hebraic jewish elements

HEBRAIC-JEWISH ELEMENTSIN ABYSSINIAN (MONOPHYSITE)

CHRISTIANITY

By E. ULLENDORFF, St Andrews

When, after the death of the last Egyptian Abuna in 1950, theEthiopian Church attained virtually autocephalous status, theEthiopians had gained more than mere ecclesiastical indepen-dence: they finally achieved that identity of Church and nationallife which had always been there in actual fact, but which theirdependence on the See of St Mark in Egypt had tended to con-ceal. "Christianity to Ethiopians—as Judaism to the Jews—hadalways been the most profound expression of their nationalexistence. Christianity, in its peculiar Abyssinian form impreg-nated with strong Hebraic and archaic Semitic elements, had longbecome the repository of the cultural, political, and social life ofthe country."1 In fact, there developed in Ethiopia "a purelyindigenous form of Christianity" which brought about" the inte-gration of the Church as the symbol of Abyssinian nationality".2

It is the impact of Hebraic-Jewish elements on that peculiarform of indigenous Abyssinian Christianity to which the presentstudy is devoted. It does not claim exhaustiveness, and thefollowing notes are more in the nature of prolegomena to afuller investigation that ought to be undertaken in the future.The present writer is aware that some of the connexions whichwill be studied in the following may, in some cases, either befortuitous or be part of the general Semitic heritage; in otherinstances, the parallels may seem too flimsy or capable of adifferent explanation, but it may be worthwhile, and indeed im-portant, to investigate a few selected aspects—rather in thenature of a pilot-study.

Ethiopians have always considered themselves the lawful suc-cessors of the Jews. Aksum, the Zion of Abyssinia,3 became the

1 Ullendorff, "Africa's Oldest Christian Kingdom", Tie Times, 13 October1954.

2 J. S. Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia, p. 23.a <DjBM:i>}T'l*ih.f<.4A.*°» "She is the second Jerusalem" (Liber Axumae,

cd. C Conti Rossini, C.S.CO., 1909, p. 72).

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ELEMENTS IN ABTSSINIAN CHRISTIANITY

seat of God and the Ark of the Covenant—as embodied in theKebra Nagast ("Glory of the Kings"), the national saga of theEthiopians. The Royal styles of the Emperor of Ethiopia includeto this day the formula Thfi^hittftstthmfrZOJia "Con-quering Lion of the Tribe of Judah". The only indigenousEthiopian historian, 'Alak'a Tayya,1 devotes a long chapter inhis ja'ityop'ja b*(b tarik ("history of the people of Ethiopia",Asmara 1927) to the " tribe of Israel" whose history is, of course,inextricably interwoven with the exploits of nagastd 'asgeb "theQueen of the South", i.e. the Queen of Sheba. The Kush2 of theOld Testament was translated by the LXX as Al6icnria (Ateioy" anEthiopian" i.e. ca6co + 6vyis "burnt face"), on the whole withmore justice than is often thought,3 for that name generallyincluded Upper Egypt, Meroe-Nubia, and Abyssinia4 proper. Inthe genealogical table, Gen. x. 6 ff., Kush occupies, perhaps, asomewhat ambiguous place, but it seems that its position on bothshores of the Red Sea was understood. Isaiah (xi. 11) speaks ofa Jewish diaspora in Kush, perhaps the earliest reference to con-tact between Jews and Ethiopians (in the widest sense). Hero-dotus (11, 104) considers in some detail whether the custom ofcircumcision was borrowed by the inhabitants of Palestine fromthe Egyptians and Ethiopians or vice versa. In Rabbinical litera-tures Kush occurs fairly rarely, but we shall deal later on withcertain echoes which Rabbinical writings have found in theliterature of Ethiopia.

Beginning with the fifteenth century A.D. we find manyreferences to Jewish influence on the Abyssinian type of Chris-tianity. I quote a few typical examples:

In the 1480's, on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Felix Faber madethe acquaintance of the Abyssinian community of whom heremarks, inter alia:. . .et quamquam ista faciant et observent, tamen perniciosis errotibusinfecti sunt, et haeretici abhorribiles ecdesiae sanctae. Accipiunt enimcum Judaeis.. .inutilem, immo damnabilem circumcisionem 6

1 The transcription used in this article is that which I have endeavouredto justify in my Semitic Languages of Ethiopia, pp. xiii-xiv et passim. .

2 Kali in the Tell-el-Amarna letters (J. A. Knudtzon, Die El-AmarnaTafeln, no. 287), and ku-u-si in Accadian tablets. See also the present writer's"Candace and the Queen of Sheba" {New Test. Stud, n, 1 (1955), p. 53).

3 Cf. Scottish Hist. Rev. (October 1953), p. 136, n. 9.* For the distinction between Abyssinia and Ethiopia, cf. Semitic Languages

of Ethiopia, p. 4, n. 6.* See below. » See E. Cerulli, Etiopi in Palestine, 1, 312-13.

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Pero Pais (late sixteenth century) apparently accepted theEthiopian view of the Jewish origin of Abyssinian culture andinstitutions:

Antes q a Rainha Sabba fosse a Ierusalem a ouuir a sabedoria deSalomao, todos. os da Ethiopia erao gentios e adorauao differentesIdolos; mas quando ella tornou de Ierusalem lhes trouxe a historia dosGenesis, e estiuerao na ley dos Iudeos at6 a vinda de Christo, sojeitan-dose a sens ritos e ceremonias e guardando os mandamentos deDeos.. . .1

The Portuguese Jesuit, Jerome Lobo, is more specific (earlyseventeenth century):

. . .their [i.e. the " Abyssinians'"] present religion is nothing but a kindof confused miscellany of Jewish and Mahometan superstitions, withwhich they have corrupted those remnants of Christianity which theystill retain 2

The great Ludolf saw the problem in its proper perspective:

. . . ii fere sunt, qui putant eos cognitionem veri Dei a tempore Salo-monis habuisse: ritusque Judaicos, veluti circumcisionem: abstinen-tiam a cibis lege Mosaica vetitis: observationem Sabbati: conjugiumleviri cum glore, et similia, originem suam inde traxisse. Verum cumista vel cum aliis gentibus, vel cum Christianis primitivae Ecdesiae, quisese Judaeis accommodabant communia habeant, haud firmiteraffirmaveris, vestigia haec esse rituum a tot seculis ex ipsa Judaeaacceptorum.. ..3

James Bruce of Kinnaird frequently refers to the Judaicpractices of the Abyssinians and he mildly censures

the first Christian missionaries [who], rinding.. .Jewish traditions con-firmed in the country, chose to respect them rather than refute them.Circumcision, the doctrine of dean and undean meats, and many otherJewish rites and ceremonies are therefore part of the religion of theAbyssinians at this day.*

It would, of course, be impossible to quote here the numerousexpressions of opinion by modern writers who speak of theAbyssinian "Christians, both in their religious and social

1 Pais, Histdria da Etidpia, Porto edition, n, 9.2 Jerome Lobo, A Voyage to Abyssinia, translated into English (by Dr

Samuel Johnson) (1735), p. 59.' Ludolf, Historia Aethiopica (1681), Bk. 3, ch. 1.• Bruce, Travels (3rd ed., 1813), in, 13.

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customs" as bearing "signs of the influence of Judaism";1 orwho describe, generally without detail, "the whole cast of re-ligious expression in Ethiopia as antique and ceremonial andimbued with an undercurrent of Judaic practice".2 The "carac-tere judaisant de l'Eglise ethiopienne" has only recently beenstressed,3 and the Nestor of modern ethiopisants, Carlo ContiRossini, has frequently affirmed that "il giudaismo sia antico inEtiopia" and that there existed "nuclei giudaici qua e lasparsi...".4

The problem is thus shown to exist, and the way is now clearfor an attempt to describe the historical background.

II

For the possible infiltration into pre-Christian Abyssinia (con-ceivably at a very early date) of Jewish migrants from the North,from the direction of Egypt, we possess very scanty materialonly. Jeremiah (xliv. i) speaks of Jews who had settled inEgypt, in the North (Migdol and Tahpanhes) as well as in theSouth (Upper Egypt = Pathros). The prophet Zephaniah (seventhcentury B.C.) refers to a diaspora in Kush (Nubia-Ethiopia):"From beyond the rivers of Kush my suppliants, my dispersedcommunity, shall bring my offering" (Zeph. iii. 10). Verses iand 2 in ch. xviii of Isaiah certainly seem to be based on theinformation of eye-witnesses, but the value of all these scatteredverses is, nonetheless, limited, even though it seems reasonable todeduce that Jews had penetrated as far as Upper Egypt, Nubia,and possibly beyond. Herodotus (n, 30) relates how certainEgyptian garrisons, after having been on duty at Elephantinefor three years without being relieved, revolted against Psam-metichus and went to Ethiopia. Even if this referred to the timeof Psammetichus II (593-588 B.C.), it would clearly be too earlyto have any connexion with the Jewish military garrison atElephantine of whom we hear in the Aramaic Papyri of the fifthcentury B.C. It is, however, conceivable that similar revolts anddesertions occurred also under the Persian Government later on.Yet, neither do we possess any historical information about this

1 R. S. Whiteway, in introduction to The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia(Hakluyt Society, 1902), p. xxi.

1 Archbishop David Mathew, Ethiopia (1947), p. 12.3 A. Z. AeJcply, Kecutil de textes falacbas (1951), p. 4.• Storia d'Etiopia (1928), pp. 144-5.

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nor is a desertion to Ethiopia ( = Nubia) tantamount to thesettlement of Jews in Abyssinia ( = Ethiopia in its presentboundaries). It must thus be realized that the frequently can-vassed origin of the Falashas (see below) from the Jewish garrisonof Elephantine or the conjecture that Jewish influences inAbyssinia had penetrated by way of Egypt are devoid of anyreliable historical basis.

The position is different with regard to Jewish influences thatmay have entered Abyssinia via South Arabia: here the sourcematerial is somewhat ampler. The Old Testament abounds, ofcourse, in direct or indirect references to ans, nwm», D^KSSW, etc.The desert origin of the Hebrews points in the same direction.In its heyday the Hebrew Kingdom included the Sinai peninsula.Solomon and his successors had an oudet to the Red Sea atElath ( = 'Aqabah, II Kings xiv. 22, xvi. 6), and we hear of navalexpeditions to Ophir, the gold-producing country,1 which hasprobably to be sought somewhere in South Arabia (I Kings ix.27-8). Although the reference in II Chron. xxi. 16-17 to a(South) Arabian military campaign against Judah presentshistorical and geographical difficulties, the very mention of transnn*8ro T V» -TOR is of the greatest interest, for it shows the closeproximity between the South Arabians and Ethiopians andmight well be an early pointer to South Arabian migrations toEthiopia. While none of these biblical references reveals anyintimate and detailed knowledge of Arabia, and South Arabia inparticular, they nevertheless give an indication of Jewish con-tacts with that country. Three of the South Arabian Kingdomsoccur in the Old Testament: Saba (Gen. x. 7 and many otherplaces), Ma'in (I Chron. iv. 41, etc.), Hadramawt (Gen. x. 26).In Rabbinical literature there are a few, mostly indirect, refer-ences to Jewish connexions with Arabia. In Midrash BemidbarRabba rx we hear that

.. . .rvarD 'WRi vo "w w p s m na tr»an» ^ a bumThe date (about A.D. 130) is given by the mention of R. 'Aqiba.The fact that this "King of the Arabs" was black (an Ethiopian)clearly shows that R. 'Aqiba must have travelled as far as South

1 "Commercial relations on a large scale between Palestine and Arabiacertainly go back to the days of Solomon; and many books of the OldTestament, particularly Job and Proverbs, which are strongly marked bythe presence of Arabic words, show that the connexion was steadily main-tained" (A. Guillaume in Legaey of Israel, p. 132).

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Arabia.1 It also reveals, incidentally, that an Ethiopian prince orkinglet ruled at that time over at least a province of SouthArabia. In the days of R. 'Aqiba a sizable Jewish communitymust already have existed in Arabia, for otherwise it wouldscarcely have been worthwhile for R. 'Aqiba to undertake soarduous a journey, whose purpose presumably was to incite theJews of Arabia to fight against Rome.2 This is also probably theearliest direct proof of the existence of Jewish colonies inArabia.3So early and widespread a settlement of Jews in the Arabianpeninsula makes it more than likely that some Jewish elementsat least were included in the South Arabian waves of migrationacross the Red Sea into Abyssinia.

