Sheba

QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 105
dynastic claims in the area, for it ushered in a new order where religious
affiliation (Judaism), not tribal groupings, was the basis of the state.
This move to create a supra tribal militant religious identity was in
keeping with the times. The world had entered a new phase: the era of
expansionist totalitarian religion. It was no longer enough to impose
political and economic control over large swathes of territory and disparate
peoples. Christianity had been declared the sole religion of the Roman
Empire in A.D. 392. Rulers now sought to dominate and to direct their
subjects’ thoughts and beliefs and therefore, through force of arms,
demonstrate that their theology was superior to those of their enemies. In
this the Zadok priesthood had been ahead of its time.
Aksum’s quest for world domination may seem today to have been a
sad delusion but it certainly was not ill founded. Substantial numbers of
missionaries, including the Nine Saints, came to Aksum in the late fifth
century, many of them fleeing persecution from fellow Christians in the
Roman Empire. Important monasteries, such as that at Debra Damo, were
founded by the sixth century A.D. The Nine Saints quickly converted the
whole of the Aksumite kingdom to Monophysite Christianity and gave it a
world vision. Ostensibly the Aksumites were the allies of the Eastern
Roman Byzantine Empire, but Monophysite Christianity was also the mark
of Byzantine subjects dissatisfied with Byzantine rule. The Monophysite
world view, even as late as the sixteenth century, was the creation of a
Monophysite empire stretching from Aksum through Egypt, Arabia,
Palestine, Syria, and Anatolia to Armenia. This empire would be ruled by
the king of Aksum, with a political center in Aksum, a priesthood drawn
from Egypt, and proselytizing prophets from Syria.
The Monophysites were not alone. Rivaling the desire for a new
empire in the same area, the borderlands of the Byzantium and Persia
empires, were militant Jewish movements based in Mesopotamian Armenia,
Yemen, Galilee, and possibly the Arabian Hijaz. It was the Galilee Jewish
activists who inspired Yusuf in Himyar.
The Caleb Cycle was most probably written for King Caleb of Aksum
by Monophysite missionaries who arrived in Aksum at the end of the fifth
century. They would have used the historical precedent of the Zadokites
and King Josiah of Judah.
As mentioned earlier, the Zadokites had “discovered” a “lost” sacred
text, probably the book of Deuteronomy, using it to enhance their own and
Josiah’s position. The Caleb Cycle did the same for Caleb and the
Monophysite missionaries. The missionaries had brought Syrian, Greek,