in our Mouths and Memories and that I may be always delighting my self in your Gifts For the same reason I do earnestly intreat you to send me some Learned Men and Artificers namely Carvers of Images Sword-Cutlers and Gunsmiths and Gilders and Carpenters but especially Artificers who knew how to Build Houses with Stone and to cover them with Lead and Copper I should be glad likewise to have some that understand how to make Glass and Musical Instruments and how to play well upon them with some Pipers and Trumpeters These Artificers I desire chiefly from your Holiness but in case you should have none to spare I must intreat you to order some of the Christian Kings your Sons who are all at your Commands to send them unto me Which Artificers when they arrive here shall be treated honourably and rewarded according to their deserts they shall also have good Wages and whenever they shall desire it they shall have free leave to return home and be well rewarded for their pains for I will detain no body against his will how beneficial soever his stay should be to me But to pass to other things I must expostulate with you holy Father Why do you not exhort the Christian Kings your Sons to lay down their Arms as becomes Brethren and to agree among themselves seeing they are all your Sheep and you are their Pastor Your Holiness is not ignorant of the Gospel-Commands and of its having said A kingdom divided against it self cannot stand but will become desolate For if those Kings would but all join together they would quickly destroy all the Mahometans and with ease demolish the Sepulchre of their False Prophet Apply your self therefore to this holy Father that so there may be a firm Peace and Confederacy established among them and exhort them to assist us who are besieged on all sides by Wicked Mahometans and Moors The Turks and Moors can assist one another and their Kings and Rulers do all agree together I have a Mahometan for my Neighbour who is constantly supplied with Arms Horses and all Military Weapons by Princes of his own Sect namely the Kings of India Persia and Egypt this is a great mortification to me to see the Enemies of the Christian Religion enjoy Peace and live together like Brethren and at the same time to see Christian Kings my Brethren not in the least concerned at the Injuries I endure not one of them offering to succour me as becomes a Christian notwithstanding the filthy Sons of Mahomet are always ready to succor one another not that I desire any Soldiers of them for I have enough of my own and to spare but all that I desire of them is only their Prayers and Supplications and your Holiness and my Brethren's Favour The reason why I want your Friendship is that I may be furnished by you with such things as are necessary to terrify the Mahometans the Enemies of the Name of Christ And that my Neighbours may be made sensible of my being favoured by the Christian Kings my Brethren and of their being ready to assist me whenever there shall be occasion which would be much for the honour of all of us that are of the same Faith and Religion and do intend to persist therein God fulfil your Desires to the praise of Jesus Christ and of God our Father who is praised by all thorow all Ages and you my Lord and holy Father with all the Saints of Christ at Rome embrace me and let all my Subjects and all that dwell in Ethiopia be received with the same Embraces and let thanks be returned to Christ with your Spirit These Letters your Holiness will receive from my Brother John King of Portugal the most Powerful Son of King Emanuel who will send them to you by our Ambassador Francisco Alvarez A Second Letter of David Emperor of Ethiopia to the Roman Pontiff written in the Year 1524. HAppy and holy Father who art made by God the Conservator of the Nations and who dost sit in the Chair of St. Peter To thee are given the keys of the kingdom of heaven so that whatsoever thou binded or loosest on earth is bound and loose in heaven according to what Christ hath said in St. Matthew 's Gospel I the King at whose Name the Lyons tremble who at my Baptism was called Atami Tinghil that is the Frankincense of the Virgin but who when I took the Administration of my Empire upon me assumed the Names of David the Beloved of God the Pillar of Faith the Prince of Judah the Son of Solomon the Son of the Pillar of Sion the Son of Zara Jacob the Son of the Hand of Mary the Son of Nau by the Flesh Emperor of the Great and High Ethiopia and of vast Kingdoms and Dominions King of Xoa and Caffate and Fatigar Angot Baru Baaltinganze Adea Vanga and Mahon and Saba from whence the Queen of Saba went and Barnagays the Lord of all Nubia to the Confines of Egypt All which Countries and a great many more not here mentioned are under our Dominion neither have I mentioned the fore-named out of Pride or Vaingloy or for any other reason but that the Great God may be the more praised who of his singular bounty has been pleased to bestow the foresaid Christian Empires upon my Ancestors and who hath likewise been gracious to me after a special manner that I might constantly do service to his Religion making me Lord of Adel and the Scourge of the Mahometans and Gentiles who do worship Idols I do after the manner of other Christian Kings my Brethren to whom I am no-ways inferior either in Power or Religion send to kiss your Holiness's Feet Within my own Territories I am the Fillar of Faith neither am I assisted with any Foraign Succors but I do place my whole trust and confidence in God as my Ancestors did before me who have all been sustained and governed by him ever since his Angel spoke to Philip who instructed the Eunuch of the powerful Queen Candace Empress of Ethiopia in the Faith as he was coming from Jerusalem to Gaza Philip then baptized the Eunuch and the Eunuch afterwards baptized the Queen with the greatest part of her Court and People who from that day to this have continued Christians and strong in the Faith My Ancesters without any other than Divine Assistance have propagated the Faith thorow vast Regions which I likewise labour daily to do being fixed between the large Borders of my Kingdoms as a Lyon encompassed within a Wood and strongly fortified against the Mahometans and other Nations that are Enemies to the Christian Faith and who will not give ear to the Word of God and my Exhortation For which reason I with my Sword girt about me do persecute them and will by degrees expel them relying on the Divine Assistance which is never wanting to me which is more than all Christan Kings can say who if they would but agree together might with
of the World Peace be with your Sons who are as flourishing Lillies in a Spring-Garden and are as a Table furnished with Meat Peace be with your Daughters whose Attire adorns them as Tapistry does a Palace Peace be with all your Kindred who are procreated out of the Seed of the Saints as the holy Scripture saith The Sons of the Holy are blessed and are great both at home and abroad Peace be with your Councellors Officers Magistrates and Judges Peace be with the Governors of your Castles and Frontiers and of all your strong Places Peace be with all Nations People and Cities and all their Inhabitants excepting Mahometans and Jews Peace be with all Parishes and with all that are faithful to Christ and you Amen O Lord King and my Father I am informed That when the fame of my Name first reached your ears by the Voice of my Ambassador Matthew that you forthwith assembled all your Archbishops Bishops and Prelates to return thanks to God for so good News and that you did also receive Matthew with great kindness and respect When I came to hear of this I was overjoy'd likewise and did return thanks to God for it as did also all my People I was much troubled at Matthew 's Death who dyed in the Monastery of Basayn within my Dominions as he was returning home he was not sent by me for I was then but a Boy of 11 years of Age and had not taken the Government upon me after my Father's death but by Queen Helena whom I reverenced as my Mother and who at that time administred the Affairs of the Empire Matthew was by Profession a Merchant and his true name was Abraham which he changed that he might travel thorow the Turkish Dominions with the more security But having notwithstanding his Disguise been discovered to be a Christian at Dabul he was cast into Prison where he lay till he was taken out by some of your stout Soldiers upon his having acquainted them with his Confinement and his being our Ambassador The General of your Army after he had rescued him out of the hands of the Enemy took care to convey him to your Court at which as Matthew was punctual in acquainting you with all that he had in Commission to say so he was the same in sending me word how honourably he was entertained by you and how you had loaded him with Gifts all which was confirmed by your Ambassadors who were conveyed hither by Didacus Lopez de Segueiea the Admiral of your Fleet and by the Letters which were to have been delivered to me by Edward Golvam who died in the Island of Camera and were delivered by the surviving Ambassadors I rejoyced exceedingly at the sight of your Letters and did return thanks to God for them I was overjoy'd likewise to see your Ambassadors have Crosses on their breasts and did enquire of them concerning the Rites of the Christian Faith being desirous to know which are the True But the thing that affected me with the most devotion was the Story your Ambassadors told me of Ethiopia having been first discovered to your Fleet by a Miracle Which after it had given over all hopes of finding it was conducted to one of our Ports by a Red Cross that appeared one morning in the Heavens as this appears to me to have been a Miracle so undoubtedly the Admiral of your Fleet who had such an extraordinary honour done to him must be exceedingly beloved of God This mutual Embassy of ours was foretold by the Prophet in the Book of Life and in the Passion of St. Victor and in the Writings of the Holy Fathers which do all testify That a great Christian King should conclude a Peace with the Emperor of Ethiopia But little did I expect that this prophecy would have been fulfilled in my days But God knew it certainly praised be his Name who first brought Ambassadors from you to me that I might likewise send Ambassadors to you My Father in Christ and Friend it is my desire that we should be of the same Religion I never had an Embassy sent to me before by any Christian King neither was I certain that there was a Christian King any where besides my self having been always encompassed with Moors the Sons of Mahomet and with Heathens and Slaves who do not acknowledge God and with some who worship Wood and Fire and with others that worship Serpents as Gods with whom I have never lived well because though the Faith has been preached to them they refuse to come to the Truth I am now at ease God having given me rest from all your and my own Enemies against whom when I march with my Armies they turn their backs toward us my Captains are also every-where victorious over them So that God is not angry with me but as the Psalmist has it He hath fulfilled the desire of Kings who desire nothing but what is righteous For which no praise is due to us but all thanks ought to be returned to God for it is he that hath given us the World and the Land of the Gentiles for ever and all the Countries from your own Borders to those of Ethiopia For which I do give great thanks to God and do proclaim his mighty Power hoping the Sons of the Gentiles will be brought under the Yoke and to the knowledge of the true Faith for I do not in the least doubt but that your Sons and you and I shall abundantly rejoice in our Victories and you must never give over praying to God until he has put you in Possession of the Holy Temple of Jerusalem which at present is in the hands of the Enemies of Christ that is of Mahometans Heathens and Hereticks which work if you could perform your hand will be full of praise Of the Ambassadors you sent unto me with Matthew Three died by the way the Admiral of your Fleet after having had a Conference at Matrua with the King of Bernagays who is our Vassal dispatched the surviving Ambassadors with great Gifts to our Court Your Gifts were acceptable to me but your Name is more precious to me than all Jewels and Treasures But let us pass over these things and begin to Treat how we may Invade and Conquer the Countries of the Infidels I for my part will Contribute a Hundred thousand Drachms of Gold and as many Thousand Armed Men and moreover Timber and Iron and Copper towards the Building and Equipping of a Fleet with abundance of Provisions of all sorts let us therefore joyn together And whereas it is not our Custom nor agreeable to our Dignity to send Ambassadors to any Prince to sue for Peace you did therefore first send Ambassadors to desire a Peace with me wherein you verified the Words of Christ for it is written Blessed are the feet which bring peace for which I am also prepared after the manner of the Apostles who were unanimous and of one Heart O King and my Father
the Roman Pontiff in the Year 1524. In the name of God the Father Almghty maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible in the name of Jesus Christ the Son of God who was the same with him from the beginning of the World and who is Light of Light and very God of very God and in the name of God the Holy Ghost who is true God and proceedeth from the Father I The King at whose Name the Lyons do tremble who am by the Grace of God called Achami Tinghil that is the Frankincense of the Virgin the Son of King David the Son of Solomon the Son of the Hand of Mary the Son of Nau by the Flesh and by Grace the Son of St. Peter and St. Paul do send these Letters Peace be with you O Just Lord and holy powerful pure and sacred Father who art the head of all Bishops and fearest no-body because there is none that hath power to curse thee who art the most watchful Curate of all Souls and the Friend of Pilgrims and the sacred Master and Preacher of the Faith and the Enemy of every thing that offends the Conscience and the lover of all good Manners and a holy Person whom all do bless and praise O happy and holy Father I do obey you with reverence because you are the peace of all and do deserve whatsoever is good so that it is but just that according to the divine Commands of the Apostles all should yield obedience to you This belongs to you but they have likewise commanded us to reverence all Bishops Archbishops and Prelates and to love you as a Father and to reverence you as a King and to believe in you as a God For which cause I do humbly with bended knees and with a sincere heart tell you holy Father That you are my Father and I am your Son Holy and most mighty Father Why have you never sent any Nuncio's to us to be informed of our health for since you are our Pastor and we are your Sheep you ought not to have been unmindful of us nor ought you to have reckoned us to have been too remote from your Territories for your Nuncio's to have visited us seeing from the most remote Kingdom of the Earth that is Portugal your Son King Emanuel has commodiously sent his Ambassadors to us so that if God had deferred calling him to Heaven the things he and I were treating about had undoubtedly had a happy Issue before this time I should be glad to hear healthful things from you by certain Nuncio's having never had a word from your Holiness nor heard of you by any other way but by some of our vowed Pilgrims who neither carried Letters from us to you nor brought any from you to us and who therefore when we enquired of them could only tell us That going from Jerusalem after they had performed their Vows there to visit the Thresholds of the Apostles at Rome they had seen you giving us a general Account of your Affairs I took great pleasure in their Relations beholding in them the Image of your holy Countenance which appeared to me to be like that of an Angel and I must own that I do love and reverence you Nevertheless it would be much more grateful to me devoutly to contemplate your Words and Letters I must therefore beg it of you that you would send a Nuncio to me to exhilerate my heart with your Blessing for since we agree in Faith and Religion that is the thing of the World that I desire most and that my Friendship may be as the Ring you wear on your Finger or as the Gold Chain that is about your Neck that so I may be always in your heart and memory Friendship being much increased by greateful Words and Letters when holy Peace from which all human Joy doth flow naturally embraceth them For as one that is very thirsty is extreamly desirous of cold water as the Scripture has it so Nuncio's and Letters coming to me from remote parts either from your Holiness or any Christian King will fill my heart with extraordinary Pleasures such as theirs are filled with who after a Victory come to gather rich Spoils All this may be done with great ease now the King of Portugal has opened a way to it who some times since sent Ambassadors with other Persons of Quality to us which was a thing had never been done by any Christian King or Pope before to any of our Ancestors Only in the Archives of our Great Grandfather Zera Jacob who was King of all the Kings of Ethiopia and a most Formidable Prince the Copies of some Letters to him from Eugenius the Roman Pontiff are still preserved the purport whereof is as followeth EUgenius the Roman Pontiff to our beloved Son King Zara Jacob the King of all the Kings of Ethiopia and who is mightily dreaded He goes on and tells him That his Son John Paleologus who had been dead two years the King of the Kings of the Romans had been called by him to celebrate a holy Synod to which he came accompanied by Joseph the Patriarch of Constantinople and a great many other Archbishops Bishops and Prelates as also with the Procurators of the Patriarchs of Antioch Alexandria and Jerusalem who had all united themselves to him in the love of the holy Faith and Religion So that now the Unity of the Church was re-established and all the old Controversies thorow God's assistance were ended and whatever was erroneous and contrary to Religion dissipated and right Order restored which had filled all People with joy We do here send you that Letter of Eugenius which has been preserved entire and would likewise have sent you the whole Order and Power of the Pontifical Benediction had it not been so large a Volume it being bigger than the Book of Paul to the Gentiles the Nuncio's that brought these Papers from the Pope hither were Theodore Peter Didimus and George the Servants of Jesus Christ You would do well holy Father to command your Papers to be looked over among which it is like you will meet with some Records of these Matters You may see by this holy Father that if you should be pleased to write any thing to us the memory thereof will be preserved in our Archives thorough all Ages And happy is the Man whose Memory is preserved in the Records of the holy City of Rome the Chair of St. Peter and St. Paul who are the Lords of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Judges of the World and my believing them to be so was the cause of my writing these Letters to your Holiness that I may obtain your Favour and that of your holy Conclave and therewithal all sorts of Blessings and the increase of all good things I do furthermore supplicate your Holiness to send us the Images of some Saints namely that of the blessed Virgin Mary that by that means your Holiness may be frequent
the help of your Blessing easily enlarge the Bounds of their Empires of which Blessing I do partake Among our Books there being Letters which were sent by Pope Eugenius with his Blessing to Zera Jacob which Blessing having descended to me I do now enjoy it and rejoyce in it mainly The Holy Temple of Jerusalem is a place I have great Veneration for and do frequently send Oblations to it by our Pilgrims and I would send both more and greater were I not Besieged on all sides by Mahometans and Infidels who besides that they Rifle our Messengers will not allow them a free passage whereas if the ways were but once opened I should then be able to Correspond with the Roman Church as well as other Christians to whom as to the Christian Religion I am nothing inferior for as they believe One Right Faith and One Church so I do profess the same and do most sincerely believe in the Holy Trinity and in One God and in the Virginity of our Lady the Virgin Mary I do also hold all the Articles of the Christian Faith and do keep them as they were writ by the Apostles And now that our good God has been pleased by the hand of the most Potent and Christian King Emanuel to open a way by which we may Correspond by Amdassadors since we are joyned in the Faith let us likewise with all other Christians joyn together in the service of God During the time the Ambassadors of that King were at our Court we received the News of his Death and of his Son and my Brother John having Succeeded to the Crown and as I was extremely afflicted at the News of the Death of the Father so I did very much rejoyce to hear of his Son 's having succeeded him for I do hope that by joyning our forces we shall be able to open a passage both by Sea and Land thorow the Regions of the Wicked Mahometans and to terrifie them to that degree as to drive them quite out of those Countries so that Christians may go to and return from Jerusalem without any molestation and I do most vehemently desire to partake of the Divine Love in the Temple of the Apostles Peter und Paul I do likewise desire to receive the most Holy Blessing of Christ's Vicar which your Holiness is undoubtedly And as the things I hear of your Holiness by our Pilgrims which go from hence to Jerusalem and from thence to Rome and that not without a Miracle do fill me with incredible Joy and Pleasure so there is nothing I would rejoyce in so much as to have a shorter way found out for my Ambassadors that so I might hear from you before I die which I trust in God I shall do by some means or other I beseech God to preserve you in Health and and Holiness I Kiss your holy Feet and do humbly beg your Blessing Your Holiness will receive these Letters from our Brother John King of Portugal who will send them to you by our Ambassador Francis Alvarez We may judge what mean thoughts King John had of these Letters and Ambassadors to the Pope The Habassin Embassy to the Pope little regarded by their lying unregarded Five Years at Lisbon before they were sent to Rome and by his sending them at last only to do Honour to his Nehpew Don Martin de Portugal when he sent him Ambassador to that Court with the following Letter To the most Holy Father in Christ and the most Blessed Lord Pope Clement the IIId by Divine Providence presiding over the whole Church To the most Holy Father in Christ and the most Blessed Lord the most devout Son of the same Holiness John by the Grace of God King of Portugal and Algarves on this side and the other side of the Sea of Africk Lord of Guinea and of the Conquests Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia Arabia Persia and India After having most humbly kissed your Holy feet MOST Holy Father in Christ After having lain five years neglected at Lisbon it was sent to Rome only as an honourable Appendixto a Portuguese Embassy and most Blessed Lord The King my Lord and Father being sensible how acceptable it would be to God that the most remote Regions of Ethiopia and India which in these parts had been only heard of by a doubtful fame should be Sailed to by the industrious Navigation of Christians did at the beginning of his Reign send divers of his Captains and Subjects with great Fleets to discover the Coasts of those Countries which he did to that end that the Mahometans and Heathens of those Climates might be brought to acknowledge the Truth of the Christian Faith not knowing but that some Nations which were Christians already for such there were reported to be might be found out in the Course of such Discoveries thus thorough the Divine Direction the whole Country of Guinea was travelled over in which the King of Manicongo with vast numbers of his Subjects was Baptized as were several other Nations in India Persia and Arabia by the Industry and Piety of our Subjects and even those Provinces which were not forward at first to embrace Christianity do now begin to follow the Example of their Neighbours who notwithstanding the great Losses he sustained in his Ships Captains Nobles and other Subjects was not as becomes a Pious Christian discouraged thereby so as to give over those Voyages in the Progress whereof our Fleets have penetrated into the Red-Sea in which no Christian Ship had ever been before that Sea being wholly in the hands of the Turks and did after a long and sharp War discover the Coasts of the most Potent King of Ethiopia who is commonly called Pretegya and who with all his Subjects is a Worshipper of Christ to which King our Father immediately dispatched an Ambassador with an intention to reduce him to the Obedience of the Holy Apostolical See by certifying him That your Holiness sits in the Chair of St. Peter and are the only Vicar of Christ upon Earth to whom all Christian Kings do with great Veneration use to yield Obedience And not long after the said King of Ethiopia sent two Ambassadors in Company with ours when they returned home one of which was his Natural-born Subject and the other a Stranger during which time God was pleased to take our Father's Soul to himself and we having succeeded him in the Throne did without delay endeavour by our Captains that were in India to certify the said King of Ethiopia of our Father's Death and of our Resolution to carry on and finish what he had so gloriously begun for the Service of Christianity This our Declaration having been highly extolled by the said King he thereupon dispatched an Ambassador to us who is still Resident at our Court and with him our Chaplain Francis Alvarez who was one of the Ambassadors sent into Ethiopia by our Father This Francis Alvarez is now sent by the said King to Rome
