Government was David his third was Onay Segued he was a Prince of great Courage but as we shall see hereafter was ruined by the vast hopes he had conceived of the Advantages that would accrue to him by his new Alliance with the Portuguese Emanuel succeeding John Emanuel King of Portugal sends Almeida with a great Fleet to take Ormus and some other Sea-Ports in the Indies both in the Kingdom of Portugal and in his heat for carrying on the Discovery of the Indies after the Great Gamas having got thither and entred into Alliances with the several Princes did reckon that there was no security to his Trade in those Parts without getting some of the best and strongest of its Ports into his own Hand he thereupon sent Francisco de Almeida with the greatest Fleet that ever was sent before or since to the Indies to take Adenum Ormus Malaca c. to which and all that he was able to Conquer in those Parts the Popes who pretend to a right to dispose of all Infidel as well as Heretical Kingdoms had given him a Title Almeida sailed from Lisbon with his great Fleet on the 26th of March in the Year 1502. and after a troublesom Voyage arrived at Quiola where he deposed the King and bestowed the Crown upon the most popular Man he could hear of and having found a convenient Scituation for a Castle he run one up in twenty Days and left a good Garison in it which commanded both the Port and the Town from Quiola he sailed to Mombacca which having taken by Assault after having plundered the Town he burnt it to the ground after that he sailed to Cranganor where he likewise built a Castle which commanded both the Port and the Town In the Year 1507. Alphonso Albequerque having plundered most of the Towns upon the Coast of Melinde sailed to the Island of Socatora the Inhabitants whereof are Christians of the Jacobite Sect as the Habassins are where having taken the Fort of Benninum by Storm he entred into the Persian Gulph Albuquerque sends two Envoys to Helena the Governess of Ethiopia and after having destroyed the Ports of Curiate and Mascat and taken Zaor Orfazana and Ormus he sent two Envoys whose Names were Joan Barmudes and Joan Gomez to the Emperor of Habassia who was well-known in those Parts to desire some Troops of him The Empress Helena who was still Governess of that Empire having heard of the great things that had been done by the Portuguese Captains every where in the Indies received those Envoys with great Ceremony and expecting to reap great Advantages from an Alliance with a Nation that was so powerful at Sea she dispatched one Matthew an Armenian Ambassador in her Grand-Son's Name to the King of Portugal joyning an Habassin of some Quality in Commission with him their Business was to conclude a League offensive and defensive betwixt the Crowns of Ethiopia and Portugal and that in order to drive the Turks out of all the Ports they were possessed of on the Coast of the Red-Sea The Ambassadors having got to Goa were there very kindly received by Albuquerque who had taken that City but a little before and were carried to Lisbon by the Fleet that went thither in the Year 1513. where they were splendidly received by the King Matthew besides his Letters of Credence carried a piece of the true Cross from that Empress to the King which had been sent her for Names sake it is like by the Habassin Monks at Jerusalem The Letters of Helena Grand-Mother of David the Precious John to Emanuel King of Portugal written in the Year 1509. In the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost one only God in Three Persons The Health Grace and Benedictions of our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ the Son of the Virgin Mary Born in the House of Bethlem be upon our beloved Brother the most Christian King Emanuel Lord of the Sea and Conqueror of the cruel Infidels the Mahometans THE Lord Prosper you The Empress Helena's Letter to the King of Portugal and give you Victory over all your Enemies and may your Kingdoms and Dominions be spread far and wide by the devout Prayers of the Messengers of Christ our Redeemer the Four Evangelists St. John St. Luke St. Mark and St. Matthew whose Holiness and Prayers preserve you We do certify you most beloved Brother That your two Envoys are arrived at our Court the one is named John who saith he is a Priest the other is named John Gomez upon whose having desired Succour and Provisions of us we sent our Ambassador Matthew a Brother of our Service with the good leave of our Patriarch Mark who gives us Blessing and sends Presbyters to Jerusalem and who is our Father and the Father of our Kingdoms and the Pillar of the Faith of Christ and of the Holy Trinity to your great Captain who fighteth for the Faith of our Lord Jesus Christ in India to let him know how ready we are to supply him with what Soldiers and Provisions he stands in need of We are informed that the Prince of Cair is bringing together a great Fleet to go against yours to be revenged on you for the damages he has sustained by your Captains in the Indies whom may God so prosper daily that all Infidels may be brought under the Yoke we have determined to send Forces to your assistance against the said Prince they shall be ordered to the Straits of Mecha namely to Babel or Mendel unless it should be more convenient for your Service that they should be sent to the Ports of Jidda or Thur that so we may drive the Mahometans and Infidels out of the World and that the Gifts and Oblations which are sent to the holy Sepulchre may no longer be devoured by Dogs The promised time which was foretold by Christ to his Mother is now come who said That in the last days a King should rise among the Franks that would destroy the whole Race of Mahometans and Barbarians now this must undoubtedly be that very time Whatever our Ambassader Matthew shall say to you you may give credit to as if it were spoken by us in person he is one of our chief Ministers for which reason we sent him to your Court. We had committed this Message to the Envoys you sent us had we not been afraid lest by that means our Affairs might not have come so perfectly to your knowledge as we desire they should We send you by this our Ambassador Matthew a Cross that is undoubtedly made out of the Cross whereon our Saviour Christ was crucified at Jerusalem She sends the King a piece of the true Cross as it came to her from Jerusalem We made two Crosses out of a piece thereof that was sent to us one whereof we keep to our selves and the other we have sent to you by our Ambassudor the Wood is of a black colour and it hangs by a small Silver Ring
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
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
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
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
you I do likewise send Francis Alvarez to the Pope to yeild Obedience to him in my Name as it is just I should O Lord my Brother King attend and apply your self to the Friendship that was begun betwixt us by your Father and do not neglect to send Letters and Ambassadors to us frequently for I am extremely desirous to receive them from you as from my Brother And since we are both Christians and the Mahometans though Wicked are still in Peace with all of their own Sect it is fit it should be the same betwixt us And I do declare That for the future I will receive no Embassy from the King of Egypt nor from any of those Kingdoms which have formerly sent Ambassadors to us nor from no other King but only from your Highness from whom I do earnestly desire to have them come for the Mahometan Kings by reason of the difference that is betwixt us in Religion do never look upon me as their Friend and do only pretend to have a Kindness for me that they may Trade with the more conveniency and security within my Dominions from whence they draw great Profit exporting Yearly great Quantities of Gold whereof they are extremely Covetons while at the same time they have no real Friendship for me for which reason I take no pleasure in their Gain but this having been a Custom of my Ancestors was to be endured though after all the only thing that hinders me from making War upon them and Confounding them is the fear of provoking them thereby to violate and destroy the Temple of Jerusalem where the Sepulchre of Christ is which God hath been pleased to leave in the hands of those filthy Mahometans and to demolish the Churches that are in Egypt and Syria this is the only cause why I do not Invade and Conquer them which I am sorry I am not at liberty to do O King I can by no means rejoyce in the Christian Kings of Europe who as I am informed do not agree in one heart but are at War one with another be you all Unanimous and in Friendship one with another for my own part had I a Christian King in my Neighbourhood I would never be absent from him I do not know what to say of these matters nor what to do since God seems to have ordained things to be as they are My Lord let me have Ambassadors from you frequently for when I see your Letters I think I behold your face there being a greater Friendship betwixt those that live far asunder than betwixt Neighbours by reason of the stronger desire they have one for another for he that has hid his Treasure thinks the oftner of it and loves it the more for not seeing it according to what Christ saith in his Gospel Where your treasure is there will your hearts be also my heart is therefore with you because you are my Treasure and you ought also to make me your Treasure so as sincerely to joyn your Heart with ours O Lord and Brother observe this word for I am told you are very Wise and in Wisdom like your Father of which when I was informed I returned Thanks to God for it and throwing away Sorrow did put on Joy and said Blessed be the Son that is Wise and who has a great Head the Son of King Emanuel who sits upon the Throne of his Kingdoms Sir Have a care you do not grow weary since you are no less Valiant than your Father and do not discover your self to be Weak against the Mahometans and Gentiles whom with God's Assistance you may easily Conquer and have a care how you say The Forces left me by my Father are small for they are abundantly sufficient and God will always help you I have Men Gold and Provisions like the Sand of the Sea and the Stars of Heaven so that we two being United may with ease destroy the whole Barbarous Race of Mahometans I desire nothing of you but Experienced Officers to Discipline and Command my Soldiers O King thou art of a just Age whereas Solomon took the Government upon himself when he was but 12 years old and notwithstanding that had great Power and was wiser than his Father I also when Nau my Father died was but 11 years of Age and have notwithstanding that with God's assistance acquired more Power and Riches since I sate on the Throne of my Father than ever he had having conquered all the Neighbouring Nations and Kingdoms we have both cause therefore to thank God for so singular a benefit Hearken to me Brother and Lord for there is one thing I must request of you which is That you would send me some of your Learned Men as also some Artificers that understand how to make Images and how to Print Books and to make Swords and all sorts of Military Weapons with some Masons Carpenters and Physicians and Surgeons and some who skill to beat Gold and gild and how to work in Mines I would also have some that know how to cover Houses with Lead and to make Tile in a word all sorts of Artificers shall be welcom to me namely such as make Pistols Help me I beseech you to all these things as one Brother ought to help another and then God will help you out of your Troubles The Lord hear your Prayers and Petitions as he has received holy Sacrifices at all times namely the Sacrifices of Abel and of Noah when he was in the Ark and that of Abraham when he was in the Land of Madiam and of Isaac when he went from the Trench of the Oak and of Jacob in the House of Bethlem and that of Moses in Egypt and of Aaron in the Mount and of Joshua the Son of Nun in Galgala and of Gideon on the Rock of Sampson when he was in a dry and thirsty Land and of Samuel in Rama of the Prophets and of David in Naceea and of Solomon in the City of Gabeon and of Elias in Mount Carmel when he raised the Daughter of the Widow over the Pit to life and of Jehosaphet in Battail and of Manasses when he turned to God after having sinned and of Daniel in the Den of Lions and of the three Companions Sidrach Mesack and Abednego in the fiery Furnace and of Hannah before the Altar and of Nehemiah who together with Zerobabel built the Walls and of Matathias with his Sons on the fourth part of the Earth and of Esau upon the Blessed In the same manner may God receive your Sacrifices and Supplications and assist you and be on your side against all wickedness at all times Peace be with you I do embrace you with the Arms of Holiness as I do also your whole Council and all your Archbishops Bishops Priests and Deacons and all Men and Women the Grace of God and the Blessing of the Virgin Mary the Mother of God be with you and with all People Amen The Letter of David Emperor of Ethiopia to
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
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
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
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
