706 Report on Shoa [No. 140. 



title of Salama, which formed the subject of high praise to all the 

 sacred poets of Ethiopia. 



" Hail him with the voice of 



Joy, sing praise to Salama, 



The doors of pity and of mercy 



And of pleasant grace ; Salute 



Those blessed hands, bearing the 



Pure torch of the Gospel. 



For the splendour of Christ's Church 



Has enlightened our darkness." 



During the succeeding century, priests and apostles, men of wonderful 

 sanctity, nocked into the empire from all parts of the East, and miracles 

 the most stupendous are related in the legends of those days. Mountains 

 were removed, and the storms of the angry ocean stilled by the mere 

 application of the staff. The adder and the basilisk glided harmlessly 

 under foot ; and rivers stayed their roaring torrent, that the sandal of the 

 holy man should remain unstained by the flood. Aragaine raised the 

 dead ; the fingers of Likands flamed like tapers of fire ; Samuel rode upon 

 his lion, and thus the kingdom of Arwe, the old serpent of Ethiopia, 

 was utterly overthrown, destroyed, and annihilated. 



The Abyssinians now rose to the scale of subtle casuists and disput- 

 ants. Abstruse doctrines were propounded, and speculative theories 

 largely indulged in, and the sun of existence set upon the generation 

 ere the knotty points had been satisfactorily determined of how long 

 Adam remained in Paradise before his Fall ? And whether in his present 

 state he hold dominion over the angels ? 



In the year 481, the celebrated council of Chalcedom, lighted up the 

 torch of misunderstanding regarding the two natures of Christ. The 

 Eastern church split and separated in mortal feud, and the Saracen 

 pounced upon Egypt, rent and wasted by discord and distraction. The 

 Abyssinians denouncing the Council as a meeting of fools, concurred in 

 the opinion of the Alexandrian Patriarch. 



The faith of the Monophyzite was declared to be the one only true 



and orthodox, and the banished Dioscorus received all the honors of a 



martyr. 



" The Kings of tbe earth divided the unity of God and man. 

 Sing praises to the martyr, who laughed their religion to scorn. 

 He was treated with indignity, they plucked out his flowing beard; 

 Yea, and tore the teeth from his venerable face. But in heaven a halo of honor 

 shall encircle Dioscorus." 