to yield Obedience to your Holiness in that King's Name and in the Name of all his Subjects We have detained him here for some time being willing for divers Reasons that he should accompany our dear Nephew Martin de Portugal our Councellor and Ambassador whom we have ordered to present the said Francis Alvarez Ambassador of the said King of Ethiopia to your Holiness to yield Obedience to you as also to acquaint you with what the Ambassador of the said King that was sent to us has laid before us together with the Copies of that King's Letters to us wherefore your Holiness will do a thing that will be very acceptable unto God if in all this Affair you do give entire Credit to the said Martin our Ambassador for certainly great thanks ought to be returned to God for having in the time of your Pontificate done so great a favour to your Holiness that a Portion of Christians who as to the largness of their Country are nothing inferior to this of ours should consent to the Catholick Faith and to the Roman Church by yielding Obedience to it We for our parts are very thankful to God for having made use of our Ministry in the Reduction of this King There being nothing more for the praise of true Piety than to behold Ethiopia joyned with Europe in the Unity of the Christian Profession May our Lord God be pleased to encrease and preserve the Felicity of your Holiness according to your own desire Dated at Settuval the 28th of May 1532. King John having made the Habassin Emperor's Complements in his Letters to the Pope to amount to a formal submission of himself his Church and Empire to him must make his having detained an Embassage of that Moment and which he himself Magnifies so much so long at Lisbon to be the more wonderful But what it should be that after having slighted this Embassy for five long Years induced him to trump it up thus if it were not to do his Nephew Honor is a Mystery I shall leave to the Reader to unriddle having only observed that there were two Creations of Cardinals soon after it came to Rome The Portuguese and Habassin Ambassadors being arrived at Bononia The Portuguese and Habassin Ambassadors had their Audience of the Pope at Bononia where the Pope and the Emperor Charles the Fifth were together at that time they had the 29th of January given them for the Day of their publick Audience When being introduced into a publick Consistory at which the Emperor was present the Portuguese presented his Master's Letters to the Pope together with the Copies of those which had been sent to him and his Father by the King of Ethiopia When the Portuguese had done the Habassin presented his Master's Letters to the Pope and with them a Gold Cross that weighed about a Pound And having made the submission of the Emperor of Ethiopia and of his whole Church and Empire to his Holiness he was afterwards admitted to kiss his Foot and after that his Hand and at last his Mouth and having delivered the following Speech in Portuguese it was spoke aloud in Latin by the Secretary of the Portuguese Embassy MOST Holy and Blessed Father The Habassiâ— Ambassador's submission to the Pope the most Serene and Potent Lord David King of the Great and High Ethiopia who is commonly called Pretegya and who is no less glorious for the veneration he has for the True Religion than for his Empire Wealth and Kingdoms has sent this Ambassador to your Holiness with the Letters he has delivered to you commanding him to yield obedience and subjection to your Holiness in his Name and in that of his Kingdoms as Christ's Vicar and St. Peter's Successor and the Chief Pontiff of the whole Church and to present you with a Gold Cross which he hopes your Holiness not regarding the value thereof which is but small but the veneration that is due to it for Christ's having suffered thereon for our sakes will be pleased to accept of beseeching your Holiness in the name of the said Prince to accept of all that he has offered with a pious affection of a Father for your most devout Son To which Harangue the Pope's Secretary return'd the following Answer OUR most holy Lord doth receive you The Pope's Answer to the Habassin Ambassador my Lord Francis Alvarez the Ambassador of the most serene David King of Ethiopia together with his Obedience Gift and Letters with a good Will and Paternal Affection and doth return Thanks to God that such Letters and such an Ambassador should come in the time of his Pontificate from so great and remote a Christian Emperor he hath heard what you have said with Attention and great Joy and has with his Venerable Brethren the Cardinals graciously accepted of your Master's Obedience as also of his Gift both for the Honour that is due to the Holy Cross and the good Affection of the Donor And he doth furthermore highly extol in the Lord the most serene King of Portugal who besides the other great Services done by himself and Progenitors to the Common-wealth and Christian Faith has likewise deserved well of King David by having entred into an Alliance with him and having procured your being sent with these Letters to the Pope What remains is his Holiness will endeavour to the utmost of his Power so far as the great distance that is betwixt their Countries will permit so to satisfie the desires of the said King as to make him sensible of his being in the Place of a most dear Son in Christ and in the Affection and Esteem of his Holiness and the Holy Apostolical See no less than other Christian Princes And his Holiness will treat with the Ambassador of Portugal and you concerning these Affairs and will by his Letters and Nuncio's Return an Answer to all that your King has desired Zaga Zaba having nothing else to do at Lisbon Zaga Zaba's the Habassin Ambassador at Lisbon Account of the Religion and Customs of his Countrey and being willing to ingratiate himself with that Court by representing the Habassin Church as agreeing with the Roman in the Chief Doctrines wherein the Reformers contradict her did put Pen to Paper and drew up the following Account of the Religion Customs and Rites of his Countrey An Account of the Habassin Religion and Customs composed by Zaga Zaba the King of Ethiopia's Ambassador and written with his own Hand at Lisbon In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ Amen WE believe in the Name of the Holy Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost who are One Lord and Three Names One Divinity and Three Faces though but One Similitude and are an equal conjunction of Persons equal I say in Divinity One Kingdom One Throne One Word One Spirit the Word of the Father and the Son and the Word of the Holy Spirit and the Son is the same Word the Word with God the Word with the Holy
Spirit and with Himself without any defect or division the Son of the Father the Son of the very Father without any beginning and at first the Son of the Father without a Mother the Secret and Mystery of whose Nativity is known to none but the Father Son and Holy Spirit This Son in the beginning was the Word and the Word was the Word with God and God was the Word The Spirit of the Father the Holy Spirit the Spirit of the Son the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit it s own Spirit without any diminution or augmentation That Holy Spirit is the Comforter of the living God who proceedeth from the Father and the Son and who spake by the mouth of the Prophets and descended in a flame of fire on the Apostles in the gate of Sion and who preached the word of the Father which Word the very Son was all over the World wherefore as the Father is not first notwithstanding he is the Father nor the Son last notwithstanding he is the Son so likewise the Holy Spirit is neither first nor last but they are Three Persons in One God who seeth and is seen by no-body and who by his only Council created all things The Son did of his own accord the Father being willing and the Holy Ghost consenting descend from his highest Habitation and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit in the Womb of the Virgin Mary who was adorned with a double Virginity the one Spiritual the other Carnal he was born without any Corruption his Mother Mary remaining a Virgin after her delivery and by a Miracle and a secret Flame of the Divinity brought forth her Son Jesus without blood and without pain who was perfectly Innocent and without Sin being perfect God and perfect Man and having only one Aspect he grew by degrees as an Infant sucking the Milk of the Virgin Mary his Mother and coming to Thirty Years of Age he was baptiz'd in Jordan and did walk and was weary and did hunger and thirst as other men do all these things he suffered voluntarily and of his own accord and wrought many Miracles restoring by the power of his Divinity sight to the Blind curing the Lame cleansing the Lepers raising the Dead after all which he himself was apprehended and whipt and scourged and crucified He languished and died for our Sins and by his Death overcame Death and the Devil and by his lively Agony dissolved our Sins and bore our Infirmities By the Baptism of his Blood that is his Death he baptized the Patriarchs and Prophets and descended into Hell where the Souls of Adam and his Sons were as also his own Soul which was from Adam which Soul Christ received from the Virgin Mary who by the power and splendor of his Divinity and the strength of his Cross broke the brazen fiery Gates of Hell binding Satan with Iron Chains and rescuing Adam and his Sons All these things Christ did because he was full of the Divinity and the Divinity it self was with his Soul as it was also with his most holy Body which Divinity gave virtue to the Cross and was what he always had and will have for ever in Trinity and Unity in common with the Father Neither did Christ during the time he was in the Flesh ever want the Divinity and Dignity thereof for one moment He was buried and on the third day Jesus Christ himself the Prince of the Resurrection the most sweet Jesus Christ Jesus Christ the Prince of the Priests Jesus Christ the King of Israel did with great power and strength rise and after having finished all things which were foretold by the holy Prophets he ascended with glory into Heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father and will come with glory carrying a Cross before him and in his hand a Sword of Justice to judge the quick and the dead of whose Kingdom there shall be no end I believe one Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church I believe one Baptism which is the Remission of Sins and I do hope for the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the Age to come Amen I believe the holy Lady Mary to be a Virgin both in Spirit and Flesh and do reverence her as the Mother of God the Charity of all Nations the Holy of Holies and the Virgin of Virgins I believe in the holy Wood of the Cross the Bed of the Agony of our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God who is our Salvation for thorough him we are saved which notwithstanding it is an offence to the Jews and to the Gentiles foolishness we do preach believing it to be the power of the Cross of our Lord Christ as our Doctor St. Paul hath commanded I do believe St. Peter to be the Rock of the Law which Law is built upon the holy Prophets and the Foundation and Head of the Catholick and Apostolick Church of the East and West where the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Power of which Church is in St. Peter as is also the Kingdom of Heaven with which he can open and shut bind and loose and who shall sit with the other Apostles his Companions upon Twelve Seats with honour and praise together with our Lord Jesus Christ who upon the Day of Judgment is to pass Sentence upon us which will be a day of joy to the Saints and of sorrow and gnashing of teeth to Sinners when they shall be thrown into the flames of Hell with their Father the Devil I do believe the holy Prophets Apostles and Martyrs and Confessors to have been true Imitators of Christ whom together with the most holy Angels of God I do venerate and honour and do in the same manner embrace and reverence all their Followers I believe there ought to be an Oral Confession of all Sins made to a Priest by whose Prayers thorough Our Lord Jesus Christ I do hope to obtain the salvation of my Soul I do furthermore acknowledge the Roman Pontiff to be the first Bishop and Pastor of all the Sheep of Christ I do likewise observe and obey all Patriarchs Cardinals Archbishops and Bishops of whom he is the Head of the Ministers of Christ This is my Faith and Law and the Faith and Law of the People of Ethiopia who are under the Empire of Precious John which Faith and Love of Christ are so established among us that neither Death nor Fire nor Sword relying on Christ's assistance shall ever be able to oblige me to deny it this being the Faith we are all to carry on the Day of Judgment before the Face of Our Lord Jesus Christ I come now to explain the Discipline Doctrine and Law which the Apostles assembled together at Jerusalem did lay down in the holy Books of Synods and Canons called by us Manda Abethlis those Books of the Law of holy Church are Eight in number concerning which having had some discourse with several Learned Men here in Portugal I never met
either with his Neighbours or Subjects and as to the main was Victorious still Adam is succeeded by his Son Malac Saged who takes no notice of the Missionaries and tho he hated the Roman Church no less than his Father nevertheless having his thoughts wholly taken up with War he gave the Coadjutor and the Jesuits after they returned to Fremona no manner of Molestation unless they were troubled at his taking no more notice of them than if there had been no such persons in his Countrey Neither did the Coadjutors declaring himself Patriarch upon his having received advice of the Patriarch Baretto's death who died at Goa on the Twentieth of December 1562 ingage the Emperor to have ere the more regard for him and as the Emperor gave the Patriarch no trouble in his retirement so neither did the Patriarch give him any The Patriarch dying at Goa the Coadjutor becomes Patriarch who despairing of being able to do any good in Ethiopia without the assistance of the Portuguese-Troops made the solliciting of them his whole business So in a Letter to the General of the Jesuits bearing date the 3d of June 1566. he tells him There was one thing he and the Fathers were all agreed in which was That nothing but a good body of Portuguese Soldiers would ever be able to reduce Ethiopia to the Obedience of the Roman Church and in one of the same date to the Rector of the Jesuits College at Goa he tells him There was one thing he might be certain of The Patriarch sollicits hard for Troops which was that there was no other remedy for Ethiopia but a good body of Portuguese Troops adding that if they had but 5 or 600 stout Musketeers he would undertake for the reducing of Ethiopia to the Roman Church in a short time Concluding his Letter with a complaint that more men were daily exposed to greater dangers for things of much less Importance even to the State Father Fermandes do's the same and where the success was infinitely more doubtful And Manuel Fernandes in a Letter to the Provincial and Jesuits of Goa chimes exactly with his Patriarch in this note What shall I say saith Fernandes my dearest Fathers and Brethren to blame your Reverences who are in India for the great neglect of not having sent the Troops whereon the Reduction of this Empire depends intirely I know would be unjust being certain that if it had been in your Reverence's power to have appli'd it that we had had that remedy long before this time Nevertheless there is one thing I must beg of you and that is That since your Reverences do heartily wish that we had those Soldiers tho it is not in your yower to send them to us that you would pray earnestly to Christ to put it into their hearts in whose power it is to do it effectually I am likewise certain that if your Reverences did but see what is lost here in Ethiopia for want of a handful of men who would also be able to protect those who have already embraced our Faith that you would run howling and lamenting so great a loss thorough all the streets of the City Your Reverences may think of this what you please but I do say and affirm That the Order of Jesuits has no where so noble and glorious an enterprize upon their hands as this of Ethiopia if they could but finish it Neither ought it to seem strange to you that we should say That a body of Soldiers is necessary to the reduction of this Church considering that there is nothing more certain than that at the same time you lose the favour of the King the work of conversion goes on but very dull and no wonder since even in Portugal the Prelates if they had not the assistance of the Secular Arm would not be able to do their duties and though it is true that we pretend to have no other business here but the service of God and the promotion of the good of peoples Souls yet it is certain that those Troops if they were once here would quickly clear this Empire of all its Foreign and Domestick Enemies chiefly of the Turks and Galls by whom it is at this time so miserably harassed and against whom the unhappy Natives are not able to make head who as they contradict our Lord so our Lord contradicts them in chastising them with flies for the Galls are no better It being an unconceivable thing how such a sorry naked People should be able to do the things that they do against the Habassins who have both Arms and Horses were it not that God makes and will make Wur against them until such time as they shall give over making War against his Divine Majesty Wherefore since a good body of Soldiers would remedy all our wants Spiritual and Temporal let me again beg it of your Reverences to beseech God to send us this necessary Succour I would have your Reverences likewise remember with how great Zeal and Charity our holy Father Ignatius commanded our Superiors in Portugal nos to fail to speak to the King who is now with God once a Month at least concerning the Habassin Mission But though my intent in putting you in mind of this should not be to engage you to do the same with the Viceroy yet this I will affirm That since this is the Cause of God and the Society and so great a Cause too that you ought never to give over soliciting both God and Princes about this affair So that it may never be said of us They begun to build but could not finish Finally I do assure you That if we had but those Troops once that not only Ethiopia but another Europe would be brought quickly to the Knowledge of Christ and the Obedience of the Roman Church The Jesuits of Goa Lisbon and Rome were so inflamed by these passionate Letters that the Cardinal Don Henry who during the Minority of his Nephew Don Sebastian governed Portugal could not be quiet day nor night for them his not ordering so small a body of Men to be sent where they would infallibly do both the Church and Crown so great service being every where roared at by them as both the most ungodly and impolitick thing that any Government had ever been guilty of The Cardinal and Council of State The Cardinal of Portugal prevails with the Pope to call the Patriarch our of Ethiopia who weighed things a little more soberly than the distressed Jesuits in Ethiopia finding they could not well spare so many Soldiers at that time from the more profitable Conquests they were going on with in the Indies resolved since they could not comply with the loud clamours of the Jesuits to remove the cause of them by writing to the Pope to recal the Patriarch and his Friars and to send them somewhere else where they might do more good and make less noise by representing the Conversion of the Habassins
Master May Christ our Lord who is the beginning and end of all things carry on that Amity and Friendship which he hath begun between us The principal cause of my writing to your Majesty at this time is to renew the Familiarity and Correspondence which was between our Ancestors which Friendship together with the Adoption of the Holy Spirit has much enobled us Wherefore we desire your Majesty to send us some strong and stout Soldiers to help us to beat the Enemy out of our Ports your Troops when they arrive will find us provided with Arms and all other necessary Provisions of War and in a readiness to assist them to the utmost It being much fitter that those Ports should be in your Majesty's hands than in the hands of the greatest Enemies of our holy Faith your Majesty's Ancestors sent an Army of Gallant men into Ethiopia at a time when the Enemy was ready to have destroy'd our Faith and Empire We might destroy all our Enemies with great ease if we were assisted by the powerful Kings that profess the Gospel and who do comfort our hearts with the Memory of heavenly things we being all Sons of Heaven as St. John witnesseth saying What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the Spirit is Spirit Furthermore we are at war with another Enemy who are called Gauls and who do give us much trouble Wherefore we beseech your Majesty to send us some stout Troops and such as are Zealous for our holy Apostolical Faith and that with all possible Expedition We on our part have for some time been ready to receive them and if they were once come it will quickly appear that all that we design is feasible For why since Christ our Lord is our Common Head and we are all his Members and the Heavenly Father hath begot us all in one Womb of Baptism and that not with corruptible seed should we not be all tied in one chain of love with one Soul and one Body If these Letters were writ by the Habassin Emperor which I do very much doubt they plainly discover that the Fathers chief Argument to persuade him to submit himself to the Pope was the promise of Portuguese Troops but the reason why I suspect these Letters not to have been writ by the Emperor but by some Missionary in the Indies and who had never so much as been in Ethïopia are 1. That Seltam Saged or Suseneus 's Father was never Emperor as he is said in these Letters to have been 2. Guerreiro in his relation of Ethiopia printed at Lisbon in the Year 1611 sets them down under the name of the Emperor Jacob These Letters were probably forged by some Missionary or Malasequet 3. Their Phraseology excepting an affected sprinkling here and there of uncouth Phrases as also their Complements are so much Spanish that an Habassin has not less of the air of a Spaniard than they have of the Letters that were certainly known to have been writ by some of those Emperors Lastly Pereira tells us That the Habassin Emperors from the time that the remains of Gama 's Troops went over to the Turks and assisted them against Ademas dreaded nothing so much as the coming of Portuguese Soldiers from the Indies but whatever the Emperors did there being nothing that the Jesuits desired so earnestly it is to be feared that they made bold with the Emperor's name in the solliciting of them But there are more Letters behind which whether genuine or suppositious I shall set down leaving them to the censure of the judicious Reader The Letter of Raz Athanateus to the King of Portugal THE Letter of Peace and Love Athanateus's Letter to the King of Portugal sent by Athanateus cometh to the High and Powerful Emperor of Portugal with the Peace of our Lord Christ who was Crucified on the holy Cross for the Redemption of the World May this Peace be always with your Majesty The cause of my writing this Letter to you is the earnest desire that the Emperor and I both have to see some Portuguese Troops in this Countrey We do therefore most earnestly beseech your Majesty to send us a Body of stout well-disciplin'd men in order to there covering of our Ports which are at this time in the hand of the Enemies of our Faith When your Soldiers arrive we will take care that they shall be supplied with Arms and all other Necessaries Your Majesty's Ancestors assisted us when the Mahometans broke in upon us and we do to this day remember what great things Christ wrought for us by their means I must therefore a second time intreat your Majesty to send us a Body of stout Soldiers whom when they arrive I shall be ready to receive with open Arms and my mind gives me they will come at some time or other concerning which affair Father Peter Pays will write more at large to your Majesty Written in Ethiopia the 13th of December 1607. The Letter of Raz Athenateus to the Viceroy of the Indies THE Letter of Peace and Love His Letter to the Viceroy of the Indias sent by Athenateus cometh to the great Viceroy of the Indies with the peace of our Lord Christ who died on the holy Cross for our Redemption may that Peace be always with your Excellency and your whole State Amen Hear Sir My Father was always a great friend to the Portugueses that came into these parts having continually favoured them in all things as I have done ever since his death having on all occasions assisted them both with my Interest and my Purse and saved several of them when condemned to die being willing to preserve the remains of the first Portugueses that came among us until more should come to them for the good of this Empire I have had it for some years in my thoughts to write to you but have still been hindered by the Wars we have of late been so much embroiled in out of which God has been pleased to deliver us at last and to give us an Emperor of a Sound Judgment and who governs all things with great prudence who upon my acquainting him with the great need we stand in of Portuguese Succors was pleased to write himself to the King of Portugal for some commanding me to do the same and to acquaint him how much we desire them and how much their coming will be for God's Service I must therefore intreat your Excellency to lend us your helping-hand in this affair that so it may be brought to a speedy Issue Let there be at least a Thousand Soldiers sent and let it be done with all possible Expedition for which Service you will have honour in the sight of God who will undoubtedly reward you for it and were there but once a way opened for it your Excellency shall want nothing that this Empire affords I shall say no more since Father Peter Pays who is acquainted with all my secrets can disclose
more because it was writ before the King had received the Letter he is said to have sent to him in the year 1607. In the year 1611 the Emperor received the following Letter from the Pope in answer to that he is said to have writ to him in the year 1607. Paul the Vth 's Letter to the Emperor of Ethiopia To our most dear Son in Christ Health ad Apostolical Benediction WE give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ The Pope's Letter to the same Emperor for having been so merciful to you as to restore you to your Royal Throne as you write he has done We do Congratulate your success and do commend you mightily for your Zeal in Defence of the Christian Faith for which as we understand by your first and second Letters you are very fervent We have according to your desires recommended the necessity of your Kingdoms to our most dear Son in Christ Philip the Catholick and Powerful King of Spain who we hope will be induced by his Magnanimity and Zeal for the Christian Faith to assist you powerfully having order'd our Apostolical Nuncio that is with his Catholick Majesty to sollicit what you have desired with great diligence What remains dear Son is to exhort you to persevere constantly and immoveably in the fear of God and Stoutly and Zealously to defend the Christian name and to continue always devoted to the holy Roman Catholick and Apostolick Church your most loving Mother as we in our Prayers which we make to God before the Most holy Bodies of the Apostles for our Sons the Christian Kings and Catholick Princes shall always be sure to remember you and to beg of him from whom all good things do proceed that he would so enlighten your Understanding with the Light of his holy Spirit that you may do his will and from the inward Bowels of our Charity we do most tenderly give our Blessing to your Majesty Written at Rome at St. Peter's under the Ring of the Fisherman on the 4th of January in the Year 1611 and in the Sixth year of our Pontificate It is plain from this Letter that the Popes do not stand so much upon their Punctilio's with remote Heretick Princes The Popes are civiler to remote Hereticks than Domestick ones as they do with those in Europe they reckon to be Hereticks Paul in this Letter calling a Prince who was a Professed Euâ—ychian Heretick his most dear Son in Christ a Title neither Urban would bestow upon King James nor Gregory the Fifteenth upon the Prince of Wales in their answers to the unhappy Letters wherein those Princes had been so civil as to give them the title of The most blessed Father The Emperor growing every day more and more inclinable to the Roman Church for which his Brother Cella Christos had declared himself openly a Champion suffering none to be about him that were not either actually of her Communion or that appeared not to be well disposed for it did upon the Receipt of this kind Letter from the Pope begin to think of Professing himself a Roman Catholick too but being sensible that that could not be done without raising such a storm in his Empire as it would not be possible for him to weather without Portuguese Troops Embassadors are sent from Ethiopia to Partugel He is said to have resolved to send an Embassy to the King of Spain to Sollicit that Affair by the way of Melinde and Goa The persons named for this Employment were Father Anthony Fernandes and one Tecur Egzy an Habassin of Quality by whom the following Letters were sent to the Pope The Emperor's Letter to the Pope The Letter of the Emperor Seltem Saged cometh with the Peace of the good Pastor Jesus to the Holy Roman Pope Paul the Vth. the Head and Pastor of the Universal Church Holy and Loving Father WE have received your Letter of January 1611 The Emperor's Letter to the Pope which is full of that love wherewith a tender Father is inflamed when he receives a penitent Prodigal Son and not having been able by reason of the sudden departure of the India Ships to return you an answer so soon as we desired we have now determined to do it by another way which we hope God will open unto us and to that end we have sent Father Antonio Fernandes of the Society of Jesus who has for some time resided at our Court and with him our Embassador Tecur Egzy desiring that your Holiness may have speedy notice of our being brought by the preaching of the Fathers of the Society who are resident in our Empire to the Knowledge of the truth of the faith of the Chair of the Blessed St. Peter and of our being resolved to embrace the same and to yield obedience to your Holiness as the Head of the Universal Church so as for the future to be governed by a Patriarch of your sending and that we may be put into a condition of yielding this obedience publickly it will be necessary for us to have some Troops from Don Philip the Powerful King of Portugal without which we shall never be able to do it openly We do therefore most humbly beseech your Holiness that since as you have writ to us you have been pleased to order your Apostolick Nuncio residing at his Catholick Majesty's Court to sollicit this Affair with great diligence that you will renew your Orders to him that so they may be both effectually and speedily executed and so good an occasion may not be lost and that in our days and during his happy years our Empire may find this necessary remedy And since you are the Father of all Catholick Kings hold us in the number of such and as you offer Prayers to God for them before the most holy Bodies of the Apostles do the same for us your humble Son Written at our Court of Dembea on the 13th of January 1613. But as the Emperor's Brother Ras Cella Christos was the chief promoter of this Embassy so he likewise writ a Letter to the Pope by it which was as followeth The Letter of Cella Christos Viceroy of Gojam cometh with the Peace of the Eternal Father to the Holy Father Paul the Vth. the chief Pontiff the Successor of St. Peter and Head of the Church Most Beloved Father IF according to the Holy Scriptures Cella Christos's Letter to the Pope they who were far off are come near I who was at a vast distance am now brought near by the Preaching of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus that reside in this Empire for I having been commanded by my Brother Seltem Saged my Lord the Emperor to be present at several Conferences between the Fathers and our Learned men I came at last to the Knowledge of the Truth of the Faith of the Chair of St. Peter and of that Chair's being the Head of the Universal Church which faith I thereupon embraced and obliged my Brother the