Faith of the Gospel and the Synods which do teach That Christ hath two Natures and two Operations and two Wills in one Person and that he is equal to the Father as to his Divinity but inferior to him as to his Humanity They do also keep a Festivity to Dioscorus the Defender of the Heretick Eutyches who together with Eutyches stands condemned by the Church for which reason Dioscorus ought not to be esteemed a Saint in Ethiopia holding divers other things that are contrary to the Roman Faith which ought not to be being there is but one Faith which is that of the Roman Church which by reason of Christ's promise to her can never err We do therefore admonish all our Spiritual Sons to separate themselves from these and all other Errors of Ethiopia c. so as not to fall into any of them And as for the Ethiopians we do remit them to the Judgment of the Church and of the Prelates thereof to Punish them in their Persons or Estates publickly or privately or to use mercy with them in whole or in part as they shall think fit and especially if they should be hereafter Converted which God in his Mercy give them Grace to be Made at Decome in Ethiopia upon the 2d of February 1559. Gancalo Cardozo Notary Apostolick Andrew Bishop of Hieropolis This was published in our Church of Decome on the 2d of February 1559. Whatever ease the publication of this Censure might give the Coadjutor's mind which was strangely exulcerated by the Triumphs of the Habassins it is certain it had no more effect upon the Emperor than his Conferences and Books had had Who the more he knew of Popery and its ways the worse he liked it But while Claudius his thoughts were wholly employed in Disputing with and Writing against the Bishop and Fathers Nur the Son of Madi Ali Guasil and the King of Adel having observed the present weakness of the Habassin Empire and how its Frontiers lay open Invaded it with a great Army and meeting with little or no opposition were got into the bowels of it before Claudius ever so much as dream'd of an Invasion nevertheless when the alarm of it came from all quarters Claudius laying aside his Pen and Books called for his Sword and having sweeped together a confused rabble of an Army he took the Field and being come within sight of the Enemy was so ill advised as to give him Battel in which Claudius was not so successful as he was said to have been in his ergoteering Combats his Army being totally Routed and he himself Slain fighting Manfully against the Infidels The Portugueses though angry with Claudius do him the Justice to acknowledge that he was a Prince of admirable natural Parts and for an Habassin of very good Learning and as he was every way much a Gentleman that he would also have been extraordinary kind to the Portugueses that remained in Ethiopia for the great Service they had done had it not been for two things the one was that they would never let him alone with his Religion which he was extreamly Zealous for and the other was that under a pretence of introducing the Roman Faith into Ethiopia they had a design either to make themselves Masters of its Sea-ports or to have put them into the hands of a Creature of their own as they had done in several parts of India after they had by some plausible pretence or other got footing in them and as the close Correspondence they maintained with Bahurnagays the Hereditary Governor of the Provinces on the Sea-Coast was sufficient to give Claudius some umbrage of this design so if he ever happened to intercept any of the Bishop's or Father's Letters he must have been abundantly satisfied of the truth of it the sending of Missionary Troops into Ethiopia without which the Ecclesiastical Missionaries would be able to do nothing there being as we shall see hereafter the burden of all their Letters So feeble a thing is Popery to make way for it self into any Countrey without the assistance of Apostolical Dragoons Nur after having ravaged and plundered the greatest and richest Provinces in Ethiopia returned home laden with Spoils and Honour but when he came near his Metropolis instead of making a Triumphant entry as was expected he mounted a sorry Mule wretchedly Equipp'd and rid thereon thorough all the Acclamations of his People and being asked the reason why he did so his answer was That since it was God alone that won the late Victory it was but just that he alone should have the whole Glory of it Claudius having left no Sons Adam succeeds Claudius was Succeeded by his Brother Adam who had been a Captive several years in Arabia and who from the day he came to the Crown Adam a fierce Enemy to Popery declared himself an irreconcilable Enemy to the Church of Rome and accordingly as his first act of Government was the prohibiting all Habassins whatsoever under severe Punishments to go into the Latin Church so his first act of severity was the ordering of a Habassin Woman for having turned Papist to be whipped thorough the streets and among other reasons that he gave for the greatness of this his Rage against Popery one was That the having Tolerated it in Ethiopia had cost his Brother his Life and his Empire a vast treasure both of Money and Blood And in order to the extirpating so pernicious an Inmate as he reckoned it to be he first took all the Lands which had been given by his Brother to the Portugueses for their Service from them and afterwards their Children committing them to the care of such as would be sure to Educate them in the Alexandrian Faith After this he Commanded the Coadjutor to be apprehended and thrown into Prison threatning to Burn him and his Jesuits alive if they did not give over corrupting his People with their false Doctrines And having one day ordered the Coadjutor to be brought before him A Dialogue betwixt the Emperor and Coadjutor he fell upon him after a most barbarous manner asking him Whether it was not sufficient that he suffered him to live in his Empire to look after his Portugueses but he must be corrupting his Monks and Subjects with his Heresies adding let me advise you as you love your Life not to tamper any more with my Subjects The Coadjutor made answer That he did nothing but what his Office obliged him to and that he would do whatever it cost him This resolute Answer put Adam into such a fury that after having called the Coadjutor a great many hard Names and asked him How he durst come into Ethiopia to Preach his Lies and Fopperies in it He flew upon him and tore his Robes the Courtiers having much ado to take him off and having sent for him another time he told him after a great deal of foul Language That if he would not promise to give over Corrupting his Subjects his
it that nothing would satisfy him but the Father's Celebrating the Roman Mass in his hearing which he did with all the Solemnity that a single Priest in his circumstances could do it and after Mass gave him a Sermon of an hour long but happening as he was drawing to a conclusion to say that he had a great deal more to add were it not that he was afraid of being tedious to his Majesty the Emperor sent him a Message to go on for that he should take great pleasure in hearing more from him Whereupon the Father gave him half an hour more The Emperor was so well satisfied both with the Mass and the Sermon that he sent the Father his Dinner from his own Table and having called him to him in the Evening he enquired of him concerning the signification of every particular Ceremony and Vestment that he had made use of in the Mass appearing to be extreamly well pleased with all the Father's Answers A little time after the Empress Dowager Mariam Zima coming to Court desired to hear the Father say Mass and Preach and having heard him commended both the Mass and Sermon extreamly declaring That she could be content to live in a desert all her days with so Godly a man as Father Peter So that the Father had now got all the Three late Governors at his Devotion who as is probable from the sequel of the Story had a great mind to be governing again which they knew a few Portuguese Troops would help them to with ease at any time As for the Emperor he was either not sensible of this Plot or else he endeavoured to countermine them by caressing the Father as much as they could do for their Lives And so one day when the Father was to preach before him the Chair he used to sit in when he preached happening to be out of the way the Emperor ordered his own Chair of State to be carried to him and having seated himself on the Ground said That it was not reasonable for the Preacher and Master to stand and the Hearer and Scholar to sit and after having thanked the Father for his good Discourse he told him That now his name was high in Ethiopia he would advise him as a friend to be careful how be did any thing whereby he might forfeit the opinion the world had of his Wisdom and Holiness For said he the flesh is always fighting against us and overcomes us many times before we are aware for which good admonition the Father kissed his hand and having returned him many thanks promised him always to remember it The Emperor having sent for the Father one day after having shut himself up with him and his Favourite Habitucum Laca Mariam in his Closet required him to swear upon the Cross not to divulge the secret he was about to impart to him which the Father having done he told him That being now fully convinced that the Pope was the Head and Universal Pastor of the Church The Emperor discovers his intention to Father Peter to turn Roman-Catholick he was resolved to submit himself to him and to desire him to send a Patriarch with a competent number of Friars into Ethiopia to instruct his People in the true Faith The Father who was overjoyed to hear these words from the Emperor threw himself at his feet wishing him a long life that he might be able to accomplish a design that would be so much to the benefit of his own Soul and the Souls of his People In pursuance of which Resolution the Emperor is said to have prepared an Edict prohibiting the observation of Saturday and of divers other Habassin Rites and to have been for running on so furiously to introduce Popery into his Empire that Father Peter found himself obliged in policy to give a check to his Zeal by telling him That it would be safer and better to proceed more slowly for fear of ruining his great design by Precipitation The Emperor asked him with heat Why he was against his making haste to introduce the true Faith into his Kingdom What did he think his Subjects would murther him for attempting to do it Adding What if they should do you think I can lose my life for a beiter Cause The Father made answer That though to lose his life on such an account would be a great Mercy and Honour to his Majesty yet it would not be so but an irreparable loss to his Subjects in such a Juncture Here Luca Mariam interposed and told the Emperor the Father loved him and had given him good advice but the Emperor interrupting him said Come come we must lose no time here are Letters I have writ to the Pope and the King of Portugal concerning this Affair and having put them into the Father's hands he desired him to translate them into the Languages of those Courts which Letters tho they were never sent the Emperor having been slain in the Field before any opportunity offered I shall here set down THE Letters sent by Asnaf Segued The Emperor's Letter to the Pope Empeperor of Ethiopia do come to the much Honoured Father and Humble Pastor the Godly and Holy Clement Pope of the Noble City of Rome Peace be with your Holiness the Peace of our Lord Jesus Christ who did partake of Poverty with the Poor and of Honour with the Honourable Preserve your Holinesse's Life and Person as the apples of Eyes Amen How is your Holiness Hear Sir what we write After we had ascended the Throne a certain Friar whose name is Peter Pays of the Society of Jesus and who hath the Yoke of the Law of Christ upon his neck did visit us and has given us a veâ—ryparticular account how your Holiness labours even to the shedding of your blood to destroy Sin may the Eternal God who has begun this work bring it to an happy Issue We being informed that your Holiness does never walk out of the Paths of truth we rejoiced much at it Praise be to God who hath given us a good Pastor who guards the folds with his Holiness and judgeth the poor with truth He hath likewise told us that you are always ready to assist Christians that are in necessity and to afford them Strength and Comfort having learnt the Lesson of Saint Paul who in his Epistle to the Galatians saith While we have time let us do good unto all but chiefly to those of the Houshould of Faith for which reason your Holiness assists Christian Kings chiefly Wherefore since God hath been pleased to bestow on us the Empire of our Fathers we are desirous of entering into a strict Friendship with you and with our Brother Philip King of Spain And in order to make it the closer and more lasting we do wish that he would send his Daughter hither to be married to our Son and with her some Soldiers to help us For we have Infidel Enemies called Galls who when we go against them flee
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
