The Abyssinians now became subtle casuists and disputants. Abstruse doctrines were propounded, and speculative theories largely indulged in; and the generation passed away ere the knotty points had been satisfactorily determined, how long Adam remained in Paradise before his fall? and whether in his present state he held dominion over the angels?
In the year 481, the celebrated council of Chalcedon lighted up the torch of misunderstanding regarding the two natures of Christ. The Eastern church split and separated in mortal feud, and the Saracen pounced upon Egypt, rent and wasted by discord and distraction. The Abyssinians, denouncing the council a meeting of fools, concurred in the opinion of the Alexandrian patriarch. The faith of the Monophysite was declared to be the one only true and orthodox, and the banished Dioscorus received all the honours of a martyr.
“The kings of the earth divided the unity of God and man,
Sing praises to the martyr who laughed their religion to scorn.
He was treated with indignity, they plucked out his flowing beard,
Yea, and tore the teeth from his venerable face;
But in heaven a halo of honour shall encircle Dioscorus.”
But during the ensuing oppressions and exactions of the Moslem, the successor of Saint Mark could barely retain his own existence in Egypt; and Ethiopia, his remote charge, now nearly isolated from the remainder of the world, rested for the next ten centuries a sealed book to European history, preserving her independence from all foreign yoke, and guarding in safety the flame of that faith which she had inherited from her fathers.
The reign of the ascetics succeeded to that of disputation, and men lacerated their bodies, and lived in holes and caves of the earth like wild beasts. Tekla Haïmanót and Eustathius were the great founders of monkery in the land. An angel announced the birth of one, and the other floated over the sea, borne in safety amidst the folds of his leathern garment. Miracles still continued to be occasionally performed. Sanctity was further enhanced by mortification of the flesh, and austerity of life was highly praised and followed by the admiring mob. The original discipline of the anchorite was severe in the extreme. He was to be continually girt around the loins with heavy chains, or to remain for days immersed in the cold mountain stream—to recline upon the bare earth, and to subsist upon a scanty vegetable diet.
Monasteries were at length founded, and fields and revenues set apart for the convenience of their inmates; and although a visiting superior was appointed to check corruption and punish innovation or transgression, the asperities of the monastic life gradually softened down. The Etchéguê, or grand prior of the monasteries, preferred the comforts of a settled abode to wearisome tours and visitations. Further immunities were granted to all loving a life of ease and spiritual licence; and the commonwealth had to deplore the loss of a large portion of her subjects, who neither contributed tax, nor assisted in military service.
Thus converted at an early period of the Christian age, Ethiopia spread her new religion deep into the recesses of heathen Africa. Extending her wide empire on every side, the praise of the Redeemer soon arose from the wildest valleys and the most secluded mountains. From the great river Gochob to the frontiers of Nubia, the crutch and the cowl pervaded the land. Churches were erected in every convenient spot; and the blue badge of nominal Christianity encircled the necks of an ignorant multitude. The usual wars and rebellions arose, and schisms and sects fill up the archives of ten centuries with all the uninteresting precision of more civilised countries. But still the church flourished; the patriarch was regularly received from Alexandria, and a long list of ninety-five Abunas flows quietly through the dull pages of Abyssinian record, from the time of Frumentius the First, until the days of the venerable Simeon, who, whilst gallantly defending the faith of his fathers, was barbarously murdered by the European partisans of the Italian Jesuit.
The rise of the Mohammadan power in Arabia, and the rapid spread of Islamism, first circumscribed the limits of the empire, and begirt it round with foes. But although the nation was now called upon to repel the fierce assaults both of the heathen and of the fanatic followers of the false prophet, the measure of her oppression was not filled until the cup had been deeply drained of the converting zeal of European priesthood. The usual horrors attendant upon religious war were then painfully undergone, and the blood of her children was unsparingly poured out. Nearest and dearest relatives rallied under opposite standards; and the same cry of destruction rang from either host, “The glory of the true faith.”
The zeal of the Jesuit has seldom been displayed in more glowing colours, or in more decided defeat, than in the attempts so perseveringly made to draw within the meshes of his net the remote church of Ethiopia. And although the means employed are to be justly condemned, still that ardour must be the theme of the high praise of all, which impelled old men and young to dare the difficulties and the dangers of a rude uncivilised land, with exposure to the prejudices of a people as bigoted as themselves in the cause of their religion.
But the wily system of establishing rival orders and monasteries of mortification—of snapping asunder domestic ties, and of collecting together bands of discontented enthusiasts—well served the interests of the Catholic faith; and there were always to be found obedient servants to bear instructions to the farthest corners of the earth;—men who relinquished few comforts or enjoyments on quitting their austere cells, who were prepared at all hazards, and in all manners, to carry into execution the will of their superiors, and who gloried in the alternative of erecting an eternal fabric in honour of their order, or of obtaining the crown of martyrdom.