Details of the existence and activities of Jewish colonies inpre-Islamic Arabia need not be reiterated here; we know of theJewish population of Yathrib (Medinah), of Jewish tribes,4 andthe Khaibar oasis. While the Jews of Arabia cherish the traditionthat some Jewish refugees came to Arabia as early as the time ofthe destruction of the first Temple,5 there is no doubt that the

1 It is strange to see, therefore, that Arabian trade in spices should haveoccasioned surprise:K1?** pajn nnij? K">K D'Jiyn mvft D^WDIF1 to ja-n ps vbm turo na KSK V'Knnn snntp n s CDBO n'ttto cpir nym nniKa pnx inn*1? n"apn JDM no run(Midrash Gen. R. LXXXIV). D^aiJ? to Dm "'iDD nna lutPJO

But v. 25 of Gen. xxxvii (to which the above Midrash refers) seems to findnothing unusual in an Arabian caravan laden with different kinds of spices.

2 A reference to R. 'Aqiba's journey to Arabia is given in his own namein Talmud Bab. Rosb Hasbanab 26 a:

.K^av K13-6 p i p wi JO-IJ?1? votaiw w p p •on TONSee also S. Krauss, Z.D.M.G. (1916), p. 331.

' Strabo (Geogr. xvi, 23) mentions that Aelius Gallus collected for hisexpedition to South Arabia some 10,000 men "...<5v fjcrav MouSaToi \ik»Tr£VToac6<Tioi". And Flavius Josephus {Ant. lud. xv, 9 (12), 3) explains:" . . .sub illo tempore [Herodes] misit et Caesari subsidio quingentos lectoshomines de suis satellitibus, quos Aelius Gallus ad Mare Rubrum duxit etqui ei magno usui fuerunt". Here we have a certain reference to Jewishcontact with South Arabia shortly before the Christian era, and it is notimpossible tuat some of Aelius Gallus' Jewish warriors may have remained inSouth Arabia to settle there. The extent of Aelius Gallus' penetration intoArabia has recently been discussed in Wissmann-Hofner's Histor. Geograpbiedes vorislamiscbm Sudarabien, pp . 1 ff.

* " Whole tribes seem to have ,?one over to Judaism and accepted mono-theism before the rise of Muhamn *d" (A. GuiUaume, pp. at. p. 133).

* Cf. H. Graetz, Gescbicbte der Jue'ei (2nd ed.), v, 68. For a comprehensiveaccount of the Jews in Arabia see especially Hirschberg's Yisra'el ba'Arab(1946), to which, unfortunately, I had access only in the concluding stagesof the present study.

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bulk entered the peninsula only after the events of A.D. 70. Al-Jumahi mentions in his biographies several Jewish poets ofMedinah,1 and the story of the last Himyarite King, Du Nuwas,is too well known to warrant repetition:2 his defeat ushered inthe period of Abyssinian rule in South-West Arabia. Much ofthe traditional Jewish-Aggadic material became part of thegeneral Semitic heritage and found its literary reflexion, oftenin a very changed and distorted form, in the Qur'an or theKebra Nagast (see below). The Qur'an, in its foreign vocabulary,underlines this Semitic pot-pourri in its numerous loan-wordsfrom Hebrew, Aramaic-Syriac, and Ethiopic, several in strangelyhybrid disguises (Jsfl «oy.U» etc.). The religious syncretism ofpre-Islamic Arabia has yet to be disentangled in detail—despitesuch valuable existing studies as D. Nielsen's chapter in theHandbucb der altarabischen Altertumskunde and G. Ryckmans'Re/igions Arabes Preislamiques. The impact of Jewish settlementsin Arabia may be felt in the gradual displacement of pagandeities in favour of such names as Du-Samawi and even Rabmatian3

which are clearly derived from Judaic conceptions. A direct linkwith these settlements has, perhaps, until recently existed in thelong history of the Yemenite Jews.4

With the defeat of Du Nuwas at the hands of the Abyssinianconquerors (about A.D. 525) Judaism in South Arabia was

1 Tabaqdt aJ-Iu'ard', ed. Hell (1916), pp. 70 ff.2 For an outline of Jewish settlements in pre-Islamic Arabia, see especially

A. Kammerer, La Mer Rouge, I'Abyssinie et VArable (1929), pp. I2off.;M. Guidi's Storia e Cultura degli Arabi fino alia morte di Maometto (1951),pp. 143 ff.

Many more details about Du Nuwas have recently come to light as aresult of the G. and J. Ryckmans-Philby expedition. Cf. especially the in-scriptions Ry. J07 and 508 (Le Museon, LXVI, 2845.), where we also hear,for the first time, of Du Nuwas' real name YSF and the epithet 'S'R. Seealso S. D. Goitein's article jDVtt n w n fDlten JV3 ty D BHn D«rtJ in Ha'aretsof 2$ March 1955.

3 One inscription (C.I.H. 543) begins: brk wtbrk sm rhmnn dbsmyn tvyir'lw'lbbmw rbyhd

"Praised and blessed be the name of RHMNH, who is in heaven, and YSVLand their God, the lord of the Jews "

Further confirmation of this reading is now offered by Ryckmans 515 (LeMusion, LXVI (1953), 314-15) where we find a similar rbbwd brbmnn "par leMise'ricordieux, Seigneur des Juifs".

4 "It is generally accepted that the Yemenite Jewish communitiesknown to us in the twentieth century were descendants of the pre-Islamic Jews and Jewish proselytes" (R. B. Serjeant in J.R.A.S. (1953),p. 117).

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severely checked.1 But the Christian predominance, in its turn,was short-lived and came to an end with the Persian occupationof South Arabia at the end of the sixth century. The Roman-Persian antagonism found its reflexion in the political-religiousevents in the Red Sea area: The Persians were anti-Christianbecause Christianity had become identified with Roman rule,and they encouraged all religious manifestations which might beinstrumental in displacing Roman influence. In this way theJews as well as Christian sects hostile to Rome were favoured,but the Persian hegemony in Arabia soon disintegrated underthe dynamic onslaught of nascent Islam.

The Jews, Jewish proselytes (a comparatively rare phenomenonin Jewish history), and Judaism were thus strongly entrenchedin pre-Islamic Arabia.2 We shall have to envisage the pene-tration of Hebraic-Jewish elements from here into Abyssinia ina twofold manner:

(a) It has already been mentioned that among the SouthArabian immigrants into the Aksumite Empire there must havebeen some Jews. It is not likely that they entered the country asa compact community, a complete tribal go/ah, but they probablycame in small groups together with their non-Jewish fellow-merchants and settlers. Whether they established separate Jewishcolonies on Abyssinian soil or settled together with other immi-grants, must remain within the realm of speculation, though thewidespread character of Hebraic influences and practices might

1 A valuable document for the history of Christianity and Judaism in theYemen may be found in the Ethiopic Acts of Azqir (B.M. MS. Orient.689 = Wright catalogue, no. CCLIII). Cf. also Conti Rossini's Un documentosul Cristianesimo nello hmen in Rend, della Accad. d. Uncei (1910).

Goitein (Joe. cit.) seems to detect abiding Jewish influence in the intro-ductory formula of the Ma'rib text (C.I.H. $41): bbyl wrd' wrhmt rbmnnwmshbw wrb qds "by the power and favour and mercy of RHMNn and hisMessiah and the Holy Spirit" (instead of the usual trinitarian formula),while A. F. L. Beeston (Encyclopaedia of Islam, ABRAHA, p. 102) thinks of apossible "sectarian distinction".

1 A recent epigraphic hint of Jewish missionary zeal in pre-Islamic SouthArabia may well be seen in Ry J20 (Le Muse'on (1954), pp. 100-1) where, inan inscription dedicated to RHMNn, we find the words: wlbmrbw rbmnn wldmslbm sb'm Ismrbmnn "et que lui accorde le Misericordieux des enfants bienconstitues, combattantpour le mm du Misericordieux". That is also Goitein'sunderstanding of this passage (Joe. eit.).

The penetration of Judaism—or at least Judaizing tendencies—into Arabiareached astonishing proportions and was accompanied by forceful pro-selytizing activities. Cf. also Sidney Smith in B.S.O~AS. (19)4), p. 462.

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suggest the latter alternative. I hope to be able to show in thefollowing that the compact and geographically circumscribedhabitat of the Falashas has no relevance to a solution of thisquestion.

(b) There were, it appears, at least four military interventionsof the Habasat in Arabia.1 They all occurred at a time when theJewish impact on South Arabia was considerable. The lastAbyssinian expedition in Arabia, which defeated Du Nuwas,took over the country from a Judaized king and a Judaizedculture. It may be doubted that the process of Judaization hadgone very deep, but it seems certain that Hebraic sediments,traditions, practices and customs were subtly absorbed and, indue course, brought back—often in a much changed andadulterated form—across the Red Sea into Abyssinia.

South Arabia must thus be considered the principal avenue bywhich Jewish elements reached the Kingdom of Aksum andgained admission in a variety of forms to be discussed presently.At the same time, it must be clear that these elements bore ageneral Hebraic cast reflecting an early form of Judaism still.fairly free from Talmudic minutiae. That is, of course, to beexpected when one recalls the early date of some Jewish migra-tions into Arabia, although we should not exclude either customsor literary allusions which later on appear in the literature of theTalmud. The period of Talmudic "gestation" extends overseveral centuries, and we must therefore expect to find some ofits elements among Jewish communities which were severedfrom the main stream of tradition before its committal towriting.2

It must not, of course, be supposed that Judaism was either theonly or even the principal monotheistic religion in pre-IslamicArabia. The great expansion of the monophysite (and, to a lesserextent, the Nestorian) church beyond the fringes of the desert

1 Cf. Conti Rossini, "Expeditions et possessions des HabaSat en Arabie",7.^.(1921), pp. 35-6.

2 " The abundance of Jewish thought and ideas contained in the Koranand in its early authoritative commentaries testifies to the profound knowledgeof Judaism possessed by Arabian Jews. They may even help us to restoresome Aggadic concepts lost in the course of time and unknown to Jewishscholarship today, as well as to gain much-sought data about the life andpractices of the Jews in Arabia... .The unusual number of Aggadic storiesquoted in the writings of Zamakhshari, Baidawi, Bukhari and Tabari testifyto the fact that the Arabian Jews took an active part in Jewish spirituallife" (A. I. Katsh, Judaism in Islam (1954), p. xxv).

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brought Christianity right into the heart of Arabia. The Syriacstory of the Jacobite bishop Akhudemmeh1 shows the intensemissionary activity of this monophysite zealot among manyArabian tribes. No less important were the religious activitiesof the monophysite kingdom of Ghassan (or of the Nestoriansat Hirah) who, by their numerous contacts with the large tribesof the interior of Arabia, contributed so notably to the diffusionof that type of Christianity over wide areas of the Arabian penin-sula. The same form of Christianity was, of course, brought intoArabia not only by the Abyssinian conquerors, but also by thevigorous trade in Abyssinian slaves and by commercial relationsin general. The importance of these commercial activities be-tween the Quraysh and Abyssinia is attested in Ibn Hisham'srecension of Ibn Ishaq's life of the Prophet.2

It must be appreciated that those forms of Judaism andChristianity which were found at that time in South-West Arabiawere not only obviously "Eastern" in type, but their generalSemitic character, the circumstances of their development as wellas their entire religious, historical, and emotional atmosphere,rendered them far closer and more akin to each other than isthe case with their Westernized counterparts. MonophysiteChristianity had a distinctly Hebraic mould, while Judaism inArabia at that period could not but reflect some of the imprintof the missionary zeal and vigour of early Christianity. Thepertinency of these considerations to our present investigation isevident.

The cultural and historical affinity between the two shores ofthe Red Sea, brought about by intense commercial activities, hadlong been known in antiquity and was also recognized byCosmas Indicopleustes in his Christian Topography (sixth centuryA.D.): "...Ethiopia, though separated from Sheba by theArabian gulf, lay in its vicinity For the Homerites are not fardistant from Barbaria, as the sea which lies between them can becrossed in a couple of days.. ." (ed. McCrindle, 1897, p. 52). Inthe Semitic culture which the immigrants from South Arabiahad transplanted across the Red Sea into the Aksumite kingdom,the Jewish element must have been prominent. That was due notonly to the undoubted presence of Jews and Jewish proselytes

1 Cf. Nau's edition of the Histoire de Akboudemmeb (Patrologia Orientalisin, 1909).

2 Cf. M. Guidi's Storia e Cultura, p. 153. See now also S. Smith, "Eventsin Arabia in the 6th century A.D.", BS.O.A.S. (1954), pp. 462-3.

