Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/628

504 they espouse is truth, would persuade us, that the conversion of Abyssinia to Christianity happened at the beginning of this period, that is, soon after the reign of Bazen; others, that Saint Matthias, or Saint Bartholomew, or some others of the Apostles, after their mission to teach the nations, first preached here the faith of Christ, and converted this people to it. It is also said, that the eunuch baptized by Philip, upon his return to Candace, became the Apostle of that nation, which, from his preaching, believed in Christ and his gospel. All these might pass for dreams not worthy of examination, if they were not invented for particular purposes.

the death of Christ, who lived several years after Bazen, very few Jews had been converted even in Judea. We have no account in scripture that induces us to believe, that the Apostles went to any great distance from each other immediately after the crucifixion. Nay, we know positively, they did not, but lived in community together for a considerable time. Besides, it is not probable, if the Abyssinians were converted by any of the Apostles, that, for the space of 300 years, they should remain without bishops, and without church-government, in the neighbourhood of many states, where churches were already formed, without calling to their assistance some members of these churches, who might, at least, inform them of the purport of the councils held, and canons made by them, during that space of 300 years; for this was absolutely necessary to preserve orthodoxy, and the communion between this, and the churches of that time. And it should be observed, that if, in Philip's time, the Christian religion had not penetrated (as we see in effect it had not) into the court of Candace, so much nearer Egypt, it did not surely reach so early into the

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