ABSTRACT
Ethiopia is unique among sub-Saharan African countries in many ways, not least of which in that it possesses a written history stretching back two and a half millennia. Though it is obvious that the program of church construction was an Ethiopian response to Yūsuf's imposition of Judaism on the Christian inhabitants of South Arabia, the Ethiopians' church building campaign can also be viewed as a symbolic Christianization of the South Arabian landscape itself. Since the Christianization of northern Ethiopia probably remained unfinished business in the early sixth century, King Kālēb may have presented his triumph over the Jewish Ḥimyarites as proof of the Christian God's granting of victory to the true believers, by means of which converts might be gained. The churches in both Ethiopia and South Arabia were built following Roman models in Palestine suggests that Kālēb and 'Abrehā saw Christianization as a step towards the creation of new holy lands.
