By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-
The Coming of Christianity
Ethiopia was one of the first countries in the world to adopt the
Christian faith. Local tradition holds that this conversion occurred as
early as at the time of the Apostles. Be that as it may, we know that
King Ezana of the Aksumite kingdom, in what is now the northern
highlands of Ethiopia, issued coins bearing the Cross of Christ already
around 330AD. The Aksum realm was indeed the first in the world to
strike money with this device. Ezana also erected several inscriptions,
which seem to confirm that the conversion to Christianity took place
during or around to the time of his reign.
Ethiopia’s conversion, according to Byzantine author Rufinus, whose
account is near contemporary, and apparently worthy of credence, was
carried out by
Frumentius, a Greek-speaking youth from Syria.
Shipwrecked off the Red Sea coast of Africa, he was taken to Aksum, the
capital of the Aksumite realm. There he entered the service of the
ruling monarch, perhaps Ezana’s father, and seems to have converted
either the latter or Ezana himself. Frumentius, at around this time, or a
little later, established the first “conventicles”, in Aksum, where
early Christians “might resort in prayer”. He later travelled to
Alexandria, then a great centre of Christianity, where the famous
Patriarch Athanasius duly consecrated him as Ethiopia’s first Bishop,
after which he adopted the name Abba Salama, or Father of Peace.
The Nine Saints
This conversion, an important turning-point in Ethiopian history, was
followed by the coming to the country of a stream of Christians from
other lands. Most notable among them were the so-called Nine Saints:
Abba Alf, Abba Sehma, Abba Aragawi, Abba Afse, Abba Garima, Abba
Pantalewon, Abba Likanos, Abba Guba, and Abba Yem’ata. They were
Christian missionaries from Syria, or “Rom”, i.e. the Eastern Roman
Empire, as Ethiopian historical texts term it. These visitors from the
far-off Christian world established monasteries in the northern
Ethiopian highlands, often on virtually inaccessible mountains.
The advent of these foreign missionaries, and the monasteries they
founded, placed the Aksumite kingdom, and later the Ethiopian state
which developed therefrom, firmly within the orbit of Eastern
Christendom. It subsequently became customary for the Ethiopians to
obtain their chief religious dignitary, their Abun, or Metropolitan,
from Coptic Egypt. It is, however, entirely incorrect to describe
Ethiopian Christianity, as is often done, as Coptic, for there have
always been many differences, both organisational and doctrinal, between
the Ethiopian and Coptic churches.
Ethiopian Monasticism
The coming of the Nine Saints was a major religious and cultural
event, for it strengthened the country’s Christian affiliation, and led
to the introduction of the monastic system. This was accompanied by the
emergence of a religious-based system of education.
Such education was culturally important, even though it was almost
entirely restricted to boys, and limited, like that in medieval Europe,
to a small proportion of the population.
Ethiopian Church Education
Education, in Ethiopian Church schools, began with the study of
Dawit, i.e.the Psalms of David, through which the youngsters learnt the
alphabet. This introductory study was followed by a degree of
specialisation, in which students devoted themselves to such subjects as
the Bible, qen, or church poetry, zema, or church chant, and aqwaqwam,
or religious deportment.
Many children abandoned their studies scarcely literate, but others
continued to study diligently for as long as twenty or more years. Some
such scholars could recite the entire Bible from memory, as well
differing interpretations of many of its passages. Some clerics also
learnt to draw and paint, to produce parchment, to bind manuscripts,
and, as craftsmen, to make various items of church paraphernalia,
including church vestments, crosses, sistra, bells, and drums used in
religious services.
The above old-time Ethiopian system of church education was the only
kind of schooling in the country until the introduction of modern
education in the first decade of the twentieth century. Though naturally
now far less important than in the past, has indeed continued, scarcely
interrupted, up to the present time.
Patron of the Arts
The Ethiopian Church was, throughout this period, the principal, and
indeed almost sole, patron of culture and the arts. The church was to
the fore, in particular, in the fields of both painting and book
production. Ethiopian art, throughout the centuries, was indeed
essentially Christian art, and Ethiopian literature, very largely
Christian literature.
Early Ethiopian Art
Ethiopian church art, and manuscripts, many of them embodying
translations of the Bible, probably began to be produced at the time of
the country’s conversion, or at least by the time of the Nine Saints.
The earliest extant paintings and manuscripts date, however, only to
around the thirteenth century. It is presumed that works produced prior
to that time were probably destroyed in the course of the country’s
frequent wars, or by the ravages of time, and of the elements.
Icons, and Wall Paintings
Ethiopian church art, which has been described as Byzantine art in an
African setting, was devoted almost entirely to Biblical and Christian
themes. Such art manifested itself in three distinct areas: 1) icons, 2)
wall paintings, and 3) manuscript illustration – miniatures as they are
sometimes called.
Icons, which were kept in churches, and apparently sometimes also in
palaces and in the houses of the greater nobility and clergy, were
regarded with great veneration. Such works of art were painted on wood,
either as single panels, or as diptychs or triptychs.
Wall paintings, in the early stone churches, among them the famous
rock-hewn churches of Lalibala in Lasta, as well as the probably even
older ones of Tegray, were generally painted directly on the stone
itself. Later churches, those with mud walls, similar, though larger,
than those of traditional Africanstyle huts, were on the other hand for
the most part decorated with paintings on cloth, which, after their
completion, were pasted to the walls.
Paintings were seldom signed, for the artist, working, as he
believed, for the glory of God, would have regarded any such action as
both irreverent and presumptuous.
Medieval Ethiopian artists had to make their own paints, from locall
stones and plants, but some of the more fortunate, by the sixteenth
century, began to use imported materials.
Source: http://www.linkethiopia.org
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