WEBVTT - The Monoliths of Lalibela 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:04.760 My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:13.720 of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.120 Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:18.920 and I'm Joe McCormick. In today, we're gonna be talking 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:22.239 about a piece of legendary architecture. This will be sort 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:25.080 of in the tradition of our episodes on we did 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:28.720 one on the Great Buddha in Chuan, right, yeah, yeah, 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:30.600 And and like that episode, you know, we're gonna we're 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:35.320 gonna be focusing in on this particular um work of architecture. 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:39.320 This this this particular thing that people have made out 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:41.599 of the earth. But in doing so, we're gonna get 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.600 a chance to discuss a little history, a little theology, 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:48.720 and perhaps, you know, overall introduce many of our listeners 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:50.520 to uh, maybe a part of the world you haven't 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.320 heard about, or a part of of our shared history 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.400 that you may not be that familiar with. Because when 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:59.480 you think of great constructions, you know what what comes 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:02.000 to mind? You think of the Great Pyramids, the Great 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:05.000 Wall of China. Perhaps, you think of Stone Hinge, or 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:09.600 the Zigarats of Mesopotamia, the meso American pyramids perhaps, and 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.399 these are all fabulous. And these are just a few 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:17.120 examples that we can turn to for amazing marvels of stonework, architecture, 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:20.640 and construction throughout humanity's history. And with all of them 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:23.640 we we revel in the study of their construction. Right, 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:27.800 How did in many cases ancient people refine the raw 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.640 earth itself into the necessary building blocks? How did they 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.000 transport all this stuff then to the building sites? And 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:36.840 then how did they assemble these structures that end up 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:40.120 standing you know, the test of millennia while the empires 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:44.119 around them rise and fall, and yet these structures remain. 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:46.800 You know, something we've discussed a number of times is 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:53.320 the way these ancient structures, Uh, they demonstrate mysteries about 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:58.120 about past engineering techniques that very often tend to cause 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:02.360 people to want to go to to outlandish alternate hypotheses. 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:05.560 You know, all the ideas about how the pyramids were built. 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.680 You always get the aliens hypothesis, and like, you know, 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.160 why is it that people want to go there with 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:14.120 that kind of thing rather than just thinking, wow, ancient 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:16.760 people must have been so clever to come up with 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:20.120 with ways of making such amazing structures with the limited 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:23.440 tools they had, Right, Yes, like the The idea that 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:28.080 ancient Egyptian humans built the pyramids is to my mind, 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:30.680 the plenty amazing. You don't have to go to the 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:34.840 even more amazing and outlandish idea that aliens came from 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:36.680 another world and showed them how to do it. I 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:40.240 mean really that it's far more interesting to to examine 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:42.919 the truth and see seek the truth of the situation, 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:46.679 like how did actual humans carry this out? How did they, 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:49.400 even with their you know, their limited technologies, figure out 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.400 how to achieve these marvels. But it's not just the Pyramids. 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.200 I mean, I think it's fascinating that sooner or later 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:58.440 an aliens hypothesis shows up for all of these, you know, 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:02.679 for Stonehinge, for the to American Pyramids, for basically anything 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:06.519 built in a pre modern period that still looks amazing today, right, 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:08.880 And I mean really, if you if you wonder about 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:10.960 anything that you maybe don't have a full grasp on 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.520 how the pieces came together, Like say bread, it's easy 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.160 to think, oh, Brad, just does not seem to make sense. 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.080 It must have been the gift of an alien culture. 