Abyssinian Christianity is a Judaistic, Monophysite form of religion which has been corrupted in the course of ages during its long severance from the influences of the rest of Christendom. It is naturally most nearly associated with the Coptic Church, because it derived its origin from Egypt, agreed with the Copts in following Dioscurus in his opposition to the decrees of Chalcedon, formerly owned allegiance to the patriarch of Alexandria, and for a long while kept in touch with the Christians of Egypt. Between Abyssinia, known as Ethiopia in early times, and Egypt was Nubia, for long an independent Christian nation. When that country was conquered by the Arabs and its Christianity simply wiped out, Abyssinia was cut off from all direct relations with Egypt. There was still the Red Sea route, the route by which the gospel reached Abyssinia in the first instance. But when Egypt was subject to the Mussulman rule the Copts had neither the heart nor the power to use it in order to keep in touch with a remote

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