in general condemn it either as impolitick or sinful it being visible to all the World that the great Fabrick of the Papacy was erected and established by the same course that is by its having broke the Roman Empire into a great many Independent Kingdoms for which reason the keeping of those Kingdoms from ever consolidating again into one great Monarchy is visibly the chief care of the Court of Rome which let the most Catholick or the most Christian express never so much Zeal for their Religion immediately turns their Enemy whenever they begin to think of being Universal Monarch Now though I cannot say That the great Palafox Archbishop of La Pueba de los Angeles had the miscarriage of this Mission in his eye when he called upon Innocent the 10th in his second Letter to him bearing date the 8th of January 1649. to weigh the Services and Disservices the Jesuit Order had done the Church in an equal Ballance nevertheless considering how the Fathers by caballing with Princes and plunging themselves over head and ears into Politicks in Ethiopia did as it were in one day destroy all the Effects of their long and great Labours in that Empire what that Learned and Pious Prelate has said is so very pat on this occasion that I shall lay it before the Reader As I do voluntary confess saith Palafox about the middle of the Letter That the Jesuits have by their Virtues no less than their Writings and both by their Words and Examples done great Service and Honour to the Church of God so I do assure your Holiness that by some troublesome Qualities not to speak of Defects which belong to them they have done the Church more harm than good it is therefore your Holiness's business to weigh the one against the other in your Apostolical Balance to see which does preponderate For as a Prebend or Benefice is unprofitable to him that injoys it when its Charges exceed its Revenue so a Religious Order may be said to be prejudicial to the Church when it brings more damage than profit to it and especially when there are other Orders and Ecclefiasticks who may be as serviceable to the Church without being prejudicial to her Suppose all the Jesuits to labour hard in the Service of the Church yet what do all their labours signify if they themselves destroy all the effects of them or make them groan under the feet of the Grandure and Authority they have usurped to themselves What advantage can a Bishop derive from their Assistance if they dishonour and persecute him whenever he does any thing that they do not like What fruit can the People reap by their Instructions if they raise Troubles and Commotions among them Of what advantage is it to Parents to have their Children taught by them if they rob them of their sweet Company by taking their Children from them and afterwards throwing them many times off shamefully for trivial reasons Furthermore What advantage have Ministers of State Grandees and Princes by being sometimes well-served by them in their Courts if the greater part of them are so far from being ingaged by necessity in such Affairs that they intrude themselves into them of their own accord with a Presumption which is prejudicial to the State and does very much diminish that esteem Spiritual Ministers ought to be had in rendering themselves thereby odious to the Laity by entering into all the Intrigues and Secrets of Families which they pretend to govern no less than the Masters thereof and all this under the colour of the Spiritual Government of their Consciences tumbling no less scandalously than perniciously from Spiritual to Politick Matters from Politick to Prophane and from Prophane to Criminal What does it signify that the Jesuit is more flourishing than any of the other Orders if out of a secret jealousy it darkens and oppresses all its Credit and all its Power Riches Learning and Pens by publishing Books that do it And what is the Church profited by its Books if at the same time she is disturbed by the many dangerous Opinions introduced by its Fryars who have transformed if not destroy'd the Wisdom which is truly Christian and have rendred the truth of Christianity it self doubtful What the Apostle teacheth being certainly true which is That the Knowledge of those who will learn things which do not belong to them is destructive Which lesson ought to teach both them and us not to seek after a Knowledge that will not be governed by Charity In a word If it please your Holiness what other Religious Order has ever been so prejudicial as this to the Catholick Church or has filled all Christian Countrys with so great Commotions The Cardinals De propaganda fide being resolved it seems That neither the Portuguse Jesuits nor Government should have any thing more to do with the Conversion of Ethiopia named six French Capuchins to go thither Six French Capuchins are sent by several ways into Ethiopia who having by their King's Interest at the Port obtained Letters of Safe Conduct from the Grand Signior to pass through Egypt four of them repairied thither the other two being ordered to try if they could find a passage into Ethiopia by the way of Magadaxo and Pale but those two having as the Jesuits tell us more Fervour than Experience came short home and were murthered by the Caffrees so soon as they came among them two of the four that went to Egypt Four of them are murthered and the other two continue at Matzua having got into the Kingdom of Tigre by the way of Matzua in the Habit of Merchants upon their being discovered to be Popish Priests were presently put to Death the Emperor having made a Law requiring those that discovered any to be Popish Priests or Fryars immediately to kill them without troubling his Court with them The other two who had landed at Suaqhem finding there was no getting into Ethiopia from thence returned to Matzua where hearing of the Death of their two Companions they thought it was better to stay where they were than to go any further so that the French Capuchins as the Jesuits who I doubt were not over-well-pleased with their being employ'd tell their story made a very short business of their Habassin Mission But though they would send no more Jesuits from Rome to Ethiopia there were two of the old Fathers remaining still in the Country and who had ever since the Patriarch's Departure absconded in the Lands of Za Mariam the Prince of Dembea a Province in the Kingdom of Tigre and who now John O Kay had served them such a dirty Trick was to be King of Tigre when the long-look'd for Portuguese Fleet and Army came they were Father Bruno an Italian and Father Luis Cardegra a Portuguese the Court having had intelligence that Za Mariam nothwithstanding he was in Arms in Confederacy with the Peasants of Lasta to defend the Alexandrian Faith The two remaining
to be imparted to your Grace Which I here do in their Name and in their Presence with great chearfulness as I do also offer you my own Service beseeching Christ to prosper you Your Grace's most Affectionate Brother Aloysius Cadinalis Caponias At Rome the 14th of October 1647. This Letter though very civil did not answer the Patriarch's design in his Present for notwithstanding there is mention in it of an Habassin Mission there is not one syllable of restoring it to the Jesuits In the year 1648. Father Torquato is sent by the Patriarch to Suaqhem for to bring him Intelligence the Patriarch who continued still at Goa sufficiently mortified by the Congregation de Propaganda fide reflecting so much upon his Conduct as to take the business of his Church out of the hands both of his Order and Countrey notwithstanding he had complied so far with what was ordered at Rome as not to send a Portuguese yet he ventured to send an Italian Jesuit to Suaqhem to try if he could get into Ethiopia to send him intelligence how matters stood there Father Torquato which was the Jesuit's name that was sent having put himself into the habit of a Merchant embarked upon an English Ship at Surat that was bound for Suaqhem which having touched at Moqha the Father who was sent to Ethiopia chiefly for Intelligence pretended to meet with the News there of Basilides having declared himself a Mahometan and of his having sent into Arabia for Priests of that Sect to come and instruct his people therein This News put Father Torquato into such a passion that he resolved without using any precautions Father Torquate meets with the News at Moqua of Basilides being turned Mahometan to run presently into Ethiopia to confound those Infidel Priests before they had time to spread their contagion there But being on the wrong side of the Sea and fearing that he had not Faith enough to cross it upon his Coat as many a Friar had done a greater Sea and when they had not half so much business he resolved when he came to Matzua to be governed by Father Anthony the French Capuchin whom he expected to have found there as to his going on that Errand But whether there were any colour at that time for this story of Basilides being about to turn Mahometan if he was not turned already it is no news for Monks and Friars to throw such scandals on Princes that have any ways vexed them witness their stories of the Iconaclasts Emperors being sometime turned Jews and sometimes Mahometans and of our King John having offered the Emperor of Morocco if he would assist him to be of his Religion and of Charles Martel's Soul being some years after his Death seen in Hell for his Sacrilege On the 6th of May the English Ship the Father was on Board sailed from Moqua and on the 12th touched at Dela the biggest Island in the Red-Sea it being Twelve Leagues in Length from whence they sailed directly to Suaqhem where being come to an Anchor the Master sent ashoar for pratick which he had sent to him at first word with a Present of fresh Provisions from the Governor The Father who walked upon the Deck as if he had been the Supercargo having enquired of the Watermen that came aboard How the Christians that were in Suaqhem did At Suaqhem he hears of the three Capuchins having been Murthered They made Answer That they knew of none that were there some that were there formerly being gone into Ethiopia Next day the Father went ashoar with the Master to enquire farther about the Friars but was not able to learn any thing concerning them only he was told by some of the Baneans That the Fathers that were there had been for some time dead But the Master of the Ship having observed that the Father was much troubled that he could learn nothing of his Brethren told him He needed not enquire any farther after them for he could assure him they had been all Three Murthered by the Order of the Bashaw which was afterwards confirmed to him by a Banean who told him farther That the Bashaw had strictly forbid all People to speak of it The Father being now satisfied that the Friars were all Murthered his next business was to get their Bodies or some part of them at least to carry with him to Goa which with the story of Basilides being turned Mahometan he reckoned would make him welcome there but here he was at a greater loss than he was before considering the hatred say the Jesuits that the English Hereticks have for all Sacred Relicks nevertheless being resolved to carry something home besides his Moqha News for I do not find that it was confirmed at Suaqhem he ventured to speak to an English Sailer the Master having forbid him to go any more ashoar for fear of bringing the Ship into trouble to go to a certain Island that lay but a little way off and if he found any dead bodies there to bring them to him promising to pay him well for his pains the honest Sailer told him he would do his best and going ashoar he picked up Two Skulls and a Bone and having brought them privately aboard delivered them to the Father who though he had never seen any of the Friars knew the Skulls at first sight to be the Heads of the Two Italians that came last He is fortunate in finding the Skulls of the two Italian Friars and a Bone of the French and which was altogether as difficult he knew the Bone to be the Bone of Father Antony's right Arm which was as lucky as could be for had it happened to have belonged to either of the Skulls which were both visibly Italian he must then have either sent his Sailer ashoar again to have busked for more Bones which was not to be done without danger or which would have been a sad thing he must have gone home without a Relick of the French Friar With this rich Treasure and his Moqha News Father Torquato returned well satisfied to Goa where he was made welcome by the Patriarch and was reckoned by all but especially the Capuchins of that City to have made a good coasting Voyage The Patriarch having paid his devotion to the Relicks did contrary to the custom of his Order to encourage the Capuchins in their New Mission part with this noble Treasure to them but upon condition that if the Congregation de Propaganda fide should at any time demand what Evidences they had of their being true The Patriarch is so kind as to give these Sacred Reliques to the Capuchins of Goa that they should remit an exact information thereof to it The Patriarch hoping it is like by this means to satisfie the Congregation that the Jesuits for all their having represented the Capuchin Conduct in the Habassin Mission to have been one continued blunder were so far from their being displeased with their being solely employed
as in a glass see what treatment they are to expect from Popery when ever the Supream Power is in its hands I have as an Appendix given the Reader an Epitome of the Dominican History of Ethiopia writ by a Friar of that Order and printed at Valentia in the Year 1610. and not only licensed by the Inquisition and all the other Regular and Secular Licensers of the Diocess but recommended likewise by them to the World as a true useful and edifying History As also a Full Account of the Practises and Conviction of Maria of the Annunciation the Famous Lisbon Nun which I take to be two such Originals in their several kinds as are not easily to be met with A Catalogue of the Authors out of whom this History was composed AThanasius Ruffinus Philostorgius Elmirinus Paulus Venetus Damianus Goer Zaga Zabo Francis Alvarez The Patriarch Bermudes John de Barros Antony de Gourea Osorius Pereira Thomas à Jesu Wunsleb Job Ludolphus Baronius Spondanus These that follow were all Jesuits Maffeius Gueriro Pays Godinus Almeyda Fernandez Tellez Rodriguez Vega. The Patriarch Mendes The Missionaries Letters Virichus A TABLE A. THE Abuna or Patriarch never grants any Indulgences pag. 88. A false Account of his Election 111. His Office 112. He comes to Court and is angry with the Conferences that had been held without his leave 301. The Conferences are renewed before him 301. He leaves the Court in wrath and excommunicates the Emperor 302. He promotes an Association in defence of their Religion 303. Being invited to Court goes thither well guarded 305. The Abuna and Monks wait on the Emperor in a Body 306. Upon the Emperor's slighting their Complaints they leave the Camp in a rage 307. He goes against Julius in person 309. and is slain 311. Adam succeeds Claudius 201. a fierce Enemy to Popery 201. is slain in battel 206. is succeeded by his Son Malac Saged who takes no notice of the Missionaries 207. Alaf is succeeded by his Son Adjam Saged the present Emperor of Ethiopia 465. The Agaus take up Arms 303. The Agaus having sent to a Prince of the Royal Family who had taken sanctuary among the Gaules to take the Crown of Ethiopia upon him take up Arms in