Page:Lesser Eastern Churches.djvu/341

Rh perfect natures goes this is Catholic; indeed, in the idea of a later infusion of Divinity, it exceeds on the other side and takes up an idea of Nestorius (p. 70) — strange to find this among professed Monophysites. Among the logical Monophysites there are many who carry that heresy to the length of paying too great reverence to the Blessed Virgin, making her divine. This may follow from Monophysite premises. For, if our Lord had only one Divine nature, his mother would be not only mother of God, but mother of his Divinity. If she gave him a Divine nature she must have had it herself. So among Abyssinians there is a real exaggeration of honour paid to her, culminating in adoration, in the idea that she too died for our sins, is our redeemer, that all grace can only come through (or even from) her. Certainly in no part of the Christian world does devotion to our Lady reach such a point as in Abyssinia. A curious point is that, among an unlettered and ignorant people, these theological quarrels are so acute that when the last king, the usurper John, marched against Shōa, to inflame his soldiers he used as a chief argument that his enemies taught the threefold birth of Christ.

But the most conspicuous characteristic of the Abyssinian Church is its Judaism. However this may be explained, the fact is undeniable and very remarkable. It is unique in Christendom. We need not attach much weight to the practice of circumcision; this is common throughout the East. The Abyssinians probably took it from the Copts; like the Copts they see no religious idea in it (p. 279). But they keep Saturday holy, as well as Sunday. On both days equally they celebrate the Holy Eucharist and rest from work. They keep the Jewish law of food, abstain from Judaically unclean meats, eat only of that which chews the cud and divides the hoof. And there is their legend about the Ark of the Covenant at Aksum, and the enormous reverence they pay to it and to the tābōt in every church.

A common explanation of this feature is that they were originally converted Jews, and have kept much of what they then