Egyptian bishops are said to have lost their lives while George was patriarch of Alexandria.  Most of these accusations, however, are from the pens of his enemies.  At this time the countries at the southern end of the Red Sea were becoming a little more known to Alexandria.  Meropius, travelling in the reign of Constantine for curiosity and the sake of knowledge, had visited Auxum, the capital of the Hexumito, in Abyssinia.  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.  Constantius also sent an embassy to the Homeritse on the opposite coast of Arabia, under Theophilus, a monk and deacon in the Church.  The Homerito were of Jewish blood though of gentile faith, and were readily converted, if not to Christianity, at least to friendship with the emperor.  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.  He found also a little to the south of Auxum a settlement of Syrians, who were said to have been placed there by Alexander the Great.  These tribes spoke the language called Ethiopie, a dialect of Arabic which was not used in the country which we have hitherto called Ethiopia.

[Illustration:  213.jpg TEMPLE OF ABU SIMBEL IN NUBIA]

The Ethiopie version of the Bible was about this time made for their use.  It was translated out of the Greek from the Alexandrian copies, as the Greek version was held in such value that it was not thought necessary to look to the Hebrew original of the Old Testament.  But these well-meant efforts did little at the time towards making the Hexumitae Christians.  Distance and the Blemmyes checked their intercourse with Alexandria.  It was not till two hundred years later that they could be said in the slightest sense to be converted to Christianity.