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After consecrating their churches, Theophilus crossed over to the African coast, to the Hexumito, to carry on the work which Frumentius had begun. There he was equally successful in the object of his embassy. Both in trade and in religion the Hexumito, who were also of Jewish blood, were eager to be connected with the Europeans, from whom they were cut off by Arabs of a wilder race.
The Queen Mother accordingly appointed Frumentius as the tutor of the young King, and Governor of the State, while his brother Ædesius was given a less important position.
His companion Frumentius undertook to convert the people to Christianity and persuade them to trade with Egypt; and, as he found them willing to listen to his arguments, he came home to Alexandria to tell of his success and ask for support. Athanasius readily entered into a plan for spreading the blessings of Christianity and the power of the Alexandrian church.
To increase the missionary's weight he consecrated him a bishop, and sent him back to Auxum to continue his good work. His progress, however, was somewhat checked by sectarian jealousy; for, when Athanasius was deposed by Constantius, Frumentius was recalled to receive again his orders and his opinions from the new patriarch.
And so soone as he was arriued there, he reuealed to the Emperour Constantine, the effect of all those euents: who both commending his deedes and wholy allowing thereof, by the aduise and good liking of Athanasius then Bishop of Alexandria, did arme and set forth a conuenient power for the ayde of Frumentius, in this his so godly a purpose.
Dr Fulk showeth out of Ruffinus and Theodoret, that Ædesius and Frumentius, being but private men, by preaching of the gospel, converted a great nation of the Indians; and that the nation of the Iberians being converted by a captive woman, the king and the queen became teachers of the gospel to the people. And might not, then, the church in those places both elect and ordain ministers?
Frumentius, whose earnest desire was to see the land that he governed Christian, summoned all the Christian merchants who came to trade in the country and, giving them presents, begged them to build houses of prayer and to do their utmost to win the barbarians to the Faith.
But the King fell sick and, being near to death, called his wife, to whom he had left the guardianship of his young son. "Let Frumentius help you in the government," he said; "he is wiser and more faithful than any in the kingdom."
Frumentius, whose heart was yearning over the country to which he owed so much, had come straight to the Patriarch of Alexandria to beg of him that he would send a Bishop to preside over the growing number of churches in Abyssinia and to preach the Faith in the districts where it was not yet known. The Patriarch and the Bishops had followed the story with the greatest interest.
In the time of Constantine, one Frumentius was sent to preach to the Indians, and met with great success. A young woman who was a Christian, being taken captive by the Iberians, or Georgians, near the Caspian Sea, informed them of the truths of Christianity, and was so much regarded that they sent to Constantine for ministers to come and preach the word to them.
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