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among the immigrant traders and settlers, but also to the strongHebraic-Jewish admixture in South Arabian civilization at thatperiod. While it is possible to point to certain Jewish influencesand manifestations in the emergence of Abyssinian culture, wepossess no information about the identity of the carriers of thoseinfluences. For the history of the Jews in Abyssinia we lacknearly all genuine and trustworthy source material. Generaliza-tions of all sorts abound, but there is an almost complete absenceof historical detail:

. . . II est incontestable qu'un fond de judaisme est venu s'implanterdans le pays a une epoque assez largement anteiieure a l'introductiondu christianisme, et que ce substratum he"braique a laisse" des tracesprofondes. Mais ce mouvement.. .peut fort bien n'etre qu'une desformes de la diaspora juive »

Littmann (Aksum "Expedition, i, jo) has found the title "King ofZion" on Aksumite coins, and Kammerer (pp. cit. p. 86) thinksthat this fact

impliquerait que, sous ce souverain deja, la tradition de la reine deSaba et des tres anciennes relations qui ont pu exister avec la capitaledes Juifs, avait plus ou moins servi de base a l'introduction d'unereligion nouvelle qu'on considdrait comme apparent^ a la religionjuive....

The absence of direct historical sources is, however, com-pensated, at least in part, by fairly numerous threads of indirectevidence which, in their cumulative effect, present an impressivepicture. Words like Eth. fa'ot "idol", gdhdnndm "hell", 'at'hard"to purify",/«J$ "Easter", mis'wat "alms", etc., must have beenintroduced by Jewish merchants from Arabia at an early date.,for they show Hebrew rather than Syriac forms and a.specificallyJewish connotation.2 Noldeke (pp. cit. p. 36) has justly found thatmas'wat "wiirde allein geniigen, jiidischen religiosen Einfluss beiden alten Abessiniern zu konstatieren". Those terms were intro-duced in pre-Christian times, but survived after the introductionof Christianity with slight shifts in meaning and substance.

We shall later on have to refer in somewhat greater detail tosuch obvious Hebraic-Old Testament elements as ritual clean-ness (in particular in connexion with sexual relations), leviratemarriage, etc. The legend of the Queen of Sheba (see below) in

1 Kammerer, Essai sur I'bistoirt antique d'Abyssinie, p. 25.2 Cf. Conti Rossini, Storia d'Etiopia, p. 143, and Noldeke, Neue Beitrage,

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all its manifold ramifications has given rise to such deeply-rootedtraditions as the Aaronite origin of the Aksumite clergy, thereference to Abyssinians as dak'ik'a 'Esra'e/, "children of Israel",and the consciousness of having inherited from Israel the legiti-mate claim to being regarded as the chosen people of God. It isclear that these and other traditions, in particular that of the Arkof the Covenant at Aksum, must have been an integral part ofthe Abyssinian national heritage long before the introduction ofChristianity in the fourth century; for it would be inconceivablethat a people recently converted from paganism to Christianity(not by a Christian Jew, but by the Syrian missionary Frumentius)should thereafter have begun to boast of Jewish descent and toinsist on Israelite connexions, customs, and institutions.

Rathjens1 has expressed the view that after the introduction ofChristianity into the Aksumite Empire the Jews were probablysubjected to severe persecutions. There exist, of course, norecords to substantiate this opinion, but in view of the cherisheddescent from Israel and the widespread Judai2ation in pre-Christian Abyssinia one may well doubt the cogency of thisconjecture. Moreover, it is likely that many of the immigrantJewish nuclei, spiritually isolated as they must have been, becamevoluntary adherents of Christianity. To what extent AbyssinianChristianity reacted, by way of local retaliation, against the anti-Christian excesses perpetrated by the Judaked Du Nuwas inSouth Arabia, it is impossible to determine. In any event, itseems probable that those Abyssinian Jews who had been con-verted to Christianity became the effective carriers of Hebraicelements, rites, and forms current in, the Christian Church ofEthiopia.

We possess no information of the Jews in Abyssinia duringthe Middle Ages. The legend of the foundation of a Jewishdynasty by Judith, a "Jewish" Queen, was given currency byJames Bruce and has been repeated by Rathjens (op. cit. p. 18) andothers, but it has been shown by Conti Rossini to possess nobasis in historical fact (O.M. 1921, p. 53).

There is a reference to Jews in Shihab ad-Din's sixteenth-century Futiib al-Habasah (ed. R. Basset, p. 342):

1 Juden in Abessinien (Hamburg, 1921), p. 17.

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Whether the Falashas may justly be called the Jews of Abyssiniapar excellence will be discussed below.1 The Falashas are occasion-ally mentioned in the Chronicles of Abyssinia, but in most casesthey appear there in connexion with conflicts of a tribal or racialcharacter and only rarely on account of their alleged Judaism.

in(a) The circumstances attendant upon the introduction of

Christianity into Ethiopia are sufficiently well known.2 Ac-cording to Ethiopian tradition, in pre-Christian days "one partof the people of Abyssinia was under the Mosaic Law, the otherwas worshipping the Serpent".3 Littmann {Aksum, i, 51)accepts this tradition as substantially accurate and confirms that

aus historischen Griiriden sind ja auch wir in unserer Untersuchung zudem Ergebnisse gekommen, dass die Einfuhrung des Christentumsetwa um die Mitte des 4. Jahrhunderts stattgefunden haben muss, unddass die Abessinier vor ihrer Bekehrung zum Teil Heideri, zum TeilJuden waren.

The religious situation in Abyssinia, before the middle of thefourth century, must have been very complex: the worship of theserpent appears to have been widespread. The animistic beliefsof the Cushitic inhabitants, notably the Agaw, have long con-tinued to exert an influence and have become part of theAbyssinian type of Christianity. The Semitic immigrants, whilenumerically inferior, soon made their influence felt in all spheresof life. Their superior civilization became the characteristic ex-pression of the Aksumite Kingdom. It is, however, clear thatthe immigrants from Arabia brought with them not only thepeculiar type of Judaism which has been mentioned in the fore-going, but also many of the other religious forms that werecurrent in ancient South Arabia. References to members of theSouth Arabian pantheon have been found in Abyssinia, and'Attar, the Venus-star, 'LMQH (Sin), the Moon-god, Dt HMYM(Sams), the Sun-goddess, were probably equally well known onboth sides of the Red Sea.4

1 See section IV.2 Cf. in particular Littmann, Aksum, 1, 50-1; Guidi, O.M. (1922);

E. Ullendorff, Africa (1949), pp. 61-2.J Cf. Beguinot, La Cronaea abbreviata d'Abissinia (1901), p. 2; Littmann,

Legend of the Queen of Sbeba, p . 26 et passim.* See my notes on the solar disc and lunar crescent on the Obelisk of

Matara (J.R.A.S. (1951), pp. 26-7).

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Moreover, conversion to Christianity is bound to have beenslow in time and geographically sporadic, at least outside theprincipal centres. Conditions were thus propitious for both theco-existence as well as intermingling of very diverse strands ofreligious habits and practices. This may explain, in part, theremarkable syncretism that can be observed in AbyssinianChristianity.

Frumentius and other Syrian missionaries introduced yetanother Semitic element which can be detected not only in theSyriac loan-words in Ethiopic (haymanot, 'orit, etc.), but especiallyin the Semitic religious concepts which those terms represent:k^srban Qi£5a£>), s'a/ot ( U a \ mdk'das ( U ^ ) , s'om (fcooj),etc. The monophysites who rejected the definition of the Councilof Chalcedon (A.D. 4ji) took refuge in Egypt, Arabia, andAbyssinia and thus contributed very notably to the spread ofChristianity1 throughout the Aksumite Empire. At the sametime, their infiltration determined once and for all the fanaticaladherence of Ethiopia to the monophysite "heresy".

We should now examine this heavily mixed and somewhatconfused ethnic-religious structure and see where we are able todisentangle specifically Hebraic-Jewish elements.

(b) One of the most notable features in Abyssinian Christianityis the survival of magical practices and prayers as well as a wholebody of superstitious beliefs. Many of these magical prayers nowcombine their pagan substratum with a hastily and belatedlysuperimposed layer of divine invocations or references to theVirgin Mary and the Saints. It is likely that the majority OJ.superstitious and magical practices are derived from the oldCushitic pagan beliefs, but there are indications also of a differentkind. Demonology and magic were widespread in the ancientEast, and in most cases it is quite impossible to determine anyprecise national origin: a very large body of magical craft, con-trivances and prayers were common to most peoples of theancient Semitic world. Yet a few hints may here be thrown outwhere it seems possible to detect specifically Hebraic-Jewishelements. How serious a danger sorcery, witchcraft, and magicconstituted in the religion of the Hebrews may be gathered fromLeviticus (xx. 6). There is no doubt that many magical practices

1 The story of &Wjp AHHoy EOVOWXOS Bwdorns Kav6&Kr|$ paaiAlacrris (Acts viii.27 ff.), who introduced Christianity into the dominions of his Queen, hasgenerally been applied by Ethiopians to themselves (see New Test. Stud. 11

53)-

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were so integral a part of the pagan folklore of Canaan that theywere taken over into the Hebrew religion and given a fresh andsublimated significance. One need, in this connexion, only thinkof the Urim and Thummim, phylactery, and me%u%a. The lattertwo1 were certainly meant to avert demons and other evil spiritsand may be compared to the amulets worn by Ethiopians forthe same purpose.2 In post-biblical times Gematria and Notarikonare the vehicles of magical calculations: and from here we get thedisposition of letters in magic squares, the special patterns, thesecret charms—all widespread in Ethiopia. There is little doubtthat the shield of David and the seal of Solomon have a similarorigin. Among the countless magical names and words in usein Ethiopia El, E/obe, 'Adonay occur frequently.3 Ludolf {loc. cit.)goes so far as to assert that" tota ista detestabilis scientia a Judaeisoriginem habet. . ." and claims that Kabbalistic doctrines andpractices brought about the abundance of magic and demons inEthiopia.4 If this is, perhaps, a slightly extravagant assertion,Ludolf is on safe ground when he mentions (Historia, lib. in,cap. rv) the extraordinary importance Jews and Abyssiniansattach to the effect of name. To both, knowledge of the namemeans power over the person or the spirit. This is, of course,well known from the Old Testament: cf. Gen. xxxii. 30; Exod.iii. 13-14, xx. 7, etc., etc.5 Among the magical names in Ethiopiaare many which have an obvious Hebrew origin and which canoften be recognized despite the changes and distortions, oftenintentional, they have undergone. Others are no doubt derivedfrom the ancient Cushitic lore, and all have been brought intoharmony, at least superficially, with the requirements of Chris-tianity. However pagan the spirit may be, Maryam, Krestos, etc.,are rarely missing. Christ himself has become the greatest of

1 Being the literal interpretation of the command in Deut. vi. 8-9, whichwas probably no more than a figure of speech.

2 Cf. the large number of magical prayer scrolls and amulets listed in myCatalogue ofEtb. MSS., pp. 22 ff.

' E.g. Ludolf, Commentarius, p. 350; Littmann, Gescb. d. aeth. Lit. p. 237.• It is, of course, beyond the scope of the present study to trace in detail

the manifold points of resemblance between Hebraic-Jewish and Abyssinianmagical practices. The few indications here offered will, I hope, show thatthis is a field for fruitful investigation. Some further details may be foundin W. H. Worrell, "Studien zum abess. Zauberwesen", Z.A.. (1910);D. Lifchitz, Textes etbiopiens magico-religicux (1940); and now also S. Strelcyn,Priires magiques etbiopienncs (195 j).

s See also Strelcyn, op. cit. pp. xxvii ff.

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magicians, but he is closely followed by Moses (see the miraclesrelated in the Pentateuch) and Solomon. Budge has aptly re-marked (History of Ethiopia, p. 582) that Solomon's power ofworking magic was considered greater than that of any Abyssinianmagician and "with the acceptance of Solomon's God, [Ethio-pians] adopted much that appertained to Hebrew magic andsorcery".1

Amulets and tsfillin, shield of David, and seal and net ofSolomon are accompanied, with both Abyssinians and Jews, byspells to scatter demons (rrw—hp'i'i't) and to avert disease.The long list of illnesses is headed, in Hebrew as well as Ethi-opian tradition, by diseases of the eye (Tnatf—A°7oDi'}£i1*).The importance of nsn fs—Og/ithXijri need not be underlined.In Tigre ta'ayydna means to " become mad ". Wsr^plya, the night-hag, is the most formidable female demon; she causes abortionand destroys children. That she is closely related to, and probablyderived from, Lilith, the night demon of the Hebrews, canscarcely be in doubt.

