UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Christian
Aksum
retaliation among the Jewish communities of south Arabia. The Arabs
who were faithful to traditional cults were also threatened by the monopoly
of trade relations by the Christians 20 and ended by siding with the Jews.
The proselytism of the Christians may also have served to bring the other
two religions together, threatened as they were by the cultural and religious
imperialism of Christianity.
Massacre of the Christians of Najran by the Jews
While the emperor Justin I reigned in Byzantium ( + 518-27), Kaleb was
emperor of Aksum. It was at this time that the Jews, with the help of
the Himyarites, massacred the Christians of Zafar and Najran. This event
is recorded mainly by the religious authors of the period, Procopius and
Sergius. 21 In their texts, the king who is called Kaleb in our Ge'ez text
is given the Greek name of Hellesthaios. Sometimes this name becomes
Elle Atsbaha, perhaps an arabized form. One also finds the variant
Hellesbaios. Similarly, the Jewish king of Himyar, who was known as Zurah
or Masruc, took the Jewish name of Yussuf when he came to power,
and the Arab authors called him Dhu-Nuwas, or Dunaas, Dimnos, Dimion
or Damianos. 22 In the Ethiopian text that tells the story of the Najran
massacres he bears the name of FINHAS. In order not to create confusion
in the reader's mind, I shall, in this chapter, call the king of Aksum Kaleb
and the Jewish king Dhu-Nuwas.
Sergius, who claims to have gathered his information from eye-witnesses,
gives the following version of the event which Conti-Rossini has translated
into Italian in his Storia di Ethiopia. Dhu-Nuwas or Masruc, king of the
Himyarites, persecuted the Christians, with the support of the Jews and
the pagans. Bishop Thomas therefore went to Abyssinia to seek aid, and
found it. The Abyssinians, led by a certain Haywana, crossed the Red
Sea and prepared to attack Dhu-Nuwas. The latter, not being able to withstand
so strong a force, signed a peace treaty with the Abyssinian leader
Haywana who, after leaving part of his army behind him, returned home.
With the bulk of the troops gone, Dhu-Nuwas treacherously massacred
the Christians of Zafar and burned all the churches, together with the
300 Christian soldiers left as a garrison.
But the worst massacre described by the authors of this period took
place in + 523 at Najran, the most highly developed of the Christian centres.
Among the martyrs was a much revered old nobleman, Harite (Aretas),
whom the Ge'ez text refers to as Hiruth. 23
20. N. Pigulevskaya, 1969, pp. 21 iff.
21. N. Pigulevskaya, relies on other sources.
22. C. Conti-Rossini, 1928, pp. 171-3.
23. ibid., p. 172.
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