defence of their Religion 356. Albuquerque sends two Envoys to Helena the Governess of Ethiopia 43. Alelujah the most famous of all their Monasteries 31. The Discoveries were intermitted and revived again by Alphonso The Alexandrian Submission he refers to was a mere Trick 231. They make a Remonstrance of their Case to the Emperor 360. They by a Trick necessitate the Emperor to declare his willingness that his good Subjects should enjoy their old Religion 390. The strong Mountain of Ambucanet is stormed by Gama 130. Father Antony Fernandez's Letter to the Father Visitor of the Indies 320. Ambassadors from the Portuguese and Habassins had their Audience of the Pope at Bononia 78. The Habassin Ambassadors submission to the Pope 79. Ambassadors are sent from Ethiopia to Portugal 289. A particular Account of the Ambassador's Journy 293. They are industriously sent out of the way 294. They are kindly received by the Comical King of Gingiro 297. They are stopt by the Prince of Combute upon an intimation of their not having been sent by the Emperor ibid. They are suffered to proceed on their Journey 299. They are thrown into Jayl by the King of Alaba and afterwards sent home stripped ibid. The Archbishop of Goa sends one Sylva a Secular Priest into Ethiopia 229. The Archbishop of Goa writes to the Abuna to submit himself to the Pope after the Example of the Patriarch of Alexandria 231. Athanateus's Letter to the King of Portugal 281. His Letter to the Viceroy of the Indies 282. B. BAhurnagays takes up Arms against Adam 203. He is routed and goes over to the Turks 205. He brings the Turks into Ethiopia and delivers Matrua and the other Seaport-Towns to them ibid. Bartholomew de Tiroli Founder of the great Dominican Convent Alelujah 470. Basilides throws his Uncle Raz Cella into Prison p. 396. He sendeth for the Patriarchs and Fathers Arms and banisheth them all to Fremona 396. Having extirpated Popery recovers most of his lost Provinces 465. After an happy Reign of Thirty two years he is succeeded by his Son Aelaef Saged 465. John Bermudes before he went was was consecrated a Bishop by the Abuna Habassin Ordination by a single Eutychian Bishop was allowed to be valid by the Pope when he came to Rome 120. Bermudes having his Title to the Abunaship of Ethiopia confirmed by the Pope goes from Rome to Lisbon 121. Where he acted as the Habassin Abuna ibid. He returns to Goa having as 't is said obtained an Order for 400 Soldiers ibid. C. TWO Italian Capuchins come to Suaghem 453. Six French Capuchins are sent by several ways into Ethiopia 450. Don Edward Calvam chief of the Embassy dying in the Island of Camera was succeeded by Lima 48. Cavillam and Payo who both understood Arabick are sent by the way of Memphis to find out Habassia 40. Cavillam Payo dying by the way goes first to the Indies then to the Southern Coast of Africk and at last enters into Habassia 40. He was kindly entertained by the King whose name was Alexander 41. He was detain'd as a Spy by King Nahod ibid. He sends an account of the Country by an Habassin Monk ibid. Cella Christos's Letter to the Pope 291. He turns Roman-Catholick 285. The Cardinal of Portugal prevails with the Pope to call the Patriarch out of Ethiopia 210. The High Chamberlain's Speech 341. The Church that had been turned into a Mosque is consecrated by the Abuna 131. The Churches built by Queen Sheba and Queen Candace 473. Claudius the Emperor invaded by Nur King of Adel 199. Gives him battel in which he was slain 200. Claudius hath some success in the beginning but was quickly after obliged to retire to the Mountains 122. The Coadjutor's Letter to the Emperor 181. He goes to Court 182. He is received with great ceremony 183. He urges the Emperor to submit himself to the Pope 184. The Coadjutor thunders out an Excommunication 197. A Dialogue betwixt the Emperor and Coadjutor 202. The Coadjutor and the Fathers made Prisoners by the Turks 206. The Patriarch dying at Goa the Coadjutor becomes Patriarch 207. A Conference between the Emperor and a Portuguese about Religion 178. Several Conferences about Religion 195 300. The Congregation de Propaganda fide being dissatisfied with the Conduct of the Portuguese Jesuits in Ethiopia takes the Mission from them and gives it to the Capuchins 446. The Congregations answer to the Patriarch 455. The Courtiers finding that none but Papists were favoured turn civil to the Fathers and their Religion 300. The Country is much alarmed therewith ibid. The Croisade is totally defeated and the old Abuna slain 311. A fifth Croisade raised against the Emperor 349. D. THE Damotes take up Arms for their Religion and are
routed 318. The Emperor David's Letter to Emanuel King of Portugal 50. His Titles 50 51. His Letter to King John the Third of Portugal 58. His Letter to the Roman Pontiff 64. His second Letter to the Roman Pontiff 71. He brings a terrible Storm upon himself by seeking to enter into an Alliance with the Portuguese 118. He sends one John Bermudes a Portuguese after having given him a Title to succeed the Abuna when he died to Rome and Lisbon to solicit and hasten some Succors 120. Dembea Lake its Description 4. its Islands ib. Eight Dominicans arrive at Ethiopia and are kindly received by Prester John 467. E. EManuel King of Portugal sends a splendid Embassy to the Emperor of Habassia 47. He sends Almeida with a great Fleet to take Ormus and some other Seaports in the Indies 42. The design of the Habassin Embassy 110. The Emperor being acquainted with the arrival of the Portugueses writes to Gama to come and join him 128. The Emperor being restored to the quiet possession of his Kingdom quarrels with the Portuguese 145. The chief cause of his quarrel was the Abuna urging him to turn Roman Catholick presently 145. He is resolved never to turn Roman Catholick 146. He thereupon writes to the Patriarch of Alexandria to send an Abuna into Ethiopia as formerly 147. He enrages the Portuguese thereby ibid. He receives the Abuna whose Name was Joseph at Deberea 148. He rids himself of the Popish Patriarch Bermudes ibid. His defence of himself and his Faith 167. His Confession of Faith 185. He offers to lay the Debates about Religion before his Council 189. He answers the Coadjutor's Book and writes one in defence of his own Faith 196. He invites Father Peter to Court 239. He greatly admires Father Peter's Sermon and therefore sent him his Dinner from his own Table 248. He discovers his Intention to Father Peter to turn Roman Catholick 250. His Letter to the Pope 251. His Letter to the King of Spain 253. He marcheth against the Rebels 257. He is killed fighting 259. The New Emperor sends to Father Peter to come to him 273. He offers to write to the King of Portugal and the Pope and is encouraged by Father Peter to do it 275. His Letter to the Pope 276. His Letter to the King of Spain 278. These Letters were probably forged by some Missionary 280. A mock Emperor set up and massacred 284. The Emperor and his Brother Raz Cella Christos convinced of Christ's having two Natures 285. He publisheth an Edict prohibiting any to affirm that there is but one Nature in Christ 301. He publisheth a Proclamation commanding all his Subjects to turn Roman Catholicks 303. He is addressed to not to trouble his Subjects about their Religion 304. He is deaf to all such Addresses 305. An Attempt made upon his Life 308. Upon his Victory prohibits his Subjects to observe Saturday 312. A severe Libel comes out against him 312. By a second Proclamation he commands all Subjects to work upon Saturdays 203. A Rebellion breaks out upon it 313. His Speech thereupon 315. He sends an Army against the Rebels and routs them 317. He reconciles himself to the Church of Rome 319. He grows jealous of his Brother Raz Cella 331. He sends him against Gabriel who was at the head of a Croisade 332. His Letter to the Patriarch 333. He is obliged to employ his Brother against them 357. Dom Apolinar d'Almeyda brings Letters and a Jubilee to the Emperor and to the Prince 364. The Emperor's Zeal revived by this Letter and a Jubilee 368. He is defeated by the Peasants of Lasta 372. He is passionately addressed for a Toleration ibid. He speaks to the Patriarch about it and will nor be denied 373. The Toleration proclaimed The Patriarch's Protestation against it 374. The Emperor's Answer to the Patriarch's Protestation 377. He declares his Resolution to continue a Roman Catholick 379. The Patriarch baffled in a great point of his Jurisdiction 380. The Country People in good humour by a Toleration yet not satisfied without re-establishment of their old Religion and banished the Patriarch and Fathers of Ethiopia Raz Cella going against the Peasants with an Army is routed 381. The Romanists have all their Churches and Lands taken from them The Emperor dieth and is succeeded by his Son Basilides 395. The Emperor marcheth against them and obtaineth a Victory 382. He is moved by the passionate Remonstrances of the Grandees and others to restore the Alexandrian Religion 383. The Patriarch and Fathers endeavour to divert him 385. He continues immoveable in his Resolution 388. The Patriarch's Manifesto 392. A Proclamation for restoring the Alexandrian Religion Festivities thereupon 394. The Emperor hearing thereof commands the Patriarch and Fathers to leave Ethiopia 422. He writes to the Bashaw of Suaqhem 454. The Bashaw murthers them all three and sends their heads to the Emperor 454. The Emperor's Library founded by Queen Saba 471. His Treasury 472. The Empress arrives at the Camp 127. The Eucharist is administred to Children when they are baptized 95. Eugenius the Fourth translates the Council from Florence to Rome upon a sham Pretence that the Emperor of Ethiopia was sending an Ambassador with a submission of himself and his Church to him 23. Esimetheus made King of the Homerites deposed by the Habassin Army which put Abraham in his place 17. Ethiopia the Climate 1. The true Title of the Emperor ibid. The Provinces 2. It s several great Rivers beside the Nile 6. It s great mixture of People 7. The Court Language is Amchara ibid. The Emperor names his Successor ib. The Royal Arms ib. The Queen of Sheba reported to have been its Empress Her Son by Solomon said to have introduced Judaism into it 8. The Eunuch that was baptized by Philip is said to have been of this Country and to have introduced Christianity into it 9. Frumentius Bishop of Axum its Apostle 10. Constantius's Letter to the Princes of Axum 11. Nine Monks come into it 14. Justinian sends an Embassy into Ethiopia 15. The business of the Embassy 16. The Ethiopians send an Ambassador to the Patriarch of Alexandria 17. James the Abuna of Ethiopia deposed by the Queen and restored by the King afterwards 18. The seventh place in a general Council given to the Abuna of Ethiopia by the Arabick Canons of the Council of Nice 20. The first Discovery of the Church of Ethiopia by the Portugueses 29. The account of the Succession of their grand Abbots 29. F. TWO Fathers are sent from Fremona to congratulate Suseneus who took the Name of Seltem Saged 272. Seven of the Fathers purchase leave to go to Dio but the Patriarch is detained 433. Four Fathers condemned as Traytors and executed by the Mob 446. Father Fermandes sollicits for Troops 208. The French King's Rage against Protestants superior to that of the Arians against the Orthodox 13. G. GAma enters into Ethiopia with his Troops and the Roman Patriarch 125. He sends
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His Vindication of Archbishop Tillotsons's Sermons against the Socinians and of the Bishop of Worcester's Sermon of the Mysteries of the Christian Religion To which is annexed a Letter from the Bishop of Salisbury to the Author in Vindication of his Discourse of the Divinity of our Saviour 4 to Reflections on a Libel lately printed entituled The Charge of Secianism against Dr. Tillotson considered c. 4 to Dr. Salmon upon the London Dispensatory The 6th Edit 8 vo 1696. A Discourse of the Power and Efficacy of Charity By Mr. John Whitesoot Senior of Norwich A Discourse concerning Coining the New Money lighter In Answer to Mr. Lock 's Considerations about Raising the Value of Money By Nicholas Barbon Esq ADVERTISEMENT HEylin's Cosmography with very large Additions throughout the whole made by Edmund Behun Esq is fitted for the Press and will in short time be begun to be printed by Subscription THE Church-History OF Habassia or Ethiopia Alta. HABASSIA The Climate of Ethiopia or Ethiopia Alta or Ethiopia super Egyptum which are all the same according to the Newest and best Accounts we have of it is 9 Degrees in length reaching from Bergamo in the 8th Degree of Northern Latitude to Focay which is in the 17th Degree of the same Latitude and about 140 Leagues in Breadth taking it from the Shoar of the Red Sea to the Banks of Nile The King or Emperor of Habassia The true Title of the Emperor of Ethiopia is called the Naggasi that is the Lord or Ruler and not Prester Presbyter nor Preto John which Title was first given him by the Portugueses upon their imagining him when they first discovered this Empire to have been the great Christian Prester John who had been so much talked of and so little known in Europe not considering that all that had spoke of that Great Prince had placed his Empire in Asia to the North of China and not in Africa And as to Zaga Zabi calling him in his Relation published at Lisbon Precious John in that he play'd the Embassador rather than the Historian not caring to undeceive Europe at the expence of a Title which made his Master's Name much greater in it than it would have been otherwise Now though our Geographers have in their Maps been very liberal to this Emperor having extended his Empire 30 or 40 Degrees from South to North his Neighbours have not been so kind to him who within these 100 years have very much contracted it The Countries he is at present in possession of are Tigre The Provinces of Ethiopia Gojam Amhara Dembya Bagemeder Enarea part of Zoa Mazaga Salem Ogara Abergal Holcait Salgade Cemen Saloa Ozeca and Doba The Countries that have been taken from him are Anget Doaro Ogge Balli Adea Alam-ale Oxela Ganz Betazamora Gurague Sugama Baharguma Catrbut Boxa Gumer Couch Damota Mora-Aura Habera Oyfal Guedem Marabet Manz Beramo with all the Ports he had formerly on the Coast of the Red Sea Tigre which is the chief Kingdom in the Habassian Empire begins at Matzua a small Island not far from Arkiko a Sea-port Town in the 15th Degree of the Northern Latitude it is 90 Leagues in length and 50 in breadth and is by much the most Fertil and Trading Countrey in Ethiopia for which reason the Jesuits fixed their first and greatest residence in a Town called Maegoga or Fremona which stands near the middle of it The Kingdom of Bagemder lieth
