[The following is condensed from an article by Prof. Geo. A. Schodde, Ph.D., of Columbia, Ohio, in Missionary Review of October, 1893.]
In these days, when the old question quid novi ex Africa is re-echoed in an entirely new sense, and the evangelization of the Dark Continent is the aim and ambition of aggressive Christian mission enterprise, it is of special interest to remember that there is yet one national Christian church in Africa, namely, the Abyssinian. Of all the remnants and remains of the once so powerful Christianity of the oriental nation, and particularly of the African continent, the Abyssinian is the only one that has been able to maintain its national and characteristic individuality. Singularly enough, it has among Protestants enlisted the energies of only a few English and German missionaries, and in recent times of a Swedish society. The Jesuits began work there already in the sixteenth century, and managed even to set one of their own puppets on the throne; but a reaction came, and the expulsion of the fathers followed, who were not admitted again until in recent years. According to the Catholic writer Münzenberger, himself a Jesuit, in his “Abyssinien,” there are now in that country thirty native Catholic priests, assisted by eleven priests of the Lazarist congregation, under the direction of Bishop Crouzet. The principal station is at Keren. Here, too, there is a seminary with sixty pupils studying the Ethiopic and Latin languages, together with theology. There are also in Abyssinia eight Catholic schools—six for boys and two for girls. Statistics of Protestant success are not obtainable, but progress has been made, and both the people and their church deserve much more attention on the part of Christian mission workers than they are receiving. This their character, history, and status abundantly demonstrate.
The Armenian, the Syrian, the Coptic, and other oriental churches have almost been wiped out by the Moslem conquerors. The few thousands of Armenian Christians that are scattered through the Turkish and Persian empires—the Copts in Egypt, the Thomas Christians in India—these and communions like these are the mere remains and ruins of former greatness and a sad reminder of what was lost to Christianity and civilization by the success of the Mohammedan propaganda of the sword and false doctrine. The Abyssinians, the modern representatives of the Ethiopians of history, are the only Eastern Christians that in their national existence have not been crushed by the Mohammedans. Against fearful odds the mountaineers of the “Switzerland of Africa,” as Ethiopia is often called, maintained a struggle for life and death with the fanatical defenders of Islam. The latter were able to crowd back the Christians of southeastern Europe to the very gates of Vienna, and the Christians of southwestern Europe to the north and east of France, yet they could not wipe out the Abyssinians, which they have been trying to do for more than a thousand years. The latter still stand as the only non-barbarian people of the African continent that did not yield to the arms of the false prophet of Mecca.
This unique historical prominence is in accord with pedigree, origin, and character. In all these respects they are unlike the other peoples of the Dark Continent. They belong to the Semitic family of peoples, the same to which also the Jews, the Arabs, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and other nations who have been powerful factors and determining forces in the early history of the human race. In fact, they are the only member of this family that as a nation has adopted Christianity. It will ever remain one of the strange phenomena of history that Christianity sprang out of Semitic soil, but has found its greatest adherence among the Aryan peoples. The Syrians were Semitic, but Christianity was never their national religion. It thus became literally true that Shem has dwelled in the tents of Japhet; the spiritual inheritance of Shem has passed into the possession of Japhet. The history of Abyssinia is almost entirely of a religious character. Of the times prior to the introduction of Christianity in the days of Athanasius but little is known. Only in recent times has a German traveler, Glaser, found in Southern Arabia a number of inscriptions showing that in early times the Abyssinians were settled in that country. In reality the Abyssinians are an Aryan people, as much so as the Greeks or Romans, or the modern Europeans and Americans. They are coffee colored, but in appearance and characteristic traits everywhere betray the Aryan.
The Christianization of this country almost at as early a date as it became the established religion of the Roman Empire, has determined the whole history and national development of this people. The religious element that began the process in the establishment of Ethiopia as a nation has been the controlling factor all along, and has been the decisive element in the national character. Divorced from religion, Abyssinia has never known any civilization or literature. Certain national peculiarities, such as the observance of the seventh as well as the first day of the week; the practice of circumcision as well as of baptism; long seasons of fasts; adherence to the laws of meats, as found in the Old Testament law, as also the existence of a peculiar class of black Jews (the Falashas)—of whom there are about two hundred thousand in Abyssinia, but who at one time in the history of the people had managed to secure the throne, and who by descent actually belong to the Ethiopic race—all these things would point to a Jewish period before the Christian, in Abyssinia. But, aside from the stout denials of the native writers, there are no positive evidences that285these are more than national peculiarities, inheritances from the old Semitic family of peoples, as it is well known that some of these—such as the Sabbath observance—was found also among the non-Jewish Semites—e.g., the Babylonians.
The precise period of the introduction of Christianity into Abyssinia has also exerted a decisive influence on them and their history. It was the first century after Christianity had become the accepted religion of the empire, the age of controversies on theological and christological subjects. Accordingly, we have in the Abyssinians of to-day virtually a petrified Greek Christianity of the fourth and the fifth centuries. The outward forms, liturgies, dogmas, and ceremonies have been handed down from century to century, uninfluenced by the development that has been going on in the civilized world and in the church elsewhere during all these long years. The spiritual element in the religion of the Abyssinian Church is gone; it is now mere formalism. The hull and shell of Christianity is certainly there; the kernel, the life, has departed.
The work to be done is to introduce into the forms of Christianity obtaining in Abyssinia the real spiritual life of the gospel. Protestant mission societies have again and again been driven from the country by the “Christian” rulers of the land, because in the nature of the case they were compelled to antagonize the claims, tenets, and teaching of the national church. The beginnings of Protestant work both among the Christian Abyssinians and among the Falashas dated from 1830, when the British society sent out Samuel Gobat. He was followed by Krapf and Isenberg, who did much to secure for Abyssinia an evangelical literature, disposing of more than eight thousand Bibles among the people. These three are the leading names among the Protestant pioneers in this land, while others, such as Sterns, have ably assisted, the last mentioned laboring almost exclusively among the black Jews.
Certainly people and prospects like these should prove peculiarly attractive to zealous mission workers. To rebuild on historic Christian ground the church of God is an enterprise well worth the prayer and energy of evangelical Christendom. The Abyssinians are a noble people, even in their present low religious and spiritual condition; but with a revived and life-giving Christianity they could become a power in the Dark Continent for the gospel cause and a truly evangelical Christian Abyssinia, and become, possibly, the best basis of operation for the hosts of Christian workers going out conquering and to conquer throughout the length and breadth of Africa.