ETHIOPIA, otherwise Abyssinia, one of the greatest kingdoms in Africk. There is frequent mention in the Scripture of Ethiopia: but by this name we are not always to understand Ethiopia properly so called. By Cush, which is translated Ethiopia, we are generally to suppose that country to be meant, which lies upon the eastern coasts of the Red Sea, and at the point of this sea joining to Egypt. Zipporah the wife of Moses, who was of Midian upon the red Sea, is called a Cushite or Ethiopian. See what we have said concerning the word CUSH, and upon CANDACE, Queen of Ethiopia.
There are three countries different from one another, all called by the name of Cush, which word is generally translated Ethiopia. 1. The land of Cush upon the river Gihon. 2. Cush upon the eastern shore of the Red Sea. 3. The land of Cush situated above Thebais and the upper Egypt; and for want of this distinction, people have fallen into very considerable errors.
Hom. Odyss. l. 2. v. 22.The old profane Authors are no clearer in their acceptation of the word Ethiopia. For, first, they give this name to Ethiopia properly so called. Secondly, to certain people of Arabia, situated upon the Red Sea; whence it is that Homer distinguishes the Ethiopians into eastern and western, some on one side the Nile and of the Red Sea, the others on the other side of the same sea and river. Dionysius the Geographer Dionys. v. 177.and Eustathius speak likewise of the eastern Ethiopians situated towards Arabia. Lastly, they place other Ethiopians in Chaldæa and the Susiana; for Memnon the son of Aurora, who came from Susa to the Trojan Hesiod. Theog. v. 984. Pindar. Olymp. 2. Herodot. l. 7.war, is called in Hesiod King of Ethiopia, and in Pindar, the Ethiopian son of Aurora.
Herodotus mentions two sorts of Ethiopians in Xerxes’s army; the Eastern, who had their abode in Asia, and were reckoned with the Indians, from whom they differed only in their hair and language; they carried the same arms, and wore the skins of horse’s heads in the way of helmets, the ears and manes whereof served them for tufts and plumes of feathers; and instead of bucklers they had the skins of cranes. The EthiopiansIdem. l. 3. of Africk have very frizzled black hair, and those of Asia very long. He says elsewhere, that they make use of bows of great strength and length; that brass is reputed among them the most precious of all metals; that they live very frugally, and reach to a great age. That which more immediately concerns us here, is, that this author takes notice of Ethiopians in Asia, and Ethiopians in Africk.
Idem. l. 2.Herodotus adds, that they of Africk are likewise circumcised as well as the Egyptians; but he does not venture to assure us which of these two people were the first who introduced this practice, because it is very ancient among both. We shall see hereafter, that the Ethiopians acknowledge they received it from the Jews.
When therefore in the sacred text Ethiopia is spoken of, we are to distinguish carefully these several countries and nations, to prevent the being led into a mistake by
Numb. xii. 1. Gen. x. 6.the different meanings of the same word. The Scripture mentions but one man by the name of Cush, who was the son of Ham, and brother of Canaan. Whether the several countries known in the Hebrew text by the name of Cush, and in the Interpreters by that of Ethiopia, were so called from him, we are not able to say. Many are of opinion, that his first and real abode was in Arabia the happy, upon the eastern coasts of the Red Sea; that from thence his descendants passed into Africk, and peopled Ethiopia. Others on the contrary assert, that Arabia went by the name of Ethiopia for no other reason, but because the Ethiopians Bibl. Orient. p. 409. Habasch.subdued it, and continued for a long time in possession of it. But even in the time of Moses, the land which borders on the east side of the Red Sea was then called Cush; and if so, I cannot tell whether any one can prove, that the Ethiopians before this time had conquered this part of Arabia.
Abyssinus. Abyssina regio.Ethiopia properly so called, goes more generally by the name of Abyssinia, which the Arabians derive from Habasch the son of Cush. We have no mention of this Habasch in the bible, nor of Cush, from whom the Mahometans suppose him to be descended; for the Scripture takes notice of but one man by the name of Cush, who was brother to Canaan, and father to Nimrod, Seba, Sabtah, Havilah, Raamah, and Sabtecha; whereas the Arabians make Cush the father of Habasch, son and not brother to Canaan; and certainly it is very probable, that Cush the father of Nimrod and the others just now named by us, who dwelt in Asia, and whose habitation was upon the river Gihon, is very different from Cush the son of Canaan, who peopled part of Arabia Felix, which is Ethiopia properly so called, otherwise named Abyssinia from his son Habasch.