privilege and primacy to his Successors in the Chair of Rome where it has continued and will continue to the end of the world so that it shall neither be in the power of Moors nor Turks nor of any other Creature to destroy it those words of our Lord Jesus the Gates of all shall not pervail against it being its sure defence So when a Controversy arose in the Church the first Council of Nice which consisted of Three hundred and eighteen Bishops threw Arius out of the Church for affirming the Son of God to be a Creature as the second Council consisting of One hundred and fifteen Patriarchs and Bishops assembled in the City of Constantinople did Macedonius for asserting the Holy Ghost to be a Creature and the third Council consisting of Three hundred Bishops did Nestorius for dividing Christ into Two Persons the Divine and Human and the fourth consisting of Six hundred and thirty Patriarchs and Bishops assembled in the City of Calcedon Excommunicated the Rebellious Dioscorus for joyning in Infidelity with Eutyches in mixing the Humanity with the Divinity so as to make One only Nature whereas it is most certain That there are Two Natures in Christ the Divine and Human on the account of which Divine Nature it was that the said Three hundred and eigheeen Fathers did put the following words into the Creed We believe in our Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of the Father and who was with him before the World was Created as on the account of his Human Nature the following words were added And was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the Womb of the Virgin Mary with the Consent of the Father and the Son and of the said Holy Ghost Three Persons and One only God the Father and the Son not being named on that occasion being no argument of those Father 's not believing they did not Co-operate therein with the Holy Spirit but it was done on purpose to teach us That in the Most Blessed Trinity besides the operations ad Intra there are operations ad Extra according to the holy Fathers of those ad Extra the Works of Power are attributed to the Father those of Wisdom to the Son and those of Love to the Holy Ghost Wherefore since the Incarnation of the Son of God was for the sake of the Sons of Men and for that reason was a Work of Love The Three hundred and eighteen Fathers did attribute it to the Holy Spirit Though in Virtue and Power and the Creation of things the Father Son and Holy Ghost are One only True God The Virgin Mary was mentioned by them upon account of the Human Nature which in an instant united it self to the Eternal Person of the Son who is equal in Divinity to the Father and that in our Lord Jesus Christ being only One Person there are Two Natures is written in divers Books of the Holy Spirit St. Matthew in the beginning of it calleth his Gospel The book of the Generation of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham which was said on the account of his Human Nature as it was on the account of his Divine Nature that St. John saith In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word the Divine Nature having neither Beginning nor End whereas the Human Nature had a Beginning All which Writings notwithstanding Eutyches the Master of Mischief did affirm That there was only One Nature in Christ and so mixed the Humanity with the Divinity now this Rebel was followed by Dioscorus who assisted him both in word and deed and having procured the Murther of Flavianius Patriarch of Constantinople for having Excommunicated Eutyches and some other obstinate Hereticks that were before him namely Arius Macedonius Nestorius and Sabellius all which matters having been submitted to the Holy Roman Church the Head of all other Churches on the account of the Empire and Primacy that it hath by inheriting the Power of St. Peter the Prince of the Apostles It is certain the Patriarchs who succeeded Dioscorus in the See of Alexandria have not Preached the true Faith in having taught that there is only One Nature in Christ and so being destitute of the true Faith they have wandered out of the paths of Patriarchs Bishops and Priests in having had Wives and Children and Grand-Children and have been intangled in divers things not fit to be named they have also taken Money for Holy Orders and having Consecrated Salt Stones for Altar Stones have afterwards sold them having likewise tyrannized cruelly over those they Ordained obliging several of them to serve them a Year or Six Months at least in sawing Wood or Stone for their Palaces before they would Ordain them for which Practice they were Excommunicated by the Apostle who said He that buyeth or selleth Orders is excommunicated and has his portion with Simon Magus and Judas The Abuna Mark was Convicted by the Emperor Malec Saged of several carnal Crimes which are not fit to be heard or Uttered they being of that kind for which God rained down fire from Heaven and being Deposed for having been guilty of them he was Banished into the Island of Dek where he dyed a strange death his Belly swelling as hard as a Drum The Abuna Christos Dula kept several Concubines contrary to the custom of Patriarchs as was well known by all his Contemporaries and by some that are still alive His Successor Peter kept a Malaquis Wife and having been convicted of Adultery he did Penance for it as may be testified by several living Witnesses namely one Joseph and one Marino who are both Strangers and not Habassins and who adding sin to sin did Excommunicate the Emperor Jacob after he had Reigned Seven Years as he did all the People of Ethiopia likewise in case they did not Depose him and Banish him to the Kingdom of Narea and having placed Za Danguil in the Throne he afterwards excited his Subjects to Murther him by Excommunicating them if they did not do it and as if all this had not been enough he took the Field with the Emperor Jacob against us and was killed with him in the Fight The Abuna Simon was guilty likewise of divers enormous Grimes who besides his having taken one Mali an Egyptian 's Wife from him and dishonoured several Virgins he kept divers Concubines and happening to have a Child by one who was not able to maintain it to conceal his shame he ordered it to be thrown to the Wolves by whom it was devoured this every body knows to be true namely the Azages and who when Julius Rebelled instead of labouring according to the custom of Patriarchs and Monks to make Peace joyned with him in his Rebellion and having called his Soldiers together told them on the day before the Battel That he forgave them all Young and Old their Sins notwithstanding they had broke all the Commandmendments upon condition they would put all to the Sword
of holy Mother Church In the Second place I do declare That I so long as I do live and am not loosed from that bond of Spiritual Marriage which I have Contracted with the Church of Ethiopia am the true Patriarch and Pastor and Abuna thereof and that whosoever is or shall come from any part is a stranger and cannot enter into it by the door it not being opened to him by the faithful and prudent Steward to whom Christ has delivered the Keys of his House Such a one therefore must be an Adulterer in taking another man's Wife while her lawful Husband is living I have been placed in this Chair by the true Successor of St. Peter and that with the same Authority as St. Peter placed his Disciple St. Mark in the Chair of Alexandria all that are in that Chair and do deny Obedience to the Pope and his Successors being Patriarchs only in name for the branch cannot bear fruit of it self if it continueth not in the vine In the Third place I am to put your Highness and the whole Empire in mind of those words of St. Paul Be not deceived for God no nor men will not be Mocked by your pretending that you have not forsaken the Roman faith but only in some customs for it is plain you have departed from her by divers Heresies namely the using of Circumcision together with Baptism the repeating of Baptism the keeping Saturday and the ceremonial Law about Legal uncleannesses and distinctions of meat and in dissolving Marriages many of you affirming that Christ is the Son of God by grace only Others affirming that there are Two persons in Christ others that he has one person made of Two and that he has not two Wills nor two Operations others that he died without his Divinity others that the Humanity is equal to the Divinity and is every where You do affirm likewise that water squeezed from dry grapes may be Consecrated and that the Souls of Children are derived from their Parents with a great many other things that are repugnant to the holy Scriptures and have been Condemned and Anathematized in divers Councils In the Fourth place I do beseech your Highness by the Precious Blood of Christ and by the Bowels of Our Lady the Virgin Mary and I do in the name of God and by the Authority which he hath given me by the Pontifical Oil that was poured on my head as upon that of Aaron on the day of my Consecration command you neither by force nor promises to endeavour to oblige the Portugueses that shall remain here to renounce the true Roman Faith Nor to set any Captain over them that is not a Catholick by Descent and chosen by Catholicks And I do pronounce the greater Excommunication to be Ipso facto incurred and do invocate the Indignation and Curse of Almighty God and of the holy Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul and of St. Thomas the Patron of India and of St. James the Great the Patron of Spain and Portugal on all that shall any ways offend in this matter or who shall at any time forsake the Roman Faith In the Fifth place I do advertise your Highness and all and every one in your Empire that there is no Nation under Heaven that has the like Obligations to another as Ethiopia has to Portugal The Portugueses not having come among you as the Children of Israel went into Egypt with Asses to have them laden with Provisions to satisfy their hunger but were moved to it purely out of Charity and Zeal for the faith It is not above an Hundred years since they were sent by their King to his great cost laden with Arms and Muskets and accompanied with a train of Artillery which is at this time in your Camp with the Royal Arms of Portugal upon them with their Pockets full of Money and that not to make themselves Masters of Ethiopia nor to Conquer it for their King but to deliver the Habassins out of a Mahometan Captivity and to free them from the Yoke which that cursed Sect had laid upon their necks for which great Service they have been so ill rewarded that their Children and Grandchildren were reduced to that Penury that the King of Portugal was obliged to allow them a yearly Maintenance Wherefore I do beseech your Highness to let them enjoy the Privileges which their Fathers purchased for them with their Blood and which have been granted them by former Kings for their services In the Sixth place I would have your Highness remember that several of the Fathers of the Society who are Eminent for their Piety and Learning have come into Ethiopia at divers times not to seek after Honours or Riches but to serve God and your people in much humility and to teach them the true faith some of them having given the greatest Testimonies of love that are possible in having laid down their Lives for their Friends which Three of them did one after having been several years a prisoner at Matzua and the other two at Adel and those that are now alive have served your Father with all the fidelity of Doctors Servants and Slaves as he himself has many times told me all which notwithstanding after they had built several Churches and Houses they are now turned out of them all and that in the midst of Winter their Churches and Goods being all given to the Enemies of the Roman Faith the Fathers that were at Gorgora having in little more than three Months time been sent from three several places they that were at Dembea and Gojam having been likewise turned out of all notwithstanding all which hard usage they continue to pray to God to Establish your Highness's Empire for ever and that he would give you a House that has the true faith for its Foundation and Heaven for its Roof Furthermore I would have your Highness remember That your Father desired the Bishop of Rome to send a Patriarch and Bishops into Ethiopia at whose request he sent me and a Bishop we were both Masters of Divinity and Readers of the holy Scriptures Neither did the most Catholick Powerful and Munificient King of Portugal expect that your Father should have remitted Gold to him to defray the charges of our Mission or that he should have taxed his Nobles on that account but he took the whole charge thereof upon himself which amounted to several Thousand Oquea's giving us also many rich pieces to make Presents of some of which are at this time in your Royal Palace and in several great Houses in Ethiopia Neither did he so much as charge your Father with the Maintenance of our persons having sent me yearly an Hundred Oquea's to support my Dignity Now all the return you have made to your Brother the King of Portugal and to the Bishop and me for all the charge and trouble that we have been at is to throw us out of all at a blow and to entertain another without knowing who
he is or from whence he comes threatening us like Caterpillars against whom when they come the whole Countrey is up in Arms so that according to the word of David I am cast out like a locust you in what you do fulfilling what Christ said to the Jews I came in my Father's name and you received me not another will come in his own name and him you will receive the Children of Israel when they went out of Egypt carried not only their own goods but the Egyptians also which they had borrowed whereas we are forced to leave a great part of our own goods behind us but since we must leave them all when we come to die that gives us but little trouble but what afflicts us most is that your Highness should send the same Message to us which another King delivered with his own Mouth to Moses and Aaron in the Twelfth of Exodus Arise and go from among my people and that with the same haste as he forced the Jews out of Egypt by night it being said the Egyptians pressed the Hebrews to depart suddenly saying if they do not depart this night we are all dead men imputing the death of their First-born to the presence and detention of the Children of Israel whereas in Justice they should have attributed it to the hatred they bore to the Hebrews who had been their deliverers and to their own cruelty in having thrown their Sons into the Nile After the same manner Ethiopia ought to impute the just punishments they have received at the hand of God to the unjust hatred they have for the Portugueses their restorers and to their Manifold publick and scandalous Sins some whereof I shall just mention Most of their men are for having several Wives and their Women are for changing their Husbands Their Monks care not to have any thing more of Monks than the habit chusing the Houses of the Court of Ladies for their Monasteries The Nobles are for making themselves Lords of the Church and her Lands indulging the flesh in all things and would have their Pastors to be as so many Statues in having neither Eyes to see their Sins nor Mouths to reprove them nor hands to chastise them Nâ—w so long as these Sins continue in Ethiopia the Sword will never depart from it Open your Eyes Sir and follow the truth according to your knowledge thereof and suffer not the good Nature and Understanding which God has given you to be ruin'd by evil Counsellors but do justice to your Subjects remembering what God hath said by the Ecclesiasticus That Kingdoms are Translated from one to another and from one Family to another by reason of Injustice And since we are not to see one another again before we meet at the Tribunal of God's Justice I must tell you plainly That though I should not accuse you there you will accuse your self your Empire the Gospel the Councils and the Books of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church which I brought for your Instruction and you have rejected will all accuse you there Nevertheless I the Bishops and Fathers imitating our Master Jesus Christ who when he was on the Cross prayed for his Murtherers not attending to the hatred wherewith they persecuted him but to the precept of his Father's and his own willingness to die for them do from our hearts pray that God of his great Mercy would pardon you and your whole Empire and remove from you and it the Scourges of his wrath which the examples in holy Scripture threaten them withal who will go on in their Sins And whereas the Gauls since the time your Ancestors broke the Oath they made to the Portugueses That they would receive the Roman Faith have become Masters of the greatest part of your Empire so I pray God that the remaining part thereof may not be lost on this occasion wherein there have been so many Oaths and Excommunications with such a clear knowledge of the truth insomuch that what Saint Stephen said of the Jews â—ay be truly appli'd to you You do always resist the holy Spirit after the Example of your Fathers May that Divine Spirit which is the Temple and Fortress of Truth enlighten and strengthen your Highness to know and love the Roman Catholick Faith which is the true way and life Offonso Patriarch of Ethiopia Banished for Jesus Christ The Patriarch having been rifled by the way by a company of Banditties arrived at Fremona on the 24th of April and not being able to think of returning to the Indies to live there as a Private Friar and where he knew his Conduct would be censured if for no other reason for its having been unsuccessful he began to consider whether he might not in case the Emperor should command him to depart his Kingdoms which he every day expected he would do find some Nobles that would undertake to protect him against him but being sensible that that was not to be done any other way but by giving assurances that a Portuguese Army would come in a short time to succor them he immediately dispatched four Fathers to Goa The Patriarch so soon as he arrived at Fremona sends Four Jesuits to the Indies to sollicit for Troops to sollicit the sending of an Army to them as the greatest Service that could be done either to God or the Crown of Portugal and having done this he thought he might very well encourage some of the Grandees to take them under their protection by promises of a Portuguese Army being ready to embark at Goa to come to their assistance and being informed that Prince John Kay the Heir of their old friend Bahurnagays was living discontented upon his own Lands which were Mountainous and not far from the Sea Coast he sent two Fathers to him to try if they could persuade him to undertake their protection by promises of great things the Portuguese Army that was coming would do for him The Envoys managed matters so that they brought O Kay to promise to protect them it being agreed betwixt him and them He sues to O Kay a discontenred Lord for protection against the Emperor That whensoever the Emperor should command the Patriarch and Fathers to leave Ethiopia that he should send a Troop of Horse to fetch them from Fremona into his own Lands where when he had them once he promised to defend them till the Portuguese Army arrived This O Kay you must know was one of the chief Leaders in Guergis's Croisade for the extirpation of Popery O Kay undertakes to protect him which though the Patriarch knew well enough yet being sensible that he was discontented with the Emperor and the Court and believing Ambition to be much stronger in him than Religion he thought he might be a man proper enough for his purpose the very Peasants of Lasta being made use of by the Fathers against me Emperor as we shall see hereafter The Emperor who was too jealous of the Patriarch and
to the Habassin Monks at Jerusalem to whom he sent the Collection of Canons which is now at Rome giving them likewise several Lands for uses which the Church of Rome allows to be pious this Monastery of Habassins stands on Mount Gabor Zera Jacob 's Letter to the Habassin Monks at Jerusalem In the name of the Father and Son The Emperor Zera Jacob's Letter to the Habassin Monks at Jerusalem and Holy Ghost one God whom I adore with all my heart and on whom I rely with all my strength and with all my mind to whom I am bound with the tye of sacred Worship which is not to be broken THIS Letter is written in this Book of Canons by us Zera Jacob whose Name since we took the Government upon us is Constantine in the 8th year after the God of Israel in the multitude of his mercies was pleased to place us on the Throne of the Kingdom of Ethiopia being in Seava which is called Teglet Let this come to the hands of my beloved the College of Saints who reside at Jerusalem the Holy City In the peace of the Lord. Amen I do proclaim you very happy for having in the first place obeyed the word of the Gospel which saith He that forsaketh not his father and mother wife and children c. for which reason you have left the world and have taken upon you the Yoke of Monkery the word of the Prophet hath likewise bound you which saith I will not go into the tabernacle of mine house nor climb up to my bed neither will I give sleep to mine eyes nor slumber to mine eyelids until I find the house of the Lord the habitatian of the God of Jacob. Whereupon you determined to repair to Jerusalem the City of the Great King not being discouraged from going thither either by the Incommodities of the Journey or the heat by day or the cold by night nor by the dangers of Robbers where when you arrived what was said by the Prophet was fulfilled in you Let us therefore go into his house and worship in the place where the face of our Lord stood for to you it is given to kiss the place which his Presence hath hallowed from his Nativity to his Ascension For which cause I do very much rely on your Prayers and on the Afflictions you have suffered for God's sake I do salute you from the bottom of my heart saying Health to you the Sons of Ethiopia whom the Earthly Jerusalem hath tyed to her self that she may convey you to the Heavenly Health be to your Faith which is perfect in the Trinity and to your course of life which is like to that of Angels Health be to your Feet which walk to your Hands which touch to your Lips which kiss to your Eyes which do freely behold Galilee where God was Incarnate and Bethlehem where he was born taking our Nature upon him and the Cave where he lay and Nazareth where he was educated and Jordan where he was baptized that he might cleanse us and Corontum where he fasted for our sake and Calvary where he was crucified for our Redemption and Golgotha where he was buried and rose again that he might quicken us and the Mount of Olives where he ascended to his Father and our God that he might introduce us into the Inner Vail of the highest Heavens into which he himself entred and introduced the Apostles who were before us and the Oratory of Sion where the Comforter descended on our Fathers the Apostles Health be likewise to your Eyes which behold the Light that cometh out of the Sepulchre of our Lord on the Old Sabbath to wit on the Eve of our Passover May your Peace and Love and Prayers and Benedictions be with me for ever Amen Behold I have sent you this Book of Synods that you may receive Consolation from it on the Old Sabbath and on the Lord's Day and that they may be a Memorial of me through all Ages Amen I Zera Jacob whose Name since God was pleased to place me on the Throne of the Empire is Constantine in the Eighth Year of my Reign do Bequeath unto you the Land of Zebla and Half of all the Tributes arising from it for Two Years which amounts to an Hundred Ounces of Gold toward your Food and Rayment and do give it to the Monastery of Jerusalem that it may be a Memorial of my self and of our Lady Mary and for the Celebration of Her Feasts to wit That of her Nativity on the 1st of May that of her Death on the 22d of January and that of her Translation on the 15th of August as also of the Feasts of her Son our Lord Jesus on the 29th of December when he was Born to be celebrated by you at Bethlehem together with the Festivities of his Passion and lively Resurrection from Death You shall likewise celebrate all the Festivities of our Lady Mary which in the Book of her Miracles are Thirty two in number And shall furthermore keep a Lamp burning for me in the Sepulchre of our Lord and another in the Entry thereof and on the right side one and on the left another as also at the place of his Burial three three at the Monument of our Lady Mary in Gethsemane and at the place where Mary Magdalen saw him one and in our Chappel three one also at Bethlehem where our Lord was born and another at the place in the Mount of Olives where our Lord ascended Let them he all maintained at my Charge and take care not to suffer them to go out at any time nor to give way to any Person contributing towards them And since I do rely on the Bond of your Love let your Prayers and Benedictions be with me thorough all Ages Amen My Beloved Don't you offer to say Light descendeth only upon us that your glorying in your selves be not in vain since you know that evil attends glorying and blessing humility Peace be with you the Peace of our Lord be with you Amen The Jesuit Guerrira speaking of the forementioned Ethiopick Embassy saith That the whole Story of it was either a mere Fiction not knowing its like of its having been made use of for so great a purpose by a Pope or that it had no manner of effect But it is no matter whether it was a Fiction or a Reality so long as it furnished a good pretence for a present turn and tended to the Disparagement of the Council of Basil which together with the ground it stood upon was blown up purely by Tricks of this nature the Yoke the Council of Constance had laid on the Neck of the Papacy being broke by Pretences of the Greek and all other Churches and Patriarchs having submitted themselves to it This is all that I have been able to meet with in Greek or Latin History concerning the Church of Ethiopia before the Year 1490 when it was first discovered by the Portugueses And as for Histories of