There are, of course, many other connexions and parallels inthe sphere of magical lore, but in most cases it would be hazardousto speak of Hebrew rather than common Semitic elements.

{c) The chief work of Ethiopic literature, the Kebra Nagast,2

has as its centre-piece the legend of the Queen of Sheba (basedon the narrative in I Kings x. 1-13 and liberally amplified andembellished), how she visited Solomon, accepted his religion,bore him a son (Menelik I), and how the son visited his fatherand abducted the Ark of the Covenant which was taken toAksum, the new Zion. Bezold3 had already drawn attention tothe need for a thorough examination of the literary sources of theKebra Nagast, but this task remains, fifty years later, as importanta desideratum as it was when Bezold wrote.4 Apart fromnumerous quotations and paraphrases from the Old and New

1 Gf. also Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, rv, 149 ff.1 The great practical significance of the Kebra Nagast may be inferred

from the request by King John of Ethiopia to Lord Granville, in 1872, forthe return of the MS. of this work (which had been given to the BritishMuseum by General Napier's expedition against King Theodore in 1868),"for in my country my people will not obey my orders without it". TheTrustees of the British Museum granted the request and the MS. returned toEthiopia.

3 Kebra Nagast in Abb. d. Bayer. Akad. d. Wiss. (Munich, 190$), p. xxxviii.4 Work on this subject has since been begun by Mr David Hubbard,

B.D., M.Th., for a Ph.D. thesis in the University of St Andrews.

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Testaments, we find generous borrowings from apocryphalliterature, the book of Enoch (of which, as is well known, theEthiopic version offers still the only complete text), the Book ofthe Pearl,1 from the christological writings in Coptic, Syriac, andGreek, from the Testamentum Adami? from Jewish-Rabbinicalliterature as well as parallels to material incorporated in theQur'an. The task of investigating these sources would require avast range of research covering wellnigh the whole of Easternliterature, but the undertaking would be made attractive by theprospect of probing deeply into the relationships and widesweeps connecting the various layers of ancient literature. More-over, the Kebra Nagast is not merely a literary work, but—as theOld Testament to the Hebrews or the Qur'an to the Arabs—it isthe repository of Ethiopian national and religious feelings andaspirations, perhaps the truest and most genuine expression ofAbyssinian Christianity.

At present, however, we are only concerned with such of itselements as are reducible to Hebraic-Jewish sources, forms, style,and genre. As the carriers of those elements and influences wehave to envisage, first and foremost, the Jews of South Arabia.They are, indeed, the obvious link between Rabbinic writingsand their reflexion in Qur'an and Kebra Nagast.3

A glance at the list of passages4 from the Old and New Testa-ments quoted in the Kebra Nagast shows the vast preponderanceof Old Testament references, and this indicates accurately thesediment of Hebraic lore which underlies this great storehouse oftraditions and legends. It is, however, not only the contentswith their biblical and rabbinical allusions, but especially the

1 Cf. the gnostic story of the Pearl in ch. 68 of the Kebra Nagast as wellas the Life ofHanna, ed. Sir E. A. Wallis. Budge (1900), pp. 164 ff. (LadyMeux MSS. 2-5). See also the parallel references to the pearl in the SyriacHymn of the Soul, ed. A. A. Bevan (1897):

-u.(p. 12) ] W

* Cf. C. Bezold, "Das arabisch-aethiopische Testamentum Adami",Noldeke Festschrift (1906).

3 "Des traditions juives ont done pu traverser la Mer Rouge avec les mar-chands et les autres emigrants partis de la Jude'e La fidelite aux coutumesjudalques et judeo-chretiennes a dure jusqu'aux temps moderates Cemelange de judaisme L'influence lointaine ou prochaine des traditionsjuives et arabes en Abyssinie..." (J. Deramey, Revue de I'Histoire des Re-ligions, xxrv (1891), 359-60).

• See Budge, Queen ofSbeba, pp. 242-3.

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Midrashic form of narrative which is strongly reminiscent ofJewish literature. In ch. 13 of the Kebra Nagast, for instance, wefind the story of Abraham selling his father's idols, making funof them and finally destroying them. This is clearly borrowedfrom the identical Midrash1 and—as the Qur'an shows2—wasprobably a legend frequently told by the Jews of Arabia. Ch. 100,about the angels who rebelled, is no doubt connected with theconcluding part of section 11 of Midrash Deuteronomy Rabba.3

Stories about the Queen of Sheba occur also in Jewish litera-ture4 and in the Qur'an (Surah, XXVII, 15-45). In Arabic sourcesthe Queen's name is given as Bilkis (,J*=2LJ) which is probably theHebrew wiV* "concubine". From that it would appear that thelegend about Solomon's intimate relations with the Queen is ofJewish origin; and, indeed, in the Alphabet of Ben Sira (21 b) it isrelated that Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian King, was a son ofKing Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.5 Some further detailsmay be found in my note Candace and the Queen of Sheba {NewTest. Stud, n, 1, 1955).

In addition to a few direct borrowings and a greater number ofindirect ones we may thus detect in some layers of Ethiopicliterature in general, and in the Kebra Nagast in particular, thereflexions of Hebraic-Jewish motifs, style, genre, and above allof that elusive, yet very real, thing: literary atmosphere.

(d) The Ark of the Covenant (Eth. Tabot)6 which, the KebraNagast alleges,7 was stolen from Jerusalem has formed the centre-piece of the Ethiopian church service since time immemorial.And here we have, indeed, one of the most remarkable agree-ments with Jewish forms of worship. Abu Salih (early thirteenthcentury) writes:8

ojit [i.e. the Abyssinians]

1 Cf. Midrasb Haggadol, Genesis, ed. Schechter (190Z), col. 189.2 Surah xrx, 42 ff. 3 Cf. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, v, 15 3 ff.• Cf. Bab. Talmud, Baba Batra, 15 b. See also Ginzberg, op. cit. rv, 143-9.s Cf. Ginzberg, op. cit. rv, 300; vi, 389. L. Goldschmidt, Bibliotbeca

Aetbiopiea, p. 33.6 Derived, like &jiK, from Jewish Pal. Aramaic iibutd (tibpta) which in

turn is a derivation from Hebrew tebab. Cf. the detailed discussion in Rabin,Ancient West Arabian, pp. 109-10. See also Noldeke, Neue Beitrage, pp. 37,49.

7 Chs. 48 ff. 8 Churches and Monasteries of Egypt (1895), fols. 105 b, io6a.9 For oddities of language see op. cit. pp. xxiv-xxv.


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<c

J

Ludolf (Historia, in, 6, 62), after describing the mdnbdr"table", continues: "Huic imponuntur sacra vasa, imprimis^•ni* Area. Tabella sic dicta. Cuius appellationis rationem, cumnusquam reperiam, quia nihil commune cum area habet; estenim tabula quadrangularis oblonga " Ludolf's difficulty inexplaining how the tablets of wood or stone can be called tabot

ark" is shared by scholars to this day. Dillmann (Lexicon) andGuidi (Vocabolario Amaricd) provide two entries under tabot:(1) The Ark of Noah and the Ark of the Covenant; (2) "pietrad'altare; e propriamente una tavoletta di pietra o di legno durocome ebano, che si pone sull'altare "

I fail to see any real difficulty here: the genuine Ark is sup-posed to rest at Aksum; all other churches can only possessreplicas. In most cases they were not, however, replicas of thewhole ark, but merely of its supposed contents, i.e. the tablets ofthe Law {lubot habbrit). In other words: the description of thesestone or wooden tablets as tabotat is simply by way of a pars prototo referring to the most important part of the ark, the tables ofthe covenant. That the ark contained these lubot is, of course,expressly stated in Deut. x. I - J , I Kings viii. 9, Heb. ix. 4.

The Hebrew synagogue has, of course, the Ark (na^n, Kma xip-ix)2 as its principal item of furniture, and the two tables of theLaw are usually placed at its upper part. Inside the Ark are thescrolls of the law. The manner in which the Abyssinian tabotatare carried in procession3 around the churches is stronglyreminiscent of the carrying of the Tora scrolls, especially atSimhat Tora.

Trimingham (Islam in Ethiopia, p. 27) has correctly stated that"it is the tabot and not the church building which is consecratedby the bishop and gives sanctity to the church in which it is

1 Other interesting information on Abyssinian churches and churchservices may be found in Abu Salih's work; e.g. fob. io6£, 107*7 whichdescribe the custom of sacrificing animals at .the consecration of a church—on which A. J. Butler (pp. at. p. 291) comments: "it is probable that thecustom of religious sacrifice derived from the Jews remained after theconversion of the people to Christianity...".

1 Cf. Elbogen, Derjudiscbe Gottesdienst, pp. 469 ff.3 See PI. 32 in Buxton's Travels in Ethiopia (1949).

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placed". The same is true of the early synagogue, in which (forthe purposes of public worship) there was only one essentialrequirement: the Teba or Aron (Elbogen, loc. tit.). The venerationaccorded to the Tabot in Abyssinia up to the present day, itscarriage in solemn procession accompanied by singing, dancing,beating of staffs or praying sticks (0°%°%$), rattling of sistra andsounding of other musical instruments remind one most force-fully of the scene in II Sam. vi. 5, I J , 16 where David and thepeople dance around the Ark. The entire spectacle, its substance,its atmosphere, and its musical instruments, have caused all whohave witnessed it to be "in die Zeiten des Alten Testamentszuriickversetzt...".'

As was shown in the above-quoted passage from Ludolf, thetabot is placed on the mdnbdr "seat" or "throne". This term is, ofcourse, well known as the minbar or mimbar of the mosque andis an Ethiopic loan-word in Arabic (Noldeke, Neue Beitrdge, p. 49).From Arabic it was taken over into the terminology of Jewishworship as Almemor which is, of course, a corruption of al-mimbar. In biblical times this elevated place was called migdal(Neh. viii. 4); in post-biblical days it is dukan or bimah O^a) .

The way in which Abyssinian churches are built is clearlyderived from the threefold division of the Hebrew temple. Thathad already been recognized by Ludolf:Quippe prisci Qiristiani, cum primum facultatem nacti sunt aedes adusum sacrorum publicum aedificandi, Judaeos quam gentiles imitarisatius rati, ad exemplum prisci templi Hierosolymitani, vel synagogarumJudaicarum eas construxere 2

The outside ambulatory of the three concentric parts of theAbyssinian church (which is either round, octagonal or rectan-gular) is called k'ane mahlet, i.e. the place where hymns are sungand where the ddbtdra or cantors stand. This outer part corre-sponds to the baser of the Tabernacle or the 'uldm of Solomon'sTemple. The next chamber is the k'addast where communion isadministered to the people; and the innermost part is themdk'dds where the tabot rests and to which only priests and theKing have access. In some parts of Abyssinia, especially in theNorth, the k'addast (the qodes of the Tabernacle or hekdl ofSolomon's Temple) is called 'anda ta'amar "place of miracle",3

1 Rathjens, Juden in Abessinien, p. 48. See also Beat^SoereJ City, pp. j 5-7;and Pis. 29 and 30 in Boston's Travels. Cf. also the more detailed discussionof this scene below.

1 Hist, m, 6, 19. » Cf. Littmann, Aksum, x, p. 10.


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and the mdk'dds is named k'fddusd k'addusan1 (the qodes haqqoddsimof the- Tabernacle and the dsbtr of the Temple)2. This divisioninto three chambers applies to all Abyssinian churches, even tothe smallest of them. It is thus clear that the form of the Hebrewsanctuary3 was preferred by Abyssinians to the basilica typewhich was accepted by early Christians elsewhere. Similarly,churches throughout Ethiopia are usually built upon a small hilloverlooking the village or, at any rate, at the most elevated placeavailable. The Tosefta4 mentions the same requirement for thesite of a synagogue which is to be erected at the highest point ofthe town (*vs "w naua).

