The Nine Saints who came from the north.
In the late fifth century nine monks arrived from Syria and the Roman east, learned Ge'ez, translated scripture and planted monasteries across the highlands. Eritrea's great houses — Debre Bizen above Nefasit, founded in 1361, among them — trace their discipline back to that arrival. It is the story the church tells to explain why monasticism here is older than any modern border.
The Nine Saints — Abba Aregawi, Abba Pantaleon, Abba Garima and the others — are dated to the late fifth century and are credited with the monastic settlement of the highlands and with translation work into Ge'ez. Their monasteries stand on both sides of the modern border, which is one reason the Eritrean church resists a story in which its Christianity is an offshoot of Ethiopia's. Debre Bizen, above the escarpment at Nefasit, was founded in 1361 by Abune Filipos and still admits no women. The manuscript collections in these houses, some of them among the oldest surviving Christian codices, are a large part of what the church has left in the way of institutional wealth.
The same ground, other faiths
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