Emanuel the Only God who is the God of Heaven and is always the same growing neither older nor younger preserve and protect you The Envoy of those that arrived who was first in Commission was named Rodrigo Lima with whom was joyned one Francis Alvarez who for the singular Piety and Probity of his Life was very dear to me he did also return very proper answers to all the questions I put to him concerning Religion you ought therefore to prefer him and to call him Master and to employ him in the Conversion of the people of Matrua and Zeila and of all the other Islands of the Red-Sea all which are on the Coast of our Empire I have bestowed a Cross and a Staff upon him as Badges of Authority and would have you to do the same and to make him Bishop of those Countries for he well deserves it and is very fit for that Office God be propitious to you that so you may always be Valiant against your Enemies and may bring them all under your Feet God grant you a long life and make you partaker of as good Places in the Kingdom of Heaven as I wish for my self for I have heard many good things of you and have seen with my eyes what I never expected to have seen May God make things succeed from good to better and may your place be over the Tree of Life which is the place of the Saints I as your little Son have done what you Commanded me and if you will send Ambassadors to me I will always obey you that so we may help one another and whenever your Ambassadors shall arrive as these did at Matrua or at Dalacam I will be sure to take that care of them that you desire I should there being nothing I am so ambitious of as that we should be united in Councils and Actions and whensoever your Fleet shall come upon my Coast I shall joyn them immediately with an Army And whereas on my Borders there are no Christians nor Christian Churches I am willing to give all those Provinces which Border upon the Mahometans to your Subjects to Inhabit make haste therefore to execute what you have begun In the mean time I would have you send me some of your Learned Men as also some Gravers of Images of Gold and Silver and some Lead Copper and Iron Smiths as also some Printers that understand our Letters to Print Books for our Churches and some that know how to make Bracelets and how to Gild Metals they shall be all well entertained in my Palace and whenever they shall have a mind to return home they shall be well Rewarded for their Pains and I do Swear by Christ Jesus who is God and the Son of God that they shall have free leave to depart This I do desire and expect from your known Virtue and Goodness being sensible that you have a great kindness for me by your having treated Matthew so Honourably and Liberally and by having sent him back as you did I do most earnestly desire to have all the forementioned Artificers sent hither and do promise that you shall never have any cause to repent of your having sent them for I will take care that they shall all be well rewarded wherefore since a Father ought not to deny what his Son desires of him and you are my Father and I am your Son let us be joyned together as two Bricks are in a Wall that so we may be two with one Heart and may agree in the Love of Christ Jesus who is the Head of the World all that are in him being as Bricks joyned together in a Wall Amen The Letters of the same David Emperor of Ethiopia to King John the IIId of Portugal written in the Year 1524. In the Name of God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things that are made visible and invisible In the Name of God the Son the Council and Prophet of the Father and in the Name of the Holy Ghost the Comforter and living God Who is equal to the Father and the Son and who spoke by the mouth of the Prophets and inspired the Apostles that they might Thank and Praise the Perfect Trinity in Heaven and on Earth and in the Depths always Amen I The Frankincense of the Virgin for that was my Baptismal Name but who with the Scepter of my Kingdom have taken the Name of David The Beloved of God the Pillar of the Faith the Offspring of Judah the Son of David the Son of Solomon Kings of Israel the Son of the Pillar of Sion of the seed of Jacob the Son of the hand of Mary the Son of Nau by the Flesh do send these Letters and this Ambassador to the Greatest most Powerful and High John King of Portugal and Algerves the Son of King Emanuel Peace be with you the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always Amen When I heard of the Power of the King your Father by whom the Moors the Sons of the filthy Mahomet were subdued I gave great Thanks to God for the Increase and the Greatness of the Crown of Conservation in the House of Christianity I did likewise take great pleasure in the arrival of the Ambassadors who brought that King's words to us because by that means a singular Love Friendship and Correspondence was established betwixt us in order to the Extirpating of all the Wicked Mahometans and the Unbelieving Heathens that lie betwixt our two Kingdoms But while I was full of this Joy before I had sent any Ambassador to him I received the News of your and my Father's Death which turned my Joy suddenly into Sorrow whereof our Court Prelates and Monks and in a word all our Faithful Subjects did deeply partake Our Sorrow upon this News becoming equal to our former Joy Sir From the beginning of my Reign there was no Ambassador nor Envoy sent to me by the King or Kingdom of Portugal but by your Father who sent some of his Captains hither and with them some of his Nobles and Clarks and Deacons who brought with them all the Utensils of a Solemn Mass I must tell you I was overjoyed at their arrival and did receive them with great Affection dismissing them after they had done their Business that so they might return home in Peace and with Honour But being come to the Port of the Red-Sea that is on my Borders they found the Admiral of their Fleet gone who as he certified me himself could wait no longer for them by reason of a Custom that you have of changing your Admiral every Third Year which together with no other Fleets having touched at any of my Ports for some Years after was the cause of your Ambassador's having staid so long at my Court. I do now send what I desire of you by Brother Christopher Licanot whose Baptismal Name is Zaga Zabo that is to say The Grace of the Father who will lay my Demands before
to marry than to burn who saith likewise that a Bishop must be the Husband of one Wife that is unblameable and sober and in the same manner the Deacons and all Ecclesiasticks as well as Secular ought to have their own lawful Wives Our Monks notwithstanding this do not marry and neither Laicks nor Clerks among us can have above one Wife at a time With us Marriages are not celebrated at the Door of the Church but in private Houses we are taught likewise by the Constitution of the Apostles That if a Priest is convicted of Adultery Murther Theft or of having given false Testimony that he ought to be deprived of his Orders and punished as other Malefactors in the same kind and that an Ecclesiastick or Layman after having known his Wife or having been polluted in his sleep ought not in 24 hours after that to enter into the Church which Women are not to enter into till the 7th day after their menstrua's are over and until they have washed all the Clothes they had on at that time Furthermore a Woman that is delivered of a Man-child is not suffered to enter into the Church till after 40 days and of a Female not till about 80 days which Custom of the Old Law is commanded likewise by the Apostles whose Laws Constitutions and Precepts we do so far as we are able observe in all Cases It is likewise forbidden among us to suffer Heathens or Dogs or any other such Creatures The Habassins have a great veneration for their Churches to come within our Churches neither is it lawful for us to go into them otherwise than barefoot or to laugh walk or spit or speak of secular things in them For the Churches of Ethiopia are not like the Land wherein the People of Israel did eat the Paschal Lamb as they were going out of Egypt where God commanded them to eat with their shooes on and with their loins girt because of the pollution of the land But they are like the Mount Sinai where the Lord spoke to Moses saying Moses Moses put off thy shooes for the ground whereon thou treadest is holy Now this Mount Sinai was the Mother of our Churches from which they derive their original as the Apostles did from the Prophets and the New Testament from the Old Furthermore it is not lawful for a Priest or Layman or any other Person of what condition soever after the receiving of the Venerable Sacrament to Spit from Morning till Sun-set The Habassins are all Baptized every year on the day of the Epiphany and whoever does it is severely Punished In Memory of Christ we are also Baptized every Year on the day of Epiphany which is not done by us as a thing necessary to Salvation but only for the Praise and Glory of our Lord Neither is there any Feast that we Celebrate with so great Solemnities as this because it was on this day that the Most Holy Trinity first appeared manifestly when our Lord Jesus Christ was Baptized in the River of Jordan on whose Head the Holy Spirit Descended at that time in the Figure of a Dove and a Voice from Heaven said This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Which Holy Spirit being in the Shape of a White Dove did appear with the Face and Figure of the Father and Son in One Divinity After the same manner Christ was seen by the Prophets under various Forms and Similitudes first in the Figure of a White Ram for the preservation of Isaac the Son of Abraham after the same manner he called Jacob Israel and Jacob called Judah to whom he gave power over his Brethren A lions whelp saying My son thou wentest up to the prey and resting didst lie down as a lion and as a lioness who shall rouze thee He manifested himself likewise to Moses in the Figure of a flame of fire on mount Sinai and in the likeness of a Rock to the Holy Prophet Daniel and to Ezekiel as the Son of man and to Isaias in the Form of an Infant he appeared to King David and Gideon in dew upon a fleece and besides the forementioned was seen under divers other Similitudes by the Holy Prophets under all which various Figures he still bore the Similitude of the Father and the Holy Ghost and since God when he Created the World said Let us make man after our own image and similitude and he did make Adam after his own Similitude ahd Image we do for that reason say That the Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Faces in one Similitude and Divinity We have also retained Circumcision from the time of Queen Saba till this day They Circumcise both Men and Women this Queen 's true Name was Maqueda who had Worshipped Idols after the manner of her Ancestors until having heard much of the Wisdom of Solomon she sent a Prudent Person to Jerusalem to certifie her whether that King's Wisdom was so great as it was reported and after being satisfied that it was so she took a Journey to Jerusalem her self where among other things she was Instructed by Solomon in the Law and the Prophets and had the Books thereof bestowed upon her As she was on her Journey home she was Delivered of a Son begot by Solomon whom she Named Meilech and carried with her into Ethiopia where having remained till he was Twenty Years Old he went up to Jerusalem to Visit his Father and to learn Knowledge and Wisdom by him the Queen by Letters intreated Solomon to Consecrate his Son Meilech King of Ethiopia A blind story of the Queen of Sheba and her Son before the Ark of the Covenant and the Testament of the Lord and that after such a manner as to make it Unlawful for the future for a Woman to Reign in Etoiopia as was then the Custom and that the Males only in a direct Line should Inherit the Crown Meilech when he came to Jerusalem did with ease obtain all his Mother had desired and instead of Meilech was Named David by Solomon who having sufficiently Instructed him in the Law and other Sciences sent him home to his Mother in much greater State and Splendor than he came with sending several of the Nobles and of their Sons in his Train to serve him and together with them Azarias a Prince among the Priests the Son of Sadock who was likewise a Sacerdotal Prince whereupon Azarias put David upon asking leave of his Father for him to offer Sacrifice before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord for a prosperous Journey which he obtained Azarias after having with great speed and secrecy got Tables made in imitation of the Tables of the Covenant of the Lord did whilst he was offering Sacrifice with great dexterity steal the true Tables of the Ark of the Covenant and put his new ones in the place of them none but God and himself being conscious to what he had done this among us in Ethiopia is declared
body and drinketh my blood shall be with me Paul likewise speaketh to the same purpose when he saith the unbelieving husband is justified by the believing wife and the unbelieving wife by the believing husband otherwise your children would be unclean whereas now they are holy Now if the Children of an Unbelieving Mother are notwithstanding that Sanctified by the Faith of their Father how much more holy must they be whose Father and Mother are both Believers For which reason it is much more pious to call such Infants before they are Baptized Half-Christians than Pagans The Apostles in their Book of Synods do likewise affirm That all who had Faith though they were not Baptized may be called Half-Christians in which Books it is said that if a Jew or Gentile or Mahometan do embrace the Faith he shall not be received presently but must first come to the door of the Church there to hear Sermons and the words of our Saviour Christ and that being disposed to Believe he may understand what Christ's yoke is after which he may be called an Half-Christian even before he is admitted to Baptism which is also according to the Gospel which saith He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be condemned It is also the custom among us for Women when they are with Child to Confess their Sins and receive the Lord's Body before they are Delivered and they who neglect to do this are looked upon as Wicked and Impious Christians as are also their Husbands for not having obliged them to it Confirmation and Extream Unction are not reckoned Sacraments among us Confirmation and Extream Unction no Sacraments neither are they in use in our Church as I see they are in the Roman We do surthermore reckon it contrary to the Law of Moses and the Institutions of the Apostles to eat unclean Meats from all which we do abstain merely in Obedience to the Law and the Scriptures which with us consists of Eighty one Books that is to say the Old Testament consists of Forty one Books The Scripture the perfect Rule of Faith and the New of Thirty five which Canon or Number of Books we have expresly delivered to us by the Apostles themselves and to which it is not lawful for us to Add or Diminish any thing no not though an Angel from Heaven should persuade us to it and we do look upon him as Accursed that shall offer to do any such thing so that neither our Patriarch nor our Bishop do reckon that they can either by themselves or in a Council make any Laws That People are under an Obligation of a Mortal Sin to observe In the Books of our Synods it is ordained by the Holy Apostles That we must confess our selves before we can receive Penance from a Confessor according to the greatness of our Sin They teach us likewise how we ought to Pray and Fast and how to exercise Charity Confession is much in use among us for we have no sooner committed a Sin than we run and throw our selves at the feet of a Confessor this is the constant practice of all Men and Women of whatsoever Quality or Condition and whenever we Confess we do receive the Body of our Lord under both Species They all receive the Sacrament in both Elements It is not kept in their Churches and in Wheaten and Unleavened Bread so that if we Confess our selves daily we do daily receive the Sacrament as well Layicks as Ecclesiasticks The Sacrament of the Eucharist is not kept in our Churches as it is here in Europe neither is it at any time Administred to the Sick until after they are recovered All among us Layicks as well as Clerks do receive the Sacrament at least Three times a Week which is never received any where but in the Church It is never received but in the Church no not by the Patriarch or Precious John himself We do always make use of the same Confessor and do never go to any other but when our own is absent to whom when he returns we are bound to repair The Confessors do in the Name of the Church absolve from all Sins there being no cases no not the most heinous reserved to the Bishop or Patriarch Presbyters are not allowed to Confess themselves to those that they Confess and among us all Presbyters and Monks and all Officers of the Church do live by their own Labour for the Church hath no Tythes it has Lands which are Cultivated by the Priests and Monks either in Person or by their servants and as for Alms they receive none but those that are offered in the Church for the Burial of the dead and other Holy Offices it not being lawful for any of them to beg about the streets or to extort Alms from the common people Furthermore The Sacrament is never administred above once a day in a Church It is not shewed to the People No Masses are said for the Dead in our Churches there is never but one Mass a day which we do reckon to be a Sacrifice neither is it lawful for us according to ancient Custom to Celebrate more for which Mass we never receive any Money the Sacrament of the Eucharist is not shewed to the People among us as I observe it is here and all Priests Deacons and Subdeacons and all People whatsoever that are present at the Celebration are obliged to Communicate We say no Masses for the remission of Souls but our Dead are Buried in a Consecrated Place with Prayers and Crosses over whom among other things we recite the beginning of St. John's Gospel and do offer Alms for them the day after they are Buried and at certain other times when we have Funeral Feasts This is what I have to say of our Faith and Religion But whereas since my coming to Portugal I have had several Debates with some Doctors namely with Didacus Ortis Bishop of the Island of St. Thomas and Dean of the King's Chappel and Pedro Magalho concerning the distinction of Meats it will not be improper for me to say something of it in this place It is to be observed that it is in obedience to the Old Testament that we observe a distinction of meats which distinction is ordained by the Word of God who was afterwards born of the Virgin Mary and walked and conversed with his Apostles which Living Word of God had always an entire and irrevocable Speech or Word and who did no where in his Gospel say that such things might be eat as were before prohibited as unclean For as to those words in the Gospel That whatsoever entreth into the mouth doth not defile the man but that which cometh forth of the mouth Christ's intent therein was not to dissolve the Law he had formerly enacted but only to confute the Superstition of the Jews who blamed the Apostles for having eat Bread with unwashen hands neither did the Apostles
A long Justification of their abstaining from Meats that are made unclean by the Law while they conversed with Christ make use of unclean Meats or so much as taste any thing that was prohibited by the Law which was what none of them offered to transgress no not after the time of our Lord's Passion when they began to preach the Gospel there being nothing in their Writings from whence it can be gathered that they did ever kill or eat any thing that is unclean It is true Paul saith Eat all that is sold in the shambles asking nothing for conscience sake and again If any that are infidels invite you to a feast and you are disposed to go eat whatsoever is set before you asking no questions for conscience sake And again If any one shall say This is offered to idols do not eat for his sake that told you so and for conscience sake c. All which Paul spoke in compliance with those who are weak in the Faith betwixt whom and the Jews there were frequent Debates and in order to the putting a stop to those Disputes the Apostle complied much with the weaker Christians which he did not do that he would have the Law broke but that by gratifying such People in the relaxation of Rites he might allure them to the Faith The same Apostle saith likewise Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not for he that eateth eateth unto the Lord and he that eareth not eateth not unto the Lord. It is therefore an unworthy thing to reprove Christians who are Strangers with so much bitterness as I have been reproved here concerning this very matter and other little things which do no ways belong to Faith It would certainly be much wiser for Christians whether Greeks Armenians Ethiopians or of any of the Seven Christian Churches to bear with one another in Charity and in the Bowels of Christ in all such matters and to suffer one another to live and converse with their Christian Brethren being all Sons of Baptism and unanimous in the true Faith neither is there any cause why they should debate so sharply about Ceremonies or why every one should not be suffered to observe his own and that without hating and persecuting others for theirs neither ought any one in a strange Countrey to be debarred the Communion of the Church for observing his own Church-Ceremonies As to that we meet with in the Acts of Peter's seeing a Cloth let down from Heaven by the corners wherein were all Four-footed Beasts and all creeping Creatures and Birds of the Air and of his having heard a Voice that commanded him to rise and kill and eat to which Peter replied Far be it from me Lord for I have never eat any thing that is common and unclean to whom the Voice answered What God has purified that do not thou call unclean which having been done three several times the Vessel was then immediately taken up into Heaven whereupon the Spirit sent him straightways to Cesarea to Cornelius a holy Man fearing God to whom when Peter spake the Holy Spirit descended on all who heard the Word of God After which Peter baptized Cornelius and his whole Family Now when the Apostles and Brethren who were in Judea came to hear of what Peter had done they were angry and asked him How he came to go to men who were uncircumcised and to eat with them but after Peter had declared to them the whole Vision they were satisfied and returned thanks to God saying He hath given repentance unto life to the Gentiles and they remembred the word of the Lord which he spoke when he ascended into Heaven Go over all nations and preach the Gospel to all creatures in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be condemned Then the Apostles begun to preach the Gospel over the whole World to every Creature in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost insomuch that their sound went thorough the whole Earth Now this Vision wherein things clean and unclean appeared we of Ethiopia interpret thus The clean living Creatures were the People of Israel the unclean were the Gentiles who were therefore said to be unclean because they worshipped Idols and did the Works of the Devil which are unclean So that the Voice saying Peter kill was the same as if it had said Teach and preach the Faith and the Law of Christ both to the People of Israel and the Gentiles besides it is most certain that we read no where in the Scriptures of Peter or of any other of the Apostles killing or eating any thing that was unclean after this Vision We are to observe likewise That when the Scriptures speak of Bread it is not to be understood of a Corporal Food but of the Doctrine of the Gospel It is therefore adviseable for all Doctors and Preachers to teach high and sublime things of this Linen Cloth which was shewed to Peter and not low things which do no way appertain to Salvation and least of all to draw Arguments from thence to prove it to be lawful for us to eat things that are unclean seeing no such matter can be gathered from the Scripture but that is not all for the Apostles themselves in their Book of Synods have forbid us to eat any thing that is strangled or tore or half eaten by Beast or Blood hecause the Lord loveth cleanness and sobriety and hateth gluttony and pollution and loveth those much who abstain from Flesh and those more who fast with Bread and Water and Herbs as John the Baptist did who eat nothing else As also Paul the Hermite who lived in the Desert and fasted 80 years as St. Anthony and St. Macarius and a great number of their Spiritual Sons who never so much as tasted Flesh Wherefore Brethren we ought not to contemn and persecute our Neighbours for St. James saith He that speaketh evil of his brother or judgeth his brother speaketh evil of the law Paul teacheth likewise That it is much better for people to rest satisfied with their own traditions than to contend with their Christian brethren about the law and that in such matters they ought not to be wiser than is necessary but to be wise to sobriety according as God hath dealt to every man a measure of faith Wherefore it is a very undecent thing to contend with our brethren about the law and distinction of meats since meat cannot commend us to God A charitable Admonition and especially since St. Paul hath said Whether ye eat plentifully or do not eat ye are never the worse Let us therefore look after higher things and the food that is heavenly and forbear such low and empty disputations What I have writ concerning Traditions I have not writ out of a spirit of contention but to defend my Countreymen against the violent reproofs of those who paid so
young a man to have attained to so great a stock of Learning I was told likewise that he read my Treatise over and that after he had once read it it was seldom out of his Hand and that he was still shewing it to his Mother and Brothers and the Grandees of the Court and that upon the Abuna's having denounced an Excommunication against all that should read it the King had sent to him for leave to read it again and was put into such a Passion by the Abuna's having deny'd it to him that he called him Mahometan and Heretick saying He would read the Alcoran of Mahomet himself and at the same time not give him leave to read a godly Book commanding him thereupon since he was their Abuna to answer a Book that was written by a poor Clerk who had no Dignity To which the Abuna's answer was That he did not come into Ethiopia to dispute but to confer holy Orders The Court however being divided about this Affair some seeming to favour the Roman but most and especially the Queen-Mother and all her Creatures stickling for the Alexandrian Faith the King resolved to call together some of the most Learned among his Monks to have their Opinion in the matter and in order thereunto he commanded my Treatise to be Translated into Habassin leaving out those Passages he was displeased with when he first looked into it namely that where I spoke of the Pope St. Leo and of Dioscorus Patriarch of Alexandria whom they reckon a Saint as they do Leo to be Excommunicated and Accursed and for whom they have such a detestation that they cannot endure so much as to have him named rejecting the Council of Calcedon and its Decrees which they say erred in the Faith in condemning St. Dioscorus as they unjustly Stile him Since which time they have always been separated from the Roman Church having now for 1067 years been involved in the Heresy of Sergius Paulus and Pyrhus who were all condemned in the Sixth Council of Constantinople and in that of Eutyches likewise which holds that there is but one nature in Christ The time being come when I was to receive the King's Answer I sent to know when I should wait upon him he sent me back word his Father's Embassador waited Ten years in Portugal before he could be dispatched I understood by this the King was for entertaining me with delays on purpose to keep me from returning with the Fleet which waited for us for fear least we might discover the weakness of his Empire to them and so when I went to have my Conge from him in order to my returning to Debora he commanded one to tell me That so great a man as I was and who had come so far was not to be dismissed quickly Besides that I could go no where where I could do so much good as where I was in confessing the Portugueses nevertheless if I was resolved not to remain in Ethiopia he would then desire me only to wait a month longer for his Answer and if I did not receive it then I might look upon my self as dismissed Presently after this he removed his Camp to a place that was two days journey from the place where it was we followed the Camp and being in the Field on Saturday and Sunday we set up an Altar whereon we said Mass on both those days where I was visited by three Monks who desired to have some Discourse with me about Matters of Religion One of them who was a Scholar told me That all that we did appeared well to him excepting that of our not observing Saturday and that of our cating Hare and Swine's Flesh Nevertheless after this he disgorged several Errors in Faith namely That the Souls when they leave the Body cannot presently behold the Divine Essence but are placed in a Terrestrial Paradise That the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son but from the Father only That the Son as to his Humanity was equal to the Father That none but Mahometans and Infidels were damned eternally in Hell I returned answers to all these Errors and declared the contrary Truths to him both from Scripture and Reason with which he was so fully satisfied that whispering me in the Ear that the two other Monks who were illiterate might not hear him he said What I had told him was the truth and that he believed it to be so in his heart The Month being expired I went to wait upon the King for his Answer and for leave to return home he bid me go in a good hour and as for the Fathers the King of Portugal designed to send to him he said He had appointed one to wait at Matrua to receive them when they landed being desirous to hear what they had to say to him With this I took my leave of him and passing thorough the Countries where divers of the Portugueses lived I confessed them and their Families and Married several of them to their Concubines having first reduced them to our holy Faith There was one among them who was nearly related to the King And whereas the Churches of that Countrey besides that they belong to Schismaticks have no Altars accommodated to our Service whereever we went we carried an Altar with us to celebrate on While I was in one of these places I received a Complement from a Prelate of a great Monastery of Monks of the Order of St. Anthony and one likewise from the Prelate of a Nunnery which were two Leagues off This Monastery of Monks is one of the biggest in Ethiopia it is called Debra Libanus and is of such Credit that all the Faith of Ethiopia depends upon it in a manner for which reason the Prelate thereof is in high Esteem I went to give him a Visit being attended by all the Portugueses of the place but he happened to be from home we nevertheless took a view of the Monastery which is no ways like ours neither as to Building nor as to their way of living every Monk having his distinct Dwelling-House and Land belonging to it which he cultivates with his own Hands so that the Habassin Monasteries look like Villages the Monks having their Houses on one side of the Street and the Nuns theirs on the other but not being kept asunder the Nuns are frequently troubled with Great Bellies These Monks are neither of the Order of St. Francis No mention of Rodriguez having seen the old Patriarch tho his chief business in Ethiopia was to fetch him from thence if he found him alive nor St. Austin but were founded by one Tecla Haymanot that is The Plant of the Faith who was of the Order of St. Anthony This Haymanot is a great Saint among them and is said to have killed a prodigious Serpent that was worshipped by the Heathens as a God whom he converted by that means to the Faith that is still taught in Ethiopia Thus much of Rodriguez's Relation the Jesuits have thought