Idem. p. 274.The city of Cos, situated upon the Nile in upper Egypt, and by some confounded with the famous Thebes, took its name from Cush the father of the Ethiopians. The Arabians call them not only Habasch, or Abyssinians, but likewise Cush, or Cousch, in like manner as the Hebrews. The Persians call them black Indians, and they tell us that the Indians, that is to say without doubt the Ethiopians, desired Bishops of Simon the Syrian, the Jacobite Patriarch of Alexandria. The Ethiopians call him Salama, whom the Greeks and Latins name Frumentius, the same who was sent by St. Athanasius to preach the Gospel to them. Till the time of Salama they had circumcision only, which had been taught them by Zadok, High-Priest of the Jews, who was sent to them, as they say, in Solomon’s time, to instruct them in Judaism. This is the account we have from the Ethiopians.
Others believe, that these people received the faith from St. Matthew, or St. Bartholomew, or St. Philip, or Queen Candace’s Eunuch, who was baptized by St. Acts viii. 27.Philip, one of the seven Deacons, not the same with the Apostle of that name; but all these different opinions are founded only on the several meanings of the word Ethiopia. St. Matthew, we are told, preached the Gospel to the Ethiopians above the Araxes, or in the neighbourhood of the Persians. St. Bartholomew preached to the Indians, known by the ancients under the name of Ethiopians; or in Arabia the happy, where, as we have seen, there was a canton called Cush or Ethiopia. Lastly, St. Philip the Deacon, or the Eunuch, might preach the Gospel to Queen Candace’s subjects, who reigned in Arabia, or in the peninsula of Meroë, which is sometimes comprized under the name of Ethiopia.
Habasch or Abyssinian, the name whereby the Ethiopians are called, signifies properly a mixture of divers nations collected and united together. It comprehends the Abyssinians, Nubians, and Pongians. The Arabians gave them this name, which the Ethiopians for a long time rejected, and do not yet assume in their books. They call themselves Ethiopians, and their country, the Kingdom of Ethiopia, or Becra Agazi, the land of liberty, or otherwise, people who have decamp’d, to shew that they came out of Arabia the happy, which is ancient Ethiopia, or the old land of Cush, to transplant themselves into the country which they are at this day possess’d of. Their remove to this new habitation fell out, according to Eusebius, during the servitude of the Israelites in Egypt, or about the time of Joshua and the Judges, according to Syncellus. But if this be so, it must be owned, that there still remained a great number of them in Arabia, for some of them we see were there long afterwards.
Gen. ii. 13.The Abyssinians are Moors, black or of an olive colour, according to the different provinces which they inhabit; it is said they are born white, with a little black spot upon their navel, which in a short time after their birth, spreads over their whole body: when they are transported into Europe, they become white at the second or third generation.
There is frequent mention in the Scripture of Ethiopia and Ethiopians. Moses says, that Gihon, one of the four rivers in Eden, compasseth the land of Ethiopia; that is to say, the country which is watered by the Araxes, the ancient dwelling of the Scythians, or Chutes, or Chutæans. We read in Numbers, that Moses Numb. xii. 1.married an Ethiopian, that is to say, Zipporah the daughter of Jethro Priest of Midian, in the land of Cush, upon the eastern shore of the Red Sea. In the second book of Kings, we see 2 Kings xix. 9.Tirhakah King of Ethiopia came against Sennacherib’sJob xxviii. 19. army. This Tirhakah was Esth. i. 1. viii. 9. xi. 1.a King of Ethiopia or Arabia, in the sense wherein we have been explaining it. The topaz of Ethiopia, spoken of by Job, came from the red sea and the land of Cush, which is in Arabia the happy. Zerah King of Ethiopia, 2 Chron. xiv. 9.who marched against Asa King of Judah, with two hundred thousand men and three hundred chariots, reigned in the same country. Hab. iii. 7.Habakkuk speaks of the tents of the Ethiopians and Midianites, which were under affliction when the Lord appeared at Sinai. We have already observed, that Zipporah, who was a Midianite, is called an Ethiopian. Midian was therefore in the land of Cush, which we are speaking of, in Arabia the happy, upon the coast of the red sea.
