Baring-Gould’s sources: Ethiopic Kalendar on Nov. 24 and 26. But the Senkessar or Abyssinian Synaxarium, edited by Sapetus, on Nov. 22 and 24. In the 8th cent. S. Arethas occurs in the Constantinopolitan Menology on Oct. 24. So also Metaphrastes, and the Russian Kalendar. Menology of Basil; Ruthenian Kalendar. The Coptic Kalendar and the Sacred Kalendar of the monastery of S. Sabas near Jerusalem, drawn up by S. Sabas in 532. The Marble Kalendar of Naples of the 9th cent. The modern Roman Martyrology, however, on July 27: “Among the Hemeritse the commemoration of the holy martyrs who were cast into the flames for the faith of Christ under the tyrant Dunaan.” Authorities: — The Arabic historians Nuweir, Abulfeda, Hamza, Tabeir. Also Simeon Betharsamensis, who wrote in 524, while the persecution was still raging, and who was in Arabia at the time. His account is in Syriac. Johan. Asise Episcop. (op. Asseman, t. i.), John Malala, Nicephoms, Callistus, Cedrenus, Arabian accounts in d’Herbelot, “ Bibliotheque Orientale,” under the head of Abu-Nanas, and the Greek Acts of the Martyrs, written certainly before 597, and probably before 565. An Armenian version exists in the book Djarrentir. The Greek Acts, and Armenian Acts, are both apparently translations from a Syriac or Arabic original. They are trustworthy.’ The part concerning S. Arethas was certainly written shortly after 523, but the conclusion was added later, but before 597.] The peninsula of Arabia was divided by the old geographers into three parts: the desert plains of the north-east, which bordered on the Euphrates and the Syrian frontier, the province of Petraea, at the northern extremity of the Red Sea; and the richer and more extensive tracts of Arabia Felix. This latter division is chiefly included by native writers under the comprehensive term of Yemen, which in signification coincides with its Roman epithet. On the north the territories of Yemen extended into the mountain ranges of the interior, and were bounded perhaps by the exten1 Some use has been made, in compiling this sketch, of Wright’s “ Early Christianity in Arabia,” London, 1855.
SS\ A rethas and Comp. sive deserts that spread out towards the Persian Gulf; on the west and south it was separated from Africa by the Red Sea; and the eastern coasts were washed by the waves of the Southern Ocean. The inhabitants of this fertile district differed widely in their character from the wandering Arabs of the desert. They were subject to kings, governed by laws, and enjoyed all the advantages of social life. Arabia Felix contained several petty States, governed by their own princes, but all were subject to the king of Hamyar, who was called the Great King, and whose influence extended from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf.
At what period Christianity was first introduced into Arabia Felix it is now impossible to determine, but probably it was not till long after it had spread over the neighbouring nations. From the little connection which existed between the inhabitants of Yemen and the rest of the world, the old Sabsean religion would probably remain long unexposed to invasion oi hostile faiths. At the time of the introduction of Christianity, the Jews appear to have penetrated into the peninsula in great numbers, and to have formed also a great impediment to its progress. The first rudiments of the Christian faith are believed traditionally to have been planted among the Hamyarites, who were known, in common with the people of Hindustan and Ethiopia, under the general name of Indians, by the apostle Bartholomew.1 Frumentius and Edesius (see Oct. 27) greatly advanced the faith in Hamyar in the 4th century. The troubles which affected Arabia Felix in the 5th century, were favourable to the extension of Christianity in the peninsula, and the tolerant spirit of Arabian idolatry afforded equally a safe asylum to the per secuted disciples of Zoroaster, numbers of whom settled in Bahhrein, to the Jew, and to the fugitive Christian. As long as the kings of Hamyar adhered to their ancient 1 Euseb. H. E. iii. i; Asseman, Biblioth. Orient, t. iii. p. dxcii VOL. XIV, superstitions, each of these sects was allowed the free exercise of its religious ceremonies, and the public profession of its faith. But no sooner did the followers of Judaism gain power, than the disciples of Jesus, whom they considered as their bitterest enemies, began to experience their resentment. The causes which drew upon the Christians of Arabia Felix the enmity of the king, Dzu Nowass,1 are variously reported by the Arabian historians, but the most credible are agreed that he was excited to the persecution of them by his Jewish advisers and subjects.
The Nadjash, or king of Abyssinia, who was contemporary with Dzu Nowass, is called in the Ethiopian histories Caleb, by the Greek historians Elesbaan, or Hellesthaeus. Although we discover few traces of it in any historian, yet it is probable that the Hamyarites and their Ethiopian neighbours were often at war. The king of Auxuma appears, from an inscription recently discovered at Axum, to have laid claim to the kingdom of Hamyar as early as this period, and the war which ended in the conquest of Yemen was perhaps only a renewal of the national quarrel.