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:21.440 But we we talked about this before. We did a 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:26.160 whole pair of episodes on ancient alien hypothesis and and 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:28.239 what Karl Sagan had to say about it and other 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:31.240 critics have had to say about it. Uh. But indeed, 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:35.240 all of these, uh, these locations that I've mentioned already, 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:37.800 you can find certainly find some ancient aliens folks out 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.480 there that are chiming in on it. And I also 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:45.640 ran across some related to today's episode because but but 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:47.120 we're not going to really get into that, because the 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.280 real story is the amazing part. We're going to be 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:55.040 discussing a particular example of construction that is really just 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.520 as amazing as you know, making all these giant blocks, 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:03.080 bringing them together and building the pyram. But this particular 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.880 example is also going to buck the traditional steps that 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:08.640 we've discussed here, and we're gonna be looking at the 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:12.880 centuries old Christian temples in Ethiopia that were not built 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.920 from blocks of stone that were you know, chorried over 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:20.640 here and then brought together and then assembled into a building. Now, 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:26.599 these are free standing monolithic churches that are each hewn 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:33.200 from the solid red volcanic scoria underlaid by dark gray basalt, 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.400 standing tall in the quarries from which they were sculpted. 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.599 So Basically these were hewn out of solid stone. The 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:45.320 quarry becomes the courtyard. Yeah, it's a building that is 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:51.640 not built but released from the earth. Subtractive manufacturing of marvels. 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:54.600 It is. It is amazing. I was not familiar with 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:57.279 these until just last week when I was looking around 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:59.640 for an episode for us to do, and I was 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:02.840 an really thought, oh, why don't we do Petra the 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.440 the ruins in in Jordan's you know, with the where 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:10.200 the architecture is built into the side of this um uh, 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.640 this kind of like ravine situation. Right. If you think 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:17.200 you've never seen these, uh, these rock hewn buildings, you 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:20.719 probably have. They're featured, for example, in Indiana Jones in 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.479 The Last Crusade. They show up in several movies pet 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:27.320 Petro specifically in this case. Right. So, so I was thinking, 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:29.279 O Petro would be a good episode, and I started 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.000 looking around about Indeed, Petra is fascinating. Perhaps will come 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:34.839 back to it. But then I was just looking around 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:37.440 at other examples of of, you know, buildings that have 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.440 been hewn from stone, and then these just really stood 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:44.839 out as just the prime example, like the most extreme 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:48.880 example of what you could do with subtractive manufacturing of 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:52.560 an entire building to build, To construct a building by 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:56.039 not even constructing it, by just carving away at solid 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.200 stone until it is there with no need for bricks 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.440 or mortar or wood or nails or any of this 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:06.120 architecture as sculpture. Yeah, so where will you find these? 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:10.520 Will you will find them in Lalibela, Ethiopia. Ethiopia is 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:14.400 of course the nation in Eastern Africa, and they stood 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:18.760 there at least since the late twelfth century CE, though 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:20.680 you know, we'll probably get into some of the dating 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:23.640 in greater detail later, but first, just a few notes 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.680 about Ethiopia in general. Modern Ethiopia is the most populous 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:30.880 landlocked country in the world and the second most populous 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:35.960 African nation after Nigeria. Ethiopia is also considered one of 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:40.520 only two African nations never to be subjected to long 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:44.919 term European colonization, the other being Liberia, and to be 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.520 more specific, it was it was never. It was never 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:52.080 colonized during that nineteenth century period where so much of 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:57.080 Africa m wash, though it was occupied by Italy during 0:06:57.080 --> 0:06:59.840 the Second World War, but not and not long enough 0:06:59.880 --> 0:07:04.000 for there to be like true lasting cultural change. Because 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:06.560 of it. Still, throughout its history, it certainly came into 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:10.040 contact with foreign ideas and influences, and we'll be discussing 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:12.560 a major one here today. Because one of the other 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.720 things you'll notice about Ethiopia is that its majority religion 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:20.800 is the Ethiopian Orthodox Teawahito Church, what's known as an 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:24.960 Oriental Orthodox Christian Church, and it dates back many centuries. 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.720 There's also a sizeable Islamic population in Ethiopia, followed in 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:34.400 popularity by Protestants, traditional faiths Catholicism and Judaism. Now, of course, 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:37.800 there are other fascinating things about Ethiopia as well. For instance, 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:42.000 Ethiopian cuisine has certainly traveled well around the world. I 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.120 think it's widely believed to be the origin place of coffee, 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.440 this coffee and Uh and Okra as well. I was. 