s
patroness the conversion of the black nations of Nubia, from the tropic
of Cancer to the confines of Abyssinia. Her design was suspected
and emulated by the more orthodox emperor. The rival missionaries, a
Melchite and a Jacobite, embarked at the same time; but the empress,
from a motive of love or fear, was more effectually obeyed; and the
Catholic priest was detained by the president of Thebais, while the king
of Nubia and his court were hastily baptized in the faith of Dioscorus.
The tardy envoy of Justinian was received and dismissed with honor:
but when he accused the heresy and treason of the Egyptians, the
negro convert was instructed to reply that he would never abandon his
brethren, the true believers, to the persecuting ministers of the synod
of Chalcedon. During several ages, the bishops of Nubia were named and
consecrated by the Jacobite patriarch of Alexandria: as late as the
twelfth century, Christianity prevailed; and some rites, some ruins,
are still visible in the savage towns of Sennaar and Dongola. But the
Nubians at length executed their threats of returning to the worship of
idols; the climate required the indulgence of polygamy, and they have
finally preferred the triumph of the Koran to the abasement of the
Cross. A metaphysical religion may appear too refined for the capacity
of the negro race: yet a black or a parrot might be taught to repeat the
_words_ of the Chalcedonian or Monophysite creed.

Christianity was more deeply rooted in the Abyssinian empire; and,
although the correspondence has been sometimes interrupted above seventy
or a hundred years, the mother-church of Alexandria retains her colony
in a state of perpetual pupilage. Seven bishops once composed the
AEthiopic synod: had their number amounted to ten, they might have
elected an independent primate; and one of their kings was ambitious of
promoting his brother to the ecclesiastical throne. But the event
was foreseen, the increase was denied: the episcopal office has been
gradually confined to the _abuna_, the head and author of the Abyssinian
priesthood; the patriarch supplies each vacancy with an Egyptian monk;
and the character of a stranger appears more venerable in the eyes
of the people, less dangerous in those of the monarch. In the sixth
century, when the schism of Egypt was confirmed, the rival chiefs, with
their patrons, Justinian and Theodora, strove to outstrip each other in
the conquest of a remote and independent p