A closer look
In the rugged, isolated highlands of 14th-century Ethiopia, Christian asceticism took on a deeply magical, almost superhero-like quality. Abba Samuel of Waldebba didn’t just pray in a quiet cell; he supposedly lived out in the treacherous wilderness where he asserted absolute dominance over the natural and supernatural worlds. The hagiographies claim he was so spiritually intimidating that he literally used full-grown wild lions as his personal steeds, riding them through the desert. Better yet, his intense ascetic practices earned him a phalanx of multi-winged, highly militant angels who acted as his constant escorts, proving that Ethiopian monasticism is arguably the most hardcore branch of the ancient church.