On the breaking out of the persecution of the Christians of Hamyar, by Dzu Nowass, the Roman merchants engaged in the Ethiopian trade were among the first who experienced its effects. The rich merchandize contained in their caravans naturally excited the cupidity of the persecutors; the injuries which the Jews were represented to have suffered undei the dominion of Rome, were eagerly embraced as a pretext by a king who had embraced Judaism, and under the pretence of retaliation, the caravans were stopped and plundered on their passage over the mountains, and the merchants put to death. The Abyssinian king was not slow in resenting the injury which his kingdom sustained by the interruption of the Roman trade. Messengers were de' In the Roman Marlyrology called Dunaamus. spatched to the Tobbaa, or chief king of Hamyar, to expostulate, but without effect, and they were immediately followed by a powerful army. After a long and obstinate war, the king of Hamyar was reduced to the humiliating terms of paying tribute to the Abyssinian conqueror. Although the Abyssinians had long embraced Christianity, it does not appear to have been openly avowed by the royal family, at least all the old historians are agreed that Elesbaan was not a Christian. Theophanes calls him a Jew. Influenced, however, by his commercial alliance with the emperor, and his profitable trade with the Christians, he appears to have been always favourably inclined towards them, and when he undertook the invasion of Hamyar, he had made a vow that, should he succeed in his enterprise, he would openly receive the religion of Christ, for it was, he said, in the cause of the Christians that he had taken up arms.1 Soon after the Abyssinian forces had been withdrawn from Arabia, Dzu Nowass suddenly raised an army, and defeated those who had been left to secure the conquests of the Nadjash. No sooner had he thus regained possession of his hereditary kingdom, than the Tobbaa prepared to wreak his vengeance on the now defenceless Christians, and all who refused to renounce their faith and embrace Judaism were put to death, without respect to age or sex. The town of Nadjran, on the north of Yemen, was inhabited by the Benni Haleb, who had embraced the religion of Jesus, according to Arabian historians, at the preaching of a Syrian missionary. It was under the jurisdiction of a bishop, and had a church which was frequented by many Christians from the various Arabian tribes. Against this place Dzu Nowass is said to have been instigated by the Jews of Yatreb. On his arrival before it, he found it surrounded by a wall and ditch, and the whole town in arms, ‘ For his Life see Oct. 27.
prepared to oppose him. He sent a herald into the city, bearing a cross on a pole, with the message, “ Whosoever will not show insult to this sign, shall be destroyed by fire and sword. Whosoever remains Christian, whosoever has been left by the Ethiopian king in this land, and every monk, shall perish by fire and sword. The churches shall be burnt and reduced to powder. Therefore, citizens of Nadjran, choose my favour, or your religion of the Crucified.” The citizens sternly refused to abandon their religion, and the Tobbaa laid siege to the place with a large army, ravaging the surrounding country. Finding, however, from the firmness and bravery of the Christians of Nadjran, that he was not very likely to succeed by force, he had recourse to treachery; and on his taking a solemn oath that he would not injure one of the inhabitants, but would allow them the peaceful exercise of their religion, if they would open the gate, and pay him an annual tribute, the town of Nadjran was surrendered.
The king of Hamyar disguised his treachery no longer than was necessary to gain the object which he had in view by it. Nadjran was plundered by his troops. The chief men of the town, with their prince, who is called in the Greek Acts Arethas, son of Chreph, but who is named by the Arabian writers, Abdallah Ibn Althamir, a man distinguished for his wisdom and piety, were thrown into chains. The Tobbaa next sought the bishop, whose name was Paul, and when informed that he had died two years previous, he ordered his bones to be disinterred and burnt, and the ashes to be scattered to the winds. On the following day the soldiers were occupied in digging large pits and filling them with fuel \ fire was set to the wood, and all the priests, deacons, and other ministers of the church in Nadjran were cast into the flames, together with those who led an eremitical life in the neighbourhood, and the consecrated virgins, and “ the 6'6‘. A rethas and Comp.
female singers, who sang day and night in the houses of God.” All these, to the number of 427, were burned alive without trial,1 the king hoping thereby to strike terror into the minds of the Christians.
Finding them still firm, the Tobbaa collected men, women, and children, to the number of 4,252, if we may trust the author of the Acts, and his account is confirmed by Arab historians, who say that there were many thousands.2 These were given over to indiscriminate slaughter by the soldiery. The wives and children of the chief citizens he brought before their husbands and fathers, in hopes that compassion for their weakness might move the latter to apostacy. But the heroic women implored their husbands to remain constant to Christ, and protested their readiness to die for their faith. And the children, weeping, echoed their mothers’ words. Along with these matrons were ten religious women, consecrated to God. The tyrant bade his soldiers drag the women away by their hair to the place of execution. On reaching it, the nuns stood forward and claimed their right, as'dedicated virgins, to lead the way through the Red Sea of Blood to the heavenly mansions.