Belly There is a great mixture of People in Habassia There is a great mixture of People in Ethiopia from which the Countrey is said by some to have had its Name As Heathens Jews and Mahometans of sever Nations but the Main Body of its People are Christians The Jews speak Hebrew or rather Syriack the Heathens as many different Languages as there are Kingdoms but the Court-Language and which is spoke by all Persons of any Quality is the Amehara The Empire does not descend to the Eldest Son but to him whom the Emperor at his death is pleased to Name for his Successor The Emperors formerly kept their Court in the City of Axum from which the African Ethiopians were commonly called Axumites which is at present reduced to a Village of about a hundred Families The Royal Arms of Habassia are a Lyon holding a Cross with this Motto The Lyon of the Tribe of Judah is Victorious I do but just mention these things my Intention in this Work being to write the Ecclesiastical and not the Natural or Civil History of Ethiopia Of the Religion of the Habassins IT is a constant Tradition among the Habassins The Queen of Sheba is reported to have been Empress of Ethiopia That the Queen of Sheba that went to Visit Solomon was Empress of their Countrey whose Name they say was Maqueda and who within a few weeks after she returned home was delivered of a Son Begat by Solomon whom she Named Menileher Menileher so soon as he was of Age to undertake so long a Journey was sent by his Mother to Jerusalem to receive his Father's Blessing and to be Instructed by him in the Law of Moses and all other useful Sciences Solomon having received his Son when he arrived at Jerusalem with great Tenderness and Affection made him change the Name of Menileher for that of David and having thoroughly Instructed him in the Jewish Religion Her Son by Solomon is said to have introduced Judâ—ism into it and made him promise to introduce it into his Empire he dismissed him with Noble Presents giving him also several Priests and Levites to take home with him to assist him in so good a Work David being returned home did with the help of the Priests and Levites set immediately about introducing the Mosaical Law into his Empire and was so successful that in a few years it was embraced by the whole Body of his People and continued to be professed by them until the Publication of the Gospel among them Upon which Fable for I cannot look upon it as any other they have built an hundred more which are much sitter for a Legend than an History Neither is the Habassins having used Circumcision any argument at all of their having been ever of the Jewish Law since there is nothing more certain than that that Rite was the ancient usage of the Ethiopians and divers other Nations who were always Enemies both to the Jews and their Religion And as the Habassins will have their Forefathers to have been of the Jewish Faith from the days of Solomon till the Preaching of the Gospel so they will have Christianity to have come among them early in the Apostles time It being a Tradition among them The Eunuch that was baptized by Philip is said to have been of this Countrey and to have introduced Christianity into it That the Eunuch that was Baptized by Philip the Deacon was Steward to their Empress and who returning home after he was Christened Converted his Mistress and her whole Empire to the Christian Faith in the Profession whereof they have ever since continued stedfast Which Story notwithstanding I take it to be of a piece with that of the Queen of Sheba and her Son yet this may be said for it That it has a greater Air of probability than most of the Traditional Histories of the first Conversions of Countries What is known from History of the first Introduction of Christianity into Ethiopia is That in the beginning of the Fourth Century one Meropius a Christian Philosopher going into India with Two of his Scholars whose Names were Frumentius and Aedesius Frumentius Bishop of Axum was the Apostle of Ethiopia had the misfortune to touch on the Coast of Ethiopia where Meropius was inhumanly Murthered by the Natives but his Two Scholars having their Lives spared and being found to be Youths of fine Parts as well as Beauty they were carried to Court where Frumentius was put into the Secretaries Office and Aedesius into the Buttery When the Emperor who had always been very kind to them came to Die he gave them both their Liberty but as they were preparing to make use of it and return home the Queen Regent was importunate with them to stay and to undertake the Tutelage of her Son till he was of Age which they having consented to did during that time write to all the Roman Merchants residing in the ports of Ethiopia that were Christians to assemble together to Worship God as they themselves and the Converts they had made at Court did Daily When their Pupil came to take the Administration of the Government upon himself they both desired Leave to return home which having obtained with great difficulty they left Ethiopia Aedesius went to Tire to live with his Relations but Frumentius having a greater love for his Religion repaired directly to Alexandria with an intention to acquaint the Bishop thereof who at that time was the Great Athanasius with the footing Christianity had taken in Ethiopia St. Athanasius who was overjoyed at this good news having consulted with his Clergy what was fit to be done persuaded Frumentius whom he observed to be a Person of great Zeal and Piety to be Consecrated a Bishop by him and to return into Ethiopia with that Character to accomplish a Work he had so happily begun and accordingly he was Consecrated a Bishop by St. Athanasius and going back to Ethiopia did in a short time Convert both the Emperor and the main Body of his People to the Christian Faith This Account of the Introduction of Christianity into Ethiopia is to be met with in the 9th Chapter of the 1st Book of Ruffinus who saith he had not this Story from the chat of the People but from Aedesius's own mouth who was Ordained a Presbyter at Tire And as Frumentius was undoubtedly Orthodox as to the Doctrine of our Lord's Divinity when he was Consecrated a Bishop by St. Athanasius so the World coming afterwards to complain of its being turned Arian could not shake his Constancy in the True Faith as appears from Constantius's Letters to the Princes of Axum whose Names were Abra and Azba which Letter I shall here set down as I find it in St. Athanasius's Apology to that Emperor AS there is nothing we study so much as the knowledge of the Truth Constantius's Letter to the Princes of Axum so we reckon our selves obliged to recommend the same diligence 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
Furthermore If you shall think fit to marry either your Daughters to our Sons or your Sons with our Daughters it will be extreamly acceptable to us She desires a Daughter of Portugal for her Black Prince and will be much for both our Advantages by laying a foundation of a Brotherly Alliance betwixt us Which Marriages we are and shall always be ready to enter into with you What remains is That the Health and Grace of our Redeemer Christ Jesus and of our Holy Lady the Virgin Mary may extend themselves to you your Sons and Daughters and your whole Family Amen We do furthermore certify you That in case you and we join our Forces we shall with God's assistance be strong enough to destroy the Enemies of our Holy Faith for at Sea where by reason of our Empire 's lying so much within Land we are not able to do any thing You praised be God are the most powerful of all Jesus Christ being your Helper for in truth the things done by you in the Indies are miraculous and more than humane If you will set out a Fleet of a 1000 Ships we will take care to furnish them with all Necessaries Upon the Emperor of Habassin's having made this glorious Proposition to him King Emanuel resolved to send a splendid Embassy to his Court named Don Edward Calvam who had been Secretary of State to two Kings and Ambassador at the Courts of Vienna France and Rome and one Rodriguez de Lima and Francis Alverez one of his Chaplains in Ordinary to go Ambassadors sending rich Presents by them both to the Emperor and his Grandmother These Ambassadors with Matthew in their Company went to Goa on the Fleet that carried the Viceroy Lopez Suares by whom they were sent in the Year 1520. with a strong Convoy to Arkiko a Port in the Red-Sea belonging at that time to the Habassins Galvam who was the first in Commission dying by the way in the Island of Camara was succeeded by Lima who having made but a short stay at Arkiko begun his Journey towards the Habassin Court where when he arrived he was received by the Emperor with extraordinary joy and kindness Matthew who died in the way betwixt Arkiko and the Court having been splendidly interr'd by the Ambassadors in the Monastry of Bisoym The Ambassadors who were to have returned to the Indies by the same Fleet they came upon having brought their Negotiation to a speedy issue made what haste they could back to Arkiko where to their great mortification they found the Fleet they were to have embarked upon gone the Moncons or Trade-Winds which in those Seas blow six Months from one Point and six months from the opposite not permitting them to wait any longer for them And to encrease the mortification of this Disappointment they met with Letters which had been left for them by the Admiral that advised them of the Death of King Emanuel the greatest and most fortunate Prince that ever wore the Crown of Portugal The Ambassadors not knowing how long it might be before they should have a Fleet to carry them to Goa and being certain that by reason of the Moncon it must be at least six months before one could possibly come to them they returned to the Court again where they remained four years before any opportunity for Goa offered it self But at the end of four years they embarked upon a Fleet at Arkiko sent on purpose to fetch them carrying an Habassin Ambassador home with them with Letters to the King of Portugal and the Pope The Ambassadors did not arrive at Lisbon before the Year 1527. where the Habassin Ambassador whose name was Zaga Zabo was received with all the marks of friendship and kindness but whatever was the cause of it he was to his great sorrow detained above 10 years in that Court He hath given the World a large Account of the Faith and Customs of the Habassins which though false in abundance of Particulars I shall set down at length having first translated the Habassin Emperor's Letters to the Pope and the King of Portugal The Letters of the most Serene David Emperor of Ethiopia to Emanuel King of Portugal writ in the Year 1521. In the name of God the Father as it was always and who has no beginning In the name of God the only Son who was like unto him before the light of the Stars was seen and before he laid the foundations of the Sea but who in time was conceived in the Womb of a Virgin without Human Seed and without Marriage for after this manner was the knowledge of his Office In the name of the Comforter the Spirit of Holiness who knoweth all Secrets that are or ever were and all the height of Heaven which is sustained and upheld without Pillars and who enlarged the Earth which before was not known nor created from the East to the West and from the South to the North neither are they First and Second but a Trinity join'd in One Eternal Creator and One Council and One Word thorow all Ages Amen THESE Letters are sent by Mani Tinghil that is the Frankincense of the Virgin which was the name that was given me at my Baptism but the name I assumed when I took the Government upon me is David the Beloved of God the Pillar of the Faith of the Race of Judah the Son of David the Son of Solomon the Son of the Pillar of Sion the Son of the Seed of Jacob the Son of the Hand of Mary the Son of Nau by the Flesh Emperor of the Great and High Ethiopia and of Mighty Kingdoms and Provinces King of Xoa and Affate and of Fatigar and of Angote and Bara and of Baaligaura and of Adea and of Vangue and of Goiam where the Nile riseth and of Damarua and of Vaquem Edri Ambea Vagni Tigri Mahon and Sabaym where Queen Saba lived and of Barnagaes and Lord of all the Countries as far as Nubia on the Confines of Egypt These Letters are addressed to the most Potent and Excellent King Emanuel who liveth in the love of God and who continues stedfast in the Catholick Faith the Son of the Apostles Peter and Paul King of Portugal and Algarves the Friend of Christians the Enemy Judge and Conqueror of the Mahometans and Heathens of Africk and Guinea from the Promontory and Island of the Moon to the Red-Sea of Arabia Persia and Ormus and of the whole Indies and of all the Provinces Islands and Lands belonging to them the Destroyer of the Mahometans and of all the mighty Heathens the Lord of Towers and of High Castles and Walls the Propagator of the Faith of Jesus Christ Peace be with you King Emanuel who relying uton God's Assistance do slaughter the Mahometans and with your Fleet and Armies every where drive the Infidels out as Dogs Peace be with the Queen your Wife the Friend of Jesus Christ and the Servant of the Virgin Mary the Mother of the Saviour