consult with the Viceroy what course they were to take He remains there and sends his Spanish Coadjutor into Ethiopia with a promise of Portuguese Troops to be sent after him the Patriarch notwithstanding Rodriguez melancholy Account of things is said to have been extreamly zealous to have gone to his Province saying He should either be able to effect there what he was sent to do or should have the Honour of dying a Martyr Nevertheless after several Consultations had been held about it it was at last resolved That the Spaniard Bishop Andrew should be first sent thither with some of the Fathers of the Mission but that the Patriarch and the Portuguese Bishop should remain at Goa till things were more promising in Ethiopia than at present they were of which if it ever happened Bishop Andrew was to send them intelligence In pursuance of this Resolution Bishop Andrew embarked in February and towards the latter end of March landed at Arkiko where having made no stay he went on with a good Train of Portuguese to Deboraa and was there received by Bahurnagays the Prince of the Country with great kindness The Bishop so soon as he came to Debora writ the following Letter to the Emperor THE Heavenly Father The Coadjutor's Letter to the Emperor with his Son Consubstantial and Eternal and the Spirit the Comforter one only God and Three Persons be always with your Highness with an abundance of his Divine Graces that so you may in all things know and follow his most Holy Will according to what our Lord Christ hath said in St. John 's Gospel My food is to do the will of him that sent me teaching us likewise in St. Matthew 's Gospel to pray Thy will be done The Catholick and Illustrious Don John the Third King of Portugal after he had prevailed with his Holiness to send a Patriarch with some Associates into Ethiopia being thereunto moved by no worldly Interest but purely by a Zeal for God and the Love he has for your Highness has been at a vast Charge the particulars whereof his Highness might be acquainted with if he pleased to convey them to the Indies where the Patriarch now remains waiting your Highness's Pleasure that when he comes he may serve Christ here the more effectually It was nevertheless thought expedient that I and some of the Fathers of the Society should be sent before the Patriarch having before I left Goa invested me with full Authority as his Coadjutor which I was ordained to by his Holiness and accordingly we are come as far as Deboraa where we have been kindly entertained by Bahurnagays and have met with very good Company namely Francis Jacome and divers other Portugueses Our business here is to serve God and your Highness whose Royal Person and Estate may God preserve for his greater Service and Honour Amen Deboraa the 26th of March 1557. The Coadjutor after having staid three Weeks at Deboraa He goes to Court intriguing with Bahurnagays about the Troops the Viceroy had promised to send after him begun his Journey to Court being waited upon all the way by that Prince and being come within a days Journey of the Camp he was commanded to stop till he received further Orders where having waited two days he received Orders to advance and being come within Cannon-shot of the Camp was commanded to pitch his Tent there where having staid a Day and a Night about Noon a great Troop of the Princes of the Blood and chief Nobility all well-mounted and equipped came to wait on him to his Audience two of which having alighted went into the Coadjutor's Tent and having complemented him in the Name of the Emperor told him His Highness was ready to give him a publick Audience and had sent the splendid Body of Men he saw to wait upon him to it The Coadjutor having returned their Complement he robed himself in his Pontificalibus and mounted a Horse that had been sent to him by the Emperor and besides the Habassins who paid their Respects to him one by one he advanced towards the Royal Tent attended with a numerous Train of Portuguese who to do their Religion and their Country the greater Honour had come from all parts of Ethiopia to be present at this Solemnity The Emperor having contrary to Custom ordered the Coadjutor with his whole Train to ride into the first Court of the Palace had placed himself with his Mother in a Window behind Curtains to see the Cavalcade and after having waited a while in the first Court they were all commanded to alight and to advance to the second where they were not kept long before they were conducted into the Tent He is received with great Ceremony betwixt a Guard of Old Men of the first Quality who with Batoons in their Hands stood all in good order paying their Respects to the Coadjutor as he passed by them with a profound Reverence and Silence from the Antichamber where he did not wait long he was introduced into the Emperor's Presence by two of the Principal Ministers whereof his Friend Bahurnagays was one and having paid the customary Obeisances the Emperor received him with extraordinary Civility asking him several Questions about the King of Portugal and the present State of his Affairs as also concerning himself and his Voyages and Journeys So soon as the Emperor gave over asking him Questions the Coadjutor presented the Pope's Ignatius and the King's Letters to him which the Emperor opened and looked into immediately but he had not read far before the change that was observed in his Countenance did clearly discover that he was not at all satisfied with their Contents and particularly with their supposing him to be a Member of the Roman Church a thing saith a Jesuit who was present at the Ceremony as far from his thoughts as Rome is from Ethiopia nevertheless being a Wise and Well-bred Prince and if they would have let him alone with his Religion a great Friend to the Portugueses he so far dissembled his Resentments as to dismiss the Coadjutor with great demonstrations of Kindness granting him leave to come to him as often as he had any business with him The Coadjutor at all his following Audiences He urges the Emperor to submit himself to the Pope was at the Emperor continually to submit himself and his Kingdoms to the Pope assuring him though he would not be so civil as to believe him That the Pope was Christ's Vicar and St. Peter's Successor upon Earth and that there was no Salvation for any one out of his Obedience The Answer the Emperor returned still to all the Coadjutor's passionate assurances was The Emperor declares his resolution never to do it That the Ethiopick Church had from the beginning been subject to the Chair of St. Mark at Alexandria and that he was so fully satisfied of the Justice of that Obedience that nothing in the world should ever be able to make him throw
it off and whereas he had been pleased to charge the Ethiopick Church with holding divers Errors in Faith if he would be at the pains to read over a Confession of Faith which he had Published lately he would see how unjust that Charge of Heresy was there being nothing in that Confession that was not taught by Christ and his Apostles The Emperor Claudius's Confession of Faith In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost One God THIS is my Faith The Emperor's Confession of Faith and the Faith of my Fathers the Kings of Israel and the Faith of my Flock which is within the bounds of my Empire We Believe in One God and in his only Son Jesus Christ who is his Word Power Council Wisdom and who was with him before the World was Created and who in the last days visited us and without leaving the Throne of his Divinity was made Man by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary and who when he was Thirty years of Age was Baptized in Jordan and being a perfect Man was in the days of Pontius Pilate Crucified and was Dead and Buried and Rose again the Third Day and on the Fortieth day after his Resurrection did Ascend with Glory into the Heavens where he sitteth at the right hand of the Father and shall come again in Glory to Judge both the Quick and the Dead whose Kingdom shall have no End We Believe also in the Holy Ghost the Lord and Giver of Life who proceedeth from the Father We Believe one Baptism for the Remission of Sins and do hope for the Resurrection of the Dead to the Life to come Which is Everlasting Amen We do walk in the plain and true way declining neither to the right nor to the left from the Doctrine of our Fathers the Twelve Apostles and of Paul the fountain of Wisdom and of the Seventy two Disciples and of the Three hundred and eighteen Orthodox Assembled at Nice and of the Hundred and fifty at Constantinople and of the Hundred at Ephesus Thus I Profess and thus I Teach I Claudius Emperor of Ethiopia my Royal Name being Atznaf Saghed the Son of Uuanag Saghed the Son of Naod As to our observing the day of the old Sabbath we do not keep it after the manner of the Jews who Crucified Christ saying His Blood be upon us and our Children For whereas the Jews do neither draw water nor light a fire nor boyl meat nor bake bread nor go from one house to another on that day We do administer the holy Supper thereon and according to the Command of the Apostles in their Book of Doctrines do keep the Love-Feasts Neither do we observe it after the same manner as we do the Sabbath of the First day which is a new day and of which David said This is the day that the Lord hath made let us rejoyce and be glad therein For on this day our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the Dead the Holy Ghost likewise descended on this day upon the Apostles in the Parlour of Sion on this day Christ was also conceived in the womb of the Holy and perpetual Virgin Mary and will come thereon to Reward the Righteous and to Punish Sinners Neither do we Circumcise after the manner of the Jews Paul the fountain of Wisdom having told us That to be circumcised profiteth nothing nor to be uncircumcised but a new creation which is Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ And who told the Corinthians That he that had received circumcision was not to be uncircumcised all the Books of St. Paul 's Doctrine concerning Circumcision and Uncircumcision being in our hands So that Circumcision is no otherwise in use among us than as the Custom of a Countrey as Incision in the Face is in some parts of Ethiopia and Nubia and the Boring of the Ears in India what we do therein being in compliance with a human Custom and not in Obedience to the Mosaical Law And as to Swines Flesh we do not abstain from that neither after the manner of the Jews nor in Obedience to the Law of Moses neither do we abominate those or reckon them to be unclean that do eat it as we do not force those to eat it that have a mind to abstain from it which is according to what our Father Paul writ to the Romans saying He that eateth let him not despise him that eateth not for the Lord accepts both for the kingdom of God consists not in meat and drink and in another place he saith Every thing is clean to the clean but it is evil for a man to eat with offence It is said likewise in Matthew 's Gospel That nothing defileth a man but what comes out of his Mouth all that goes into the Belly being thrown into the draught This teacheth us That all Flesh is clean and destroyeth the whole Fabrick of the Jewish Errors Wherefore my Religion and the Religion of my Priests and Doctors who teach by my Command within the bounds of my Empire is such as declineth neither to the right nor to the left from the paths of the Gospel and the Doctrine of Paul In the Book called Tarick it is written That the Emperor Constantine commanded all the Jews to eat Swines flesh on the day of our Lord's Resurrection whereas with us people are at their liberty to abstain from it or any other sort of flesh there being some that love the flesh of Fish others of Hens and some abstain from Mutton every one as to such things following his own appetite there being no Law nor Canon of the New Testament concerning eating the flesh of Terrestrial Creatures all things according to St. Paul being clean to the clean and he that believeth may if he please eat all things This is what I have writ that you might know the Truth of my Religion Written at Damot on the 23d of in the Year 1555. The Emperor finding that no declarations he could make of his Resolution never to forsake the Religion of his Countrey The Emperor offers to lay the Debates about Religion before his Council were able to make the Coadjutor give over teizing him for quietness sake told him one day That notwithstanding he was fully satisfied with the Religion of his Ancestors in every point nevertheless since a Person of his Character and Authority had come so far to persuade him to submit himself to the Pope he was willing to lay that whole matter before his Council that he might have their Opinion about it The Coadjutor being sensible that this was only to put him off with delays and at last to lay the blame of his not turning Roman-Catholick on his Councellors whom and especially the Queen-Mother and the Officers of her Court he knew to be mortal Enemies to Popery he endeavoured to divert him from a course from which he expected no good by the following Letter The Coadjutor endeavours to divert him from that course by
the 10th of St. Matthew Flesh and blood saith he hath not revealed this unto thee And the Prophet Micah in the 9th Chapter saith A man's enemies are those of his own house And in the 10th of St. Matthew Christ saith Think not that I came to bring peace on the earth I tell you nay but a sword for I came to set a man at variance with his Father and the Daughter with the Mother and the Daughter-in-law with the Mother-in-law and a man's enemies shall be those of his own house for he that loveth Father or Mother more than me is not worthy of me And in the 12th of St. Luke he saith again Think you that I came to bring peace upon the earth And in the 14th Chapter of the same Gospel he saith If any man come to me and hate not Father and Mother c. From all which we may learn That Parents and Relations are commonly Spiritual Enemies Christ himself having said A man's enemies are those of his own house and that he came to divide the one from the other and that whosoever hateth not Father and Mother in such cases cannot be his Disciple And what he taught others as to this matter he confirmed by his own Example when without asking his Holy Mothers advice who undoubtedly would never have counselled him to have done any thing that was amiss he remained disputing in the Temple and understanding his Mother had been in great Pain for him and had been seeking after him he made her answer when she told him of it Wist you not that I must be about my Father's business intimating to us by this Carriage That in Matters appertaining to God we are not bound to advise with our Friends and Parents and especially when they endeavour to hinder us from doing what is good for in such cases he commands us to hate them May our Lord give your Highness good and true Counsel in all things and Grace always do his Will and hereafter to enjoy his Holy Glory Amen The 22d of June in the Year 1557. Now were ever a poor Empress and Council of State libelled so out of Scripture or pelted out of a Concordance before Or was the folly of a Peoples being obliged to be of a Religion because it was the Religion of their Ancestors for several Ages ever more severely exposed Besides there is one thing remarkable in this Letter which is the Bishop's affirming positively That Bermudes was and did act for some years as Patriarch of Ethiopia and as such had the Lands belonging to that Dignity setled upon him by the Emperor After this Letter Several Conferences about Religion the Emperor and the Bishop had divers Conferences about Religion but without any effect the Emperor growing daily more zealous for his Ancient Faith and averse to that of Rome The Bishop being piqued with this ill success challenged all the Learning of Ethiopia to a publick Disputation which being accepted the Emperor himself bore a great part in it defending the Habassin Faith with that Dexterity and Learning that the Jesuits themselves confess he did sometimes put the Bishop hard to it to answer him The Habassins were so encouraged by having such a Champion on their side that the Bishop was never denied a publick Disputation when he desired it and tho he is said by his Brethren to have still come off victorious the Habassins did always triumph the Bishop being laughed at by them as the most baffled Man that ever pretended to weild an Argument The Bishop growing weary of disputing betook himself to his Pen again and having Composed a Treatise against all the Habassin Errors he Presented it to the Emperor conjuring him to read it without Prejudice The Emperor promised to do so but was so far from being converted by it that if it were possible he was setled in his Ancient Faith thereby more than he was before The Emperor answers the Coadjutor's Book and writes one in defence of his own Faith Writing a Book not only in Answer to that of the Bishop's but one also in Defence of his own Church declaring in them both that he had seen nor heard nothing to convince him that as a Christian he was bound to submit himself and his Empire to the Pope The Bishop finding his Writings were as Unsuccessful as his Conferences and Disputations left the Court in Wrath retiring to a place called Decome where he had not been long before he thundred out the following Excommunication Andrew d' Oriedo by the Grace of God and the Apostolical See Bishop of Hieropolis and Coadjutor to the most Reverend Father in Christ and Lord John Nunes Baretto Patriarch of Ethiopia AS it is profitable to Publish and Praise such things as are Good The Coadjutor thunders out an Excommunication on purpose to ingage People to follow them so it is likewise necessary to Declare and Censure publick Evils that People may avoid them Wherefore since the People of Ethiopia notwithstanding their having had all the Articles of the Roman Faith preached to them in such a manner that all that were disposed to learn it cannot but be thorowly acquainted therewith do with great Obstinacy continue to deny Obedience thereunto and not only so but did on the Ogge of the last Year cause a Proclamation to be made at the Market-Cross prohibiting all Persons upon pain of Death to go into any of our Churches adhering still to the Customs of their Fore-fathers and that as appears to us not out of Ignorance for that cannot be considering how many things they hold that are notoriously Evil and contrary to the Service of our Lord. We do therefore define and by Sentence declare That all the People of Ethiopia Great and Small Learned and Unlearned do deny to yield that Obedience to the Holy Roman Church which they and all other Churches are in Duty bound to yield the Roman Church being the Head of all Churches and the Pope of Rome the Father Pastor and Superior of all Christians They do likewise on divers Occasions repeat Baptism which is contrary to the Faith And do also publickly observe Saturday which they did not formerly in Ethiopia And do Circumcise themselves and their Slaves as also all the Converts they do make at any time to Christanity forcing many of them to submit to it They also hold it to be a Sin to eat Hare or Swines Flesh or any of the Meats prohibited by the Mosaical Law which Law was abolished by the Death of Christ and is contrary to what he has commanded in his Gospel Several among them holding it likewise to be a Sin to go into a Church on the day on which they have known their Wives which is no where prohibited by Christ or his Church Their Learned Men do also with great Zeal maintain That there is but one Nature and one Operation in Christ and that Christ's Humamanity is equal with his Divinity which is contrary to the
to him as a thing not feisable The Pope who at that time was Pius the Vth. believing what the Cardinal had writ to him in the Name of the King of Portugal dispatched the following Letters of Revocation to the Patriarch which the Cardinal took care to forward with all possible expedition To our Venerable Brother Andrew Oviedo Patriarch of Ethiopia Venerable Brother Health and Apostolical Benenediction c. BY Letters from our Beloved Son Sebastian The Pope's Letters of Revocation the Illustrious King of Portugal his Ambassador resident at our Court and by other Persons of good Credit we are informed That you having been sent by this Apostolical See into Ethiopia to reduce the People thereof to the knowledge of the Orthodox Faith have not after having spent several years therein been able by reason of the hardness of their hearts and their obstinacy in their ancient Errors to reap that fruit which might justly have been expected of your pious Labours whereas if you were employed in the Island of Japan on the Province of China Countries inhabited by Heathens and who at this time seem well disposed to receive the Faith of Christ it is to be hoped that with God's Assistance your Labours would be profitable in those parts where the Harvest is great and the Labourers are few We having been thus informed and being moved by brotherly Charity suffering together with you since there is no likelihood of your reaping that fruit where you are which might justly be expected from your great Labours and so long a Peregrination and finding our selves placed though without our Merits in this holy See and being sensible of our being debtors to all and by our Office bound to promote the Glory and Honour of Almighty God and the Salvation of Souls saluting you with the Charity of a Brother and having received ample testimonies of your Zeal and Affection to promote the Catholick Religion we do exhort you in the Lord and in virtue of holy Obedience and the remission of all your Sins Command you by the first opportunity you shall have of Sailing after the receipt of these our Letters to depart forthwith to the Island of Japan or China there to Preach the word of God according to the Doctrine of the Holy Roman Church who is the Mother and Mistress of all the Faithful and there to administer all the Sacraments which do properly belong to the Episcopal Function so as trusting in the Divine Mercy to endeavour to gain all the Souls you can to God and in order to the enabling you thereunto we do by our Apostolical Authority give you free leave and full power to exercise all Episcopal Offices in those parts or any other that have not a proper Bishop So as to moke use of all those Faculties and Indults which were granted to you by Pope Julius the IIId of happy Memory or by any other Roman Bishop our Predecessors with relation to the Kingdom of Ethiopia And we do likewise by the same Authority dispense with you so far that you may without any scruple of Conscience live and remain in the aforesaid parts unless there should happen to be more hopes of reducing Ethiopia to the Union of the Catholick Faith than there is at present Dated at Rome in St. Peter's and Signed with the Seal of the Fisherman on the 1st of February 1560. The Patriarch though Sick of Ethiopia The Patriarch is unwilling to return to the Indies yet seems to have had no great stomach for the China or Japan Mission which to speak the Truth was a hard imposition upon one of his years And so though in his Answer which is here subjoined he assures the Pope of his readiness to submit to all his Commands yet he sufficiently intimates that he was as willing to resign his Dignity and serve him or the Jesuits in their Kitchens as to keep it and carry it to China or Japan in which affair it is to be feared that the Patriarch's being a Spaniard was of no advantage to him it being the custom of the Portugueses when they have got any Foreign Friars among them in the Indies to put them upon the forlorn of all dangerous Missions as they did Oviedo on this and Father Peter who was likewise a Spaniard on that of the Second Habassin Mission as we shall see hereafter The Patriarch's Answer to the Pope Andrew d'Oviedo to Pope Pius the Vth. Most Blessed Father IN this present year 1567 His Answer to the Pope with some Letters from the College of St. Paul at Goa a Copy of an Apostolical Brief from your Holiness to me came to my hands wherein among other pious devout and holy things are these words We do exhort you in the Lord and in virtue of holy Obedience and Remission of your Sins do command you by the first opportunity you shall have of sailing after the receit of these our Letters to depart for the Island of Japan or the Kingdom of China And a little lower there are these words We do furthermore by the same Apostolical Authority dispense with you so that in case there is no hopes of reducing Ethiopia to the Church you may go into those parts and there remain without any s … ple of Conscience To which Apostolical L … no less than if I had received their original I prepared my self to yield obedience as it is fit just and healthful that we should at all times and in whole and in part obey your Holiness for in obeying you Most Holy Father we obey Christ the only begotten Son of God in whose place you are upon earth our Head and Father and the Master of all faithful Christians all the Indulgence Order and Power of the Church of Christ being derived from you to all others The holy Mother-Church of Rome whose Faith never did nor never will fail and who is the Mother and Mistress of all the Churches in the world and of all faithful Christians being continued in your Pontificate As to your having commanded me to go to the Island of Japan by the first convenience I have had no opportunity since I received your Commands and so am excused for not being gone neither in truth can I embark here with any safety there being a thousand Turkish Ships and not one Christian in the Port of Matzua at this time As to what is said of having any hopes of the reducing of Ethiopia I should quickly have such hopes could we but have Five or Six hundred Portugueses sent hither from the Indies according to what was agreed before I left Goa upon the advice they had received there of the obstinacy of the King of Ethiopia and which we have been now long expecting Were this once done I should not only hope to see Ethiopia quickly reduced but should be infallibly certain of it With which Troops we should not only be able to convert all this Empire but innumerable multitudes of Heathens also into whose