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.800 I chatted with Annie of our fellow podcast here in 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:53.920 the Atlanta office Is a Saver, and I said, hey, 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:56.720 have you guys done anything on Ethiopian cuisine because we 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.080 can mention on the podcast, And they said that they 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:03.000 had not yet, though they both love Ethiopian food. But 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:04.880 they have done an episode in Okra and they've done 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.720 an episode on coffee that'd get into those origins. I'd 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:10.080 say those are two of my favorite plant based foods. 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:12.960 Are you an ocra fan? Are you you one of 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:15.720 those people who thinks it's slimy? Oh? I love okra, 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.880 and I love it because it is slimy, especially in gumbo, 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.280 because it who acts as a thickening agent. So I 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.800 I want there to be okra present in many a 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:27.239 dish bus is great, it's great fried, it's great. Uh, 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:30.520 it's great pickled. H. Yeah, I'm an ocra fan for sure. Okay, 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:32.199 we're on the same page. I like it all those 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:34.720 ways too. I also really like okra in Indian food. 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:37.960 I feel like, yeah, it goes really good with Indian spices. 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:40.720 I feel like I've had it in Indian food before, 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.520 but maybe not recently enough for it to really strike 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:45.160 a cord. I'll have to seek it out. There was 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:47.600 a restaurant here in town that made a really amazing 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.199 curried okra and then and then they went out of business. 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.640 All right, Well, let's talk in greater detail about Ethiopian 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:58.560 Christianity then, because since we're focusing in on old Christian 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:01.319 temples that were carved out of the ground in Ethiopia, 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:06.679 we should describe how Christianity came to East Africa. Sure, so, 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.559 I was looking at a scientific paper that will make 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.520 a brief reference to later in the episode. Uh and 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:16.760 the authors of this paper Ethiopian scientists Aspho Wilson, us 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:20.240 Rot and yod aylu Uh. They point out in the 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.920 background section of their paper that the broader tradition of 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:29.240 rock Huan churches in Ethiopia is historically associated with the 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:33.560 coming of a group of figures known as the Nine Saints, 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:37.080 who were alleged to have journeyed from Egypt and Syria 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.240 during the late fifth and early sixth centuries to preach 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:44.240 the Gospel of Christianity in Ethiopia and more specifically, to 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.960 spread and promote the monastic lifestyle. So I was digging 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:50.600 into this claim. I wanted to learn more about the 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.320 Nine Saints, and this eventually led me down a path 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:58.000 where I found a really awesome entry about Ethiopian Christianity 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:01.280 and the Ethiopian monastic trade in a book called the 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:05.920 Encyclopedia of Monasticism edited by the historian will Johnston. With 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:10.560 this specific entry on Ethiopian monastic Christianity written by the 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:15.040 Ethiopian American philologist get A. Chow Highly. I was treating 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.400 this as well, and it is is quite quite a 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:21.160 fascinating entry. I just had no idea just how imported 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:25.200 the monastic tradition was for just Ethiopian culture in general. 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:29.480 Yeah yeah, so. Highly writes that due to the proximity 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:33.280 of Ethiopia to the Middle East, some Christianity probably began 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.560 to spread their organically as soon as the religion was founded. 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.720 But Highly also claims that Ethiopian Christianity is a form 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:44.400 of the religion that's kind of uniquely shaped by monks 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:48.680 and monastic influences. So what exactly would that mean. Well, 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:53.280 monasticism is the tradition we associate with monks and nuns. 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:55.920 It's the strain of a faith that calls for a 0:10:56.040 --> 0:11:00.360 radical lifestyle of religious devotion, often including thing is like 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:04.440 vows of poverty or vows of chastity, or vows of 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:10.560 silence or fasting, general seclusion from secular life. So you know, 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:14.120 the priest or preacher within a religion might usually live 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:18.360 among the society preaching the faith. Meanwhile, the monk undertakes 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:21.960 in some way to live outside the society, rejecting many 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:25.280 of the comforts and pleasures of normal life, making their 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:28.760 day to day habits and living conditions themselves kind of 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:33.000 a radical demonstration of faith. An interesting fact that the 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:36.920 author points out is that it's currently really unknown how 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:41.040 many monasteries are in Ethiopia because the government keeps track 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:43.600 of churches, but not every monastery has a church, and 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:47.440 