Saracens; the Coptic patriarch, and all the Christians of the church of Alexandria, were their slaves or servants; but the Abyssinians were free and independent, both in church and state, and a mortal hatred had followed the conquest from variety of causes, of which the persecution of the Christians in Egypt was not one of the least. As it was probable that these reasons would increase daily, the consequence which promised inevitably to follow was, that the Abyssinians would not apply to Alexandria, or Cairo, for a metropolitan sent by the Mahometans, but would choose a head of their own, and so become independent altogether of the chair of St Mark. As they were cut off from the rest of the world by seas and deserts almost inaccessible, as they wanted books, and were every day relaxing in discipline, total ignorance was likely to follow their separation from their primitive church, and this could not end but in a relapse into Paganism, or in their embracing the religion of Mahomet.
This prohibition of making any of their countrymen Abuna, secured them always a foreigner, and a man of foreign education and attachments, to fill the place of Abuna, and by this means assured the dependence of the Abyssinians upon the patriarch of Alexandria. This is what I judge probable, for I have already invincibly shewn, that it is impossible this canon could be one of the first general Council; and its being in Arabic, and conceived in very barbarous terms, sufficiently evinces that it was forged at this period.
