Frumentius: Difference between revisions

|birth_place=[[Tyre, Lebanon|Tyre]], [[EasternPhoenice (Roman province)|Phoenice]], [[Byzantine Empire]] (modern-day [[Lebanon]])

'''Frumentius''' ({{lang-gez|ፍሬምናጦስ}}; died c. 383) was a [[Phoenicia|Phoenician]] [[Christian mission]]ary and the first [[bishop]] of [[Axum]] who brought [[Christianity]] to the [[Kingdom of Aksum]].<ref name="isbn0-313-32273-2">{{cite book|last=Adejumobi|first=Saheed A.|title=The History of Ethiopia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Un6_LGIEyQC&pg=PA171|year=2007|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-32273-0|page=171}}</ref> He is sometimes known by other names, such as [[Abuna]] ("Our Father") and '''Aba Salama''' ("Father of Peace").<ref>{{cite book|title=Butler's Lives of the Saints|year=1995 |author=Alban Butler |author2=Paul Burns |isbn=0-86012-259-X|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WmiNrUarzLUC&pg=PA191|page=191}}</ref>

He was ethnically a [[Phoenicia|Phoenician]], according to [[Tyrannius Rufinus|Rufinus]], born in [[Tyre, Lebanon|Tyre]], modern day Lebanon.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mullen|first=Roderic L.|date=2004|title=The Expansion of Christianity: A Gazetteer of Its First Three Centuries|url=https://brill.com/display/title/8419|location=|publisher=Brill|page=331|isbn=978-90-47-40232-9|quote=Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, 10.9-10, records the account of Aedesius and Frumentius, nephews of the Phoenician trader Meropius, who were kidnapped on the coast of "further India" in the time of Constantine and later raised at the royal court.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Villa|first=Massimo|date=2017|title=Frumentius in the Ethiopic sources: Mythopoeia and text-critical considerations|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/45137006|journal=Rassegna di Studi Etiopici|volume=1|issue=3|pages=87-111|doi=|quote=The narrative is widely known. Meropius, a philosopher from Tyre on the Lebanese coast, is travelling through the Red Sea with two young brothers belonging to his own family, Frumentius and Aedesius.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Felshman|first=Jeffrey|date=1996|editor-last1=Ring|editor-first1=Trudy|editor-last2=Watson|editor-first2=Noelle|editor-last3=Schellinger|editor-first3=Paul|title=Middle East and Africa International Dictionary of Historic Places|volume=4|publisher=Taylor & Francis|pages=278-302|chapter=Chapter 73: Gonder (Gonder, Ethiopia)|isbn=9781134259939}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Kebede|first=Ashenafi|date=Spring 1980|title=The Sacred Chant of Ethiopian Monotheistic Churches: Music in Black Jewish and Christian Communities|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1214519|journal=The Black Perspective in Music|volume=8|issue=1|pages=21-34|doi=10.2307/1214519}}</ref> As a boy, he was captured with his brother on a voyage, and they became slaves to the [[Ousanas|King of Axum]]. He freed them shortly before his death, and they were invited to educate his young heir. They also began to teach Christianity in the region. Later, Frumentius traveled to [[Alexandria]], [[Egypt]], where he appealed to have a bishop appointed and missionary priests sent south to Axum. Thereafter, he was appointed bishop and established the Church in Ethiopia, converting many local people, as well as the king. His appointment began a tradition that the Patriarch of Alexandria appoint the bishops of Ethiopia.<ref>{{cite book| title= Ethiopia, the Unknown Land |author=Stuart Munro-Hay |publisher=IB Tauris |year=2002 |page=20}}</ref>