not every mountain or wilderness center that is uh that it, 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:49.439 you know, is historically a monastery is going to be 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:52.040 active today. But he lists quite a number of them, 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:55.520 and he also mentions Ethiopian monasteries outside of the country, 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.480 such as in Egypt where they that it looks like 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:02.640 they now live along side Coptic Christian monks there, but 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:05.719 then also in Jerusalem as well. Yeah, and we can 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:09.040 come back to later on how these monasteries appear to 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:13.960 play a very important role in Ethiopian religious life. Uh So, 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.920 there's a legend about the founding of the Ethiopian Christian 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:22.160 Church recorded by the fourth century Christian historian and scholar 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:26.600 tyranny Us Rufinus, who lived in what is now northern Italy. 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.440 And the tale told by Rufinus goes something like this, 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:32.360 So in the city of Tier which is in modern 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:35.199 day Lebanon. You know, it's like tier in Sidon. Uh. 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:39.600 There was once this philosopher named Meropius, and Meropius had 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:44.319 two young students named Frumentius and Adasus. Now, one day 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:46.920 Europius decides he's going to set out on a sea 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:50.040 voyage and travel to India, and he's going to bring 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:53.679 his two students with him. But then tragedy strikes and 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:57.640 their ship sinks outside of a port that Rufinus writes 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.840 is in India, but it's apparently widely interpreted to be 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:05.440 a confused attempt to reference Ethiopia, so this is believed 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:08.360 often to be Ethiopia that he's talking about. And the 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.720 two boys are rescued and taken to the royal court 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:14.679 of the capital city of Axom. This would have been 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:18.000 the capital of what's known as the Axom Dynasty or 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:20.960 the or the Kingdom of Axum, where they were given 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:25.280 employment by the king and Frementius became the king's secretary, 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.439 while Adasius became the king's butler, and through his position 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:33.040 as secretary and his subsequent role instructing the young princes 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:37.080 at the palace, Frementius was allegedly able to eventually convert 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:41.000 the entire royal court to Christianity. And from here it's 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:45.040 written that Frementius encouraged the scattered Christians among the people 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:48.640 of Axom to organize into a church and to a 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.920 school for the Christian upbringing of children. And then when 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:55.120 Frementius and Adasius were released from their positions in the 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:59.959 court at Axom, Frementius allegedly went to Alexandria to convince 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:04.160 the current archbishop there, Athanasius, to recognize the church in 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:07.360 Ethiopia and look after its well being. And in turn, 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.760 Athanasius said, well, you'd be a good leader of that church, 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:14.120 and so Athanasius and the other bishops decided to name 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:19.080 Frementius Bishop of Acxim. So tradition says that in this way, 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:23.480 Fromentius became the first bishop and the first apostle of Ethiopia, 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:26.600 and he went throughout the kingdom preaching the peace of Christ, 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.160 which is how he became known in the Ethiopian Christian 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:35.280 tradition as Abba Salama, which means Father Peace. Now Highly, however, 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:40.200 casts doubt on the historical validity of this this foundational narrative, 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:44.680 noting that local sources don't really mention anything significant about 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:48.640 Frementius in this period, and that the historical evidence indicates 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:52.960 the story was probably later introduced to Ethiopia after first 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:57.120 being written by other authors in Greek. Highly writes, quote, 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:02.240 undoubtedly Frementius was a bishop consecrate did for Ethiopia by St. Athanaceous, 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.520 but the local tradition has no memory of him and 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:09.720 his efforts to Christianize Ethiopia. Doesn't history often work that way. 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:12.040 You've got a good founding story, but then like the 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:14.600 locals didn't record anything about it, so it seems like 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.760 it probably didn't quite happen that way. Yeah, or yeah, 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:20.440 just in general, this um, this sort of push and 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:24.320 pull between reality and myth and that area in between 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:26.920 where you're not sure where the history ends in the 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:31.160 myth begins. Yeah, it's always the way anyway. However, Highly 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:35.240 writes that much of the Christianizing influence on Ethiopia and 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:39.760 the following centuries did come from missionaries, primarily monks from 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:42.680 the Byzantine Christian world. And of course, you know, the 