FRUMENTIUS, Saint. - Apostle of Abyssinia and first bishop of Aksum. Born at Tyre around 310-320, he reached Abyssinia in an unforeseen manner. Brought while still young to India together with his brother Edesius by the philosopher Meropius of Tyre, on the return journey they landed at an Abyssinian port, probably Adulis. When a quarrel arose between the travelers and the natives, the latter massacred the entire crew, sparing only the two young men, whom they led away as slaves to the court of Aksum. There F. was assigned as treasurer and Edesius as cupbearer to the king, and they soon managed to win his favor, so much so that at his death they were begged by the queen to remain in order to help her govern the kingdom and educate the heir, who was still of tender age. They consented to the queen's wishes.
F. was invested with great authority, which he used to promote religious practice among the Christian merchants sojourning in the kingdom, preceding them in this by his example and by erecting a church. When the prince ascended the throne, they obtained permission to return to their homeland. Edesius went directly to Tyre, where he settled and became a priest. F. passed through Alexandria to report to St. Athanasius the hopes of the Church at Aksum and to beg him to send a bishop there. Athanasius judged F. the most suitable for the purpose, ordained him bishop and sent him back to Aksum, where he exercised the sacred ministry with great success until his death, around 386, obtaining the conversion of a great number of natives and of King 'Ezāna' himself. Four inscriptions of this king have been found: the first three show him still a pagan, the fourth already a Christian. The same evolution appears from the coins. The emperor Constantius attempted to bring disorder and to win Abyssinia over to Arianism by writing in 356 a letter to King Acizanas ('Ezāna') and to his brother Sesezanas, in which he attacked Athanasius and begged them to send F. to Alexandria to be instructed in the faith there by the Arian bishop George. Indeed, according to Philostorgius, he would even have sent the bishop Theophilus there to promote Arianism, but without any result.
The chronology remains somewhat uncertain, since the date of F.'s arrival at Aksum and that of his episcopal ordination cannot be established with precision. And the report of Rufinus, who has him consecrated before 330, is hardly probable. The Bollandists demonstrate with plausible arguments that F. arrived at Aksum around 340, went to Alexandria around 347 and returned to Abyssinia only around 351-52.
Rufinus, because he heard the account of the information about F. from the very lips of Edesius, remains the principal source, from which Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret and the oriental Synaxaria drew. Feast on 27 October.
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Vincenzo Monachino