Now that we have sufficiently looked at how Ethiopia is described in the scriptures, it would be good to look at how they describe themselves as fitting into the narrative framework of the Christian world as well as how later Christians saw them as fitting into the future, specifically the end of days. To do so, we will be looking at two texts, first the Kebra Nagast, the Ethiopian historical epic, written in the 11th century about, well, the history of Ethiopia. Much of it is thought to be more mythical than historical, but that matters little for our purposes today. Remember, we are not seeking to find the history of Ethiopia but rather how it fits into the universal story. The second text is the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, a 7th century text concerning the Lord's future judgement against the Muslim nations, culminating in the eschaton. It also falls into a similar issue, namely that it is not written by who it says that it is, but again, the narrative and symbolic structure is more of what we are concerned about, not the historical accuracy.
The Kebra Nagast
Within the Kebra Nagast, it delves deep into the story of Solomon and the queen of Sheba and claims that the two knew each other while she visited (under dubious consensual circumstances at best) and the queen conceived. Solomon was said to have some sort of vision that night, which went as follows:
"And after he slept there appeared unto King Solomon a brilliant sun, and it came down from heaven and shed exceedingly great splendor over Israel. And when it had tarried there for a time it suddenly withdrew itself, and it flew away to the country of Ethiopia, and it shone there with exceedingly great brightness forever, for it willed to dwell there. And [the king said], "I waited [to see] if it would come back to Israel, but it did not return. And again while I waited a light rose up in the heavens, and a Sun came down from them in the country of Judah, and it sent forth light which was very much stronger than before."
In this section, we can see a prophecy that the glory/favor of God (ambiguous so far what it refers to), symbolized by the sun, will leave from Israel and go to Ethiopia, only for an even brighter light to come to Judah, obviously symbolizing Christ. I won't spoil yet what the original movement refers to, but some reading this may already be aware.
Before the queen went back to her country, Solomon gave her one of his rings so that he would know his son by his ring when she sends him back to Solomon. When she got back, she gave birth to their son and named him Menelik, and when he was in his 20's, she sent him back to Solomon in order to show him his son as well as to get the fringe that was on the bottom of the old tabernacle so that the Ethiopians could worship towards it and would have a piece of the temple back home. When Menelik, the son of Israel and Ethiopia, comes to his fatherland, everyone immediately recognizes him as a son of Solomon and the wise king actually tries to get him to stay as his heir. Solomon gives multiple attempts to convince Menelik to stay, offering beautiful wives and concubines, invoking his right as a father to have his son, and pleading to him because his oldest brother, Rehoboam, is only six years old, but the young man tells his father that he promised his mother to return and rule and that he cannot leave his people without a king. Solomon then relented and consecrated Him king of Ethiopia but used the Jewish coronation ritual, and then he gave the consecrated king, who now was ritually called David, a company of the firstborn of the Israelite nobles to take with him as well.
I think now is a good time to pause the story to analyze what's going on here. In this way, we see a man who is truly at the margin, a man neither Jew nor gentile and yet made to be a king in an Israelite way. This not only fits within the aforementioned archetypes of the two eunuchs, but it is simply a beautiful confession of how Christ calls all from the ends of the earth to Himself. In addition, this coronation and taking on the name of David is significant, as it places Ethiopia as a kind of sister kingdom, like a sort of Israelite colony in the midst of Africa.
Back to the narrative at hand, the sons of the nobles wept when they learned they would be sent to Ethiopia, not because their kin cast them out but because they must leave the holy city. One of the fellows, Azariah the son of Zadok the high priest, then comes up with a plan to steal the ark, a horrifyingly illicit scheme. However, during the night, he has a dream from the Angel of the Lord, where He actually makes an even better plan to steal the ark and says,
"And thou shalt bring forth the Tabernacle of the Law of God [the ark of the covenant] after thou hast offered up the sacrifice, and I will again show the what thou shalt do in respect to it as to bringing it out; for this is from God. For Israel hath provoked God to wrath, and for this reason He will make the Tabernacle of the Law of God to depart from Him."
What an absolute shock! There is a secret plot to steal the holy things of God, but even this too is a part of his plan of judgement towards Israel for her wickedness. However, they don't tell Menelik about the plan but take it from under his and Solomon's noses. When they do so, they put it somewhere very interesting:
“And they bade farewell and departed. And first of all they set Zion by night upon a wagon together with a mass of worthless stuff, and dirty clothes, and stores of every sort and kind.”