Several Hebrew terms connected with the Temple have,directly or indirectly (i.e. by way of Syriac), come into EthiopiaAmong these are (apart from tabot to which reference has beenmade above): haykal (Heb. hekdf), mdk'dds (Heb. miqdds), mdnardt(Heb. mmordh), k'asrban (Heb. qorbdn), etc. Among churchdignitaries is Eth. kahan (Heb. koheri), but the usual k'dsis (Amh.k'yes, Tna A'dlsi) is, of course, derived from ) 1 . » A.—Monksreceive first the k'anat "girdle" or "belt" (corresponding to thepriestly asm or was—Exod. xxviii); then the k'oW (Amh. k'ob)"skull-cap" ( = Heb. saip (or saw) and corresponding to thepriestly nsixo—ibid.); and, lastly, the 'ashema "scapular" with itstwelve crosses which no doubt correspond to the twelve stoneson the pm (Exod. xxviii. 21), the breast-plate of the High Prieston which the 'askyema appears to be modelled.s

(e) A brief reference has already been made to musical instru-ments used in connexion with religious ceremonies.6 While the

1 Cf. Littmann, Aksum 1, p. 10.2 Cf. Exod. xxvi. 33; I Kings vi; Ezek. xl, xli. See also the sketch in

Triiningham's Islam in "Ethiopia, p. 31.3 "Iudaeorum templum Hierosolymitanum tribus constabat partibus:

DVIK vestibulo spatiosissimo, in quo Iudaei ante fores aedis stabant: b3Vl vcc$sive aede ipsa, quae solis Sacerdotibus patebat, ut in ea sine tumultu populitranquille sacris operari possent: Tan adyto, seu sancto sanctorum; in quodsummus sacerdos semel tantum in annoingrediebatur" (Ludolf, Comm. p. 366).

• Cf. Elbogen, Gotttsdienst, p. 453. See also Trimingham, op. fit. pp. 26and 31.

5 Cf. the article "Vestments" in the Encyclopaedia Britanniea13.6 It is not, unfortunately, possible to treat here questions of Ethiopian

music in greater detail. For some further information see especially C.Mondon-Vidailhet, "La Musique fithiopienne", Encyclopedic de la Musiqueet Dictionnaire du Conservatoire, ier part; pp. 3179-96 (1922). A few biblio-graphical notes may be found in M. Cohen, Couplets Ambafiques du Cboa, p. 5;Conti Rossini, Proverbi, Tradr^ioni e Camtpni Tigrine (1942), pp. 223-8.

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importance of music, song and dirge, instruments as well asdance, is common to most peoples of the East, we are, I suggest,able to recognize specifically Hebraic-Old Testament elements inthe musical manifestations, largely of a religious character, ofthe Abyssinians. The fact as such had been clearly recognizedby scholars as long ago as Ludolf (Commentarius, pp. 380-1)and as recently as Rathjens (Juden in Abessinien, p. 48), buttheir statements were based on impression rather than detailedevidence.1

Professor Gavino Gabriel, an authority on music, says (in anunpublished note): "L'Abissino park e canta in 'falsetto' o'voix de tete' . . .esso rappresenta una economia di fiatd; si che'l'abissino pud cantare tutta la vita senza dare segno di stan-chezza."2 The same falsetto element probably applied to thevocal parts in the Hebrew Temple services, though it wouldappear that the occasional indications to that effect in the OldTestament may not always have been properly understood.3

' How strong the impression of Abyssinia as a living representative ofOld Testament times is, die present writer can attest from his own experienceand may also be gathered from a recent work by E. Littmann, AbessinischeKlagtlieder (1949): "Abessinien ist ein Land kultureller Fossilien. Was sichin Sitte und Brauch, in sprachlicher Ausdrucksweise und in Formen derDichtkunst bei den Volkern, die in Afrika und Asien den Abessiniernverwandt sind, nur teilweise erhalten hat oder durch gelehrte Arbeiterschlossen worden ist, konnte ich vor 40 Jahren im nordlichen Abessiniennoch mehrfach in lebender Gestalt beobachten" (p. 3). Littmann (ibid.) alsospeaks of the " Vergleichsmaterial" which Abyssinia offers in this sphere forOld Testament studies and the "Fortleben uralter Sitten".

2 A similar tireless capacity seems to be implied with regard to theLevites in I Chron. xxiii. 30.

* The Amharic terms for "falsetto" are sallala or i')t' aid. Among themusical terms in the Old Testament (especially in Psalms and Chronicles)whose meaning apparently escapes us occurs tvxhy ty (Ps. xlvi. 1; I Chron.xv. 20). Koehler (Lexicon, p. 709) considers this an "unexplained [musical]term of execution", but Gesenius-Buhl had already advanced the conjecture"mit Madchenstimmen, mit hoher Stimme, im Sopran". It seems to mevery probable that this expression may, in fact, indicate falsetto. In Chronicles(loc. cit) niDby "?J? occurs in connexion with an instrument rather than thehuman voice, i.e. tabatim, and Rothmiiller (Music of the Jews, p. 26) hasexplained this correctly, I think, as "high-pitched tubalim".—There isanother expression which has not, perhaps, been accurately understood:qol ram (Deut. xxvii. 14) which is not, I suggest, ".with a loud voice" (forthat invariably is qol gddol), but this ftira? AeyxSiiEvov combination is likelyto refer to high pitched, falsetto voice. Similarly, berlm qol generally has amusical connotation, though I do not claim that that is invariably the case.In Deut. xxvii. 14 it is the Levites who recite with qol ram. They, as the

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The main musical manifestation of Abyssinian women istrilling, an immensely effective tremulous vibration, which isaptly described by F. da Bassano (Vocabolario Tigray, col. 473) asa "grido di gioia caratteristico delle donne abissine.. .che fannoin occasioni solenni, in chiesa, ecc ". This Abyssinian ululatinghad already been connected by Isenberg1 with certain musicalutterances in the ancient Hebrew worship: Heb. hallel, Eth. 'slhl'."The mode of exultation is to repeat the sound V/?/many times,saying dhlklhlhlhl etc The proper meaning of 'Halleluyah*will probably be 'sing Halhl or 'ilbl unto Jehovah'."2 ThusLittmann (Neuarabische Volkspoesie, p. 87) offers "trillern" as theoriginal meaning of Heb. hallel.

In II Sam. vi. 5 we hear:nn»ai o-wia "ss Vsa mrr •UBV D pron Vmar rva hoi

Kinnor has its parallel (probably also etymologically) in theAbyssinian hrar "lyre" of six strings.3 Nebel may be the Ethio-pian bdga'na* "harp" of eight or ten strings, or, perhaps morelikely, the one-stringed5 masank'o.6 In any event, one wouldrecall the original meaning of nebe/zs a leather container, and thatis, indeed, also the shape of the masank'o. Tof is a "tambourin"which, as the Ethiopian kdbdro,1 is perhaps one of the earliest andmost widespread instruments. Its primary function is to indicaterhythm. Mana'atfim "sistrum" corresponds clearly to the

Temple singers and choristers (I Chron. xxiii. 30; II Chron. viii. 14), werecertainly able to produce the high pitch which the text required, qol ram isthus a musical term (addressed to the "gesang- und musikkundigen Leviten,die eine grosse und wohlorganisierte Zunft bildeten"—Benzinger, Hebr.Arcbaeologie, p. 272) rather than an indication of mere volume of voice.(The LXX employs the same cpoovii tiryAXt), without change of adjective, forqol ram and qol gddol).

1 Dictionary ojthe Ambaric language (1841), p. 1:-*2 Hebrew ballel, Accad. alalu, elelu, Eth. 'tiltl, Lat. ululare, etc., are no doubt

genuine onomatopoeic formations.3 See Buxton, Travels, pi. 21.—According to Josephus {Antiquities, vn,

12, 3) the kinnor had ten strings, but on a coin of Simon Nasi the lyre isshown to possess six strings (cf. Benzinger, Hebr. Arcbaeologie, p. 273) justas its Abyssinian counterpart.

• See Buxton, op. fit. pi. 20.s Schwally (Z.D.M.G. 46) was thinking of an Egyptian one-stringed

instrument nfr.6 See Buxton, op. eit. pis. 19 and 22; H. M. Hyatt, Cburcb of Abyssinia

(1928), p. 135; Mondon-Vidailhet, op. at. p. 3186.? Mondon-Vidailhet, op. eit. p. 3184, fig. 733.

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Ethiopian f'anas'W.1 Sslsalim are probably small bells or "cym-bals"2 for which no Abyssinian counterpart is known to me;etymologically, salsalim and s'anasV are probably related.

The scene which this verse (II Sam. vi. 5) depicts may still bewitnessed in Abyssinia today in substantially the same form andatmosphere. Plates 29 and 30 in Buxton's Travels show a contem-porary religious ceremony in Ethiopia with all its Old Testamentflavour of which Ethiopians themselves are so deeply conscious:there is the dancing, the beating of the drums, the rattling of thesistra, the playing of the fiddles. There is nothing in this scenewhich would compel us to place it in the twentieth century A.D.rather than the tenth century B.C.

In the Ethiopian Dsggva or Hymnary3 we find an elaboratesystem of musical notation {Z^ema) which, in many ways, remindsus of the Biblical wssm and mm or Tporros,* although on thewhole it would seem rather unlikely that there could be anydirect connexion between these two medieval systems of can-tillation.5 The Hebrew structure appears to derive its origin, atleast in part, from the neume notation of the Greek gospels—asPraetorius (op. at.) has shown with some cogency. Unfor-tunately, similar spade-work has not hitherto been undertakenfor the notation of the Dsggva,6 but on a cursory examination Ihave been unable to detect any noticeable Greek traces. On theother hand, there appears to me a possibility (I could not atpresent put it higher than that) of certain Hebrew resemblances

1 See the drawing in Bent, Sacred City, p. 28, and Mondon-Vidailhet,Joe. at. 2 Rothmuller, op. at. p. 26.

3 The finest Dfggwa MS. known to me is the eighteenth-century Dtggvain the Bodleian Library (cf. Ullendorff, Catalogue, no. 52).

4 Cf. the detailed treatment of the Biblical system (without consideration,however, of the Ethiopian notation) by Rothmuller, op. at. pp. 79 ff., andespecially by Praetorius, Ober die Herkmft der hebraisehen Aeeente (1901).

5 We are still not quite certain when the biblical" accents " came into use,but this development is bound to have occurred during the second half ofthe first millennium A.D. Similar uncertainty surrounds the Ethiopiansystem, but I. Guidi (Vocabolario Amarico, col. 265, n. 1) has supposed that"i segni del Dsggwa furono introdotti sotto l'imperatore Claudio (1540-59)". Ethiopians themselves attribute the invention of the ^ema to Yarcdwho is supposed to have conceived the idea under the inspiration of theHoly Ghost (cf. Mondon-Vidailhet, op. at. pp. 3189 ff.).

6 These signs consist of letters as well as dots and circles which are placedabove the syllable to which they refer; they indicate the raising or loweringof the voice as well as other modes of voice production. Guidi (Joe. at.)cites nine different signs.

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in the chanting rules as well as meaning of some of the signs incommon use, although I am unable to account for the ways bywhich such connexions could have come about. I set out below,with some hesitation, the Ethiopian signs and their possibleHebrew equivalents in meaning as well as musical significance;it need scarcely be stressed that this is a very tentative outline:

JiCPJL K"?TK

sni

frfr't TanMac nna

As far as I can see, the Ethiopian signs do not exhibit any ofthe syntactical or hermeneutical significance which the biblicalta'dmim of course possess; their object seems to be purely theindication of the correct liturgical chant.1

Villoteau (Description de I'Egypte, xrv, 1826) had already re-cognized the division of the %>ema into three parts: "g3'*Z pourles jours de f£rie; ' ^ / p o u r les jours de jeune et de careme, pourles veilles de fetes et pour les ce're'monies funebres; 'araray auxprincipales f£tes de 1'anneV. A similar division exists, of course,also in the case of the Hebrew niggmim which vary in very muchthe same manner.

Hebrew qind and Eth. k'srPe are, of course, derivatives, possiblymetaplastically, of the same root, though the Hebrew noun hasacquired a specialized meaning. But the type of chant whichqind expresses is well known also in Ethiopia. While theselaments and dirges are familiar throughout the Semitic world(and the East in general), the close connexions between OldTestament and Ethiopian practices are striking. Littmann hasexamined those parallels in the introductory chapter to hisAbessinische KJagelieder. A remarkable feature is the identity ofthe metric or rhythmic form, the famous qind rhythm, which maybe found in both the Hebrew and Abyssinian dirges.