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:44.840 Byzantine Empire at the time would have spanned much of 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:49.040 the Mediterranean, so would have people of Byzantine influences could 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.640 be coming from like Egypt or wherever right. And by 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:55.920 the way, if you want a deeper dive into Byzantine 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.920 culture and Byzantine history, we did an episode on Greek 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:03.720 fire year back that we recommend. Yes. Uh So, these 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.640 these monks of the Byzantine Christian influence would be arriving 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.880 individually and in groups roughly between the fifth and the 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:15.920 seventh centuries. And the most famous of these Byzantine missionary 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:20.720 monks are known locally in Ethiopian tradition as the Nine Saints. 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:25.840 Now there's an interesting historical re contextualization that highly gives here. 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:29.320 He says that church historians generally believed that this group 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:34.040 of missionaries was actually on a kind of factional theological mission. 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.960 They were trying to get Ethiopia to take sides in 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.760 a theological dispute that was going on in the church, 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:44.280 or to stay on their side. Uh So, at the time, 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:48.600 one of the major theological disputes rocking the Christian Church 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.400 was about the essential nature of Christ. And the question 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.680 is this, did Jesus Christ have just one nature where 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:01.600 he was entirely divine or entirely human, or did Christ 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:05.720 have two separate natures, one of them earthly and one 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.840 of them divine. Now, I know, with that kind of argument, 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:10.680 I'm sure some people are kind of rolling your eyes, 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:14.000 like that doesn't sound like a super meaningful distinction. But 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:17.199 disputes like this were rampant in the early Church, and 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:22.760 they lead to bitter, agonizing power struggles and sometimes excommunication, 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:27.440 accusations of heresy and all the concominant punishments and you know, etcetera. 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.280 So these fights about the nature of Christ are known 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:35.960 as christological disputes, and they these disputes are the origin 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.080 of a lot of the dogmas that would later become 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:41.680 you know, widespread in in the Catholic Church. Yeah. I 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.520 mean because when you start asking the question, you know, 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.879 is was Christ human or divine? If you didn't say, oh, 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:49.440 well there was, he was human or he had a 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:51.960 human element, then you might say, well, how human was 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:54.920 the human? Like it's like you are the rich clergy 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.359 or is he human? Like like we are the peasants. Uh. 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:02.239 That's a really great point, especially because while some of 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:06.080 these things, these distinctions might not sound super meaningful to us, 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:12.040 they had implications, often like material political implications that aren't 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.280 obvious if you just read about the pure theological dispute, 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.560 that's one thing I love about the the Umberto Echo 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.280 novel and the name of the Rose, which we've talked 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.560 about on the show before, is it. It deals with 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:26.600 a lot of these angels dancing on the head of 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:30.760 a pin kind of theological disputes, but also gives some 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:35.040 shading about what their real world political and economic implications 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:37.520 were right and how it ends up breaking down to 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:40.760 the suffering of at least the common man anyway. So anyway, 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.880 the view that Christ had two separate natures, both divine 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:49.280 and human, came to be known as Chalcedonianism after the 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:53.600 Council of Chalcedon in four fifty one, which ended with 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:57.720 the with a sort of uneasy consensus upon the two 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.560 nature thing. And the view that Christ had only one 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:05.480 nature came to be known as monophysicism. And this view, 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:10.800 the one nature view of monophysicism, was probably, at least 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.920 according to this church historian interpretation, was probably represented by 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:17.879 these figures known as the Nine Saints that you know, 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.040 if this view is correct, They came to Ethiopia to 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:25.240 make sure that the Ethiopian Church continued to preach one 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.879 nature in Christ and resist the two nature view. And 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.040 you can also see how they would be sort of 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.080 be seeking to to to get ahead to this far 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:38.040 flung of the region of Christians and just ensure that 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.640 they had the right version of the of the story. Right. Yes, yes, 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:45.600 though Highly says wild this is the thing that's generally 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.639 