Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/640

 ETHIOPIA

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ETHIOPIA

Institutions. — The only civilization we know of in Ethiopia is that which was borrowed from Egypt. We find no record of really native institutions on any of the monuments that have come down to us, and the earliest records extant do not take us beyond the foimding of the priestly d^•nasty of Thebes. At Xapata Amun-Ra, King of the Gods, ruled supreme with Maut and IClionsu. The temple there was built on the model of the Kamak sanctuaries; the cere- monies performed were those of the Theban cult. The priest-kings, above all, as formerly in their native land, were the heads of a purely sacerdotal polity. It was only later in historj' that the monarchy became elective in Ethiopia. The election took place at Napata, in the great temple, under the supervision of the priests of Amun-Ra, and in the presence of a num- ber of special delegates chosen by the magistrates, the literati, the soldiers, and the officers of the palace. The members of the reigning family, "the royal brethren", were brought into the sanctuary and presented one after another to the statue of the god, who indicated his choice by a signal previously agreed upon. The choice of the priests could undertake nothing without the priests' consent, and was subject to them for life. Arq-Amen seems to have broken through this tutelage and secured complete independence for the throne.

Language. — The tongues in the land of Cush were as varied as the peoples who dwelt there, but Egj^^tian is the language of the Ethiopian inscriptions. On a few monuments dating from the last epoch of Ethiopian history we find a special idiom. It is written by means of hieroglyphics, of which the alphabetical values, however, have been modified. Hitherto undecipher- able, this language has recently been held to be related to Eg\'ptian, with a large admixture of foreign (doubt- less Nubian) words. The development of the study of demotic, as well as a more intimate knowledge of the speech of later times, will, perhaps, eventually bring a fuller knowledge of this idiom.

Aby.ssixian Ethiopia. — Geography. — This region corresponds to the group of territories nowadays known as Abyssinia, extending from the Italian col- ony of Eritrea to the shores of the Great Lakes. Yet the ancient empire of this name did not by any means permanently occupy the whole of this area, the boun- daries of which rather indicate its greatest, extent at any period of its history. Among all the countries that have been known under the name of Ethiopia, this alone took the name for itself, and calls itself by that name to this day. It rejects the name Abyssinia which is constantly given it by Arab writers. Western writers have often employed both terms, Abyssinia and Ethiopia, indifferently, but in our own day a dis- tinction seems to be growing up in their use. It seems that with the name of Ethiopia we .should connect that portion of the country's history the documents of which are supplied by Gheez literature alone; with that of Abyssinia, what belongs to the modern period since the definitive appearance of Amharic among the written languages.

Ethnology. — The modern Tigre, formerly the King- dom of A.xum, would seem to have been the kernel of this State. It was founded by refugees who came to the African continent when the Arsacidic were extend- ing their sway in the Arabian peninsula, and the power of the Ptolemies was declining in Egypt. These refu- gees belonged to the .Sabean t ribes engaged in the gold and spice trade between .\rabia and the Roman Em- pire ; their dealings with civilized races had developed them, and, thanks to their more advanced stage of mental culture, Ihcy acquired a preponderating influ- ence over the people among whom they had come to dwell. Still, the descendants of these immigrants form a minority of the Ethiopian people, which is mainly composed of Cushite tribes, together with mem- bers of an aboriginal race called by the Ethiopians themselves Shangala.

History. — From native sources we know nothing accurately of the political beginnings of the State. Its annals open with the rule of monsters in that land, and for many centuries Arue, the serpent, is the only ruler mentioned. Many writers see in this but a per- sonification of idolatry or barbarism, and the explana- tion seems probable. According to certain tales writ- ten in Gheez, Ethiopia embraced the Jewish religion at the time of Solomon, and received a prince of that monarch's family to rule over it. The Queen of Saba (Sheba), spoken of in the First Book of Kings, was an Ethiopian ciueen, according to the legend of Kebra- nagasht (the glory of the kings), and it was through her that Ethiopia received this double honour. But this tradition is of comparatively recent origin, and finds no confirmation in the most ancient native docu- ments, nor in any foreign writings. History still waits for some foundation on which to base this appropri- ation of thesacred text, as well as for proofs to justify the variants with which Ethiopian chroniclers have embellished it.

^The first thing that we know with certainty as to the history of Ethiopia is its conversion to Christi- anity. This work was accomplished in the early half of the fourth century by St. Frumentius, known in that country as Abba Salama. Rufinus of Aquileia has preserved the story for us in his history. According to him, a Christian of Tyre, named Merope, had gone on a journey to India with two children, Edesius and Frumentius, his nephews. On their return journey the ship that carried them was captured by pirates off the Ethiopian coast, and every one on board was put to death except the two children. These were sent as captives to the king, and were afterwards appointed tutors to his son, whom they converted to Christianity. Later, they returned to their own country. But Frumentius had but one ambition: to be consecrated bishop by the Patriarch of Alexandria. This wish having been fulfilled, he re- turned to Axum, organized Christian worship, and, under the title of Abba Salama, became the first metro- politan of the Ethiopian Church. Missionarj' monks coming later from neighbouring covmtries (in the sixth century) completed the work of his apostolate by establishing the monastic life. National traditions speak of these missionaries as the Nine Saints; they are the abbas Ale, Shema, Aragawi, Garima, Panta- lewon, Liqanos, Afsi, Gougo, and Yemata. Hence- forth Ethiopia takes its place among the Christian States of the East. One of its kings, Caleb, contem- porary with the Nine Saints, and canonized as St. Elesban, is famous in Oriental literature for an expe- dition he led against the Jewish kingdom of Yemen. The authority of the Ethiopian kings then extended over Tigr4, Shoa, and Amhara, and the seat of govern- ment was the Kingdom of Axum.

But fromthis time forward the history of this country is envelopetl in darkness, and remains almost unknown to us until the thirteenth centurj'. We have nothing to guide us but long and, for the most part, mutually conflicting lists of kings with the indication of a dynas- tic revolution, which perhaps explains the brevity of the chronicles. Perhaps, in the midst of these trou- bles, the historical documents of preceding ages were purposely destroyed; and this seems likely since the foreign dynasty of the Zagues, which at that time usurped the throne of the pretended descendants of the son of Solomon, would feel constrained to destroy the prestige of the supplanted dvTiasty in order to es- tablish itself. According to the abridged chronicle published by Bruce, the Falashas, a tribe professing Judaism, were the cause of this insurrection; but we have no other evidence in support of this assertion. The chronicles we have are silent about the matter; they merely tell us that at the close of the thirteenth century, in the reign of Yekuno .\mlak, after a period of exile, the length of which we do not know, the Solo-