(/) We must now briefly consider the prescriptions governingthe consumption of food. In this connexion it is importantto appreciate the discrepancy between the abstract doctrinal

1 Cf. Mondon-Vidailhet, op. fit. pp. 3192-6.

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position of the Church, formulated centuries ago, and the actualstate of affairs. Failure to recognize that significant distinctionhas invalidated many of the conclusions at which Kromrei1

arrived.The Fstha Nagast2 (Guidi's ed., p. 147) decrees:

"And as to food there is no prohibition in the Christian Law—except what the Apostles have forbidden in the Book of the Actsand in their canons." This is presumably a reference to Acts xv.20, 29, though even there the prohibition of the consumptionof blood is strictly maintained. In this connexion it is worthrecalling, however, that the compiler of the Fatha Nagast, Ibnal-'AssjQ, wrote for the benefit of Christians living in Egypt,and for this reason it has often—as Guidi (Letteratura, p. 79)remarked—"nessuna o ben poca utilita per gli Abissini".

Similarly, we find in the Confessio Claudii3 (sixteenth century):

atUO t IM^m-fX t hi*, tfH-hAM fl0*fl1 ATI 1 h<M*i hm» 1

" And as to the consumption of pork, we are not forbidden to eatit on account of the observance of the laws of the Pentateuch—asthe Jews." And Claudius goes on to cite in support the famousverse in Matt. xv. 11:

oO T 6 doEpx^PEvov els TO OTOMCC KOIVOI T6V 6v6pcorrov, dAA& T 6

6ctropai6nEvov 6c TOO ordpaTOS, TOUTO KOIVOI T6V &v9panrov.

But none of these sentiments were expressive of the true stateof affairs in Ethiopia; they were merely ammunition in the fightagainst the Jesuits who had accused the Ethiopians of adhering

1 Glaubenslebrt und Gtbrauebe der alteren Abets. Kirebe (1895), p. 42.2 A thirteenth-century work of the Coptic Church in Egypt, made known

under the title of o^jy f-y^h anc^ translated into Ethiopic, probably twocenturies later. The Fttba Nagast has long since become the national lawcode of Ethiopia.

* See the text in Ludolfs Commentarius, pp. 237 ff. The Confessio Clttudiiis part of the polemical literature of that time which was a product of themonophysite-Catholic controversy. King Claudius' main purpose was tocombat the Catholic accusations that the Alpran^rinf Faith was full of Judaicpractices. It is, therefore, not surprising that he was anxious to minimizethe prevalence of Judaic elements in Abyssinian Christianity.

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to Jewish customs. Claudius felt compelled to reject those ac-cusations and to assert the Christian spirit of the AbyssinianFaith, to prove it to be free of all Jewish foundations or accre-tions.1

In reality, the Pentateuchal food laws have been, and arebeing, observed with some strictness in Ethiopia. Rathjens(Juden in Abessinien, pp. 51 ff.) has described in detail the divisioninto clean and unclean animals as related to him by his Amharainformant. This corresponds closely with my own experience inEthiopia.2 While the prescriptions regarding mammals and birdsare generally scrupulously followed, the same does not seem toapply to fish.3 This is probably due to the fact that fish does notform part of the Abyssinian's natural diet. There is no ban on thesimultaneous consumption of milk and meat. W. C. Harris(Highlands of Aethiopia, HI, 150) reported that the sinew

(fTO «p bv -vox win TJ n« VN*W I S "fnic «"? p bsGen. xxxii. 33), which in Amharic is called sulhda or hlluda, was"held unlawful to be eaten in Shoa, more especially to themembers of the royal blood". In Ga'az this sinew is calledA"Cahtfhi.9°t "the forbidden muscle"—as had already beenrecognized by Ludolf (Historia, 111, 1, 66).

Abyssinian customs appertaining to ritual cleanness, too, arestrongly reminiscent of the Old Testament. Preparedness forcontact with the consecrated included abstinence from sexualrelations. That is expressly stated in Exod. xix. 15; I Sam. xxi.4-6, etc. And in Fstha Nagast, p. 114 (Guidi ed.), we find:

"And a man may not sleep with his wife during the days offasting." The Fstba Nagast (p. 169) also enumerates all the otheroccasions on which sexual intercourse between husband and wifeis forbidden, i.e. during the days of menstruation or any otherimpurity. * That this is not here a general Semitic ban, but theresult of Hebraic law, is expressly stated (Joe. at.):

•MfhC t HJHftfh • V7fL M l ,h,C 11 Of. Littmann, Gescb. d. aetb. Utteratur, p. 215.1 I recall many occasions when at official dinner parties my Eritrean or

Ethiopian neighbours would question me about the provenance of themeat course.

» Conti Rossini (UAbissinia (1929), p. 82), however, includes "dei pescisetrzp squame" among forbidden items of food.

4 See also Mishnah Toborotb, Miqwa'otb, Niddab, passim.

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"remember what God has commanded thee by the mouth ofMoses"—and then follows a quotation from (or paraphrase of)Lev. xx. 18.1

(g) One of the principal accusations levelled by the PortugueseJesuits against the monophysite Ethiopians was the latter'sadherence to the Jewish Sabbath. Yet the history of Sabbathobservance in Ethiopia is fairly chequered, and the sources areoften ambiguous2 or even contradictory. The Portuguese accusa-tion was, of course, denied by Claudius in his Confessio (just as thesimilar one was which is discussed under (/) above), but suchdenial could be made on doctrinal grounds only,3 for no onecould seriously dispute the existence of these Judaic practices.King Susenyos, who, in the early seventeenth century, embracedthe Roman Faith," Sabbati observationem, tanquam Judaicam etChristianis moribus adversam, edicto publico prohibuit"(Ludolf, Historia, ni, 10, 64). But he encountered heavy opposi-tion, and even penalties did not avail.

The conception and observance of the Jewish Sabbath inEthiopia drew support from a number of unimpeachable sources:ch. xxxviii of the Ethiopic Didascalia* enjoins the keeping ofboth the Sabbath and the Sunday; Gregory of Nyssa—whoseauthority amongst Ethiopians is high—had argued: "quibusoculis diem Dominicam in'tueris, qui Sabbatum dedecorasti? annescis, hos dies germanos esse, an si in alterum injurius sis, te inalterum impingere?"5 And, perhaps, most significantly: did not

1 Further examples in Rathjens, op. fit. p. 5 8.2 This ambiguity is reflected in the terminology: In Ethiopic MSS. the

usual word for "Saturday" is M f and for "Sunday" "M»£ (this nomen-clature is in itself indicative of some confusion). Often " Sunday" is calledATrn+iticntrVi and "Saturday" <ntH->hfiO-R> (Ludolf, Historia, m , 6, 86);in the Confessio Claudii "Saturday" appears as 4>4al4-ifl'Vn}-i (Ludolf, Comm.ad Hist. Aetb. p. 239). In present usage in the modern Ethiopian languagessanbat is ambiguous, though it usually refers to "Sunday"; more often inAmharic and elsewhere k'tdanfle is employed for "Saturday" and ibuifor "Sunday". The latter is also called 'abiy sanbat and the former m'ussanbat, Le. "big" or "small Sabbath", respectively (cf. Guidi, Supplemento,col. 60).

3 The same reservation applies to the discussion in ch. xix of the FttbaNagast where anxiety to distinguish Christian from Jewish observance ofthe Sabbath goes hand in hand with the injunction that servants are to workon five days of the week only and to attend for religious instruction onSaturday and Sunday.

« Cf. J. M. Harden, Tbe Etbiopie DidaseaHa (1920).! Cf. Ludolf, Historia, m , 1, 55.

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Matthew (v. 18) expressly say that not one jot or one tittle shallpass from the Law?1

In 1844 W. C. Harris {Highlands of Aetbiopia, m, 150-1) foundthat "the Jewish Sabbath is strictly observed throughout theKingdom"; and for the present time Conti Rossini {UAbissinia(1929), p. 82) states: "si considera obbligatoria l'osservanza delsabato, al pari di quella della domenica". Similar verdicts maybe found, among other works, in Hyatt's Church of Abyssinia(p. 224), Rathjens' fuden in Abessinien (p. j 3).

While the position of the Sabbath is thus firmly established inEthiopia—as the present writer can, indeed, testify from his ownexperience—there had been doubts and, in fact, acute theologicalstruggle in former times, and it was not until the reign of thegreat King Zar'a Ya'qob, in the middle of the fifteenth century,that those difficulties were resolved. Zar?a Ya'qob's reforms areembodied in one of the most important works of Ethiopicliterature, the mas'hafa barhan "book of the light"2 in which theregulations affecting the observance of Sabbath and Sundayoccupy a prominent place.

It is not quite correct to assert—as Conti Rossini {Etiopia egenti a"Etiopia, p. 181) has done—that the celebration andsanctity of the Sabbath were only introduced by Zar'a Ya'qob.What the latter did was, in fact, to remove successfully thethreatening schism between the two great monastic orders, forthe main point at issue in this theological controversy was thestrict observance of the two Sabbaths (Saturday and Sunday) bythe northern Eustathian monks (mainly based on Debra Bizen).By deciding the dispute in favour of the followers of Eustathius,3

Zar'a Ya'qob did not introduce a new conception of the equalityof the two Sabbaths, but merely gave preference to the long-

1 See also Dillmann, Vber die Regienmg, insbtsondere die Kircbenordntmg desKonigs Zar'a-Jacob, Abb. d. Konigl. Akad. d. Wiss. (Berlin, Phil.-histor. CL1884), Abh. ir, p. 48.

2 See MS. 38 in Dillmann's Handscbriften-Verfeiebnis d. Konigl. Bibliotbek,Berlin (1878), and MS. 81 in UllendorflPs Catalogue ofEtb. MSS. in the BodleianLibrary (1951). See also Littmann, Gtseb. d. aetb. Utteratur (p. 232); Guidi,Storia d. Lett. Etiop. (p. 51); Ullendotff, Exploration and Study of Abyssinia(p. 54); and especially Dillmann's important treatise cited in the precedingfootnote.

3 On Eustathius (fourteenth century) and the Eustathian order seeLudolf, Historia, m, 3, 29 ff.; Commentarius, pp. 286, 434; Dillmann, Kircben-ordnung, pp. 45 f.; littmann, op. at. pp. 204, 212, 232, 244; Guidi, op. at.p. 59; Turaiev, Acta S. Eustatbii, C.S.C.O. 32/Aeth. 15 (=Aeth. n, 21).


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established northern tradition which, in the original home of thesanitized Aksumites, had always preserved Judaic ingredientsmore faithfully than the somewhat" diluted" southern tradition.'Full details of the observance of Sabbath and Sunday as decreedby Zar'a Ya'qob may be found in Dillmann's Kirchenordtumg,pp. 47 ff.2 There can be no doubt, to my mind, that the status ofthe Sabbath in Abyssinian Christianity derives from two sources:(i) the veneration of the Old Testament and the Hebraic lorecontained in it; (2) Jewish influences imported into Ethiopiafrom Arabia in pre-Islamic days.

Feasts and fasts have to be dealt with very summarily. As tothe former, many obvious Jewish parallels have been pointed outby Ludolf (Commentarius, pp. 368 f.) and others, but I wish todiscuss briefly two important Ethiopian feasts which have beengreatly neglected in scholarly literature: haehi famat"New Year"and mdsk'al "Feast of the Cross". Their importance has notalways been realized, mainly probably because they are additionalto the usual Christian feasts, and their status in the ecclesiasticalcalendar was thus a little uncertain.3 That they are, however, notonly among the most peculiarly Ethiopian feast-days, but also,perhaps, the most ardently celebrated ones, will be attested by allwho have lived in Ethiopia.4

The New Year feast (1st Maskaram = 11 September) is un-doubtedly of Jewish origin,5 and its date^ as well as that ofMask'al, corresponds closely to the Hebrew season of the Yamimnordim. With the introduction of Christianity into Ethiopia itbecame necessary to transform the celebration of the New Yearinto a Christian feast—without undue interference with the deep-rooted religious practices and customs then in vogue. In this waythe Christian feast of Qpddus Yohannes, St John the Baptist, wassuperimposed on the ancient Hebraic structure; and though nogreat violence was done to the date (29 August) on which theChurch commemorates the execution of St John, it is clear that

1 Cf. the present writer's Semitic Languages of Ethiopia, p. 226.* Zar'a Ya'qob's list of what is allowed or prohibited on the two Sabbaths

makes interesting reading in the light of Jewish practice, and reveals, in-cidentally, an astonishing mixture of knowledge as well as misconception ofthe latter.