suspected by church historians. Nothing is certain. We don't know 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:53.080 for sure about all the motivations of these nine Saints. Locally, 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:56.199 in Ethiopia, the Nine Saints are are not remembered for 0:19:56.480 --> 0:20:00.800 arguing any particular side of a Christological SmackDown. They're They're 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:04.080 mainly remembered for strengthening the faith of the Ethiopian Church 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:09.960 and for again emphasizing monasticism the monk lifestyle. Uh So, 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:12.920 these nine Saints are said to have brought with them 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.320 a number of important books, and these are widely believed 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:19.119 to have included the books of the New Testament, but 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:24.240 also books of Christian doctrine and education. So, in evidence 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:28.400 of the strong influence of monasticism and Ethiopia, Highly mentioned 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:32.280 that one of the first books translated into the Ethiopian 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.920 language at the time, known as Ghez, was a work 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.960 known as the Monastic Rule of pac Homius, who was 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:44.080 the founder of the Synobitic monasticism tradition. Now, this is 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:48.160 a type of monasticism that encouraged monks to live together 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.680 in communities with other monks like the abbeys we would 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:56.800 traditionally think of, rather than simply living individually as isolated hermits, 0:20:56.880 --> 0:20:59.800 which I think is the older view of the monk lifestyle. 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:01.919 And of course you still saw examples of that in 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:05.640 Ethiopia as well. Right, yeah, yeah, you see both. Uh 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:07.320 So maybe we should take a break and then when 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:13.640 we come back we can talk about the Nine Saints. 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:16.280 Than all right, we're back, so let's let's get to 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:19.600 get to these nine saints. Who who were they? And 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:23.639 what were they? What? What did they allegedly bring to Ethiopia? Okay, 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:27.480 well highly mentions. Actually ten well remembered Byzantine monks, who 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:32.080 each founded a monastery in Ethiopia. The first one is 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:34.760 not traditionally thought of as one of the nine saints, 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:38.120 but he's historically very important and so he bears mentioning. 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:42.520 This is Libanos or Mata, and legend has it that 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:45.159 he heard the call to a monastic life on his 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:48.760 wedding night. That is that is bad timing, dude, or 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:51.720 perfect timing. I guess you know, I guess so. Uh. 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:54.440 So on his wedding night, he's like, oh, oh no, wait, 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:56.400 I've got to take a vow of celibacy. I gotta 0:21:56.440 --> 0:21:59.160 go be a monk. So he runs off to do that. Uh. 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:02.760 And he apparently went to Ethiopia, where he founded a 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:06.399 monastery and helped an Ethiopian monk translate one of the 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:10.200 Gospels into gez Uh. And then the next are who 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:12.840 are traditionally thought of as the Nine Saints. I'm not 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:16.440 going to mention biographical details or legends about all of them, 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:18.840 just a couple of them. So the first one is 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:22.199 named Aragawi or Zamikhaiel, and he is known as the 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:25.879 leader of the Nine Saints or the Elder. Zamikhaiel is 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:30.200 also an appellation that means like devoted to Michael uh 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:33.520 and on the so, the the Nine Saints supposedly traveled 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:37.760 from Egypt to Ethiopia with Zamikhael as their leader, and 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:41.280 legend says that quote the saint used a long serpent 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:45.560 as a rope to ascend the impregnable summit of Mount Damo, 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:48.160 where he built his monastery. All right, so they all 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:51.199 build a monastery. This guy uses a snake to climb 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:54.720 a mountain and builds a monastery on top of the mountain. Uh. 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:57.640 And this is a mountain top monastery that still exists today. 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:00.560 Obviously historians do not think he actually is a snake 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:02.960 to climb the mountain, but uh, there is really a 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:06.280 monastery there. It is attributed to him. It's in the 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:09.399 region of t Gray and it's famous for being only 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:13.640 accessible by a rope assisted ascent up a steep cliff side. 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:16.080 So you really do have to climb a rope up 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:19.760 a cliff to get to this monastery. That that sounds terrifying. 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:21.840 And and I also think that that might be the 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:25.320 point of it, because there was there was another cliff 0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:29.800 side or a mountain top sanctuary that we that we 0:23:29.880 --> 0:23:32.600 ran across. I was looking at a video from Great 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:35.159 Big Story about this, and I think there's also uh 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:38.919 that there's been a BBC videos about it as well. Uh, 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:41.960 this is this other one is known as Abuna Yamata 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:45.040