If the Falashas have acquired a small number of practices from their Christian and other neighbours - as Jews have elsewhere in the world - Ethiopian Christianity has borrowed enormously from Judaism. Whether these traits are due to Falasha influence in pre-Christian times or were introduced as a result of the Ethiopians' profound veneration for the Old Testament is difficult to say. The fact is that Ethiopian monophysite Christianity shows a far greater acceptance of Jewish customs than any other major branch of the Christian religion. Possibly the isolation of the country during its formative years from European Christianity, whether eastern or western, immunised it from outside influences just as the isolation of the Falashas prevented their development beyond strict biblical Judaism. In addition, the importance of the Solomon-Sheba legends has imbued the Ethiopian people generally with an unusually strong attachment to the Old Testament. The persistence of so many Jewish practices is all the more remarkable considering that ever since the first Portuguese penetration of the country at the end of the fifteenth century both Roman Catholics and Protestants have done their best to persuade the Ethiopians to abandon them.

Besides circumcision on the eighth day after birth (which is also practised but at a more mature age by the Egyptian Copts) the Ethiopian Christians observe the Mosaic distinction between clean and unclean meat, rejecting the flesh of beasts that do not chew the cud and cleave the hoof or have been torn or strangled. They also 'regard those who have had sexual intercourse as impure for the following day, refusing them access to their churches, and furthermore they observe the Sabbath as well as Sunday, celebrating the liturgy on both days alike and exempting both days from fasts'. (2) Some of the Jewish customs are 'obviously conscious adaptations of the Mosaic law to Christian practice. Infants are, for instance, baptized on the fortieth day if males or the eightieth if females, the Christian rite of baptism being governed by the Mosaic regulations on presentation at the Temple. (3) The purification ordinances of the Old Testament have in this way been adapted to the story of Mary's presentation of Jesus in the Temple, which marked the termination

(1) Leslau, Falasha Anthology, p. xxv. A form of monasticism had also been practised in Palestine by the Essenes and the community at Qumran.
(2) Jones and Monroe, A History of Ethiopia, p. 39.
(3) ibid., p. 40.