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
to be a most certain and sacred Truth being delivered to us in the History of the said King David which is a Book about the bigness of St. Paul's Epistles and very pleasant to read When David was come to the Borders of Ethiopia Azarias going one day into his Tent discovered to him what he had so industriously concealed telling him he had brought the Tables of the Covenant of the Lord along with him whereupon David went straightways with him to the place where those Tables were kept and after the example of his Grandfather David danced before them with great exultation as did also the whole Company When he returned home his Mother resigned the Empire to him immediately from which time which is now near 2600 Years to this day the Empire of Ethiopia has desecended from Male to Male in a Right Line We have also ever since retained the Law of God and Circumcision and the Ministries prescribed by Solomon to his Son for the Government of the Court all which do to this day continue in the same Families and in the same Order neither is it lawful for the Emperor to put People of another Race into any of those Offices Furthermore at the Command of the said Queen Maqueda Women are Circumcised also among us Men and Women are Circumcised on the Eighth day but Male-Children are not Baptized till the Fortieth The Eucharist is Administred to Children when they are Baptized nor Female till the Eightieth day after their Birth without it be in case of Sickness and when that happens the Children are not allowed to Suck their Mothers until after they are purified the Water wherein Children are Baptized is Consecrated by Exorcisms and on the same day they are Christned they Receive the Venerable Body of Christ under the Element of Bread We were among the first Christians that received Baptism that Sacrament having been brought among us by the Eunuch of Candace Queen of Ethiopia who is spoke of in the Acts of the Apostles his Name according to our Tradition was Indick from which time to this day both Baptism and Circumcision have been in use among us and most Religiously and Christianly observed and thorough God's Grace will be so for ever We do observe nothing but what we find in the Law and the Prophets and in the Books of the Synods of the Apostles or if any thing else is observed by us it is done only for the sake of Order and for the Peace of the Church so as not to reckon it to be a Sin not to observe it Circumcision is not observed by them as a Sacrament but as a civil Custom wherefore our Circumcision is not Uncleanness but it is the Law and Grace which was given to our Father Abraham and which he received from God as a Sign not that he or his Sons should be Saved by Circumcision but that his Posterity might be distinguished thereby from all other Nations and as for what is signified by Circumcision we do observe it exactly by having our Hearts Circumcised neither do we Glory upon the account of Circumcision or prefer our selves to other Christians thereupon or reckon our selves for it the more acceptable to God with whom there is no acceptance of Persons as Paul testifies who tells us likewise that we cannot be Saved by Circumcision but by Faith for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature now by this Paul did not intend to destroy the Law but to establish it for he himself was Circumcised being of the Seed of Benjamin he Circumcised Timothy likewise after he was made a Christian his Mother being a Jewess notwithstanding his Father was a Gentile knowing that God approves both of Circumcision that is in Faith and of Uncircumcision which is by Faith for as he himself tells he was made all things to all men that he might save all to the Jews he became a Jew that he might gain the Jews and to those that were under the law as if he had been under the law which he was not that he might gain those who were under the law and to those who were without the law as if he had been without the law whereas he was not without the Law of God but was in the Law of Christ that he might gain them who were without the law he also became weak that he might gain the weak which he did that he might shew that it was not by Circumcision but by Faith that we must be Saved and so when he Preached to the Hebrews he spoke to them as Hebrews saying God hath at sundry times and in divers manners spoke to our forefathers by the Prophets and from thence proved to them that Christ was of the Seed of David according to the Flesh he Preached likewise to them That Christ was with our Fathers in their Tents in the Desart and did lead them by the hand of Joshua into the Land of Promise he furthermore testified That Christ was the Prince of the Priests and had entered into the Holy of Holies which is the New Tabernacle and had by the Sacrifice of his Body and Blood abolished the blood of Goats and Bulls by which none that came could be justified and that he had spoke to the Jews in divers manners and did suffer himself to be Worshipped by his People with divers rites and an holy and uncorrupt Faith Furthermore The Children of Christian Parents before they are Baptized are called Half-Christians Those Children are looked upon by us as Half-Christians who as I am told are reckoned to be Heathens by the Roman Church upon account of their dying without Baptism whereas being the Children of the holy Blood of Parents who have been Sanctified by Baptism and the Holy Spirit and the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ upon which Three Testimonies all that are Christians are reputed to be such they ought to be esteemed Half-Christians for there are Three who bear Witness on Earth the Spirit the Water and the Blood as St. John testifieth in his first Canonical Epistle the Gospel saith likewise That a good tree bringeth forth good fruit and an evil tree evil fruit wherefore the Children of Christians are not as the Children of the Gentiles Jews and Mahometans who are dry Trees without Fruit but are chosen in the Womb of their Mothers as the Prophet Jeremy and John the Baptist were The Children of Christian Women are furthermore Chosen and Sanctified by the Communication of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ received by their Mothers from whom they derive their Nourishment during the time they are in their Wombs for as an Infant in the Womb rejoyceth or is sorrowful according as its Mother is affected so it is nourished likewise by its Mother's nutriment for as our Lord saith in his Holy Gospel Whosoever shall eat my body and drink my blood shall never tast death and again He that eateth my
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
Bishopricks nor any other Ecclesiastical Benefices which are all in the Gift of Precious John who bestows them as he thinks good When the Patriarch whose Revenues are very great dieth the Emperor is his sole Heir It is furthermore the business of the Patriarch to excommunicate all such as are obstinate to which Censures there is so great a Respect paid that all who slight them are condemned for their whole life to a strict and perpetual Fast He grants no Indulgences neither are the Sacraments of the Church denied to any Sinners but Murtherers The Patriarch in our Tongue is called Abuna only he who at present is in possession of that Dignity is called by his Baptismal Name which is Mark he is an Hundred Years of Age and upward With us the Year begins on the First day of September which falls always on the Vigil of John the Baptist the other Holidays as the Nativity Easter c. are observed at the same time as they are in the Roman Church The Gospel and Faith of our Lord Jesus Christ was first preached among us by Philip the Apostle If you would know the name of our Emperor it is always Precious John and not Presbyter John as it is here falsly reported to be in our Language It is John Belul and in the Chalde John Encoo or Precious or High John Neither is he ever called as Matthew falsly reported Emperor of the Habassins but of the Ethiopians for he being an Armenian did not thoroughly understand our Affairs and least of all those relating to our Faith which made him report several things to the wise King Emanuel of happy Memory that were false which was not done by him with an intention to deceive for he was an honest Man but because he was not well Instructed in the Matters of our Religion The Empire does not of right descend to the Eldest Son but to him on whom the Emperor is pleased to bestow it So the present Emperor was the third Brother and got the Crown by a Pious piece of Reverence For the last Emperor having when he was upon his Death-Bed commanded all his Sons to sit down by him on Royal Thrones they all did so except my Master who said Far be it from me to sit in the Chair of my Lord for which act of Piety his Father bestowed the Empire upon him His Name is David and his Dominions of Christians and Heathens are very large in which there are divers Kings Princes Earls Barons and Nobles who are all extreamly submissive to his commands He hath no other than Foreign Coin within his Territories Gold and Silver being paid and received among us by Weight We have a great many Cities and Towns tho not built as they are here in Portugal Precious John keeps his Court perpetually in the Camp which he does on purpose to accustom the Nobility to the Hardships and Exercises of War Neither is it to be omitted that we are Besieged on all Sides by the Enemies of our Faith with whom we have frequent Battels but are always Victorious which Victories we Attribute to the Divine Assistance A Written Law is not in use among us neither are the Complaints of Litigants Transacted by Papers but by word of Mouth which makes that Law-Suits are not Protracted by the Avarice of the Judges and Advocates to any great length I am to tell you likewise that Matthew was not sent by our Emperor David to the Invincible and Powerful King Emanuel of happy Memory but by Queen Helena who was Dowager to the Emperor The Hand of Mary who was Grandfather to David and who David being under Age at that time was Regent of Ethiopia She was undoubtedly a most Wise and Religious Princess and was Mistress of so much Learning that she Composed two Books in the Chaldee Tongue The Title of the first was Euzara Clebaa that is to say Praise the Lord with Organs in which she discoursed Learnedly concerning the Trinity and the Virginity of the Blessed Virgin The Second is called Chedale Câ—ay that is the Beam of the Sun in which she has divers accurate Discourses concerning the Law of God All these things relating to the Faith Religion and State of our Countrey I Zaga Zabo that is the Grace of the Father a Bishop Presbyter and Bagama Raz that is to say a Soldier and Viceroy of the Province of Bagana could not deny to Thee Damianus my dearest Son in Christ nor indeed to any one that should have desired it of me And that for two Reasons 1. Because I was commanded by the Most Potent Lord Precious John Emperor of Ethiopia not to conceal any thing relating to our Faith and Countrey from such as should desire to have an account thereof but to Communicate the whole truth of all such matters to them both by Writing and word of Mouth 2. Because I judged it convenient to acquaint this part of the World with our Manners Rites and Institutions and that the rather because I had neither said nor writ any thing thereof before not that I grudged my labour but because no Christian Soul since I came into Portugal had ever desired me to do it which is a thing I cannot wonder at enough I do therefore knowing you to be extreamly curious to be acquainted with our Affairs beseech you by the Wounds and Cross of Christ to Translate this Confession of Faith and Religion into the Latin Tongue that so the Integrity of our Manners and Rites may be known to all European Christians and if you should at any time happen to go to Rome I must intreat you to Salute the Pope Cardinals Patriarchs Archbishops Bishops and all the other Worshippers of Christ in my Name with the Kiss of Peace And to desire the Pope to send Francis Alvarez back to me with an Answer to the Letters of my Most Potent Lord the Emperor of Ethiopia that so I may at last return to my own Country and once more see my own House having been detained here too long already and that before I am arrested by Death which by reason of my great Age I must be in a short time I may carry back an Answer to my Master and having finished my Embassy may Dedicate the remainder of my Days to God and Divine Matters And in case this Treatise should not be so accurately Composed as it ought to be I must beseech you to Correct it and Adapt it to the Latin Phrase but so as not to alter the sense Finally I must intreat you in the Translation thereof to consult the Old and New Testaments that you may the better understand out of what Books I have taken my Quotations and may be able to translate them the more faithfully And in case matters should not be so curiously handled therein as to satisfy Critical Readers the fault thereof must be imputed to my want of Chaldee Books of which I have not one by me those I brought from home with me having been
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
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
