A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

by Diarmaid MacCulloch

It was not surprising that during the controversies of the fifth and sixth centuries, this Church, which derived its fragile link to the wider episcopal succession via Alexandria, followed the Egyptian Church into the Miaphysite camp. One of the concepts which remain central in Ethiopian theology is täwahedo, ‘union’ of humanity and divinity in the Saviour who took flesh. Nevertheless, despite the crucial role of the abun, the Ethiopian Church did not become Coptic in character. Far more all-pervasive were its links with the Semitic world, already evident before the coming of Christianity in Ethiopian language and even place names in the coastal regions of Tigray and Eritrea.30 It was one of those Semitic languages, Ge’ez, which became the liturgical and theological language of the Ethiopian Church, and remains so, even though it is not otherwise in current use.