ETHIOPIA – LAND OF LEGEND II

Some will know about the work I have done with the cosmic cycles and energies that impact the world, derivable from the black hole at the center of galaxy, 26,000 light-years away from us.  The energies from that galactic center that impinge upon us every second began their journey to us 26,000 years ago.  Ancient sages had developed the “sight” and perception that enabled them to determine the meaning of these energies for the destiny of our world (and every world in the galaxy).  They were able to perceive how certain cosmic alignments created sign-posts that formed a “book” permitting a reading of these cosmic processes.  Jesus himself admits of the reality and truth of these things when he says in Luke:25-27:

Portents will appear in the sun, moon, and stars.  On earth, nations
          will stand helpless, not knowing which way to turn from the roar and
          surge of the sea, men will faint with terror at the thought of all that is
          is coming upon the world, for the celestial powers will be shaken

What I am leading up to relates to the change in the celestial alignment at the North Pole when, in or around 2050, the constellation Cepheus will replace the current polar constellation Ursa Minor – anciently called Wep-Wat, the Jackal – and will remain at the pole for the next 3,700 years, constituting the Age of Cepheus.  Who is Cepheus?  Cepheus is the Cosmic Ethiopian King, once thought of as a real king (or emperor) who ruled from Ethiopia to Phoenicia (Joppa) more than 3,000 years ago.  What struck me forcibly while traveling through the country is that contemporary Ethiopia is truly the Land of Cepheus. 

As already related, the line of kings that ruled from about 980 BC to 1974 AD is considered to have descended from Menelik I, son of Solomon and Sheba (Makeda).  They were not only temporal rulers but also consecrated priests and patriarchs making them priest-kings or sacred kings.  Ethiopia’s history, therefore, is bound up with this Solomonic kingly line with a distinct Biblical gloss, both Jewish and Christian.  Despite his deposition, Haile Selassie partook of this ethos and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if, sometime in the future, a royal restoration was effected.  Most of what we know about Cepheus comes from Greek mythology, in the story of Perseus, the Gorgon, and the rescue of Andromeda, daughter of the Ethiopian King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia (See Robert Graves’s The Greek Myths).

Another unusual (to me) cultural feature of Ethiopia is the ubiquitous presence of St. George, iconically always represented as slaying the dragon.  His figures and portraits are as common as depictions of Christ.  St. George is the patron saint of England but appears to be the patron saint of Ethiopia as well.  We were shown an ancient book, going back to the 11the century, with an illustration of St. George slaying the dragon so his presence in Ethiopia is at least that old.  When one studies the story of St. George and the dragon, one finds that it takes place in Libya and “Libya” was one of the ancient names for Africa itself. 

The name “Ethiopia” also was frequently used to refer to all of Africa.  Meriam, whom we know as Mary, is also prominently featured in the iconography of Ethiopia, always shown in the Madonna pose holding the Christ child.  She is profoundly venerated, possessing semi-divine status.  The other important icon seen everywhere is the Lion of Judah, sometimes referred to as the “Conquering Lion of Judah”.  The lion is the embodiment of the Ethiopian kingship and Haile Selassie was said to have kept a tame lion in the palace.  One could say, therefore, that the lion was the royal totem of Ethiopia.

There is a Rastafarian community living in an area about 3½ hours from the capital.  As is well-known, the Rastafari consider Haile Selassie divine.  Ethiopian symbols and national colors – green, yellow, and red – abound on Rastafari paraphernalia.  They adopted unmodified the figure of the Ethiopian Lion holding the national flag.  Even their dreadlocks were derived from similar hairstyles found among peoples in southern Ethiopia.  The name Rastafari comes from the original pre-coronation name of Haile Selassie, Ras Tofari, meaning “Prince Tofari”.
By Ethiopian reckoning there were apparently three stages in the evolution and development of Christianity in Ethiopia.  The first stage happened with the baptism of the Ethiopian Minister of Candace, queen and ruler of Cush (Ethiopia) in the 1st century AD by the Apostle Philip.  The second stage occurred around 340 AD when Frumentius, a Phoenician monk, was taken to Ethiopia as a boy and eventually brought before the reigning monarch, Abreha.  He was taken in and well-treated, leading to long conversations with the king and his wife that – after ordination in Alexandria – eventually resulted in the conversion of King Abreha to Christianity.  Abreha took the name Azana, the name by which he is known today, and impelled the conversion of his entire country to Christianity.  The third phase occurred in the 6th century A.D. when nine saints, refugees from Syria, emigrated to Ethiopia and established themselves there.  One saint in particular, Abune (“Father”) Aregawi was especially notable because God sent him a messenger in the form of a serpent who directed him to a particular massif on which to build a church.  Abune Aregawi is said to have climbed to the top of the massif on the back of the serpent and laid the foundations of the church that is still there.  It can only be reached by climbing a rope, symbolic of the snake climbed by the saint, aided by toe-holds in the side of the cliff.  However women, under no circumstances, are allowed into the church.  The current name of the church is Debre Damo.  I have yet to find out how the church got built in such an inaccessible location; all the food provided to the priests and monks at the church are sent upward in baskets.
It should be pointed out here that Ethiopia has been through several name changes since Solomonic times, to wit:
1,200 BC to 400 BC – Sheba or, more properly, Saba; 400 BC to 400 AD – Axum; 400 AD to the early 20th century AD – Abyssinia; Early 20th century to the current day – Ethiopia, probably so named in Haile Selassie’s time or that of his predecessor. Having said that, the Greeks knew the whole region as “Ethiopia” at least from the time of Homer, 750 BC, though it is a name given also to Cush, the civilization of the northern third of the Sudan since 2,500 BC.  There is a tradition that the prophet Jeremiah in 7th century BC migrated first to Upper Egypt then to Ethiopia to escape persecution, becoming the progenitor of the Jewish community though most of the Ethiopian Jews departed in the 1970s to Israel to escape the persecution of the ruling Marxist regime.
          One other thing that should be noted is that Lake Tana is the source of the Blue Nile that flows northwesterly out of the Ethiopian highlands, eventually joining the White Nile at Khartoum, before flowing northward into Egypt.  The Blue Nile is the source of the rich mud deposited annually in Egypt for many millennia prior to the building of the Aswan High Dam creating Egypt’s fabled agricultural wealth.  Once visiting Ethiopia it is easy to appreciate how it really can be considered the Land of Legend.

DR. Charles S Finch III