Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/642

 ETHIOPIA

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ETHIOPIA

Father by adoption, or by His elevation to the Divine dignity — the work of the Father anointing His Son with the Holy Spirit, whence the name Sons of Grace. However, while rejecting absorption, this latter school refuses to admit the distinction of the two natures. Both schools, moreover, assert that the unification takes place without any blending, without change, without confusion. It is contradiction itself set up as a dogma.

The difficulties following from this teaching in re- gard to the reality of Redemption, the Monophysite Church of Ethiopia calls mysteries; her theologians confess themselves unable to explain them, and simply dismiss them with the word Ba jaqadu; it is so, they say, "by the will of God". In sympathy with the Church of Constantinople, as soon as it was separated from Rome, the Ethiopian Church in course of time adopted the Byzantine teaching as to the procession of the Holy Ghost ; but this question never was as popu- lar as the mystery of the Incarnation, and in reference to it the contradictions to be found in the texts of na- tive theologians are even more nimierous than those

touching on the question of the two natures. Adrift from the Catholic Church on the dogma of the human- ity of Christ and the procession of the Holy .Spirit, the Ethiopian Church professes all the other articles of faith professed by the Roman Church. We find there the seven .sacraments, the cultus of the Blessed Virgin and of the saints; prayers for the dead are held in high honour, and fasts without number occur during the liturgical year.

The Bible, translated into Gheez, with a collection of decisions of the Councils, called the Sijnodos, make up the ground-work of all moral and tiogmatic teach- ing. The work of tran.slating the Bible began in Ethiopia about the end of the fifth centurj', according to some authorities (Guidi, G.Rossini), or, in the opinion of others (M(?chineau), in the fourth century at the very beginning of the evangelization. Notwith- standing the native claims, their Old Testament is not a translation from the Hebrew, neither is its Arabic origin any more capable of demonstration; Old and New Testaments alike are derived from the Greek. The work was done by many tran,slators, no doubt, and the unity of the version seems to have been brought about only by deliberate effort. At the time of the Solomonian restoration in the thirteenth cen- tury, the whole Bible was revised under the care of the Metropolitan Abba Salama (who is often confounded with St. Frumentius), and the text followed for the Old Testament was the Arabic of Rabbi Saadias Gaon of Fayum. There was perhaps a second revision in the seventeenth century at the time of the Portuguese missions to the country; it has ri'coiilly been noticed (Littraann, Geschiehtc der iithinpisclicn Litteratur). But, just a.s the great number of translators employed

caused the Bible text to be unequal, so also the revis- ion of it was not uniform and official, and consequently the number of variant readings became multiplied. Its canon, too, is practically unsettled and fluctuating. A host of apocryphal or falsely ascribed writings are placed on the same level as the inspired books, among the most esteemed of which we may mention the Book of Henoch, the Kujale, or Little Genesis, the Book of the Mysteries of Heaven and Earth, the Combat of Adam and Eve, the Ascension of Isaias. The " Hay- manota Abaw" (Faith of the Fathers), the "Ma§hafa Mestir" (Book of the Mystery), the "Ma?hafa ^lawi" (Book of the Compilation), "Qerlos" (Cyrillus), " Zdna haymanot " (Tradition of the Faith) are among the principal works dealing with matters moral and dogmatic. But, besides the fact that many of the quotations from the Fathers in these works have been modified, many of the canons of the "Synodos" are, to say the least, not historical.

Liturgy. — In the general effect of its liturgical rules the Ethiopian Church is allied to the Coptic Rite. Numerous modifications, and especially additions, have, in the course of time, been introduced into its ritual; but the basic text remains that of Egj'pt, from which, in many places, it differs only in the language. Its calendar and the distribution of festivals are regu- lated as in the Coptic Church, though the Ethiopians do not follow the era of the martyrs. The year has 365 days, with a leap year every four years, as in the Julian calendar. Its ordinary year begins on 29 .\ugust of the Julian calendar, which corresponds to 11 September of the Gregorian calendar. After a leap year the new year begins on the 30th of August (our 12 September). The year has twelve months of 30 days each, and an added thirteenth month of six days or of five days — according as the year is a leap year or not. The era followed is seven years behind ours during the last four months of our year, and eight years during the remaining months. The calendar for each year is arranged in an ecclesiastical synod held in the springtime. It is at this gathering that the dates of the principal movable feasts are settled, as well as the periods for the fasts to be observed dur- ing the course of the year. The greater feasts of the Ethiopian Church are Christmas, the Baptism of Christ, Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Ascension Day, Pentecost, the Transfiguration. A great number of feasts are scattered throughout the year, either on fixed or movable dates, and their number, together with the two days every week (Saturday and Sunday) on which work is forbidden, reduces by almost one- third the working-days of the year. Fasts are ob- seri'ed every Wednesday and Friday, and five times annually during certain periods preceding the great festivals: the fast of Advent, is kept during forty days; of Niniveh, three days; of Lent, fifty-five days; of the Apostles, fifteen days; the fast of the Assumption, fifteen days. Most of the saints hon- oured in Ethiopia are to be found in the Roman Mar- tyrology. Among the native saints (about forty in all), only a few are recognized by the Catholic Church — St. Frumentius, St. Elesban, the Nine Saints, and St. Taklu Haymanot. But, deprived of religious in- struction, the Ethiopian people mingle with their Christianity many practices which are often opposed to the teaching of the Gospel ; some of these seem to have a Jewish origin, such, for instance, as the keeping of the Sabbath, the distinction of animals as clean and unclean, circumcision, and the custom of marrying a widow to the nearest relative of her deceased husband. Eccle.iiiislical Hierarchy. — The Ethiopian hierarchy is subject to the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria. This dependence on the Coptic Church is regulated by one of the .\rabic canons found in the Coptic edition of the Council of Nicaea. A delegate from this patriarch, chosen from among the Egyptian bi.shops, and called the Abouna, governs the Church. All-powerful in