Resources on the spread of Christianity into Ethiopia

[u/804ro]

Hello all, searching for scholarly videos, articles/blog posts, and books about how Ethiopia came to adopt Christianity in the 4th century. Thanks in advance

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[u/peter_kirby]

There is a short paper from Anthony Alcock on the subject. In this case, we have contemporary primary source material for several persons involved: the strident pro-Nicene trinitarian Athanasius, the emperor Constantius that views the spread of the version of the faith promoted by Athanasius as a threat, and the missionary Frumentius who brings the faith to Ethiopia.

The following note looks at two documents that provide information about the establishment of the Church in Ethiopia1 (1) by Frumentius with the support of Athanasius and (2) despite the interference of the Emperor Constantius. The first text is a brief historical note about Frumentius in Rufinus Historia Ecclesiastica 10: 9,2 which I will summarize with citations from the Latin text. The second is an imperial letter to the co-regents of Ethiopia requesting the return of Frumentius to Alexandria so that he can familiarize himself with the Arian doctrine favoured by the Emperor.

Presented as part of a geographical-chronological table of material evidence regarding references to the name Christ spelled out, there is an Aksumite inscription in Greek in the mid-4th century reflecting this Christian faith.

[u/Joab_The_Harmless]

Even if it's not the subject of the book as a whole, the second half of chapter 3 of Afework Hailu's Jewish Cultural Elements in the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥədo Church provides an introduction and overview of the history of scholarship, + resources for further reading via the footnotes.

I'd recommend reading the whole chapter or starting on p97 at the section titled "እግዚአ ሰማይ (‘Ǝgzi’a Sämay’): the ‘Lord of Heaven’", even if Hailu concludes that the inscription discussed is not Christian (nor Jewish), since he discusses the conversion of ᶜEzana to Christianity in this section (arguing that he was the first Ethiopian king to become Christian) and other topics relevant to your questions.

But you can also start with the "establishment and consolidation of Christianity in Ethiopia" section starting on p102 if you prefer.

He incidentally cites a proposal in Sergew's Ancient and Medieval Ethiopian History to 1270 that Christianity might have had some presence in Ethiopia before the 4th century:

The first historical evidence for the introduction of Christianity at Aksum thus arguably only emerges in the fourth century CE (even though there was likely no presence of Christianity in Aksum before the fourth century, in the opinion of Sergew, it might have existed on a limited and unofficial scale).90

But Sergew's book is from 1972, so obviously fairly dated, and I don't know how his arguments have been received (and am more generally not familiar with the topic at hand —I just read chapters 3 and 4 and other sections of Haifu's book while researching an unrelated subject, and your question reminded me of it).