one day in discourse to ask the Father Why after seven years captivity he did not think of returning home to his own Countrey meaning Armenia the Father told him That there was nothing that he was so desirous of as to see Armenia but that he was afraid to venture himself again in the Turkish Territories Aga thereupon did frankly undertake to put him in a way to get home with safety offering to carry him along with him to Matzua and Suaqhem and from thence to Cayr from whence he promised to send him with a Pass to Jerusalem from which place he might return home without any danger The Father having thanked Aga for his kind offer told him he would accept of it provided he would give him leave when he was at Matzua to make a step into Ethiopia to negotiate a little business he had to do there desiring him withal not to let the Governor of Dio know any thing of his design of returning home for that he would certainly stop him if he came to hear of it Aga who did not know but that he might have occasion to return to Dio again and for that reason being unwilling to do any thing whereby he might disoblige the Governour told the Father That though he should be very glad to serve him in taking him along with him yet unless he could obtain leave of the Governour to go he must pardon him for not doing it The Father being well pleased with this scruple of Aga's did promise since he would not carry him without it to try to obtain leave of the Governour to go with him And with such Engano's or Tricks saith a Jesuit Father Peter cheated the Devil The Father having communicated the whole Farce to the Governour he was so well pleased with it that he helped to carry it on by shewing Aga extraordinary Civilities for the kindness he intended to do to the good Armenian On the 22d of March 1603. Aga and his Armenian set sail from Dio and on the 26th of April they arrived safe at Matzua where the Bashaw being in the Countrey the Father upon Aga's recommendation was treated very kindly by Mustadem the Lieutenant-Govournor who at the first word granted him leave to go for some time into Ethiopia to negotiate the business he pretended to have there Father Peter notwithstanding his civil treatment was in pain till he was got from Matzua and having notice of six Christians that were bound for Ethiopia he took the opportunity of their company and having fixed his Journey on the 5th of May he went to take his leave of his Patron Aga who promised to wait two months for him at Matzua by which time the Armenian assured him he would be with him again In seven days the Father and his Company got to Deboran where he was waited on by Captain John Gabriel Father Peter a Spanish Jesuit steals into Ethiopia with several other Portugueses who did all accompany him to Fremona where Father Sylva resided and the Patriarch and most of his Companions had been buried The first thing he did after his coming to Fremona was to acquaint the Emperor whose name was Jacob with his arrival and to offer him his service the Emperor returned him a kind Answer telling him That after the Winter was over he should be glad to see him at his Court. This Jacob was a Natural Son of the last Emperor Malac Sagued Jacob the Natural Son of Malac Sagued was then Emperor who having left no Male-Children by his Empress Mariam Cima had named this Jacob at his Death his Successor in wrong to his Nephew Za Danguil the Son of his Brother Lepena Christo For notwithstanding it is in the power of the Habassin Emperor to name his Successor he is by the Laws of the Land tied to nominate a Male of the Royal Blood born in Wedlock Jacob was but an Infant when his Father died which was perhaps the chief reason why the Empress and Grandees of the Court were so zealous for his nomination hoping during his long Minority to have the Government wholly in their own hands And so the first thing they did after the old Emperor's breath was out of his body was to secure Za Danguil that he might give them no molestation which they reckoned they had done sufficiently by making him a close Prisoner in the Island of Deck in the Lake of Dembea For Seven Years the Government was entirely in the hands of the Empress and her Two Sons-in-law Ras Athanateus and Calfunde the Viceroy of Tigre who had been the chief Promoters of Jacob's Nomination to the Crown and who having tasted of the sweet of Sovereign Authority were very unwilling to part with it to Jacob now he was of Age according to the Custom of the Empire to take it upon himself and to prevent that they had given him an Education which they reckoned would have rendred him both unfit to govern and have disposed him to have been satisfied with the easy and gawdy Title of Emperor without troubling himself with the exercise of its Authority But they found themselves mistaken Jacob so soon as he was Fifteen declaring He was now of Age to govern both Himself and the Empire and that he would be no longer under Pupilage nor be kept a Minor all his days out of gratitude to those who had helped him to the Title of Emperor but with a design of keeping the Sovereign Authority in themselves The Empress and her two Sons resented this Treatment from a Creature of their own making so highly that they resolved to try to unmake him again and that they might do it with the better grace they pretended to be troubled in Conscience for the Injury they had done to Za Danguil in having persuaded the late Emperor his Uncle to lay him aside who was his true Heir And having with this and some other Popular Pretences brought most of the Grandees of the Court into a Conspiracy to depose Jacob and advance Za Danguil to the Crown they so order'd the matter Jacob is Deposed and Za Danguil made Emperor that Za Danguil appeared in the Camp and was proclaimed Emperor by them before Jacob ever so much as dreamt of their having any such design Nevertheless being advertised thereof by the Acclamations of the Camp he put himself on Horseback not to fight but to make his escape which he did only with eight of his Servants But as he was posting towards the Mountains the Countrey rose upon him and brought him back a Prisoner The new Emperor though advised by several of his Counsellors to cut off his Ears and Nose would not consent to it the Habassins as we shall see hereafter until their Princes came to be influenc'd by Jesuits being very merciful in their punishments so he contented himself with sending him into the remote Province of Narea ordering the Governor thereof to keep him a close Prisoner This Revolution happening the Winter after
to repair immediately to his Camp promising to grant him every thing that he should desire of him The Father his two Spiritual Patients being either Dead or quite Recovered by this time accepted readily of the invitation and being come to Athanateus's Camp was received by him with extraordinary Kindness and Respect But the Father after he had been some time among the Rebels finding their Heads strangely divided how they should dispose of the Crown now they had it in their hands Finding them divided he retires to wait to see where the Crown would fix some of them being for restoring it to Jacob and others for giving it to Suseneus a Bastard Son of Faciladas the Third Son of the Emperor David he judged it his safest course to retire to Fremona there to wait till he saw where the Crown would fix and having received advice of the arrival of some Jesuits at Fremona that furnished him with a fair pretence for leaving Athanateus to go thither to learn what news they brought from the Indies And having got Athanateus's promise That the Portugueses who were in the Emperor's Service should not be punished with the loss of their Estates which they were reckoned to have forfeited he took his leave of him for some time The Father when he came to Fremona found the Two Jesuits there who were to have come along with him from Dio and within a few days after Two Fathers more came to him who were Father Lawrence an Italian and Father Luis a Portuguese so that the Jesuits were now as strong as ever in Ethiopia only they wanted a Patriarch Father Peter during this his retirement is said to have taken a great deal of pains to little purpose with an Habassin Monk to convert him to the Roman Church but what the Father could not do was done one Night by a dream the Monk had which was That he should certainly be damned if he did not go presently and confess himself to the Father Whom we shall leave confessing his dreaming Convert and return to see what the Rebels are doing The Grandees The Grandees are divided so me being for restoring Jacob others for Crowning Suseneus and some for themselves tho they all agreed to pull down the late Emperor yet when they came to fill the Throne again fell all in pieces some being for restoring Jacob and others for proclaiming Suseneus without so much as once mentioning the Son of the late Emperor being afraid it is like to put the Son in the Throne they had dragged the Father out of This Suseneus as has been observed was a natural Son of Faciladas the Viceroy of Gojam the Third Son of the Emperor David He had been most of his time in Arms not against the Emperors but their Ministers who he pretended had unjustly deprived him of the Lands that were left him by his Father by which course of life he was become the best Captain and had got a small body of the best Disciplined men in Ethiopia under his Command Upon the present Vacancy of the Throne Suseneus proclaims himself Emperor Suseneus looking upon his own title to it to be the same with that of Jacob's who was a bastard no less than he sends his Confident Bella Christos to Rez Athanateus to acquaint him with his intention of pretending to the Crown and to try if he could persuade him to declare for him making vast promises of what he would do for him if he would help him to it Athanateus who upon some heats which had happened between them had left Za Selasse who was altogether for restoring Jacob received Suseneus's Message but coldly which makes it probable that he was for setting up himself being incouraged to do it by some promises that had been made him of Portuguese Succors but Suseneus apprehending that it would be so followed the Messenger he sent to Athanateus in Person with his Army and being come within a days March of him sent him word that if he did not declare for him presently he would visit him next day and did not doubt but to give him cause to repent of his Irresolution Athanateus being sensible that he could neither avoid coming to blows with Suseneus nor was strong enough to deal with him submitted and joined with him in proclaiming him Emperor Upon which reinforcement Suseneus dispatched a Courier to Za Selasse and his Confederates to acquaint them with his being now proclaimed Emperor of Ethiopia commanding them upon their Allegiance and as they loved themselves and their Countrey to lay down their Arms and submit themselves peaceably to him Za Selasse who was a turbulent man and cared for no Emperor that was not of his own making nor for them long neither was much surprized at this brisk Message and having called a Council of War to consider what was best to be done in this juncture it was unanimously agreed that they should send Suseneus back word that they had sent for the Emperor Jacob and were every day expecting him to resume the Crown he had been so unjustly deprived of Suseneus tho much troubled at this answer sent them a Second Message immediately to acquaint them That since God had been pleased to bestow the Crown upon him he was resolved never to part with it but with his life neither to Jacob nor to his Father Malac Sagued if he should rise from the Dead and pretend to it Za Selasse detaining this Second Messenger Prisoner went himself with his Army to return an answer to Suseneus who having received advice of his advancing towards him and knowing himself not to be strong enough to give him Battel retreated to the Mountains of Amara leaving Athanateus to shift for himself and to make the best terms he could with the Confederates who upon his having pleaded that he was constrained much against his will to give his consent to Suseneus being proclaimed Emperor was not only pardoned by them but was restored to his former Post in their Army Upon Jacob's delaying to come to the Army he is chose Emperor by them which having waited some Months and no Jacob appearing among them the Soldiers began to Mutiny telling their Officers plainly That they would wait no longer for a Milksop who had neither the wit to keep a Crown when he had it nor the courage to come to have it restored to him again Za Selasse not knowing what to say for Jacob's not having come all that time and fearing lest the Soldiers and Officers might declare Suseneus Emperor without him resolved to be before-hand with them and to have the thanks of doing it himself And accordingly he dispatched a Courier immediately to Suseneus to invite him to come and take the Empire upon him promising to maintain him in the possession thereof with the last drop of his blood Suseneus tho overjoy'd at the News did not care to trust his person with the Army without some farther assurance of their good intentions