Countries they might march from hence without crossing any Sea Which Heathens being a simple sort of people and not much addicted to Idolatry might be converted with great ease We have been told that great numbers of them have petitioned the King of Ethiopia to be made Christians but have been denied out of temporal respects the Ethiopians reckoning that after they are Christians it is not lawful to make them Slaves as they do now in vast numbers The Heathens that desired this were of Damut a Countrey that abounds with Pure Gold and is said to reach to the King of Portugal 's Territories which are about Mosambique and Sefalia There are Heathens likewise in another Countrey called Sinaxi which is also full of Fine Gold and who about three years ago offered to a Prince who is nearly related to the King of Ethiopia if he would but desist from the War he had begun upon them both to turn Christians and to pay him a Yearly Tribute It is from among these Heathens but chiefly those of Dambut that the Mahometan Merchants who are in great numbers in these parts do daily buy vast numbers of Slaves which they sell to the Moors and Turks These Heathens would turn Christians with all their hearts for they cry and take on lamentably when they are carried to the Ships to which they are driven in such herds that I am persuaded that the Turks have had at least an Hundred thousand of them who make them all Mahometans and who afterwards are known by experience to become stout Soldiers and to do the Saracens great Service both by Sea and Land All which mischiefs Five or Six hundred Portuguese Soldiers if we had them here would remedy and would do extraordinary service to the state of India and to all the Christians thereof for if the Turks should once make themselves Masters of Ethiopia it would be of fatal consequence to the Portuguese Interest in the Indies there being divers things in this Countrey that would be serviceable to them in reference to their Galleys as Slaves Iron and other Provisions The King that first began to persecute our Holy Faith and all his Ministers are now in their Graves and his Son who now reigns is not Absolute the Royal Authority having been much shaken and impaired of late God in his Justice having so ordered things that he that refused to obey him and submit himself to the Roman Church from which all that have separated themselves obstinately have been destroyed and have fallen under the yoke of Infidels should not be obeyed by his own Subjects The people here are all in pieces and are so cowed by the devastations the Turks have made among them that they think of nothing but how to live and keep their Estates But tho the late King and his Ministers were possessed with a strange Rage against the Catholick Faith and us Catholicks the common people and some others seemed to be well enough disposed towards it For our part we have not been sparing of our pains to preach to them and besides divers Conferences and Disputations both private and publick that we have had with them we have written divers Treatises against their Errors and have got them translated into Habassin so that all the Doctrines of Faith have been sufficiently promulgated to them if they could but be persuaded to embrace them not but that there are great numbers of them who are satisfied of the truth of our Faith but who either out of shame or fear of punishment are afraid to profess it For which reason there are several that would be glad to see some Portuguese Troops here to defend them in the Faith after they have professed it out of which by reason of their being but weak therein they are now easily terrified as a great many have been tho there are some who notwithstanding all the contradiction they have met withal do continue stedfast therein It is a common Tradition here That the Portugueses are to come among them to make them of the same Faith with themselves and they say further and we believe it to be true That this distracted Empire will never be in peace or any tolerable order until they come which though they should and with an intention of offering Violence would give no offence to any body not to Catholicks to be sure there being no reason why they should be offended at it no nor the Habassins neither for I am persuaded that if such a number of Portuguese Troops were here their name without striking a stroke would do the work so that they would look more like Friends than Enemies and I am certain that if they had come when we expected them this whole Empire had been in the Obedience of the Roman Church before this time and it will be the same thing if they should come now Wherefore most holy Father since all these things do belong to your Office who are the Universal Pastor feed these your sheep with wholsome food and provide a necessary remedy for them by writing to the most Serene King of Portugal for some Troops and by acquainting his Ambassador at your Court with the necessity there is of sending them hither for to tell your Holiness my mind frankly I am of opinion That Ethiopia ought not to be deserted But after all if there is no persuading the King of Portugal to send a body of Soldiers hither for which for the good of Ethiopia let me beg it of your Holiness a second time to write to him he must then be desired to send a good Fleet hither to carry off the Catholicks for should it be such a one as is talked of it would not be able to carry one of them to the Indies the Turks being very strong at present in Matzua and all these Sea-ports and whatever is done let us not lose any of the Catholicks that are here by leaving them in the hands of Hereticks and Infidels who after the Heads of their Families and Priests who are mortal as well as other men are dead will be in danger of being lost Finally I desire to be advised of what your Holiness would have done and as to what concerns my own Person most holy Father I am by God's Grace prepared to Obey your Will by either continuing where I am or by going to Japan or to the Turks if your Holiness should Command me or by laying down my Patriarchal Dignity to serve my Fathers the Jesuits or your Holiness in your Kitchen or in any other post And if it shall seem good to your Holiness I do beg some Indulgences of you for the remission of our Sins Farewel great Father From Ethiopia the 15th of June 1566. Andrew Patriarch of Ethiopia This Letter of the Patriarch's gives the Reader a clear view of the true temper of the Roman Missionaries and of the methods they are for making use of in the Conversion of Heretical Kingdoms to the Roman Church it discloseth
them severely for it which point they carry so far as not to suffer any to be of their Congregations that are of a Fraternity of any other Order A few lines after Sotelo adds If Friars who are not of their Society do at any time address themselves to the Governor or Vicar-General to demand judicial Informations concerning the Martyrdom of any of their Brethren who have lost their lives for the Catholick Faith he will not so much as give them the hearing whereas in the case of any of their own Brethren or of any that have been Baptized by them extravagant relations are presently exhibited on purpose to set all the world a talking of them If any thing that is great and illustrious is done by any other Friars the Jesuits do all that they can either totally to stifle it or by artifices to eclipse the glory and merit thereof opposing all the undertakings of all other Friars and representing them as things of little or no benefit either accusing what they write of falshood or attributing it to envy or some other evil passion And when they themselves have at any time been the cause of any disasters let it be never so notorious they will throw the blame thereof off their own Society and attribute it to the indiscretion imprudence or bad conduct of some other Friars Neither can they endure that any thing should be begun by People that are not of their Society and let it be never so visible that their Order is not able alone to support the burthen of Converting a Countrey yet there is no bringing them to admit of others to help them to bear it Finally he tells us That at the same time when the Jesuits did all they could to hinder all other Priests and Friars from looking into Japan that there were but Thirty of their Order in it which was a very small number for an Island consisting of Sixty six Kingdoms and more than Two hundred Princes I know saith Father Collado in the Preface of his Memorial That the Jesuits have in all these Kingdoms set themselves against all other Ecclesiasticks having published things to the prejudice of all other Orders and the Friars thereof that are notoriously false and have unjustly endeavoured to discredit them by charging them with things they were no ways guilty of and for which the Jesuits themselves only were to be blamed And in the Body of the Memorial he affirms That at the same time when there were a Million of Christians dispersed over Japan and but 23 Jesuits who were Priests in it that notwithstanding that small number they laboured day and night both at Rome and Madrid to hinder any other Friars from being sent thither and having advised the setling of a free Trade betwixt Macao and the Philipins as a thing of great advantage to the Crown of Spain he saith none but the Jesuits had ever opposed it and that they had done it for no other reason but because there are Friars of other Orders in the Philipins among whom they would be afraid to exercise Trade and all the liberties thereof as they did in China and Japan where there were no strange Friars to observe what they did Father Peter having Packed the Secular Priest away went to wait on the Viceroy taking two Boys of Portuguese extraction along with him who having got a Roman Catechism that had been translated into Habassin perfectly by heart the Viceroy was so much delighted with their repeating it that hearing them do it one day he said to those that stood next to him Are you not amazed to see in how short a time the Holy Father hath taught these Children so many Godly things adding but these wretched Monks of ours are just good for nothing The Father whenever they made any halt went presently to visit the Viceroy who received him always with great Ceremony obliging his own Monks whenever the Father waited upon him to withdraw The Monks complained aloud of this treatment of the Viceroy's but they had their complaints saith a Jesuit and the Father his Honours but without telling us what it was that made this Ambitious Viceroy court the Father at such a high rate unless we will believe that it was only for his having taught two Boys to say their Catechism well The Emperor's Camp or Court for they are the same in Ethiopia was at that time at a place called Oudegere upon the shoar of the lake of Dembea where the Father was no sooner arrived than the Viceroy procured him an audience and had possessed the Emperor with such a high conceit of his extraordinary Abilities that when the Father after having kissed his hand offered to have retired he commanded him to sit down by him asking him several Questions concerning the Pope the King of Spain and the Affairs of Europe and the Indies To all which Questions the Father returned such answers as he knew would please the Emperor The Viceroy upon the Emperor's doing the Father such extraordinary Honours asked a Portuguese Captain that stood by him what he thought the Monks who were so angry at the Civilities he had shewed him on his Journey would say now of the greater honours done him by the Emperor himself The Emperor after they had discoursed a considerable space of time together made a sign to the Father to withdraw having first commanded his Officers to entertain him splendidly and according to his deserts and having sent for him betimes the next morning he entered into a long and serious dispute with him concerning the Habassin and Roman Faith which being ended the Two Boys upon the Viceroy's having told the Emperor what an astonishing thing it was to hear them were called in to say their Catechism which they did so much to the satisfaction of the Emperor that he asked the Father after they had done Whether he had not the Questions and Answers they had repeated to admiration in Writing The Father having imagin'd that the Emperor might be desirous to see the Catechism was provided with one which he presented to him immediately and the Emperor having read it over before he stirred extolled it to the Skies as the Master-Piece of Ethiopia The Viceroy's Brother-in-Law and Companion in the Government during Jacob's Minority Rays Athanates Father Peter is highly Complemented by the King and the whole Court entered likewise into a close Friendship with the Father making his Court to him by sending every day almost for his Two Boys to come and say their Catechism before him and extolling their Performance and their Master's dexterity beyond either the Emperor or the Viceroy Now if Two Boys having been taught to say their Catechism well was the Foundation of the great favour the Father was in at Court it is the only instance in History perhaps of the favour of a whole Court 's having been obtained by so slight a business The Emperor having read the Catechism several times over was so charmed with
before us but so soon as our back is turned are making inroads upon us again For the destruction of this Enemy it is that we desire to have some troops from you with Artificers of all Trades and Fathers to instruct us that we may be of one heart and one body and that the faith of Christ which is destroyed by the hands of Infidels may be established and that there may be peace and love among us This was formerly desired by our Ancestors but it did not please God it should be accomplished in their times but the Turks who then hindered it may now with ease be driven out of the Island of Matzua for which reason we intreat your Holiness to recommend this our request to our Brother desiring him to comply therewith and to execute it speedily We do not trouble your Holiness with many words being well assured of your readiness to grant what we shall desire See that the Fathers you send hither be learned and holy that so they may be able to instruct us in whatsoever is necessary to our Souls I shall add no more a few words being enough to the wise The Emperor of Ethiopia's Letter to the King of Spain THE Letter writ by the Emperor Asnaf Segued cometh to our Brother Don Philip King of the Kings of Spain Peace be with your Majesty The Peace and Love of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Sign of the Holy Cross be always with your Majesty How is it with you As I returned from the War to the place where I was to reside all the Winter a certain Father whose Name is Peter Pays of whose Learning and Piety I had heard before came to visit me I was very glad to hear the account he gave of the state of your Majesty's Health and the welfare of your Kingdoms and did return Thanks to God for having given you such Prosperity that none of your Enemies are able to disturb it May our Lord increase the number of your Majesty's years and bring what he hath begun to an happy issue Hear Sir your Majesty is not ignorant that in the days of the Emperor Asnaf Segued when a certain Mahometan called Granhe invaded Ethiopia and destroyed all our Churches a Confederacy was concluded and confirmed by an Oath betwixt our two Crowns and that when my Ancestors sent to John King of Portugal for some Succors he sent us some which were Commanded by Don Christopher de Gama and which in conjunction with our Army Conquered that Mahometan The High and Mighty God who exalteth the humble and throws down the proud being our helper After which there was Peace and Quietness the force of the Mahometan who had not the fear of God before his Eyes being broken in pieces The Portugueses remained among us in great Honour wanting for nothing till the day of their Death as their Posterity do not to this day Wherefore we being Christians no less than our Ancestors and under the obligation of the same Oath we ought to have the same Enemies that is the Galls who destroy our Lands and who when we go against them with our Armies do run away from us but so soon as our back is turned do as Banditti make inroads into our Empire for which reason we do desire your Majesty to send us some Soldiers and with them your Daughter to be Married to our Son by which means our Alliance will be firmer and we shall be one Body and of one Heart Our Son is Seven years Old and your Daughter as we are informed is but Three so they shall be bred together with the milk of Wisdom and shall be taught the Holy Scriptures I do also wish that your Majesty would with your Troops send me Artificers of all Professions and that you would do it speedily that so being united in the Faith of Christ there may be Peace and Love betwixt us and that this Empire which is the Land of our Lady and of Christ our Redeemer may not be lost The Mahometans are extreamly Zealous for their Sect and do whenever there is occasion help one another and ought not your Majesty to do the same for your Faith which is above all As to what we write to you concerning your sending your Daughter hither you are not to think that we desire her for any other end than to establish an Alliance between us and that she may be a pledge of Peace for the future May God who can do all things fulfil our wishes Hear farther Brother in order to the establishment of our Affairs Do you send a Viceroy to the Island of Matzua and my General shall be at the same time at Arkiko on the Continent by which means we shall bridle the Power of the Turks and being Masters of those parts we will send our Merchants with all sorts of Goods and Provisions into yoar Conquests and will divide the Customs between us our Countrey is very Rich and wants for nothing and the reason why we have not hitherto sent any Merchants to these parts with Provisions of Honey Gold and Slaves is because we have a mind to pinch the Turks for whom we have no kindness but when your Viceroy is once come with his Portugueses we shall quickly send Merchants to them with all sorts of Commodities May our Lord God bring what we desire and what is grateful to your Majesty to a happy issue that so the Power of the Turk which is a great Stone of Scandal may be utterly broke It does not appear by these Letters that the Emperor was in such a violent fit of Zeal when he wrote them for a Roman Patriarch and for submitting his Church to the Pope immediately as he is reported to have been in when he delivered them to Father Peter for though in both of them he writes very earnestly to have the Infanta and some Troops sent with all possible expedition he does not say one word of his Church's submission or of a Roman Patriarch And in case Father Peter when he acquainted the Emperor with the Infanta's Age did to make his Court the better feed him with hopes of obtaining her for his black Prince it was no more than what his Countreyman Gundamore did here in England either with the same Infanta or her Sister and the restitution of the Palatinate It might have been expected that Father Peter now he had brought the Emperor to be a Bigot for Popery beyond what he desired should have stuck close to him till he had done the work and that no small matter should have made him to have left the Court where his presence was so necessary but whatever was the true cause of it the Father all of a sudden desires leave of the Emperor to go to Nanina a place two days journey from the Court pretending to be called thither by extraordinary business and when the Emperor Father Peter withdraws from Court upon a slight pretence who was very unwilling to part with
been Emperor himself for Seven years and that with the Approbation of the People who had also restored him after he had been Deposed for some time neither was his being a Bastard any bar to him since according to the Natural and Civil Law a Bastard may succeed his Father as John the First of Portugal did his Fathor Don Peter besides Suseneus was a Bastard no less than Jacob. On the other side saith Tellez it may be alledged That Jacob having been deposed to make room for Za Danguil who was both the true Heir and was chosen by the Grandees and People upon Danguil 's death the Throne became void and the Election of an Emperor out of the Royal Family devolved to the Commonwealth whereupon Suseneus who was the Grandson of an Infante was chosen Emperor by the Army upon Jacob 's having delayed coming to them Concluding That whatever Princes Titles or Pretences in such cases may be in Speculation according to the Practice of the World he has the best Title that â—â—s the longest Sword But to return to the Fathers who having staid at Court till Winter obtained leave to go to Gorgora to fix a Residence there but they had not been gone a Month before the Emperor writ to them to come to Court again declaring that he could not be without their Company any longer The Fathers obey'd the summons and repaired to Coga a place near the Lake of Dembea where the Emperor at that time had his Camp They were no sooner arrived but the Emperor gave them an Audience and after that was over ordered them to Dine with him that is in the same Room though not at the same Table The Portugueses give a tedious account of the particulars of this Entertainment the main of which are That the Emperor does not feed himself but has his Meat put into his Mouth by his Pages that his Diet was plain and without any thing of Cookery and that he had neither Knife Spoon Table-Cloth nor Napkin and had Bread for his Trencher and never Drank till he had done Eating Father Peter and his Companions never missed the Emperor's Levee the Emperor taking great delight to discourse with them about Religion and the difference that is between the Habassin and Roman Churches which Conferences having continued for some time The Emperor offers to write to the King of Portugal and the Pope and is encouraged by Father Peter to do it the Emperor sent one day to Father Peter to come to him alone and being come he told him That nowithstanding he was convinced that he ought to submit himself and his Empire to the Pope yet it would not be safe for him to attempt it before he had some assurance that the King of Portugal would assist him against those who would oppose him in doing of it That he intended therefore to write a Letter to the Pope and another to the King about it The Father having extolled his good intentions encouraged him to write those Letters assuring him of as good an Answer to them as he could desire The Emperor Seltem Saged's Letter to the Pope THE Letter of the Emperor of Ethiopia The Emperor's Letter to the Pope Malac Eguet cometh to the holy Pope of Rome with the Peace of our Lord Christ who loved us and washed us from our Sins in his blood and hath made us a Kingdom and a Priesthood to God the Father May this Peace be always with your Holiness and the Catholick Church of Christ Amen We have for a long time had a great affection for the Christians of your parts upon the account of the benefits this Empire received from them when it was formerly rescued by the Portugueses out of the hands of Mahometans and restored by them to its ancient estate and quiet most of whose Race died in our Father's Reign who was willing they should enjoy what his Ancestors had given them whereupon so soon as through God's Grace I took the Government of the Empire upon me I determined to renew our Alliance with the Faithful People of Christ in order to remedy the manifest distractions our Empire of late years has been put into by the Mahometans for notwithstanding we have subdued most of our Domestick Enemies we have Enemies still that are much more Powerful that is the Infidel Gauls who have Conquered a great part of our Empire and destroyed many of our Churches and which is worst of all are daily Invading us and exercising unheard-of Cruelties on Old Men Widows and Children whom we are not able to protect without being assisted by our Brother the Emperor of Portugal We do therefore implore his aid as our Ancestors did that of his Predecessors formerly and that there may be no failure we resolved to intreat your Holiness who is the Father and Pastor of all faithful Christians to write to our Brother to grant us what we desire of him before the Gauls grow stronger upon us As to the landing of the Succors he shall send it will be done without any danger they that are the Masters of our Coast being at this time very weak at Sea so being assured that your Holiness will assist us according to our necessities we will trouble you with no more words but shall refer the relation of the state of our Empire and of the kindness wherewith we Treat those of the Portuguese race and of the care we take of the Fathers and their Churches to Father Peter Pays to whom I have recommended the doing of it and to whose account I desire you to give the same credit as you do to this Letter We conclude praying that our Lord Christ would preserve your Holiness for many Years for the good of the Catholick Church Written in Ethiopia on the 14th of October 1607. The Emperor's Letter to the King of Spain THE Letter sent by the Emperor Malac Eguet His Letters to the King of Spain cometh to the Emperor of Spain the Holy Land of St. Peter the Prince of the Doctors and of the Catholick Church of our Lord of which the Apostle St. Paul said I have betrothed thee to one man to present thee a chast Virgin to Christ To whom be glory and in imitation of the most pure Messenger St. Gabriel who saluting our Lady the Virgin said The Lord save thee and of Christ our Lord who on the Evening of the Lord's-day after his Resurrection said to his Apostles being assembled together Peace be among you and as St. Paul writes in all his Epistles The Peace of our Lord be with your Majesty our Brother in the Faith that was preached by St. Peter at the time when our Lord Christ commanded his Apostles to go all over the world and preach the Gospel to all Nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost How is your Majesty and how is your Empire we are in health thorough the Intercession of St. Peter your and our
