UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Christian Aksutn
But probably the Aksumite court did not take this step without some
embarrassment. The departure of Frumentius for Alexandria, and his
return to Aksum as bishop, seem to have occurred in a climate of doubt
and apprehension of which the bishop took full advantage.
At all events, betrayed by his own son, the Mahrem described as invisible
to the enemy was vanquished by Christ. The triumph of the sign of the
cross over the lunar crescent is attested by both inscriptions and coins.
The transfer from one religion to another is of course never easy, and
it must have been even less so for the kings, who loved their god as their
own father. A king's honour was always linked to his god. The interests
of the court and of the religious leaders were almost everywhere identified
with one another. When a king like Ezana called his god 'unconquerable',
he was in fact thinking only of himself. Through the attribute he was
seeking his own invincibility.
We can therefore imagine the difficulties that Ezana had to face, as
did his contemporary, Constantine the Great. For indeed the emperor
of Constantinople, although he presided over Christian councils and
arbitrated in the religious disputes of the patriarchs, was baptized only
on his deathbed, since he feared betrayal by the believers in the old cults
of Zeus and Ares. s
Similarly, as Guidi and Conti-Rossini have pointed out, King Ezana
and his family - through fear or pride - did not suddenly abandon their
old god in favour of the Christian religion. The famous inscription
registered by Deutsche Aksum expedition (DAE) in Volume II, which
begins with the words 'with the help of the Lord of Heaven and Earth ...'
and which is considered by all Ethiopians as Ezana's firstindication of
his Christianity, clearly shows his desire to assimilate the new religion
to the old belief in the gods Bëher and Meder, by avoiding any mention
of the name of Christ, Christ's unity with God and the Trinity which
he forms with the Father and the Holy Spirit. 6 The expression 'Lord of
Heaven and Earth' - Igzia Semay Wem, first pronounced in the fourth
century by the firstChristian king - has remained in use down to the
present day.
Neither foreign works not local accounts so far published give any
specific date for the introduction of Christianity to Aksum. The history
of the kings, Tarike Neguest, as well as the Guedel Tekle Haymanot, state
that the brothers Frumentius and Aedesius arrived in +257 and that
Frumentius returned to Aksum as bishop in +315. 7 Other sources of
the same kind give the dates +333, +343, +350, and others. All these
dates seem to be arbitrary. Certain foreign works state that King Ella
Amida, father of Ezana, died about +320-35. Taking fifteenyears as the
5. Eusebius of Pamphylia, pp. 65, 366-8, 418-22.
6. E. Cerulli, 1956, pp. 16-21.
7. E. A. T. Wallis Budge, 1928, pp. 147-50; I. Guidi, 1896, pp. 427-30; 1906, Vol. II.
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