“ Nay,” said the others, “ rather let us die first, that we may stand as a great company of witnesses about our husbands and sons as they die for Christ.”
The soldiers fell on them indiscriminately and smote off their heads. Ruma, a widow, the woman of highest rank in the city, was taken along with her two daughters, and brought before Dzu Nowass. She was a woman of singular beauty, and her daughters had inherited her loveliness. John of Asia has preserved a letter of the king’s to the mondar oi Hirah, 1 In his letter to the mondar of Hirah, King Dzu Nowass says, “ I killed as many as 180 priests.’* Christians were martyred.
giving an account of this butchery; in it he writes: “ I swear by Adonai, that I am exceedingly grieved when I think of her beauty, and of that of her daughters.’’ The king hoped to obtain her recantation of Christianity. But she, finding that she was spared when the other women were massacred, requested that she might be brought before the Tobbaa. “ Then/’ says the Acts, “ she was led by the servants of the king, under an umbrella; for she had never been exposed to the sun, except when it shone through a window.” And she stood before the king, and he said to her: “ Madam, you are a woman of great rank and wealth, of high family, and very beautiful. Since your husband’s death you have remained unmarried, though you have a large fortune, and as many as three hundred serving-men in your house. Obey now my advice: abandon your trust in the Crucified, come to my palace, and become my queen.”
“ I cannot have any portion with a man who does not share my faith,” she answered, firmly. The king then ordered her and her daughters to be unveiled before every one. The command was executed, their faces were exposed, and their long hair unbound. Many Jewesses and other women present wailed and commiserated them. The younger daughter, a girl aged twelve, turned and spat at the king. Then the tyrant gave a signal, and first the heads of the daughters, then that of their mother were struck off.
Arethas and his companions were next urged to apostacy. But the sight of the heroic constancy of the women nerved them to play the man. The king condescended to argue with them. God, he said, was incorporeal, and could not therefore be crucified and slain. Christ could not therefore be regarded as God, but as a human being. Dzu Nowass then assured them he had no desire to make them worship the sun and the moon, or any created thing, but the One God who had produced all things, and was the Father of all generation. But his insidious arguments were treated with contempt, and Arethas declared that he and his companions were all ready to die in the cause of their Saviour. The Tobbaa accordingly ordered them to be conducted to the side of a small brook or wady, in the neighbourhood, where they were beheaded, to the number of 340. When he had thus perpetrated the tragedy of Nadjran, the Tobbaa returned with his army to Sanaa.
At the time when this event occurred, an embassy had been sent by the Emperor Justin to the mondar, or king of the Arabs of Hirah, under the direction of the bishop of Persia, a priest named Abraham, and Simeon Betharsamensis, who has left us a narrative of the persecution, to conciliate their friendship, and endeavour to detach them from their alliance with, or rather dependence on, Persia. When he reached the camp of the Arab chief, a messenger had just arrived from the king of Hamyar, informing the mondar of the success and particulars of his expedition against Nadjran, and exhorting him to take similar measures against the Christians who lived under him. The bishop of Persia immediately wrote a circumstantial account of the sufferings of the Christians of Nadjran to his Roman brethren, in which he urged them speedily to take up the cause of the believers in Arabia, and this epistle we possess.
Amongst the few Christians who had escaped the persecution of Dzu Nowass, was Dous Ibn Dzi Thaleban, who fled to the court of Constantinople, and implored the emperor to advocate the cause of his persecuted countrymen. To him we are probably indebted for the Acts of the Martyrs of Nadjran. The emperor gave him a favourable hearing, excused himself on account of the state of public affairs and the distance of Arabia, from personally assisting him, but gave him letters to the Nadjash of Ethiopia. Timothy also, patriarch [the title of the bishops of the great ancient sees: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem] of Alexandria, wrote pressing exhortations to Elesbaan, to revenge the blood of the martyrs and release the surviving Christians from the despotism of so bloodthirsty a tyrant. He sent him the Holy Eucharist in a silver pyx to enforce his appeal.
In the meantime fresh massacres had taken place. Dzu Nowass seems to have appointed as prince of Nadjran one named Sarabahal, who was quite prepared to carry on the persecution. A priest, Azquir, was arrested by him. On the Feast of the Epiphany, some fifty men came to the prison to celebrate the festival with the priest. They were taken and, along with Azquir, brought bound before the king. On their road a Christian named Cyriacus saluted the priest. The guards at once arrested him. Azquir was hung head downwards over a fire, and afterwards decapitated, and thirtyeight with him.