sends an Army against the Rebels and routs them and knowing himself not to be strong enough to deal with him he Retreated to the Mountains where his Army's Zeal being allayed by the want of Provisions it moulder'd to nothing in a short time so that he was obliged with a small Party to take fanctuary among the Gauls who having been hired to it by the Emperor put him to death The Emperor being returned to Doncaz where he intended to spend the Winter was invited by the Fathers to come and visit the new Church they had built at Gorgora which he did with great Devotion putting his Shoes off when he entered into it but the late Proclamation had bred too much ill blood in Ethiopia for to let it be long quiet The Damotes a People inhabiting the banks of Nile being thrown into such a rage by Raz Cella their Viceroy's rigorous Execution thereof that they all flew to their Arms as one Man being likewise instigated so to do by great droves of Hermits who being alarmed by the late Proclamation flocked to them from all parts of the Desarts railing all the way they came at the Emperor and his Brother as Apostates and at the Jesuits as the Authors of all their troubles several of them running over the Countrey as men distracted and roaring as they went That all People were bound in Conscience to take up Arms against the Emperor and his Brother in defence of their Religion which they seemed to be resolved to destroy The Viceroy hearing of the mad work the Hermits were making among the Damotes writ to some of his Friends in those parts not to suffer themselves and the People to be any longer abused by such a pack of Ignorant and Hypocritical Rascals who taught them nothing but Lies but he could have no other answer from them than That unless he would burn all his Popish Books and deliver up all his Jesuits to them The Damotes take up Arms for their Religion and are routed that they might hang them all upon one great Tree for the mischiefs they had done in Ethiopia they would have nothing more to do with him being all to a man resolved to live and die in the Alexandrian Faith The Viceroy not caring to part with his Books and Jesuâ—â—s so easily advanced towards them with an Army of Seven Thousand well-disciplin'd Men the Damotes were near double the Number having Four hundred Hermits who had devoted their Lives to their Religion well Armed with Targets and Launces this great inequality in numbers did not hinder the Viceroy from offering them Battel so soon as he came up with them which they having accepted of the two Armies quickly came to blows but the Damotes being raw men and not well Armed were at the first onset put to the rout and besides a great slaughter that was made among the Soldiers as they fled towards the Mountains there were One hundred and eighteen of the Monks with their famous Captain Batare found slain upon the spot where the Fight was the Viceroy is said to have lost but One Man in the Action and he too which made the loss the less was a Heathen A Miraculous Evidence say the Jesuits of the Truth of the Roman and of the falshood of the Alexandrian Faith The Emperor when Father Peter Congratulated him upon this Victory told him He had great reason to thank God for it for that had the Damotes gained the least advantage he should have had the whole Empire presently in Arms against him whose Spirits he believed were now pretty well subdued and that after such a blow it would not be soâ—eâ—â—y for the Monks or Hermits to Roar them into any more Rebellions and whereas he had hitherto been with-held by his fear and his Wife 's The Emperor reconciles himself to the Church of Rome which he was very unwilling to have parted withal from Reconciling himself formally to the Church of Rome he told the Father he would delay to do it no longer the Father over-joyed to hear this upon his having first Abjured all the Alexandrian Errors and made a Confession of his whole Life to him gave him Absolution and Reconciled him to the Pope But the Father overcome it is like by the Joy of this Conversion outlived it but a few days his Death was much Lamented by the Emperor and his Brother to whom the Father was become a perfect Oracle in all State no less than Church-matters Presently after Father Peter's death there were Three Letters writ from Ethiopia to the Provincial and Visitor of the Jesuits in the Indies to send them a Patriarch with as many Fathers as they could spare The first was writ by the Emperor to the Provincial the second and third to the Visitor by Father Luis de Azevedo and Father Antony Fernandez The Contents of which Letters being much the same I shall set down that of Father Antony's only which is the shortest of them Father Antony Fernandez Letter to the Father Visitor of the Indies I Write this with the good News of this Kingdom to your Reverence to engage you to order Processions to be made and to have Masses said and the Te Deum sung to return Thanks to God for the favour he has shewed us in the Conversion of this Empire the doing whereof will very much refresh the Fathers and Brethren who labour here with me and will sweeten the great hardships they undergo The Emperor with his whole Court and all the Grandees and Princes Ecclesiastical and Secular of this Empire have abjured their Errors and made a publick Profession of their Obedience to the holy See of Rome The general Administration of all Churches and Parishes being put into my hands I have Established Curates in them all having made such new Laws as were necessary and abolished all the old ones that were contrary to the Roman Church I have had some thoughts of coming to you and have been ready to begin my Journey but have been still hindered by the Glory of God which obligeth me to keep close to the Emperor The thing we stand most in need of here at present is a Patriarch with a good number of Fathers to help us to carry on these good beginnings Your Reverence cannot but be sensible of this our want without my enlarging upon it Our Fathers and Brethren ought to run thorough fire and water Pikes and Swords for to assist this Countrey lest having the promised Land shewed us we may be excluded it thorough our own fault They ought to flock hither with all possible speed for notwithstanding the Heirs apparent of the Empire and all the Princes and Nobles thereof are at present true Catholicks Nevertheless should we happen to be deprived of the Emperor and his Brother Zela Christos by death it is to be feared that the Monks and Habassins might raise seditions to the pulling down of all that we have built and may persuade the people who are more
changeable than the wind to abandon what they have so lately embraced Wherefore your Reverence would do well to send us all the Fathers you can spare let them be at least Twenty whom we shall endeavour to accommodate the best we can until it shall please God to raise up a Cardinal or Prince to have compassion upon these poor people and to succor those who labour in their Conversion No day passeth wherein the Emperor do's not speak to us to send for Two hundred Fathers saying God will provide for them when they come I am sensible the Society cannot furnish us with so many though if it could the Corn here is so ripe for the Harvest that they would all find work enough We did at first accommodate our selves to the customs of the Countrey that we might with the more ease gain them to the Lord having besides the Fasts that are commanded kept Wednesdays and observed Lent and Easter and the other principal Feasts according to their stile according to which Easter falls sometimes a Month sooner than with us reciting our Offices likewise after their custom on the Evening of Fasting-days but so soon as we found them disposed for it we proposed to them the Rites Customs and Ceremonies of the Latin Church and the decrees of the Pope which they have now universallly agreed to so that of late we have without any contradiction kept Easter and the other Feasts according to the Roman stile For the settlement whereof they have earnestly demanded the Tables of our Moveable Feasts and the Ecclesiastical Epact to prevent their being mistaken I have by Letter desired our Provincial to send us such Tables that any one of a common capacity may accommodate the names that are in them to the names of this Countrey To which end I have sent him a Table that was made here by a Catholick who is very expert in Arithmetick that he may examine it and alter it as he shall think convenient And I do earnestly beseech your Reverence to get this affair dispatched as soon as it is possible and to order continual Prayers to be made to God in our behalf and in behalf of this Countrey We have lost two good Fathers here God take us under his Protection for this Mission has sustained a great loss by their deaths this Empire which wants I do not know how many Priests at present has only Father James Matos and Father Anthony Bruno who have the sole charge of Gojam and Father Lewis d' Azevedo who is gone lately to Ambra and my self who am fixt at Court Praised be God we are all in health at present but Father Lewis 's ordinary distempers are such as demand a writ of ease for him but Charity and a Zeal for Souls overcomes all difficulties I do recommend my self to your Reverence's Prayers and holy Sacrifices March 3d. 1623. How far Popery was from having got such footing in Ethiopia as this Letter represents it to have had will appear from the sequel of the Story Such Reports as these of the Conversion of Ethiopia being transmitted to Rome Mutio Vitelesci the General of the Jesuits to secure the honour of that Conversion to his own Order waited upon the Pope The General of the Jesuits makes the Emperor's submission from the Pope without any commission from him to do it and without any Commission or Order from the Emperor to do it made a submission to the Pope in his name with all the usual Solemnities and not being able to obtain leave no more than Ignatius though he begg'd it of the Pope with the same earnestness as his Patriarch had done to go in person to Ethiopia to finish that great work he contented himself with sending a Nuncio to do it the Jesuit he employed in this Embassy was one Manuel d' Almeyda who at that time resided at Bacaim in the Indies who with Three other Fathers arrived at Fremona in Ethiopia in the Year 1624. where having staid a Month with his Brethren to inform himself of the true state of Affairs he begun his Journey to Court where when he arrived he was received with great Ceremony by the Emperor who when the Nuncio at his first audience offered to have kissed his hand would not suffer him to do it He sends a Nuncio to him to acquaint him therewith but having commanded him to sit down by him he asked him several Questions concerning the Pope and the King of Portugal and the state of Affairs in Europe the Nuncio perceiving that he took no notice of his Master Vitellesci stood up and told him That his Reverend General Mutio Vitellesci not having to his great sorrow been able to obtain leave of the Pope to come in person to wait upon his Highness had sent him to kiss his hand in his name and to return his Highness his thanks for the favours he had shew'd to the Friars of his Order and to acquaint him furthermore with his having made his Highness submission to the Pope who is the head of the Church and Christ's Vicar on Earth by having kissed his Holinesse's feet in his name The Emperor though surprized did not seem to be displeased with the General for having been so officious but having commanded his Letters to be read presently by Father Anthony he was so well satisfied with them that he ordered his Historiographer who was present at the reading of them not to forget to insert them into his life The Emperor reckoning he had so far subdued the Spirits of his Subjects that he might now do what he pleased with them begun to make bolder steps towards the introducing of Popery than he had ventured to make before and in order to make the Alexandrian Faith odious to his People he set forth the following Manifesto on purpose to blacken the Memories of their former Abuna's The Manifesto of the Emperor Saltem Saged cometh to the whole world of his Empire HEAR what we say and write in favour of the holy Faith which is true The Emperor publisheth a reproachful Manifesto against the Alexandrians and has no crookedness in it of the great City of Rome the Chair of St. Peter whom our Lord Jesus Christ Constituted the Prince of the saithful telling him from his own holy mouth from whence no error could flow Thou art Peter c. as he did also when he was ready to be crucifi'd for the Redemption of the world Simon behold Satan hath designed to winnow thee as Wheat but I have pray'd that thy faith may not fail commanding him likewise after his Resurrection and before his Ascension in the flesh into Heaven to feed his Rams his Sheep and his Lambs meaning by Rams men by Ews women and by Lambs children and thus St. Peter had Authority given him over all Christians This venerable Prince of the Apostles when he was about to leave the world that he might go to his Creator to receive his reward bequeathed this
and the good of so many Souls May 1624. Raz Cella Christos's Letter to the Patriarch THE Peace of our Lord Raz Cellas's Letter to the Patriarch the eternal word by whom all things were made and al for his sake who took our humanity in the Womb of the intirely holy Virgin and without grudging did offer himself in the Temple of the Cross for our sake Preserve your Lordships person from all Temporal evils shedding the dew of health so on the fleece of your life as to bring you in safety to that high Dignity to which he hath called you and to which your Predecessor could never attain Your Lordship's Letter when I received it threw me into such an Extasy of joy as that the Souls of the Fathers when they were expecting the Advent of our Saviour were thrown into when that Ray of Divinity appeared to them in so much that I may safely say that from my Childhood to this day I never felt any exultation in my heart equal to that not being able in the ballance of my heart to weigh the gold of the joy I derived from your Lordship's Letter which was purified by a strong flame of love on the arrival of your Lordship's Piety what shall I return to God who is slow to anger and of great mercy and who do's not look upon the countenance of my wickedness with the eyes of a vigoaous Justice though he is a searcher out even of venial Sins for having prolonged my life to hear the joyful news which I have been many years expecting the Nerve of my thoughts having for a long time depended and hung on the Tree of your Lordship's love now as God who is intirely good and of abundant kindness has made me worthy to hear the news of your Lordship and has thereby unburdened me of that load of trouble which had for several years lain so heavy upon me for the sake of the holy faith so he will I hope think me worthy to see your Lordship's face and to kiss your shooes being brim full of Love and Charity I must beg your Lordship to make all the haste you can to us and to bring Multitudes of Fathers with you that so this Land of Ethiopia which is at present in the way of corrupt Doctrine and in the crooked Faith of Dioscorus and abounding with Errors may be wafted into the secure harbor of the true faith of St. Leo the Pope of Rome and Successor of St. Peter and Pastor of Pastors This Countrey is very large and has many Tribes of Heathens in it who do all desire to receive the Christian faith and it is not long since I destroy'd a prodigious Idol whose beginning was not known among them nor the time when it was first Worshipped it was adored by a great many Tribes of Heathens called Agus who since I burnt it to ashes have flocked in great numbers to Baptism and it has been the same among the Caffres neither do we want any thing but Fathers to perfect these Conversions for which reason I beseech you a second time to bring great Numbers of them with you c. What it should be that made the Jesuits et caetera such an Original of their Beu-Clerks if it was not that in the suppressed part of it he writ as vehemently for Portuguese Troops which they thought would not look well in him at a time when he was upon such ill terms with his Brother as he did in the part they have published for Fathers let the Reader discover if he can but however this were it is certain that when he was in disgrace with the Emperor his Nephew that he writ for such Troops at a more vehement rate than he do's here for Jesuits In May the Patriarch landed at Baylar The Patriarch Lands at Baylar from whence he went disguised to the King of Dancalis Court The Dancalians who attended him as his Guard having heard that there was an Abuna or Patriarch among the Fathers were still enquiring which was the Patriarch We told them saith the Patriarch himself That he died at Sea meaning the Bishop of Nice The King entertained the Fathers for the Patriarch was still incognito very courteously and through ignorance refused a Noble Present they would have made him and accepted of a Trisle On the 21st of June the Patriarch arrived at Fremona having one morning by the way seen a Prodigious Star in the Heavens Some of the Fathers were of opinion that it was the Star which Conducted the Wisemen to Bethlehem but the Patriarch desented from them and demonstrated it to be the Figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary who being the Star both of the Morning and the Sea appeared to them to promise them her light which being agreed to by all the Hymn Ave Maria Maris Stella c. and the Antiphona Sub tuum praesidium were sung to it The Patriarch continued at Fremona till November the Emperor having sent him word that so soon as he had made an end of chastising some Jews that were in Arms against him in the Mountains of Cemen he should have orders to come to Court but Raz Cella who would always out-do his Brother in civility to the Roman-Catholicks with his Present and Complement sent the Patriarch a strong Guard to wait upon him whereever he went In December the Patriarch arrived at Gorgora where he ordained Twenty Priests ordaining such of them as were in Habassin Orders with a Condition and permitting such of them as were Married to live with their Wives Not many days after he received an Invitation from the Emperor to come to Dancez where the Court was at that time and being come within half a League of the Royal Camp he was met by most of the Officers of the Court in their best Cloaths and a body of Sixteen Thousand Soldiers who after having made him a profound reverence opened to the Right and Left to make a Lane for him Among the Grandees that went out to meet him were Basilides the Emperor's Eldest Son and his sure Friend Raz Cella Christos In this State the Patriarch was Conducted to a Tent that was prepared for him without the Camp The Patriarch comes to Court where having put on his Pontificials the Princes and Grandees all alighted and kissed his hand When that Ceremony was over he Mounted again and was Conducted to a Tent within the Camp where having put on his Mytre he Mounted a stately Horse richly equipped that the Emperor had presented him with and riding under a sumptuous Canopy that was supported by Six Viceroys he advanced to the Church Jan Jabet having his Horse led all the way by Serca Christos the Steward of the Houshold When the Patriarch entered into the Church he found the Emperor there sitting on his Throne with his Crown on his Head who when the Patriarch drew near to him He is graciously received by the Emperor ris up and embraced him with great
Affection the Patriarch having paid his Devoirs to the Emperor went up to the Altar where having spent some time in Devotion he seated himself in his Pontifical Chair and begun a Sermon taking for his Text those words of the Psalmist Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to live together in unity His Discourse is said to have been the more applauded for its having been the first Sermon that was ever preached in Ethiopia by an Abuna Upon which as if all Popes and Roman Archbishops were constant and laborious Preachers and mortal haters of Money the Jesuits triumphed and made this reflection That by this if there had been nothing else the Habassins might have seen the difference there was betwixt their Church and that of Rome their former Abunas having come amongst them for no other end but to get money out of them the Patriarch having given the blessing was told the Emperor staid for him in the great Hall of the Palace who when the Patriarch came near ris up and made him sit down by him in a Chair that differed nothing from that he himself sate on the Emperor after they were both seated enquired very kindly about the Patriarch's health The day is fixt for the Emperor's submitting himself and his Empire to the Pope and the length and fatigues of his Voyage and some Complements and Ejaculations having passed on both sides they fixed the day whereon the Emperor and all his Converts were publickly to swear obedience to the Pope in the hands of the Patriarch The Eleventh of December which was the day appointed for the Solemnity being come the Emperor and all the Court-Converts repaired to the great Hall of the Palace in which there were two Chairs of State placed near the Throne one on the right side for the Emperor and another on the left for the Patriarch who being seated with his Tiara on his head and in a Cope of Asperges he begun a Sermon taking for his Text Thou art Peter c. I shall not trouble the Reader with the Sermon there being nothing in it but the common Roman Mumpsimus upon these words The Patriarch preacheth before the Emperor and the gross fallacy of confounding the Supremacy the Church of Rome now pretends to with that primacy of order that was anciently given to it purely in consideration of Rome 's being the first City in the Empire to which purpose the Patriarch quoted a Canon of the Council of Nice which he told the Habassins they would find in their own Books which run as follows There are four principal Chairs in the World which are as the four Rivers that flow out of Paradise or as the four universal Winds or as the four Elements but above all the Chair of St. Peter has the Dignity and Primacy and in the second place that of St. Mark of Alexandria in the third place that of St. John in the fourth that of Antioch which was also St. Peter 's from which four all the other Bishops are derived Now this Canon besides that it is not a Canon of the Council of Nice which in its Constitution relating to the Hierarchy contradicts it in making Antioch and not Ephesus the third Chair and Jerusalem the fourth it overthrows that very Supremacy to which the Habassins were about to swear obedience in giving no other Primacy to the Roman over the other three Patriarchs than it do's to the Alexandrian over the other two which was undoubtedly a Primacy only of Order and not of Jurisdiction for had the Primacy that is here given to these Chairs been given out of respect to the Apostles who were their first Bishops then Antioch must have been the second if not the first and Alexandria the last but notwithstanding it is not easy to imagine that the patriarch should be ignorant of these two great flaws in his Canon he concluded it with this flourish See now to whom you ought to give most Credit to a gross Falsary or Cheat or to a Decree of Three hundred and eighteen Catholick Fathers There was another thing he much insisted upon which was That there had been Heretical Bishops in all the other Chairs whereas no Bishop that had sate in the Chair of Rome had ever been so much as suspected of any Heresy which to say no worse of it was a bold word considering That Liberius stands accused by all his Contemporaries of Arianism and Honorius Bishop of the same See was condemned by Name in Two General Councils as a Heretick But the Habassins having little or no Knowledge in Church-History encouraged the Patriarch to make so bold with them When the Patriarch had ended his Sermon the Emperor Commanded the Viceroy of Cemen who was Lord High Chamberlain to speak in his Name There is but one thing remarkable in the Chamberlain's Speech that is his saying The High Chamberlain's Speech That the People of Ethiopia did compel the Emperor much against his will to take the Crown upon him and that if they would have let him alone he would have been much better contented to have lived and died in the Monastery they found him in than to have been made an Emperor Now this is very different from the History we have of him which makes him during Jacob and Za Danguil's Reign to have scoured about with a Body of Raperees and to have fought his way to the Throne When the Chamberlain had done speaking the Emperor turned about to the Patriarch and told him Your Lordship is not to think that what I am about to do now is a new thing I having some years ago yeilded Obedience to the Pope in the hands of the Father Superior who is here present nevertheless being willing to do it again with more Solemnity he took the Book of the Gospels in his hand and Kneeling down before the Patriarch made his Submission in the form following WE Seltem Saged The Emperor's Submission Emperor of Ethiopia Do Believe and Confess That St. Peter was Constituted Prince of the Apostles by our Lord Jesus Christ as also Head of the whole Christian Church Christ having given him a Principality and Dominion over the whole World when he said unto him Thou art Peter and when at another time he Commanded him to feed his Sheep We do also Believe and Confess That the Pope of Rome being lawfully Elected is the true Successor of the Apostle St. Peter in that Government having the same Power Dignity and Primacy over the whole Christian Church And to the Holy Father Urban the VIIIth who is by the Grace of God Pope at this time and our Lord and to his Successors in the Government of the Church We do Promise Offer and Swear true Obedience and Subjection with all humility at his Feet for our own Person and Empire So help us God and this Holy Gospel Upon this Submission the Emperor was represented here in Europe by the Missionaries as one of the
Popery which was slackened so much of late I shall nevertheless set them down as they are published by the Jesuits leaving them to the censure of the judicious Reader Pope Urban the VIIIth To Seltem Saged Emperor of Ethiopia Health and Apostolical Benediction MOST dear Son in Christ The Stream of the River Nile doth at this time make glad the City of God Fruits fit for the Banquets of Angels being brought from the thirsty Land of Ethiopia to the Palace of St. Peter there being nothing that the Mother of Riches or that Africk which is so fruitful of Monsters can bring to Rome the Mother of Christianity that is so Precious and wonderful as your Majesty's Letters addressed to Gregory the XVth of happy Memory to whose place though unworthy of it the Holy Spirit has been pleased to call us when we read them we could not forbear weeping for joy to hear that the vast Empire of Ethiopia had submitted it self to the Laws of the Roman Pontificate O happy Prince who after having Conquered divers Nations and triumphed over all your Enemies have been able to exalt the Trophies of the Cross of Christ upon the Towers of your Provinces For you do really plant Heaven in your Empire so long as the favour of so great a King is sought after by the making a profession of the Catholick truth Go on my Dear Son since God favours you and Rome by its applauses exalts you to the Society of those Princes who for having propogated the Kingdom of Heaven have an immortal memory in the praises of Mankind for notwithstanding your Majesty's Empire is beyond the anciently known ways of the Sun the Apostolical Senate which comprehends all the Nations of the Christian Commonwealth beholdeth all your Heroick Actions giving manifold applauses on the Theatre of the world to your Majesty and to all that are employed by you in suppressing the rashness of Rebels and in breaking the horns of Fiends We the Vicar of the Almighty Majesty in this Throne which all Christians do with bended knees adore have turned the eyes of our Apostolical solicitude towards your Majesty praying that the most exalted Arbiter of Princes may send his Angels to be Soliders in your Triumphant Armies we are not ignorant of what some people drive at for we behold whole Legions of Devils fighting against the Scepter of Christ which is the strength of your Majesty's Right-arm we know the Professors of false Doctrines do likewise whet their Tongues as a Sword that so they may with the poison of their Impiety infect the Bread of Life Assume a courage therefore worthy of the Race of David in whom the House of Ethiopia glories as in their Ancestor who when such people placed their Camps against him did put his trust in God and so found by Experience that the name of the Lord was the Tower of David guarded by aâ— heavenly Host and praised by a victorious Army My most dear Son it is undoubtedly as you write that the Pests of their Countrey and the Disturbers of the people shall not God assisting you be suffered to reign We do most affectionately impart our Apostolical Benediction to your self and your best Brother and to all your Royal Family and faithful People and shall pray continually that you may always have the Arms of light from the Sanctuary of the Divinity and we do here with the keys of the Pontiff open unto you the Treasure of the heavenly Indulgence with whose healthful riches we do at this time bless the Ethiopick Church we shall likewise be always mindful to sollicit the most Powerful King of Spain to grant you all that you shall desire of the Austrian House Most Dear Son we do embrace you in the arms of our Apostolical Charity and carrying you in our hearts we shall always adorn you with the Patronage of our Pontificate and while you do with a Royal Piety venerate the Patriarch of Ethiopia and his Coadjutors you give Examples to others to honour the Priesthood and do whet the sollicitude of holy Prelates to labour in Ethiopia we wish you joy of the obedience of your people who so long as a Religious King fights under the standard of Christ do never Desert him Dated at Rome at St. Peter's under the Ring of the Fisherman this First of February 1627. in the Fourth Year of our Pontificate Pope Urban the VIIIth's Letter to the Prince Our Most Beloved Son in Christ Health and Apostolical Benediction THE Wealth of Nile floweth to the glory of your Name Urban's Letter to the Prince and you the Son of the Ethiopick Empire do grow up in the hopes of a most powerful Principality you do nevertheless understand God having taught you how miserable you had been had you not drank of the streams of the Gospel out of the Fountain of the Catholick Church and if you had not by adoring St. Peter in the Roman Pontificate been made the Son of God whose Possession and Workmanship the whole frame of Heaven and Earth is in the Roman Church The holy Quire of Reigning Priests and of Obedient Nations do applaud the Heir that is to rule in Ethiopia with Christian Virtue rejoicing that a Kingdom is prepared for you out of which your triumphant Father the Scepter of whose Empire is the Rod of Direction do's thorough the Divine Assistance extirpate the Synagogue of Satan you having been Educated in the Domestick imitation of such splendid virtues and being in a Post that draws the eyes of Heaven and Earth upon you Such Councils are expected from your Wisdom as are to be like the lights of the Holy Spirit and the Thunderbolts of the Divine Vengeance And being it is thus beloved Son you must not think of living at ease in your Father's Palace before you have made all Ethiopia throw it self at the feet of St. Peter that so they may find Heaven in the Vatican For the Doctrines of the Pope will not be only the hope of Salvation to you but they will be also the Anchor of quietness and the safety of your Dominions We do embrace you most Dear Son with the Arms of Apostolical Charity and do wish you an obedient people and favourable Angels amidst the Trophies of your Arms and the Joys of your Prosperity and we do from the bottom of our heart impart our fatherly Benediction to you Dated at Rome at St. Peter's under the Ring of the Fisherman the Twenty Eighth of December 1630. in the Seventh Year of our Pontificate Now besides that the Phrase of these Letters do very much resemble that of the Patriarch Mendez who affected a Tinsil Oratory in every thing he writ That to the Prince bears Date the same Month of the same Year when it was deliver'd This Jubilee The Emperor's Zeal revived by this Letter and a Jabilee notwithstanding it was Laughed at by the Habassins who asked by what Authority the Pope pretended to forgive Sins is said to have warmed
