There
is no other country in the history of the world that had seven of
its emperors accepted as "Saints" or "Tsadikan"
by a conservative religious organization or a Church at that, any
where in the world. In fact, in the case of Emperor Caleb (Ella
Asbaha) (AD 514-540) what we have is a declared bona fide saint for
all three Christian Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church.
We find it exhilarating to have such profoundly ethical leaders
in our past where even hostile denominations found our leaders as
great moral agents. This should not come as a surprise to us. We
find in the earliest recorded history of mankind, in the writings of
none other than the father of history Herodotus, that
Greek Gods would travel to remote Ethiopia because they preferred
the company of Ethiopians than anyone else because of the high
ethical standards of the "blameless Ethiopians." How
far have we fallen from our illustrious past that we are now pawns
in the hands of the unholy alliance of our historic enemies to
destroy us out of existence? How much more humiliation must we
sheepishly endure being illegally landlocked and choked to death by
upstart nations and the pronouncement of a corrupt Commission that
have no respect for history, and peremptory norms and principles of
international customary international law? How far can we tolerate Ethiopia's
current treasonous leader and government destroying our very
social and political existence as a nation and a community? TH
St.
Ella Asbeha III (Caleb), Emperor of Ethiopia [Greek ELLASBAAN, spelled variously]
[From St. Pachomius Library, A First Draft for a Living Encyclop�dia
of Orthodox Christianity]
The Ethiopian emperor Ella Asbeha III Caleb,
who reigned in the first half of the VI Century, was evidently a
remarkably intelligent and cultured man, with much historical and
scientific curiosity. His palace, parts of which stood until 1938,
included a zoo and a sort of museum, and he enjoyed talking with
learned foreigners, among them the famous traveler Cosmas
Indicopleustes.
The
most celebrated events of Caleb's reign took place not in Africa but
in South Arabia, considered by the Ethiopians to be part of their
empire. Christianity had become fairly widespread in Yemen but
encountered strong opposition from the region's long-established
Jewish community and from local nationalists. In 523 a fiercely
anti-Ethiopian and anti-Byzantine Arab convert to Judaism, Yusuf
Asar Dhu Nuwas, took power in the kingdom of Himyar. Whether Dhu
Nuwas planned to establish an explicitly Jewish state is debatable
-- many of his followers were pagan or Nestorian -- but most of his
enemies were Christian, and his war to establish Himyar's full
independence from Axum took on a distinctly religious character.
Churches were burned and Arab Christian civilians were massacred,
most famously at Nagran; Dhu Nuwas is said to have justified such
atrocities by referring to the horrendous persecution of Jews in the
Roman Empire.
Fighting
an overseas war was difficult for Ethiopia, but outside help became
available when news of the Nagran massacre reached the north.
Patriarch Timothy of Alexandria wrote a letter to Caleb urging more
aggressive action, and the Byzantine emperor Justin I offered the
use of 60 ships. The ensuing campaign, which Caleb led in person,
was in all respects a Crusade, under the spiritual guidance of the
celebrated Axumite monk Pantaleon, who figures prominently in some
of the many amazing legends which grew out of the war. The Ethiopian
forces were eventually victorious in a great battle on the seashore
at Zabid, where Dhu Nuwas himself died in the surf.
News
of the Ethiopian emperor's rescue of the Christians of Himyar spread
throughout the Orthodox world, and Caleb (who eventually abdicated
his throne to become a monk, sending his gold crown to be kept near
the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem) is venerated as a saint not only in
the Ethiopian Church but also, as St. Ellasbaan (i.e. Ella Asbeha),
by the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholics. South Arabia, however,
remained a restless province, and Caleb soon granted it de facto
independence under the Christian prince Abraha. In 570, the year of
Muhammad's birth, Abraha's army elephant corps attacked Mecca,
giving that famous year the name "Year of the Elephant" in
Arab history. Another Islamic echo of the wars of Caleb may be in
Sura 85 of the Koran, which describes how those who burn the Saints
burn themselves; this is thought by many commentators to refer to
Dhu Nuwas and the Martyrs of Nagran.
Norman
Hugh Redington
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