3 Both feasts are now prominently named as Public Holidays in theofficial Ethiopian Gazette (Negarit Ga^eta) of 30 March 1942 (see N. Marein,The Ethiopian Empire—V(deration and Lavs (1954), p. 67).

4 E.g. R. E. Cheesman, Lake Tana and the Blue Nile, p. 104.* That is also A. Pollera's view (UAbitsinia di ieri (1940), p. 156).


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the ceremonies associated with this day in Ethiopia reveal adistinctly pre-Christian character.

The same applies to Mas&'a/ (17th Maskaram = 27 September),which is tied to New Year in much the same way as rol hassana and

yom hakkipurim are connected by the period of expiation and atone-ment. There is, of course, no clear consciousness in Ethiopia ofthe original respective functions of each of these days, but theidea of purification and atonement is prominently present.

On the morning of New Year's day everyone goes to thenearest river to take a bath of purification which, according toEthiopian belief, is to mark the beginning of the process ofcancelling the sins committed during the previous year. Thesebaths have probably some connexion with the immersions per-formed by the High Priest (Mishna Yoma, iii. 4 ff.). After hisreturn from the bath of purification, every head of a familysacrifices a bullock or a goat (or at least a chicken) as an act ofexpiation—which again corresponds to the Jewish priest's con-fession by laying his hands upon a bullock and its subsequentslaughter {Yoma, iv. 2, 3).

Three days later the feast of Qaddus Rufa'el is celebrated onwhich God receives the report of the angels on the conduct ofhis people and thereupon determines everyone's fate for theforthcoming year. The parallel to the Jewish belief of beinginscribed in the sefer hahayyim is obvious.

Mask'af, the feast of the finding of the True Cross, appears tohave received its Christian sanction at the end of the fourteenthcentury, but the pagan and Hebraic rites associated with it pointto a more ancient and more complex origin. According to theChristian Abyssinian tradition, King David I of Ethiopia (1380-1409) sent a mission to Jerusalem and demanded, in exchange fora large amount of gold, a piece of the Cross of Christ. Theauthorities in Jerusalem, grateful for the King's previous inter-vention in their conflict with the Sultan of Egypt, grantedDavid's request and sent him the right arm of the Holy Cross.It is, of course, clear that this Christian significance of the feastwas grafted upon an existing Judaized nucleus.

On the morning o£Mask'd/the celebration of the Damera takesplace. The Damera is a large heap of-dry wood around whichthe people assemble and which, eventually, to the accompani-ment of shouts and ecstatic dances, is set ablaze. Some say that itmarks the final act in the cancellation of past sins, and others holdthat the direction of the smoke and the final collapse of the

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heap indicate the course of future events—just as the cloud ofsmoke of the Lord over the Tabernacle offered guidance to thechildren of Israel (Exod. xl. 34-8).

The most ancient meaning of these feasts—as was also the casein Israel—was no doubt seasonal: the month of Ma.sk.arammarked the end of the rains, the resumption of work, and thereopening of communications.

The Abyssinian Church has an enormous number of days offasting,1 but Ludolf (Historia, in,'6, 90 ff.) had already observed—correctly, I believe—that the two regular weekly Abyssinianfasts are a remnant of the two days of fasting each week observedby Jews. The change from Monday and Thursday to Wednesdayand Friday was no doubt meant to invalidate accusations ofimitating the Jews.

(b) Reference has already been made in the introductory partabove to Herodotus' views (11, 36, 104) on the antiquity andextent of circumcision. We now know that this custom was notconfined to Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Semites, but was, andindeed is, widely practised in central Australia and in America.The significance of the rite and the age at which it is performedvary; in some cases it appears to be a tribal badge, in others aninitiation rite or a preliminary to marriage. There are other ex-planations as well and these have been discussed in detail in theample literature concerned with this subject.

As circumcision has always been specially associated with theJews, it is scarcely surprising that early accounts of Ethiopia seein circumcision yet one more custom borrowed by the Ethiopiansfrom the Jews. Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia2 contains a specialexcursus on circumcision among the Abyssinians (pp. 289-301),and the learned author finds it proven beyond doubt that theyreceived this practice from the Jews.3 Ludolf (Historia, in,

1 Details in Rathjens, Juden in Abessinitn, p. 54; Vttha Nagast, ch. xv;Guidi, O.M. September 1922, p. 254.

2 Translated from M.Legrand's French version by Dr Samuel Johnson (1735).3 Lobo's general conclusions are of some interest to our theme; after having

disposed of circumcision as an obviously Jewish custom he continues: " TheJewish rites arc in many other instances observed by the Abyssins; one brothertakes the wife of another; the men do not enter a church the day after they haveconversed with their wives; nor do the women come to the divine worshipafter childbirth, till the days of their purification are over Their manner ofchaunting the Psalms has a great conformity with that of the Jews: And in-deed in so many things do they agree, that it would not be easy to determinewhether the Abyssins are more Jews or Christians" (op. cit. p. 301).

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i, 17 ff), on the other hand, draws attention to the existence ofthis custom among very many peoples and denies that any specialJewish connexion can be established. He quotes, in support ofhis position, from Claudius' Conjessio (loc. at):

«Mi«IfH-IHC

However, the limited value of the Conjessio Claudii as evidencefor or against the emulation of Jewish practices has been ex-plained under (/) above.

The Fatba Nagast (ch. .51) clearly reflects the conflict betweenthe Christian doctrinal position and the actual custom of thecountry. After recounting the Old Testament prescription andits significance, the Fstba Nagast decrees that according to the"New Law" (A*7«rh .ft«) circumcision is merely a "custom"(A"7j?:) and has not the sanction of a "legal precept" (+TS"«thpVi). According to the Pentateuchal command, it had to becarried out on the eighth day, but under the New Law that datewas not binding. It is, however, clear from the wording of thesepassages that, in fact, circumcision was practised fairly strictly inaccordance with the Old Testament prescriptions.

The purely doctrinal position of the Abyssinian monophysiteChurch was always unenviable, caught as it was between thedeeply-rooted Judaic customs of the country and the necessity tomaintain its theological prestige as a truly Christian body.Fortunately, these stresses became acute only in times of foreignpressure or religious controversy (the ridicule of the Jesuits orthe intervention of other Christian missionaries); at other timesthe Abyssinian Church and nation have been at peace with theirsyncretistic Judaeo-Christian civilization and folklore. In thecase of circumcision, the Church neither demands nor rejects it—yet it is practised with devotion.2 King Zar'a Ya'qob in his

1 "And as to the institution of circumcision, we are not circumcised asthe Jews. For we understand the instruction of St Paul who says: 'Circum-cision does not profit.'...Indeed, our circumcision is in accordance withthe custom of the country—just like the incisions of the face (practised) inEthiopia and Nubia."

2 For tribal practices of circumcision among the Tigre, see E. Littmann,Publications of tie Prinetton Expedition to Abyssinia (1910), 11, 147-8; K. G.Roden, Ffftp Mabari (191}), section 17.

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Mas'bafa Barhan justifies not only male circumcision but alsofemale excision.1 Alvarez, in his early sixteenth-century narrativeof Ethiopia,2 finds that, though circumcision is done by every-body without special ceremony, people hold that it is written inthe Book and that "God commanded circumcision". And forthe present time Guidi observes that "la circoncisione e general-mente praticata e da molti ritenuta come un dovere religioso3 (myitalics), ma dalla Chiesa non e riguardata ufficialmente tale"(O.M. September 1922, p. 253).

Since circumcision was, and is, so widespread a practice inthe East (as well as in other parts of the world), it would notbe possible to establish any special Jewish connexion for itsexistence in Ethiopia, unless we were able to detect here some-thing of the two principal characteristics which distinguishHebraic circumcision as decreed in Genesis (xvii), i.e. its specialfunction as a visible sign of the covenant Qfrit) between God andHis people, and its performance on the eighth day after birth.Now, we have seen in the foregoing that, while the Church takesno official cognizance of circumcision, it is yet regarded byEthiopians as a "religious duty". In fact, such a duty can onlyoriginate from a time prior to the introduction of Christianityand from the continued veneration accorded to the Old Testa-ment. With the strong consciousness among Ethiopians of beingthe heirs of Israel as the Chosen People, circumcision has becometo Ethiopians a religious as well as national duty, the symbol oftheir status as the new Zion.

The date of circumcision on the eighth day4 is shared, to my1 This custom is still widespread in Ethiopia and elsewhere and has been

observed, with astonishment and often disgust, by writers from Alvarez,Ludolf, and Bruce (Travels, 3rd ed. v, 26) to the present day. It is alsopractised by the Falashas and, of course, by the Cushitic inhabitants ofEthiopia. Zar'a Ya'qob justifies female "circumcision" (in fact, probably atype of clitoridectomy) by recourse to the inclusive terms "house", "seed",etc., in Gen. xvii, which are interpreted to comprise women (thus com-pletely neglecting the repeated Pentateuchal emphasis on ^akdr). Some havemaintained that female excision was at one time also practised by Jews andother Semites (cf. Louis Marcus in Nouveau Journal Asiatique, in, 409-31;rv. 5 '-73 ( l8z9)» though I am not aware of any positive evidence to supportthat opinion.

2 Francisco Alvarez, Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia,15zo-27, translated by Lord Stanley of Alderley(Hakluyt Society, i88i),p.48.

* CoBttRossini(Etiopiaegentid'Etiopia,p. 178) uses exactly the same words.4 This is expressly attested by Conti Rossini (be. at.), Hyatt (Cbureb of

Abyssinia, p. 179), Rathjens (op. at. p. j6).

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knowledge, by Jews and Ethiopians only. This is the moreremarkable because members of the Coptic Church in Egypt arecircumcised at an age of between six and eight years, and Gallas,Muslims, and other influences in Ethiopia, with widely varyingdates, would all combine to shake the Ethiopian confidence in theeighth day. Yet this date has been steadfastly maintained, nodoubt under the influence of the Pentateuchal injunction.

The cumulative effect of all these pieces of evidence seemsto me so strong that I have no doubt that the maintenance ofcircumcision among Abyssinians is part of those elements ofHebraic-Jewish lore which have been so tenaciously preservedin that part of Africa.1

(/') No attempt can here be made to investigate the Jewishbackground of the liturgy of the Abyssinian Church; such a studyis an important desideratum and naturally requires a monographof its own. I shall at present limit myself to a few hints indirections where further research is likely to be fruitful. Themain difficulty in such an investigation derives from the generalinfluence which the liturgy of the Temple and the synagogue hasexerted on services of the Christian Church as a whole and on theEastern Churches in particular.2 It is, therefore, not always easyto disentangle strands peculiar to the Abyssinian Church whichmay reveal special dependence on Jewish liturgical forms.

King Zar'a Ya'qob had decreed in his Mds'hafa Barhan* thatreligious instruction should be part of the divine worship. Thattradition of "learning" as an integral part of the service wasundoubtedly inspired by the synagogue: interpretation, dis-cussion, exegesis of the Scriptures go back at least to the days ofEzra4 and are reflected in the terminology: Imd, dri, etc.; bothMidrash and Haggadah owe their origin to the didactic5 partof the service. Ethiopic darasa, madras, and especially the some-what more technical darsan, are used in virtually the same

t So also Noldeke (Neue Beitrage, p. 36) on linguistic grounds.in dis-cussing the Ethiopic, Hebrew, and Syriac roots gy "to circumcise": "DieBeschneidung wird nach Abessinien durch Juden gekommen sein"—though the Hebrew (as opposed to Aramaic) technical term mwl, mb/does notoccur in Ethiopic.

* See especially W. O. E. Oesterley, The Jewish Background of the ChristianLiturgy (1925); J. Schirmann, "Hebrew Liturgical Poetry and ChristianHymnology", in J.Q.K. (October, 1953), pp. 123-61.

3 Dillmann, Kircbenordnung, p. 51.• Cf. also Elbogen, Gottesdienst, pp. 79, 194 ff.s Cf. TOIS adpfkxcnv eioEAOdw EIS -rf)v owaycoyf)v tSlSaoKEv (Mark i. 21).