Ruin his Kingdom the Emperor taking him up short asked him How that was possible since he had no Empire left to Ruin And so dismissed him And whereas formerly the Fathers when they left the Emperor used to be conducted out of the Court with Ceremony there was no body now took the least notice of Father Manuel unless it were to make Faces at him as he passed through the Rooms but the Father was not got out of the Court when the Drums beat for the Publishing of the Proclamation which he came to have put a stop to the Proclamation was as followeth HEAR The Proclamation for restoring the Alexandrian Religion Hear We formerly gave you the Roman Faith believing it to be true but innumerable multitudes of my People having been slain upon that account under the Command of Julius Guergis Cerca Christos c. as now also among the Peasants We do therefore Restore the Religion of your Fathers to you so that your Priests are to take Possession of their Churches again and to officiate therein as formerly Never was any Proclamation received with greater expressions of Joy than this was there being nothing to be heard in or about the Camp for some Hours for the noise of the Trumpets Excessive Joy and Festivities thereupon and of innumerable multitudes of People continually ecchoing each other from all quarters of the Camp with acclamations and shouts of God Bless the Emperor and let the Alexandrian Faith Flourish At Night the whole Camp and Countrey was Illuminated with Bonfires into which most if not all of the Popish Converts threw the Beads and Reliques that had been given them by the Fathers and that with so much Contempt and Indignation as abundantly manifested that they had never had any inward Respect for their New Religion but had only profess'd it out of fear The Patriarch and Fathers though mortified to the last degree by this sudden change of things nevertheless since the publick Exercise of the Roman Worship was not prohibited they went on faying their Masses as formerly and on the Sunday following the Proclamation The Patriarch is advised by his friends to give over preaching The Patriarch himself Preached in the Camp with some Passages of whose Sermon for he could not forbear reflecting severely upon what had been done the Alexandrians were so much inraged that he was advised by his Friends to forbear Preaching till the storm the late Proclamation had raifed was a little abated which they said it would be the sooner for its being so extreamly violent But the Alexandrians who could not presently forget how hard they had been rid by the Patriareh and Fathers when they were in the saddle were never satisfied till they had all their Churches and Lands taken from them The Romanists have all their Churches and Lands taken from them The Emperor dieth and is Succeeded by his Son Basilides and had obtained a second Proclamation which Commanded all the People of Ethiopia to be of the Alexandrian and of no other Faith The Emperor did not long survive this Revolution dying the September following of an Hectick Fever in the Sixty first year of his Age. The Fathers will have him to have died in the Communion of their Church But however that were it is certain he was buried by the Habassin Monks and with their Offices in the Church of Ganeta Jesu which they had taken from the Fathers The Prince Basilides being Proclaimed Emperor so soon as the breath was out of his Father's Body Raz Cella coming amongst the rest of the Grandees to Swear Allegiance to him was received by him with all the marks of Honour and Affection that his near Relation to him could pretend to the Emperor among other kind things telling him That hereafter he should look upon him and treat him as his Father rather than as his Uncle But whatever was the matter this kindness betwixt the Nephew and Uncle was not long-liv'd the Fathers pretend that Raz Cella's constant Zeal for their Religion was the cause of it and particularly his having acquainted the Emperor with his Father's having appeared to him and commanded him to tell him that it was a madness to lose an Eternal Kingdom to secure one that was Temporary But what is certain is that the Emperor giving no credit to his Uncle's Vision Basilides throws his Uncle Raz Cella into Prison had him arrested and committed to Prison as a Traytor disarming the Patriarch and Fathers at the same time and commanding them from all parts of the Empire to Fremona in Tigre the Viceroyship of which Kingdom he had bestowed upon one who he was certain would enter into no Cabals with them The Order run thus HEAR He sends for the Patriarch and Fathers Arms and Banisheth them all to Fremona My Lords what We say and write unto you You cannot be ignorant of our being ingaged in a War with the Peasants of Lasta and of our Empires not having had one hours Rest since this War begun You must therefore send us the Muskets and Carabines and all your other Arms together with all the Powder and Bullets that you have in your keeping We have sent Daniel and Miserata Christos to receive them to whom you must not fail to deliver them and when the War is over they shall all be restored to you again or if you are willing to sell them they will give you your price for them There is an Alexandrian Abuna arrived here he has been for some time Incognito in the Kingdom of Narea and who when I desired him to Confer holy Orders made me answer He could not do it so long as there was a Roman Patriarch about us for which reason we command your Lordship to repair to Fremona and to take all your Fathers and Books and Goods with you we shall take care to appoint a Captain to attend you thither with a strong guard with which Orders the Messengers carried a verbal Instruction which was That if any opportunity for the Indies should offer the Patriarch Bishop and Fathers had free leave to make use of it The Patriarch when he was served with this Order complained the Emperor was very hard upon them and that he could not judge otherwise but that his design in taking their Arms from them at the same time he banished them to Fremona was that they should be all Murthered by the way as to the Arms he said they owed nothing to Ethiopia and as he was resolved never to give them away so he was no Gunsmith to sell Arms. Nevertheless if they were resolved to have them from him they might find them in such a place but that he would declare to all the World that he was robbed of them but having before the Messengers had seized the Arms received advice that Father James was likewise served with an order to deliver all the Cannon Muskets and Armour for Man and Horse that were in his Custody He
Weeks they obliged the Portugueses The Portugueses are baffled before Momboca after having lost most of their Soldiers to return to Goa with disgrace The Habassin Solicitors who had desired the same number of Ships and Men for Matzua having put down this loss in their Book of Judgments and finding there was nothing to be done for them at Goa resolved to send Father Hierom to the Courts of Lisbon Madrid and Rome to see what could be done there as also to give such a Narrative of the Change in Ethiopia as would vindicate the Jesuits Conduct in that Empire which they had reason to fear would be blamed for it in Europe Father Hierom Father Hierom is sent into Europe to solicite for Troops and to justify the Jesuits Conduct in Ethiopia after a tedious Voyage from Goa to Angola and from Angola to Brasil and from Brasil to Cartbagena in the West-Indies and from Carthagena to Cales arrived at last at Lisbon on the Eighteenth of December 1636 where having given in a Memorial to the Infanta Dona Margaret who was Governess of Portugal at that time and finding there was nothing to be had at that Court on the Twentieth of January he begun his Journey to Madrid where the King and the Conde Duke having given his long story the hearing sent him back to Lisbon with some though small hopes of doing something for Ethiopia but being returned to Lisbon he found a Letter from the Portuguese Assistant of the Jesuits at Rome commanding him to repair thither with all possible expedition a true narrative of the late Revolution in Ethiopia being a thing their Order stood in great need of at that Court The Father being got to Rome gave his General Mutio Vitelleschi a full account of that whole affair and after that was admitted to kiss the Pope's foot to whom he delivered a long Memorial of all that had passed in Ethiopia and of all that was to be done for the recovery of it and the Pope having laid that whole business before a Junto of Cardinals the Father solicited them continually to come to some effectual resolution about it but to little purpose he being able to obtain nothing of them but good wishes and blessings of which the Pope himself too is said to have been very liberal But the Father He obtains nothing at Rome but Blessings and at Madrid and Lisbon but fair promises who was a great Traveller knowing that Matzua and Suaqhem as weak as he had represented them to be were not to be taken by such Ordinance and finding that there was no other to be expected from that spiritual Court trudged back again to Madrid where by his Incessant Sollicitations he obtained a Letter to the Viceroy recommending the business of Ethiopia to him so soon as the affairs of the Government would permit with which Letter which signify'd just nothing the Father returned to Goa upon whose illsuccess Father Tellez makes the following Exclamation This was an occasion wherein all the precious Jewels of Spain ought to have been sold and all the sacred Treasures of Rome to have been opened but for our Sins those fervors of Christianity which discovered themselves in the Croisado's which were undertaken for the recovery of the Holy Land and the Zeal of Converting the world and of reducing Ethiopia are now in a manner extingiushed The Patriarch gets to Goa But what reflected the most on the Devotion of the State of the Indies was their taking no care to Ransom the poor Patriarch and Fathers who remained Slaves still at Suaqhem and who finding they were forgot at home were forced at last to give Commission to the Baneans to treat with the Bashaw about their Ransom who having brought him down to Four thousand pieces of Eight they advanced the Money and embark'd the Patriarch and his two Companions on a Ship that was bound for Dio where being arrived after a months Voyage and finding a Ship ready to Sail for Goa they went on Board and being got thither revived the business of Ethiopia again but with no better success than its former Solicitors But to cast our Eye back upon Ethiopia O Kay finding no Portuguese Succours come delivers the Bishop of Nice and three Fathers who by his connivence remained behind in his Country to the Emperor O Kay in whose Lands the Bishops of Nice and the three Fathers had absconded for near five Years finding the Promises of a Portuguese Army he had been so long fed withal came to nothing he treacherously deliver'd them all into the hands of the Emperor who having ordered them to be brought in Chains to the Camp they were all four try'd and condemn'd to Death as Traytors But it not being the Custom of Ethiopia say the Jesuits to put People to Death though condemned to it for Treason they should have excepted the time when they govern'd the Court for then no Body was spared that was convicted of it that Sentence was changed into Banishment They are all four condemned as Traytors and executed by the Mob a Favour that was but of little use to them for being sent into the Country of the Agau's the Mob ris upon them and hanged them all four upon one Tree pelting them furiously with Stones as they hung But notwithstanding Father Hierom's Narrative of this Revolution which was undoubtedly favourable enough to his Order The Congregation De propaganda fide being dissatisfied with the Conduct of the Portuguese Jesuits in Ethiopia takes the Mission thereof from them and gives it to the Capuchins there did not want those at Rome who imputed it chiefly to the rash and furious Conduct of the Portuguese Jesuits who they say by not following Father Peter's Example of introducing Popery by degrees but having got the Emperor and his Brother on their side were for doing it in a day had ruin'd that whole Design by their Precipitation Neither was it only the Enemies of that Order of which it never yet wanted good store among the Clergy that talked thus the Cardinals De propaganda fide having themselves declared That they had the same thoughts of it by taking that Mission out of the hands of the Portuguese Jesuits and committing it to French and Italian Capuchins Neither were the Cardinals much mistaken in this matter for in truth the thing that ruined the Interest of Popery in Ethiopia was the Portuguese Fathers even when they were most in favour with the Emperor caballing still with Princes and Governors who were their Converts to Canton Ethiopia into several Independent Kingdoms together with their presuming that with four or five Hundred Portuguese Soldiers they should be able at any time to reduce Ethiopia to the Roman Church which conceit made them the less fearful of committing Errors or of precipitating things This design of breaking the Habassin Empire into several Independent Principalities however they might condemn it at Rome for not having succeeded they could not
Jesuits in Ethiopia are protected by the Peasants of Lasta which they still pretended was in danger had two Roman Priests concealed in his Country sent to Za Mariam either to deliver them up to the Emperor or to put them to Death himself hoping by this discovery to make the Peasants of Lasta jealous of him as a secret Friend to the Roman Church notwithstanding all his high Pretensions to the contrary and upon Za Mariam having denied that he had any such Priests in his Country the Viceroy of Tigre to spoil the Double Game he was playing writes a Letter to the Monks that were among the Peasants to let them know what a Champion for the Alexandrian Faith they had in Za Mariam who had for several years kept two Roman Priests concealed about him in hopes that a Portuguese Army would be sent to conquer Ethiopia to prove the truth of which if they would not take his word for it he offered to send them two unquestionable Witnesses the one an Habassin who had been bred among the Jesuits and the other a Portuguese whom he had intercepted coming with a Message from the Indies to Za Mariam But as God would have it say the Jesuits notwithstanding it was all true that the Viceroy had writ to the Monks yet Za Mariam having lodged the two Fathers privately in the Mountain of Amba Salama did face it down so as a Trick of the Viceroy's to break the Confederacy that the Peasants and Monks not believing a word of it continued still to look upon Za Mariam as a true Alexandrian and on the Emperor and the Court as still Popishly affected for having attempted to create a misunderstanding betwixt him and them Now this was a pleasant turn enough for to bring the Peasants of Lasta when they could get none else to do it to serve the ends of Popery the thing in the World they hated the most and which they thought they were then fighting against The Emperor finding the Peasants were not to be undeceived ordered the Viceroy of Tigre to march against them with a numerous Army who having brought them to a Battel routed them totally and their Head Za Mariam being taken the day after the Fight was cut in pieces by the Soldiers who were so inraged by their General 's being kill'd The Peasant's General is kill'd and the two Fathers taken and hanged that they gave no Quarters In Za Mariam say the Jesuits the last Pillar of the true Faith and the Foundations of all our hopes in Ethiopia fell to the ground The two Fathers having lost their Protector were quickly discovered and being put into the hands of one Lessano a violent Alexandrian he carried them to a great Fair that was in the Neighbourhood where he hanged them both in the Market-place after whose Death there was not a Jesuit of any Nation left in Ethiopia In the Year 1646. Two Italian Capuchins come to Suaqhem the Congregation De propaganda fide sent two Italian Capuchins to Ethiopia who having got to Suaqhem by the way of Grand Cair they found one of the French Fryars of the former Mission there and having consulted together what course they were to take the wise Italians were for writing to the Emperor for leave to come into his Country to preach the Gospel in it which being agreed to they writ a Letter to him wherein contrary to the course that had been taken by the Portuguese who were still for making the difference betwixt the Alexandrian and Roman Faith as wide as they could possibly they were for persuading the Emperor that he and they were of the same Faith and that being so They write to the Emperor for leave to come into his Country they hoped his Highness would not be against their coming into Ethiopia to preach the same Faith that his Highness professed But the Emperor was so far from being overcome by this Capuchin Complement which contradicted all the Jesuits had told him of their Heresies that upon reading the Letter he roared out as if he had been mad saying What is it not enough that I have been persecuted for so many years for my Religion by Portuguese from the East but that I must have Italians come from the West to persecute me for it afresh And instead of returning any Answer to their Letter The Emperor writes to the Bashaw of Snaghem to rid him of them he writ to the Bashaw of Suaqhem who valued himself much upon his being a Renegado Christian To ease him of these and all the Fryars that should come to his Port at any time complaining that he could not have one days quiet for them in his Kingdom and that having rooted out the Portuguese a new set of People were come to disturb him with new pretences The Bashaw being glad of the opportunity of at once gratifying the Emperor and his own Renegado Zeal commanded the two Italians to be murthered in his Presence The Bashaw murthers them all three and sendstheir Heads to the Emperor and the French Fryar who had a Passport from the Grand Signior to be assassinated sending their three Heads to the Emperor who as a Reward made him a Present of three Bags of Gold Dust promising him as many Bags of Gold Dust as he should at any time send him Heads of Roman Pryars Upon which Correspondence betwixt the Emperor and the Governor of Suaqhem a report was raised of Basilides having turned Mahometan not long after he had banished the Patriarch The Patriarch being extreamly desirous to revive if it were possible the Jesuits lost interest in the Habassin Mission in the year 1646. sends and Dedicates a Book he had writ on the Six First General Councils and a Catechism he had made in Ethiopia for the use of that Church to the Congregation de Propaganda fide from whom the year following he received the following Answer Most Illustrious and most Reverend Lord THE Books composed by your Grace with great diligence and study as appears from the frequent testimonies of Scripture which are in them together with your most Elegant Epistle Dedicatory to this Holy Congregation de Propaganda fide have been received by the most Eminent Fathers of the said Congregation with a joyful mind and who have ordered two things concerning them the one is That the said Books be delivered to the Portuguese Assistant of the Jesuits Order that so all that is in them relating to the Habassin Errors and all that your Grace has writ in Confutation of them may be noted and being digested into a Book may be Printed in the Press of the said Holy Congregation for the use of the Missionaries of Ethiopia The other is That some Persons Secular or Regular of which there is great plenty in this City be deputed to Examine them and give in their Opinion of them All which with their Thanks for having Dedicated those Books to them the said most Eminent Fathers have ordered
confirmed the Truth of the Gospel conquered Tyrants triumphed over Wild Beasts and with your hands full of Palms and your Heads crowned with Laurels are entered into the Palaces of Heaven pardon my Ignorance and pray for us Sacred Virgins shining Religious the Glory of the World the Honour of Heaven the Beauty of Humane Nature and the singular Ornaments of the Order of St. Dominick Pardon all the Defects of this Book in relation to your Praises and pray for us Amen After this studied Prayer which is a sufficient Indication of the Romantick Genius of the Man he imagining I suppose that Protestants notwithstanding all his Apologies and begging of Pardons for having said so little of his Heroes would not be so civil as to believe one half of what he has said of them falls foul upon them and thanks God that he did not write these things to Luther and Calvin or any other excommunicated Hereticks who do ignorantly brutally rashly and blasphemously deny the profitable Intercession of the most glorious Saints with God but to most Catholick Spaniards whose Cridulity having never been tainted with the Heresies of their Neighbours of France and England he hoped would swallow his Book of Prodigies without chewing and especially coming recommended to them by all its Licenses as a Book of wonderful Edification to all pious Souls most of them vouching likewise for the truth of it Its Licensers and Vouchers being no less Men than Don Batasar de Boria Doctor of Law Archdeacon of Xativa Canon of the Church of Valentia and Vicar-General and Official of the Archbishoprick of Valentia Juan Pasqual Rector of the Church of St. Martin and Licenser of the Patriarch of Antioch and Archbishop of Valentia Fryar Raphael Riphez Prior Provincial of the Dominicans in the Kingdom of Arragon Fryar Lupero de Huette and Fryar Jeronymo Mos Licensers of the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition who do all in their Licenses give great Commendations both to this History and its Author But this History having been written chiefly to blast the rising-Reputation of the Jesuits and the credit of all their Reports it s having so many and so great Vouchers for its Truth and the Master of the Sacred Palace likewise to whom it is Dedicated for its Patron was not enough to hinder the Jesuits from exposing it so soon as ever it crept out of its cell to the world in its true colours whole Battalions of them falling upon it at once at such an unmerciful rate that as I have been told they made the Dominicans so much ashamed of this Romance which they had endeavoured to have obtruded upon the world for a true History that they have laboured ever since to get all the Copies of it into their hands to destroy them for which reason I shall do all that I can to preserve that which I have by giving it to a Library which next to that of the Emperor of Ethiopia 's is the greatest in the World But this is not the only pious fraud the Dominicans have miscarried in after having promised their Order great honour from them History of the Lisbon Nun called Maria of the Annunciation but above all is that of the Nun at Lisbon the History whereof I shall here set down more at length than I have seen it any where in one Book Maria of the Annunciation was Born at Lisbon and at the age of Thirteen was put into the Dominican Convent of the Annunciation in that City in which so soon as she was of age to do it she professed her self a Nun which she had not done long before she begun to have Miraculous Visions and to be daily visited by Christ in Person whom she still saluted with the Doxology thus Glory be to the Father and to Thee and to the Holy Spirit Whenever she received the Sacrament her Soul was in a Rapture and was honoured with the Vision of the Heavenly Coire of Angels and when she embraced the Crucifix which she still called her Husband it constantly darted out beams of Light much brighter and stronger than those of the Sun One day as she was at her Devotion Christ appeared to her and made her a promise to visit her again upon St. Thomas Aquinas's day and thereon to do her the greatest honour that any Creature was capable of Maria having acquainted Antonio de la Cerda the Provincial of her Order who upon her Name being so high for Miracles was become her Confessor with the Promise had been made her she was directed by him how to prepare her self for the reception of so great a favour whose Directions she punctually observed for never was any creature more submissive to a Confessor Thomas Aquinas's day being come and all the Nuns and Friars being assembled to Mattins while Maria was in a most profound fit of Devotion Christ Crucified appeared to her and in the sight of the whole Congregation printed all the Wounds of his Head Side Hands and Feet upon the same parts of her Body she had Two and thirty Wounds such as Thorns use to make on her Head and in her Side a Gash that resembled a Wound made with a Spear and on her Hands and Feet the Wounds were of a Triangular Figure as if made by a Nail and in order to excite the Devotion of the absent as well as present the Rags she laid to the Wounds on Thursdays had always the Five Wounds of Christ printed on them in the form of a Cross and happy was the Roman Catholick Prince or Princess who could obtain some of those Sacred Rags The Pope he had one and the King of Spain who was strangely devoted to her had another and the Empress had one sent her against she lay in neither was there a Roman Catholick Prince or Princess in Europe but what had obtained one of them by some interest or other Paramus in his History of the Inquisition saith That he being at that time an Inquisitor in Sicily saw one of them which had been sent to the Viceroy Don Henrique de Gusman's Lady who he saith adored it as the most Sacred Relick in the World And Philip the IId. to satisfie the World that he firmly believed all that was reported of the Sanctity and Miracles of the Lisbon Nun had the Royal Standard of the Armada which came against England in the year 1588. Blessed by her The Inquisition whose business it is to enquire severely into the truth of things which are reported to be Miracles having summoned her Confessor and all the rest of the Friars who belonged to the Convent to appear before them was fully satisfied by their Depositions and Oaths as Eye-Witnesses of the Truth of the whole matter as it was reported Whereupon Gregory the XIIIth writ her a very Godly Letter exhorting her to Humility Thankfulness and Perseverance in her Devotions and as there was no Roman Catholick that did in the least doubt of the truth of what