Learning About the Church: A History of Eastern Christianity

1. Give a critical assessment of the book by Aziz Atiya, “History of Eastern Christianity”.
In giving a critical assessment of this book, I have chosen to base it on some questions I have raised. They will help me, I believe to see clearer what are the weaknesses and strengths of this book, and also to understand its purpose and content better.
What is A.S. Atiya’s motivation and purpose for writing this book? Is he biased?
What is his focus concerning theme? Does the title correspond to this?
How does he read history? How does he divide history?
How does he outline the chapters? Are the headings understandable and logical?
Is the book readable and interesting?
Does he fulfill his purpose with the book?
An attempt to answer:
Atiya tells of his purpose, motivation and agenda in the preface and the epilogue of his book. He starts to say that the book is a fulfillment of a lifelong vow. He criticizes other attempts of describing the history of the Eastern Churches for narrowness and lack of understanding. From the start he limited his thesis to the ancient non-Greek family of churches. He says he has tried to see and judge the ‘bare facts’ of the primitive Christianity of the East. He also views his task as a modest work of scholarship and as an act of faith, and says that his ambition has been to establish a base from which others can take over with some measure of confidence. His Hope is that “ the truth and wisdom of the great fathers of the faith are fully revealed to all congregations throughout the world.” He states that he is a member of the Coptic Church by birth and upbringing, and that this may have given him a deeper feeling for the matter he is writing about. And it probably has, but it may also have made him a bit biased. He uses 132 out of 448 pages on the Copts in a history about Eastern Christianity and seem to justify it with: “The place of the Copts in the general history of Christianity has long been minimized…” Especially since they according to him had led the way for centuries. Though he has a great emphasis on the Coptic Church, he is not negative or particularly critical to the other churches, and he has an ecumenical attitude. The book is printed in 1968 and he praises the current ecumenical movement, the growth of sympathy and understanding of Eastern Christians. In that connection he calls the council of Chalcedon a ‘disaster’, in the sense that it gave the impulse of the deep split between the Catholic-Orthodox and the ancient Eastern churches.
The title of the book could maybe more suitably have been: “The Eastern Christianity in light of the Coptic Church”, since more than ¼ of the book is about the Coptic Church when he is also treating at least 7 other churches. He also seems to use the historic development of the Coptic Church as a model of understanding the development in the other churches.
Atiya is an historian and tries to separate legendary material from scientific material and he seems to have documentation on what he is claiming, even though he’s bibliography is not referring to what he has necessarily used as background for his studies, but are suggestions to the reader for further studies. The divisions he makes of history can generally be described as being in three parts:
1) Origins and development
legend, b) founder, c)growth
2) Trials
under Islam, b) under persecution (these sometimes coincide).
3) Modern times
a) rediscovery/coming of the missionaries, b) the evolving relationship with other churches and western influence (only treated in the part on the Coptic Church)
In his reading of history he is very positive towards Islam and seem to overlook the great strain of dhimmitude, a slow and subtle way of persecution and oppression. He claims that Christianity in the East was partly ensured by accepting its Islamic environment. This is not right in the case of the Maronite Church who was strengthened and got its very identity from its resistance. Atiya is also against proselytism in the folds of fellow Christians from the ancient Eastern Churches – instead – he argues – the missionaries should strengthen the already existing churches. Another thing is that he sees a strong, seemingly positive link and continuity between the old Pharaonic Egyptian religion and Coptic Christianity. This might stem from a Coptic pride, in wishing to separate themselves from the Arab Muslims. He does not treat the earlier religions in Iraq, Syria, and the other countries where Christianity took over. Also his claim that monasticism is a purely Egyptian creation is questionable. Surely there were monastic attempts in other religions, and impulses in other parts of Christianity.
I already mentioned the great emphasis on the Coptic Church in the outlining. Another thing is the lack of emphasis on the Ethiopian Church. In the outlining he has placed it in the part of the Coptic Church, which I’m sure the Etiopians themselves would question. I am not even sure they would agree about how he depicts the Ethiopian Church as a part of the Coptic missionary enterprise. He is also not consequent and systematic in his outlining of content. Sometimes he starts with ‘introduction’ and then goes on to ‘historical background’ or origins and development, and other times he starts directly with the latter. The maps also lacks information on the time they are depicting and who made them.
Atiya has as I mentioned a positive attitude to the Churches he treats, with a hope to restore them. This makes it at times pleasant and interesting to read, though I sometimes loose the big lines in his description of history, because of many details and facts. But if the purpose was to give a richer knowledge and deeper understanding of the Eastern Christianity, and a basis for further research, I believe he has succeeded.