King Ahasuerus in Esther reigned from the Indies to Ethiopia, that is to say, as far as the present Abyssinia: for Herodotus says this country paid tribute to Darius the son of Hystaspes. Nebuchadnezzar, of whom there is Judith i. 9.mention made in Judith, sent Ambassadors into Palestine, to the land of Gesem, and as far as the frontiers of Ethiopia: probably Ethiopia properly so called, to the south of Zeph. iii. 10. Isa. xviii. 1.Egypt. Zephaniah says, the Lord will be worshipped in places beyond the rivers of Ethiopia; ultra flumina Æthiopiæ inde supplices mei. And Isaiah says, Wo to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the river of Ethiopia. Væ terræ cymbalo alarum, quæ est trans flumina Æthiopiæ. Expositors are divided in their opinions concerning these rivers of Ethiopia, or Cush. They cannot be the rivers of Arabia, for there are no considerable ones in this country. It seems out of all question, that the prophet Isaiah by the land which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, intended to describe Egypt. These rivers therefore are the Nile, and the several parts of it, which run through lower Egypt. This country with regard to Judea was beyond the Nile, for there was no going into any place of the Delta, without crossing some arm of the river, and there were canals cut through all lower Egypt. These rivers came from Ethiopia; we know the source of the Nile is in this country.
Psal. lxviii. 32. Isa. xx. 3.Hezekiah sent Ambassadors to the King of Egypt, desiring his assistance, according to Isaiah, against Sennacherib; and the prophet Zephaniah foretold, that the Egyptians would one day come and perform their adorations to the Lord. Both these prophets describe Egypt only by the country which lies beyond the rivers of Ethiopia. The Psalmist in like manner prophesied, that Egypt and Ethiopia should come and pay their homage to the Lord. Princes shall come out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. Isaiah foretold the captivity of Egypt and of the land of Cush, or Ethiopia; which we may explain either of the eastern Ethiopia,
situated in Arabia; or the western, lying to the west of the Red Sea, and south of Egypt. The same prophet says, that God will recall his people who are dispersed in Assyria, Egypt, Ethiopia, and in the canton of Pathros. In this place we may suppose, either Ethiopia properly so called, to be meant, or the land of Cush upon the Araxes. He says elsewhere, that the Lord hath delivered Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba, in order to redeem the Israelites; which may be explained of the Ethiopians in Arabia, because they are join’d with Seba, another people in Arabia the happy. The same thing must be said of this other passage in Isaiah, The labour of Egypt, and merchandize of Ethiopia, and of the Sabeans, men of stature shall come over unto thee, they shall surrender themselves to thee.
Ethiopia properly so called is described Ezek. xxix. 10. See the Hebrew.to us in the following passages; I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from Migdol as far as Syene, in the confines Jerem. xiii. 23. Psal. lxxiv. 14.of Ethiopia. And Jeremiah, Can the Ethiopian change his skin? And the Psalmist, Thou breakest the head of the dragon, of the leviathan, the crocodile, in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people of Ethiopia. This is interpreted as relating to the people of Tentyra in upper Egypt, who were declared enemies to the crocodile, and eat it; whereas the Egyptians paid divine honours to it. Jeremiah joins the Cushim with the Libyans. Procedant fortes Æthiopia, & Lybies tenentes arcum. Dan. xi. 43.Daniel in like manner mentions them together; Per Libyam & Æthiopiam transibit: which can be naturally explained only of the Ethiopians or Abyssinians. See also Ezekiel xxx. 4, 5. where these people are put together as neighbours. Queen Candace’s Eunuch was of the same country. But by all these passages it appears, that under the name Cush, not only Ethiopia was comprehended, which is higher than Syene and the Cataracts, but likewise a part of Thebaïs.