The Abyssinian king, who was now himself a Christian, had a double incentive to engage vigorously in his war with Hamyar — vengeance for the slaughter of the Christians, and the recovery of his own supremacy over Arabia Felix. Dzu Nowass, in pursuing his plans of vengeance, had seized the opportunity when the season of the year was unfavourable to navigation between Abyssinia and Arabia. As soon, however, as the season permitted, and the preparations were completed, an army, amounting, according to Arabian writers, to 70,000 men, set sail for the coast of Hamyar, under the command of Aryat, the nephew of Elesbaan. The Abyssinian forces were divided into two parts. One division was landed on that coast of Arabia which lies on the Red Sea, and, after having crossed the Tehama, was to co-operate with the other division as soon as the latter had effected a landing on the southern coast. The first division, however, perished, or was dispersed in crossing the desert. The Arabian king, therefore, who had been making preparations to defend his kingdom against this double attack, when he heard of the disaster which had befallen the first detachment of the Abyssinian army, and was consequently delivered from all apprehensions of danger on that side, turned his attention to the defence of the coast.
The coasts of Arabia and Abyssinia approach each othei by degrees, until at the southern extremity of the Red Sea they form a narrow passage, the entrance to the ocean, which from its perilous navigation gained from the Arabian sailors the name of Bab el Mandoub, the Gate of Tears. The black, and often fatal shores of the African side were looked on with terror, and formed a bay which was called the Harbour of Death; and from its rocky extremity, Cape Garafui, or the Cape of Burials, the Spirit of the Storm was believed to listen to the shrieks of the sinking mariners.
The straits are at present scarcely three miles broad; but according to the Arabian geographers, at that time, the sea was there so narrow, that from one side a person might be recognized on the opposite shore; 1 and at the period of the expedition under Aryat, it is reported to have been no more than two stadia, or a quarter of a Roman mile, and to have been difficult to pass on account of the rocks that lay concealed beneath the waves. Through this narrow passage the Abyssinian fleet had to sail, before it could reach the coast of Hamyar, and it was the plan of Dzu Nowass to render it impassable. For this purpose, he is said to have thrown across the least dangerous part a heavy chain of iron, held firm by fragments of rock to which it was fixed, and which were sunk in the sea, and raised to the surface by masses of timber. After having taken these precautions, Dzu Nowass encamped with his army on the coast where he expected that the Abyssinians, when they found the passage of the straits impossible, would attempt to disembark. 1 Georg. Arabi, Clim. i. p. 6, ap. Bocharu When the Abyssinian fleet approached the straits, ten ships were sent before to reconnoitre the passage, these, ignorant of the stratagem of the king of Hamyar, and assisted by a favourable wind, entered unexpectedly the narrowest part, and almost by a miracle passed in safety. The rest were obliged, as Dzu Nowass had expected, to return. The ten ships which had passed the straits approached the shore, and would have landed at a place about two hundred stadia, or twenty-five miles, from that in which the army of Hamyar was posted, but they were prevented by the missiles of the few Arabians who had been sent to defend the southern coast.
In another attempt, seven of the remaining ships, in one of which was the Abyssinian commander, succeeded in passing the straits and joining them. The rest of the fleet, which was the more numerous portion, afterwards followed them, and proceeding farther along the coast, cast anchor at a different place, a considerable distance from the former. Dzu Nowass, who naturally concluded that the chief commander was with the larger division, proceeded with his army to hinder their landing, leaving a small force to oppose those ships which had first passed through Bab el Mandoub. Aryat, constrained by want of provisions, was not long before he attempted to effect a landing. According to Arabian accounts, the Abyssinians disembarked near the port of Aden. Their commander wished them to consider their safety as entirely depending on their bravery, and, having ordered the ships to be set on fire, he addressed them in a few words: “O Men of Abyssinia, before you are your enemies, behind you the sea; your choice is death or victory.” The contest was short but obstinate: the Hamyarites were entirely defeated, and Aryat hastened towards the metropolis, the city of Taphas or Dhaphas, which being unprepared for a siege, immediately surrendered to him.
SS. Flora and Mary. When the king of Hamyar heard of the fall of his capital, astonished at the unexpected success of his enemies, and now threatened by them on every side, his resolution entirely failed him; so that, when the Abyssinians landed from the other ships, they soon defeated the Arabians, who wanted spirit and concert to make an effective resistance, and Dzu Nowass himself was amongst the number of the slain. The native historians give a different account of the death of the Tobbaa. According to them, he fled from the field of battle, after he had witnessed the defeat of his army, but being closely pursued, and at last hemmed in between his enemies and the sea, he precipitated himself from a rock, and perished in the waves. By this action the fate of Arabia was decided. In Dzu Dyiadan, who was the successor of Dzu Nowass, and who fell in opposing the conquerors, ended the race of Hamyar. Yemen became a province dependent on the Abyssinian Nadjash, and Aryat, known to the Greeks under the name of Esimiphaeus, ascended the throne as his tributary.