2. “Describe the historic consciousness and the scientific history of a pre-Chalcedonian Church of your own choice.”
The Ethiopian Church
“Any history of the Abyssinian Church must take into account the background of the political history of Ethiopia”. It is therefore important to have an overview of the political landmarks in the history of the nation of Ethiopia to understand the developments within the Church.
First we will deal with the Church’s historical consciousness, their legends and self-understanding in the light of these: secondly we will treat the scientific history of the Church, the history that can be affirmed through documents, archeology and other evidences, and which is firmly established by scholars. I will concentrate on the origins of Christianity in Ethiopia, because that is where most of the legendary material is from.
Time of legend: Little is known scientifically of this area from ancient times, except from some few details from the Egyptian Queen Hatsheput’s expedition in 1520 B.C. At that time it was called the ‘kingdom of Axum’. The legend tells us about a union between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba in the 10th century B.C. This gave rise to the succession to the throne of Ethiopia from Solomon, as the ‘Lion of Judah’, or the ‘king of kings’. The Arc of the Covenant was also supposedly brought from Jerusalem to Axum by king Menelik I, son of king Solomon and the Queen. On this background we can understand the Ethiopian claim of being monotheistic even before the entrance of Christianity.
The next legend is connected with the Acts account where the Apostle Philip meets the Ethiopian eunuch in the service of ‘Condace, Queen of the Ethiopians’, probably confused with the Queen of Nubia. However, historic evidence shows us that Ethiopia remained pagan until the 4th century A.D. The Ethiopians see themselves as directly linked with both Judaism and the first Christian apostles, while scholars claim another, later link, to Syria and Egypt.
The scientific history:
According to Rufinius, a 4th century Byzantine theologian, Ethiopia’s conversion began with two Syrian boys, Frumentius and Aedisius. The king’s men picked them up from a shipwreck on the Red Sea Coast, and he took them in to his service: The king appointed Aedisius his cupbearer and Frumentius his secretary and tutor to the young crown prince, Aeizanas. Frumentius gave him a Christian education and the crown prince was later to convert to Christianity after becoming a king, and from then on Christianity was declared the official religion of the state. The two men were both released and Aedisius went back to Tyre, while Frumentius went to Alexandria to tell the news to Athanasius, the patriarch at that time, presumably between the years 341 and 346. He begged Athanasius to send a bishop to provide pastoral care for the growing numbers of Christians in and around Axum, the capital. Frumentius was chosen for the task and appointed by Athanasius himself who gave him the name Anba Salama, ‘the father of peace’. He studied 4 years in Egypt: liturgy, theology and the customs of the Alexandrine Church, before he went back to Ethiopia, with presbyters to help the evangelization and establishing of churches.
The kingdom of Aksum officially adopted Christianity in the 4th century. Aksum was the first civilization anywhere to use the cross of Christ on its coins (around 330 A.D.). Aezanas, the king, used the coins as propaganda to spread his religion by replacing the crescent symbols with the cross. . But it wasn't before the 12th century (and up until the 15th) that Christianity spread, along with the Christian state, to the highlands of central Ethiopia. A remarkable collection of rock-hewn churches dates from this era. They were associated with monks, who were considered on a level with saints and whose lives were often recorded in writing. These monuments and manuscripts are still very important today as the living memory of Ethiopia's Christians.
Aziz S. Atiya describes the winning of Ethiopia for the Gospel ‘a crowning of the labours of the Copts in Africa’. He has also chosen to put Ethiopia under the Coptic Church in the outlining. The Ethiopian Church however, calls itself the ‘Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo Church’ on one of their Internet pages. They tell us that they are often called Coptic from the fact that until the time of Haile Sellaissie in the early fifties, the head of the Church was selected in Alexandria, and it was always an Egyptian. It also says that because of its Orthodox attitude, Ethiopian Christianity never experienced full scale holy wars and coexisted with different rulers and regimes.
Prior to the coming of Islam, Ethiopia experience expansion beyond the Red Sea into Yemen. With Islam, however, the rest of the world knew about Ethiopia only through literary tales. The line of kingship from Solomon was lost, and wasn’t restored again before the end of the 13th century. The Church in Ethiopia was isolated for a very long time, but is now slowly coming out of its isolation, according to Atiya, as it has finally enrolled in the universal family of the World Council of Churches.