certainty that there were Christians in the kingdom of Auxuma in the time of Athanasius, when their bishop, named Frumentius, was deposed for his doctrines.[1]
Ethiopia, when it was better known, became important to the eastern empire for its trade; and the merchants of Abyssinia shared with those of Arabia the commerce of the Indian ocean. From the port of Adulis, on the Red Sea, the ruins of which are still to be seen near the town of Zulla, about thirty miles to the south-east of Massowa, the ships of Auxuma visited the coast of India, and the island of Taprobana, then called by the Indians Sieladiba, and now known by the name of Ceylon.[2] This celebrated island was the common resort for the merchants of Ethiopia, Hamyar, Persia, India, and the distant
- ↑ Athanas. Apol. ad Constant. p. 313. (Opera, ed. Par. 1698. tom. i.) The kings of Auxuma were then Αϊζανας και Σαζανας. Frumentius was created a bishop by Athanasius, p. 315. Ambassadors came to Constantine from Ethiopia and India in 325. Euseb. Vit. Constant. iv. 8. The Ethiopians are enumerated among the people who had received Christianity, by Athanasius (de Incarnat. p. 92), and by Chrysostom (Homil. ii. in Johan. tom. viii. p. 9.), Ινδοι, και Περσαι, και Αιθιοπες.
- ↑ Παρα μεν Ινδους καλουμενη Σιελεδιβα, παρα δε Ελλησι, Ταπροβανη. Cosmas Indicopleustes, Topograph. Christ, lib. xi. p. 336.
Socrates, i. 16), by Marcus (Makrizii Hist. Copt. p. 15), and by Bartholomæus, after he had traversed Arabia (Nicetas, p. 395). Theophilus passed over from the Homerites to the Auxumites. Nicephorus, ix. 18, 19. Philostorgius, iii. 4. Theodoret. ap. Phot.)