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sense.1 Mdmhsr (root mbr "to teach"; reflexive stem "to learn")is a "teacher", but particularly a church instructor, prior of amonastery, and generally a "doctor" (cf. especially mamhiranabeta kfrsstiyan "Patres Ecclesiae"); it is curious that it does notappear to have been pointed out hitherto that the term mambaris very largely coextensive with the Hebrew hakam, hakamim. Tothe same category belongs tdrg'amd2 "to interpret, expound,paraphrase" with a range of meaning similar to that in itsJewish connotation.3

The reading of Scripture and its exposition as an integral partof the church service had, of course, been taken over by earlyChristians from the practice of the synagogue.4 But in theEthiopic worship that reading occupies a rather more centralplace and is strongly reminiscent of synagogal arrangements.Zar'a Ya'qob had reaffirmed that the books of the Old and NewTestaments were to be read in their entirety during churchservices and, in the manner of the parasah and the haftarah, heplaced special emphasis on the reading from the Law and theProphets.5 The impression of a strong resemblance between thesynagogal cfri'ah and its Abyssinian counterpart is heightened bythe not easily definable Hebraic atmosphere with which theEthiopian service-ritual is imbued and, above all, by the musicalrendering (chant, cantillation) of the recitation.6

Antiphonal singing as part of the worship was an establishedform of the Jewish liturgy7 and was taken over by the ChristianChurch, though it is unlikely that Jewish forms were anywheremore faithfully preserved than in the Abyssinian service with itsemphasis on the ddbtara "cantor" and antiphony. In both the

1 See also Noldeke, op. tit. p. 38.2 Cf. Noldeke, op. tit. p. 39. It should, incidentally, be pointed out that

the labio-velar in the Ethiopic form goes clearly back to an original targum—which almost certainly shows that this conception entered Abyssinia throughJewish influences from South Arabia rather than by way of the Syrianmissionaries of the fourth century A.D.

' To the examples of specifically Jewish religious terms which weretaken over into Ethiopic (mentioned in the sections on historical backgroundand (d) above) may be added some of those adduced by Noldeke, op. tit.pp. 32-9.

4 Oesterley, op. tit. pp. m ff. 5 Dillmann, op. tit. p. 65.6 Cf. section (e) above and especially ch. x on the lettio soltmnis of the

Lessons in E. Wellesz's most valuable History of Byzantine Music and Hymno-grapby (1949).

7 See already in Exod. xv. 1 and 21. Later developments are describedby Elbogen, Gottesdienst, pp. 496 ff.

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Jewish and the Ethiopian services the performance varies "fromsimple recitation to elaborate cantillation with the character ofthe feast and in accordance with the liturgical prescription for theparticular part of the service".1

The significance of hymns and psalms in the worship of theEthiopians had already been noted with disapproval by Lobo (seethe quotation in the relevant footnote in section (b) above)because it was too reminiscent of the service of the Temple andthe synagogue.2 The attachment of Abyssinians to psalter andhymnary and the enormous number of existing Ethiopic MSS. ofthis genre almost defy description. Most service books con-taining the complete psalter are followed by the kanoti, a col-lection of usually nine odes (cpScd) which make up the basic textof the Morning Office and which constitute a fairly close parallelto the Jewish Qeroba,3 i.e. the poetical passages inserted into theTefillah. These odes consist generally of eight hymnal pieces fromthe Old Testament and one from the New Testament: (i) TheRed Sea song (Exod. xv); (2) Song of Moses (Deut. xxxii. 1-43);(3) Prayer of Hannah (I Sam. ii. 1-10); (4) Prayer of Jonah(Jonah ii. 3-10); (5) Prayer of Azariah (Dan. (LXX numbering)iii. 26^-45); (6) Prayer of the Three Children {ibid. ill. 52-88);(7) Prayer of Isaiah (Isa. xxvi. 9-20); (8) Prayer of Habakkuk(Hab. iii. 2-19); (9) Prayer of Mary (Luke i. 46-J5).4

Details of the present Ethiopian liturgy may be studied inS. A. B. Mercer's Etbiopic Liturgy* which contains facsimiles ofthe Ethiopic text as well as a translation. Despite many imper-fections (some of which were pointed out by F. Praetorius in areview published in Z.D.M.G. 1916) this has remained a usefulwork which conveys to the student of liturgies an adequate idea

1 Wellesz, op. at. p. 27. For the use of musical instruments in the liturgyof the church see under («) above. I may here add Conti Rossini's authori-tative verdict {Etiopia e gtnti d'Etiopia, p. 180): "Nei riti, la chiesa abissinaha conservato non pochi tratti arcaici.. .il canto liturgico e accompagnatodal suono dei sistri e dal cadenzato battere dei piedi "

2 See also Rathjens, op. at. p. 50.3 Cf. Elbogen, op. tit. pp. 212 ff.; Schumann, op. cit. passim, but especially

pp. 160-1; Wellesz, op. at. pp. 168 £F.* There also exist amplified versions containing such additional items as

the Prayer of Hezekiah (Isa. xxxviii. 10-20), Prayer of Simeon (Luke ii.29-32), etc. A fine MS. of this type is the Bodleian MS. Aetb. d. 4 (no. 44 inthe present writer's Bodleian catalogue), but there exist hundreds of specimensin European collections and thousands in Ethiopia.

* Milwaukee and London, 1915.

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of the Hebraic foundations of the Ethiopic service—overlaid asit is with Christian trappings which somehow seem to have failedto remove the unmistakable Jewish background.

The Trisagon1 in particular clearly reveals its developmentfrom the Qedushab. The Ethiopic name for the liturgy is ssr'atak'addase. We still know far too little of the original form andlater development of the Ethiopic liturgy. Future investigationof its evolution should offer a basis on which a detailed com-parative treatment of the Jewish and Ethiopian services willbecome possible. It will in particular be necessary to establish towhat extent the version reproduced by Mercer is representativeof the ritual adopted in the various parts of the country.

It is hoped that the necessarily superficial examination of a fewselected aspects of Abyssinian Christianity which has been offeredin the foregoing pages may have shown something of the Hebraic-Jewish elements in Ethiopian monophysite practices. In somecases the parallels drawn may well be tentative, but in theircumulative effect they cannot fail to reveal a truly remarkablesediment of Hebraic lore settled in this remote outpost of theSemitic world. I have endeavoured to indicate no more than afew lines along which research might profitably be undertaken,and I have said nothing of many important facets, such ascustomary law, marriage and divorce (in particular leviratemarriage—so obvious a Jewish institution) or of the theologicalstructure. Could it be that tdwabdo, the monophysite doctrine,has been so stubbornly defended in Ethiopia over the centuriesbecause it was felt to accord more closely with the strict conceptsof monotheism? The all-pervading effect of Abyssinian Chris-tianity on Abyssinian life will be clear to anyone who has graspedthe identity of religious and secular life in a Semitic civilization.To the Semite's unified conception of Hie, it would appear,social, political, and religious institutions are one and have noseparate existence.

Travellers from the earliest times to the present day havealways found an authentic Old Testament-Hebraic-Jewish flavourin Ethiopia and in Ethiopians and thus—according to theirviews—condemned or praised them for it.2

1 See' Mercer, op. at. pp. 325 ff. Of. also the valuable discussion inOesterley, op. n't. pp. 142 ff.

* "In genetale, <*hi psamina le credenze e le pratiche della **hi<*sa abissinavi rivela maggiori punti di contatto col giudaismo.. ." (Conti Rossini,UAbisrinia, p. 83).


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IV

The present examination cannot conclude without a few sum-mary remarks on the Falashas who are generally called "the Jewsof Ethiopia". In the present context we shall have to determinewhether they are, in fact, the carriers of those influences dis-cussed in the foregoing or merely one section of those exposedto the general influence.

There can be no doubt that the Falashas,1 who live to thenorth of Lake Tana in the provinces of Begemder, Semien, andDembiya, are Ethiopians of Agaw stock and that they practisea peculiar kind of Judaism. The judgment that "il culto deiFalascia [e] soltanto un miscuglio pagano-cristiano impregnatoappena da qualche cerimonia giudaica" has been considered byConti Rossini2 as somewhat exaggerated, yet it nonetheless con-tains a substantial element of truth. The Falashas do not know ofany religious prescriptions outside the Pentateuch. Mishnah andTalmud are unknown to them—just as they are to their Christiancompatriots. They have no knowledge of Hebrew, and thelanguage of their prayers is Ga'az—just as is the case with theirmonophysite fellow-countrymen. The feasts mentioned in thePentateuch are observed by the Falashas in a manner materiallydifferent from that of Jews elsewhere. Post-exilic feasts are notcelebrated by them. The Sabbath is observed with considerablestrictness, and the prescriptions regarding ritual cleanness arepractised with great zeal—both features which we have seen (insections (g) and(/) respectively) to exist among most Ethiopians.In common with their Christian neighbours the Falashas carryout circumcision on boys and excision on girls. Monkery playsan important part in their community, and their literature—though it includes some works peculiar to them—is mostlyderived from general Ethiopian sources.

A dispassionate appraisal of the ethnic and religious positionof the Falashas has generally been vitiated because—as Leslau(op. cit. p. x) has righdy said—"most of the reports.. .about theFalashas have been incomplete and [were] characterized by a

1 This is not, of course, the place to discuss the Falasha problem ingeneral or to provide an outline of Falasha studies. Some references to thecopious Falasha literature, together with a brief summary of existing in-formation, may be found in W. Leslau's Falasba Anthology (195 i) and in thepresent writer's note in B.S.O.AS. xv (1953), 174-7.

2 Eiiopia e genti d'Etiopia, p. zoi.

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Christian or Jewish missionary tendency which appreciablydiminishes their usefulness and objectivity".

The present writer feels convinced that all the evidence avail-able points to the conclusion that the Falashas are "descendantsof those elements in the Aksumite Kingdom who resisted con-version to Christianity. In that case their so-called Judaism ismerely the reflexion of those Hebraic and Judaic practices andbeliefs which were implanted on parts of South-West Arabia inthe first post-Christian centuries"1 and subsequently brought intoAbyssinia. The Falashas are neither the only non-Christian, un-converted, tribe nor the only sector of the Ethiopian populationwho have dung to a strange, yet interesting, mixture of Hebraic-Judaic practices, animistic beliefs, and paganism. Similar claimshave been made for the Gafat,2 the Qemant,3 and others.A. Z. Ae§coly (Recuei/de textes falachas (1951), p. 4), in speakingof the Judaized character of the Abyssinian Church, has aptlysaid that

...les pratiques religieuses des populations chre'tiennes de certainesregions du nord de l'Abyssinie et leur vdndration pour l'AncicnTestament et ses prescriptions, l'existence de quelques sectes inter-mediaires entre le judalsme et le christianisme, les traditions nationalesdes lithiopiens, fournissent des problemes bien compliqu£s II estprobable que l'histoire de la religion des fithiopiens chr&iens et celledes Falachas sont tres lides l'une avec l'autre, et peut-etre n'en fontqu'une.

If, as I believe, the Falashas are, indeed, remnants of thosenuclei of the Abyssinian population who stubbornly refused con-version in the fourth century A.D. or thereafter, their religiousbeliefs—even though they will have undergone some change inthe past 1600 years—may well reflect to a considerable extent thereligious syncretism of lie pre-Christian Aksumite Kingdom. Itis in their living testimony to the Judaized civilization of theSouth-Arabian immigrants and the latter's well-nigh completecultural ascendancy over the Cushitic and other substrata of theoriginal African population of Ethiopia that we must seek thevalue and great interest of the Falashas today—and not in theirrehabilitation as a long lost tribe of Israel (which is historicallyquite unwarranted).

1 Ullendorff, B.S.O.A.S. xv, p. 177.2 Alvarez, Vortugtese Embassy, p. 349.3 Reale Societa Geografica Italiana, UAfrica Orientale, p. 213.


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It is dear, therefore, that the Falashas cannot be saddled withresponsibility for the existence of any of the Hebraic-Jewishelements in Abyssinian Christianity which we have discussed inthe foregoing. They were in no way agents in bringing about thestate of affairs which we may observe in Ethiopia today. On thecontrary, together with their Christian fellow-Ethiopians (who,in all important facets, are tarred with the same brush of anancient but abiding Judaization), they are stubborn adherents tofossilized Hebrew-Jewish beliefs, practices, and customs whichwere transplanted from South Arabia into the Horn of Africaand which may here be studied in the authentic surroundings andatmosphere of a Sanitized country.

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hebraic jewish elements

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