If you think back to the story of Jeremiah with Ebed Melek the Ethiopian Eunuch, he was saved from the cistern by being carried up with a rope of old used cloth, and this is a heavily related image. Jeremiah, the prophet who speaks the words of God, is borne up by dirty cloths, and the ark of the covenant, the repository of God's presence, is borne beneath dirty cloths so as to hide it. Perhaps this image is related to St. Paul's words in 1 Corinthians of the Gospel as great folly so as to destroy the knowledge of the wise. In this way, the worthless stuff hides it from the hard heartedness of the Israelites, but with the eyes of Ethiopian faith, one can truly see the glory of God inside the jar of clay.
While they are leaving, then, all of Israel weeps, superficially because of the departure of the king's son, but at a deeper level, they know with their hearts that their glory is leaving them for a foreign people.
All of this perfectly matches the aforementioned archetypes of wisdom being taken from the wise (Solomon) and being given away to the foreigner (Menelik), and yet, this foreigner, because he has the Word of God, is called David. I would also propose that Ethiopia itself functions then as this Ark. If we go back to Solomon's vision above, the light which shines in Israel is clearly the ark, but really it is Israel itself that shines because of the ark. Thus, with its departure to Ethiopia, the land of Cush is the one that shines because it functions as the new Israel until the coming of Christ, who is the new Adam from which all mankind is to be born again.
The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius
And reaching to the second coming of Christ, the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius tells of a the end times in which the Ishmaelite (Muslim) is the great enemy of the Christian. According to Pseudo-Methodius, they will conquer the whole Byzantine empire, until it seems like nothing is left. It is as if Christendom has been driven from the earth.
"Then suddenly, the birth pangs of affliction, like a woman giving birth, will be awoken against them [the Muslim]. He will be like a man recovering from wine [Ps. 78:65]. He who was considered by them as dead [the Byzantine empire], he will go out against them from the Kushite’s sea and cast devastation and destruction upon the desert of Yathrib [the Muslim lands] and upon the dwelling places of their ancestors. He will take their wives and their children captive." 39
And then we see a prophecy of an heir to the Byzantine (Greek) empire, but this heir will come from the land of Ethiopia (Cush)! Thus, we see, that instead of being destroyed off the face of the earth, the Christian is rather pushed to the edges. This is like when the Jews came to persecute the Christians near Jerusalem only for the ensuing diaspora to lead to a dispersal of the Gospel into all the world. In the same way, the Christian is driven to the ends of the earth, the lands of chaos and mystery, but they are hidden by their isolation. And then, when the Lord blesses them, the Byzantine empire returns with a leader hardened by these lands who is then strong enough to conquer the Muslim.
Then the northern tribes of Europe come and create carnage in the restored Byzantine Empire, and not long after, the Antichrist appears. However, as soon as he appears, there is another prohpecy about this Ethiopian-Byzantine king, and pardon the long quotation,
As soon as the Son of Destruction will be revealed, the king of the Greeks will ascend and stand upon Golgotha. He will bring the holy cross and place it where it was fastened when it bore Christ. The king of the Greeks will place his diadem on the top of the holy cross, stretch his two hands out to heaven, and hand the kingdom over to God the Father. The holy cross will be raised to heaven and the royal crown with it...[Thus] will be fulfilled the word of the blessed David, who prophesied concerning the end of ages and said, “Kush will hand over power to God.” [Ps. 68:31] For a son of Kushyat, the daughter of Pil, the king of the Kushites, is the one who “will hand over power to God.” And as soon as the Holy Cross is raised to heaven, the king of the Greeks will hand over his soul to his creator. All rule and authority will be abolished.
Here Pseudo-Methodius paints a beautiful verbal picture of this great king taking the true cross to the place where our Lord was crucified and then, like inserting a key into a keyhole, it unlocks the gates of heaven itself for the cross as well as the Byzantine king himself to ascend into heaven, leaving the earth in a state of chaos until the man of lawlessness is overthrown.
Thus, in the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, we see a hopeful view of the Ethiopian relation to the eschaton. Rather than a land of monsters and chaos, it is the place where man can hide. It is thus akin to the wilderness in which the Church dwells before the our Lord's return (Rev. 12). And yet, in this hiding, the Lord sustains them until he brings them a prophesied king strong enough to destroy the Turk and bring about the end of days.
Because I obviously haven't written enough on this yet, in my next post, I will be explaining the Lutheran fulfillment of the Ethiopian symbolism and where this narrative world meets with our history.
Comments