Soon alter this event, a violent persecution of the Christians broke out in Arabia. At an early period, the Jewish religion had penetrated far into that peninsula ; and, after the temple had been destroyed by Titus, its professors were strengthened by such an accession of numbers and of wealth, as enabled them to establish several independent princ.palities. In the Neged, and even as far as Medina, putty sovereigns started up, whose knowledge and practice in war rendered them ex tremely formidable to the commercial and effeminate Arabians. These people persecuted the Christians with the most inveterate hatred. Phineas, one of their princes from Medina, having defeated the governor of Najiran, ordered furnaces, or pits full of fire, to be pre pared, into which lie threw as many of the inhabitants of that place as refused to renounce the Christian reli gion. The governor St Aretas, with ninety of his com panions, fell victims to his cruelty. Justin, the Greek emperor, could give no relief to these afflicted Chris tians, as he was at that time engaged in an unsuccessful war against the Persians ; but, in the year 522, he sent an embassy to the king of Abyssinia, entreating him, since he too was now a member of the Greek church, to interfere in favour of the Christians of Najiran. Ca leb, on receiving this message, commanded his general Abreha, governor of Yemen, to march to the aid of young Aretas, who was then collecting troops to revenge his father's death. The ardent warrior strengthened by this reinforcement, would not wait till the arrival of the emperor, who had promised to follow Abreha with a powerful army. Ile came up with Phineas, while he was ferrying his troops over an arm of the sea ; the Jewish forces were completely routed, and their general himself, to escape being taken, was compelled to swim on his horse to the nearest shore. In a short time af terwards, the emperor with his army crossed the Red Sea ; and Phineas, hazarding a second battle, was again defeated. But, notwithstanding these misfortunes, none of the Jewish principalities seem, at that time, to have been overturned.
When Mahomet promulgated his pretended revela tion, the Ethiopian governor of Yemen became a convert to his doctrines ; but there seems to he no truth in the story so eagerly propagated by the Arabian historians, that the king of Abyssinia himself embraced the new religion. From this time the Abyssinians lost all the power which they had formerly enjoyed in Arabia. The governors were expelled by INIahomet and his suc cessors, and, taking refuge in Africa \vith great num bers of their subjects, established there the kingdoms of Adel, \Vypo, Mara, Tarshish, Iladea, Aussa, and several others, which soon rose to importance for power and opulence.
The successors of :Mahomet, in the progress of their victories, had expelled the Jews by violence or oppres from their dominions in Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt. Abyssinia, unsubdued by these fierce enthusi asts, afforded an asylum to the fugitives, the more invit ;n:f. as their countrymen had already a powerful estab lishment in that empire. There was one Jewish family which had always pres( rued on the mountain of Sumer, an independent sovereignty, and the royal resinence was on the summit of a high pointed clip, called Irom that circumstance, the Jew's Rock. Several other rug
ged and inaccessible mountains were occupied by that people as natural tresses ; and their strength was so 1111.1U11 increased by the numbers of their countrymen who fled before the conquering Mahometans, that they began to meditate a revolution in Abyssinia, in favour of their own relig.on. Many circumstances concurred to lacilitate their design. The Abyssinians, distracted by various heresies, were inure inclined to embrace any other religion, than to yield one disputed point to their Christian adversaries ; the country, desolated by pesti lence and war, suffered, moreover, all the multiplied evils which usually prevail under the government of a minor; and Judith, the daughter of the Jewish king, a woman of unbounded ambition, and of singular talents fur intrigue, had lately been married to the governor of Bugna, a small district in the neighbourhood of Lasta, both which countries were strongly prejudiced in favour of Judaism. This artful and aspiring woman had form ed so powerful a faction, that she resolved to usurp the throne of Abyssinia, and to extirpate the family of Solo mon, who had continued since the days of :Makeda, to reign in uninterrupted succession. With this design, she surprised the almost inaccessible mountain of Damo, where the royal princes were at that time confined, and massacred every one of them, to the number, it is said of four hundred. Fortunately the nobles of Amhara, on hearing of this catastrophe, conveyed the infant king Del Naad, the only surviving prince of his race, into the loy al pros ince of Shoa, and thus the line of Solomon was preserved ; and at length, after an interval of some ages, restored.
Judith immediately mounted the throne, to which she had thus paved her way through blood ; and, in defiance of one of the fundamental laws of the kingdom, that no woman should be permitted to reign, not only enjoyed the sovereignty undisturbed during forty years, but trans mitted it in peace to her family ; five of whom succes sively swayed the sceptre of Abyssinia. Of the trans actions of these reigns nothing is recorded ; except that, during this whole period, the kingdom was a scene of murder, violence, am oppression. By new revolution, of which the history :s now lost, the descendants of Ju dith were supplanted by relations of their own, a noble family of Lasta. The reign of these princes was distin guished by the restoration of Christianity. and the gen eral mildness of their government. The kingdom, un der them, recoyered from the misfortunes which had long overwhelmed it ; and their names are still pre served with gratitude and veneration. But as they were not of the line of Solomon, and, of consequence, were accounted usurpers, the history of none of them is recorded in the annals of the nation, excepting that of Lalibala, who was revered as a saint, and who reigned, with great splendour, about the beginning of the thir teenth century.