him in his pretentions to the Empire to the utmost of his power Suseneus was too sensible of how great advantage it would be to him to gain such a popular man as Selasse to his party to deny him any thing that he desired and so notwithstanding his terms were extravagantly high he granted them all without making any words about them knowing that whenever he should come to be possessed of the Empire Selasses's turbulent Spirit would undoubtedly furnish him with pretences to justifie his not making good his promises to him in any particular that should not be for his honour or safety to grant to him Za Selasses's Courier being returned to him with a full grant of all that he had desired of Suseneus and that not only under his own hand Jacob's General goes over to Suseneus but confirmed with the solemnity of an Oath he withdrew himself privately from the Emperor's Camp and having got into the Kingdom of Gojam of which he had been made Viceroy a little before by Jacob he there in a short time got together a considerable body of Men with which he Marched and joyned Suseneus who received him with all possible demonstrations of joy and affection as one sent from Heaven to help him to the Empire which he had set his heart so much upon that he did not care to outlive the hopes of attaining it Suseneus judging himself with this Reinforcement strong enough to fight Jacob Marched out of the Mountains to meet him intending to decide their Quarrel by a pitch'd Battel but when he came near Jacob's Camp finding him much stronger than he thought he had been he changed his measures resolving to act only upon the defence But Jacob having now got his Enemy out of his Fastnesses and knowing himself to be much superior to him in number for he is said to have had Thirty to One determined to fall upon him in his Camp and having got between him and the Mountains he commanded the Signal for a general Assault to be given which being observed by Suseneus he called all his Officers together and told them That since it was not now possible for them to avoid a Battel they must either resolve to make themselves Lords and Princes by fighting manfully or be content to be Slaves so long as they lived That for his part he was resolved either to Conquer or not to survive the Battel desiring them to Fight no longer than they saw him facing the Enemy That if they would Sally out of their Trenches and fall upon the Enemy which he took to be the best course it being what the Enemy did not expect he would lead them on in Person The Officers and Soldiers being strangely animated by this brisk Speech gave a shout Jacob and Suseneus come to a Battel and said They were ready to follow him wheresoever he should lead them or to go wheresoever he would Command them Suseneus glad to see his men in such a heat did not give them time to cool but marched or rather rushed like a torrent upon the Enemy disordering them so by the violence of the first shock he gave them that they dispersed immediately so that it was much more like a Slaughter than a Fight the Conqueror having lost but Three Men in the Action for where-ever Suseneus appeared the Enemy according as his Historian Timo reports fell before him as so many dry leaves off a fig-tree before the wind or like a swarm of Locusts when they fall into the Sea Jacob not caring it 's like Jacob is Killed fighting to live to be Deposed a second time was killed fighting as was also the Abuna whom Jacob had carried with him to fulminate his Excommunications against his Enemies Raz Athanateus who had stuck to Jacob to the last having made his escape shut himself into the Monastery of Dina where he continued till he had obtained his Pardon which was procured by the New Emperor's Brother Raz Sela Christos the Heroe as we shall see hereafter of the Jesuits Histories Suseneus whom hereafter we are to call Seltem Saged having Pardoned all that were in Arms against him excepting the Mahometan Mahurdin who had killed the Emperor Za Danguil with his own hand had all the Grandees instantly at his feet and the acclamations of the common People as loud as his Predecessor The Fathers during all the time of this broyl kept close at Fremona expecting to see to whom the Crown would fall at last and having received certain advice of Seltem Saged's great Success and of his being proclaimed Emperor every where they sent two of their number to wait upon him and Congratulate him upon his late Victory Father Peter who had been so very intimate with Jacob not being looked upon as so fit a Person for to carry this Complement The Two Fathers Two Fathers are sent from Fremona to Congratulate Suseneus who took the Name of Seltem Saged whose Names were Lawrence Romano and Antony Fernandez were graciously received by the Emperor who to do them the greater Honour commanded his Purveyor to send their Supper to them and was afterwards so mindful of them as to ask him whether he had sent them any Wine and being told that by reason of the Wines being distributed among the Nobles before he was ordered to send them any thing he had not the Emperor was very angry asking him How he durst be guilty of such an Error commanding him to go presently and carry his own portion of Wine to them saying I will drink Water rather than they shall When the Fathers judged it proper they went to wait upon the Emperor a second time who after some Complements asked them Where they resided And being told by them That they had no certain Habitation in Habassia He thereupon appointed them a Residence in a place near the Lake of Dembea The Fathers having thanked him for his kind offer told him That they would be better satisfied if he would be pleased to order their former Residence at Gorgora which had been taken from them after they had built a Church there to be restored to them again which he ordered to be done presently commanding them to write to Father Peter The Emperor sends to Father Peter to come to him of whom he said he had heard great things to come to him but not being satisfied with having bid them do it he sent an express to him himself to come to Court immediately The Father when he came was most graciously received by the Emperor who every time the Father waited upon him which he did daily entered into a discourse with him about Religion Father Tellez though he would not take upon him to decide who had the best Title to the Crown Jacob or Suseneus sets down what was to be said on both sides Jacob saith he was undoubtedly nighest to the Crown in the Royal Line in being the Son of Malac Saged who was Emperor he had besides
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
Emperor to do the same and to yield obedience to your Holiness But whereas it is not possible for the Emperor to yield that obedience openly until such time as he shall have a Thousand Portugueses sent by Don Philip the most Powerful King of Spain to be his Guards and being informed that in the Letter your Holiness did my Brother the honour to write to him you signified that you had ordered your Apostolick Nuncio residing at the Court of his Catholick Majesty to sollicit that Affair with extraordinary diligence I took the confidence humbly to intreat your Holiness to bring it speedily to a conclusion that so that good work may be done during my Brother the Emperor's Life and so glorious an occasion of saving a lost flock and of restoring it to its true Pastor may not be lost Whenever the Soldiers come they will find me prepared to die in my Saddle with them for the faith if there should be occasion I shall also with all my force labour to constrain others to embrace it and to yield obedience publickly to your Holiness and in the mean time I will do all I can to dispose and incline our people to the faith which I am endeavouring at this time by translating with the assistance of the Fathers the Commentaries of John Maldonat upon the Gospels with an intention of translating several other Books after that is finished Wherefore most blessed Father let your Holiness look upon me as your Servant who am resolved to defend your Apostolick See with my Sword as well as with all the Learning I am Master of to the doing whereof I shall be much enabled by the Prayers which your Holiness shall command to be offered for me your Humble Servant before the most holy Bodies of the Apostles Written at Dembea the 2d of February 1613. The way the Ambassadors were to take being setled A particular account of the Embassador's Journey they begun their Journey in the beginning of March 1613 going first to Gojam where they were kindly entertain'd for some time by the Viceroy besides their Habassin Retinue they were attended by Ten Portugueses Six whereof were to accompany them only to the Kingdom of Narea but the other Four were to go with them to the Indies On the Fifth of March they departed from Ombrana with a strong Guard and having Travelled Westward two days they arrived at Sinasse the chief Town of Gongas where having in the Viceroy's name demanded a Guard to conduct them to the Nile it was deni'd them by the Infidels the Natives of that Countrey being all such Whereupon they dispatched a Courier presently to the Viceroy to acquaint them therewith who immediately ordered three Companies of Soldiers to March to Sinasse and after having Conveyed the Ambassadors safe to Nile in their return to chastise the Gongazians for their Insolence but the Infidels having had Intelligence how much the Viceroy resented their disobedience in order to pacify him gave the Ambassadors a Guard which waited upon them to Minascet a Town that stands upon the winding which the Nile makes towards Egypt The Embassadors passed that River which was very high at that time upon Borachoes or hides full of Wind After which they Travelled directly South till they came to the Kingdom of Narea whose Borders are about Fifty Leagues distant from that River The Cafres who are the Natives though subject to the Habassin disturbed them so much in their Journey that they were forced to purchase a passage through the Countrey with trifling Presents Being arrived at Gondas they were kindly entertained by the Governor to whom the Viceroy had recommended them as his particular friends They industriously are sent out of their way Narea is the most Southern Countrey of Ethiopia and is about Thirty or Forty Leagues in compass its Inhabitants are reckoned to be the best and honestest sort of people in the whole Habassin Empire they are well Shaped and not very Black and have thin Lips and long Noses the Countrey is Fertile and Populous and its chief Trade is in Slaves in the Buying and Selling of whom its Merchants are said to be wonderfully honest They were first Converted to Christianity by Malac Saged to which they had always been well disposed From Gonda the Embassadors went in Six days to the place where the Xuma or Viceroy of the Kingdom of Narea has his residence by whom they were received very coldly upon his being jealous that their business was to bring a Portuguese Army into Ethiopia to force them to turn Roman Catholicks and having called together all his Officers to consult how to Defeat this pernicious design it was agreed among them that the best way to divert this storm was to persuade the Embassadors to change their course and to go to the Indies by the way of Baly and the Cape of Darfuy which they represented to be both the shorter and safer way than that the Court had Chaked out for them knowing at the same time that it would be impossible for them to Travel through the Countries which are in the road to Daffuy several of them being subject to Mahometan Princes who would not suffer any private Christian and much less Christian Embassadors to Travel through their Countries Baly is a Kingdom that belonged formerly to the Habassin but was then in the Possession of the Mahometans and Gauls it borders upon Adel lying to the East of Narea so that the Embassadors in going that way went back again in a manner neither was the way that the Court had order'd them to take much better by reason of the vast Deserts and the unknown Nations they were to have passed through before they got to Melinde The Viceroy having persuaded them to go his way was very officious to furnish them with a Guard to conduct them out of his Kingdom and to blind his design the more sent an Envoy to the King of Gingiro through whose territories they were to pass to obtain a free and safe passage for them Being arrived at the Banks of Zebee which is a much bigger River than the Nile and which running like a torrent amongst steep Rocks makes a most hideous noise they met with a Bridge which was only a single Plank reaching from one Rock to another and which besides that it was at a prodigious height from the water it was so weak as to bend with the weight of one man but there being no other Bridge they were constrained to make use of this and in a days time they all passed over it without losing a man Being now in the Kingdom of Gingiro they halted at a Village not far from the Bridge sending the Viceroy's Envoy before to acquaint the King of the Countrey with their arrival but the King who was a Heathen was at that time so much employed in some extraordinary Conjurations that it was a Week before the Envoy was permitted to speak with him but so soon as the Solemnity was
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
greatest Saints that had ever wore a Crown But upon his returning to re-establish the Alexandrian Faith again which he did not many years after we have this great Character recanted being represented on that occasion and that by the same Missionaries as a wretch that had never any thing in him that was good So that Princes are Saints or Devils with some people as they are Friends or Foes to the Pope of which Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots are a home instance After the Emperor the Princes Viceroys The Submission of the Prince Grandees and Ecclesiasticks and Ecclesiasticks of the Court made their Submissions saying I. N. do Promise Offer and Swear the same So help me God and these Holy Gospels When the Solemnity of Swearing was ended Raz Cella Christos began an harangue and having talked himself into an heat he drew his Sword and holding it up naked said what is now is now and what is past is past but whosoever shall not do his duty hereafter this shaking his Sword shall be his Judge After this all that were present took an Oath to Prince Basilides as Heir and Successor to his Father which Oath say the Jesuits when the Great Raz Cella Christos came to take he like a true Son of the Roman Church took it with a Condition worthy of his Courage and Christianity saying I Swear to the Prince as Heir to his Father in the Empire and I do promise to Obey him as a Loyal Subject so long as he shall Hold Defend and Favour the Holy Catholick Faith which whensoever he shall cease to do I will be both his first and greatest Enemy All his Officers and Servants taking the Oath to the Prince with the same Condition The Solemnity was concluded with an Excommunication pronounced by the Patriarch aginst those who should at any time violate these Oaths and with two Proclamations the one prohibiting all Habassin Priests to perform any Ecclesiastical Office before they had presented themselves to the Patriarch and the other Commanding all the Subjects of the Empire upon pain of Death to embrace Popery and to discover all such as adhered to their Ancient Religion Commanding them likewise to observe Lent and Easter according to the Roman Stile The next thing to be done A new revenue is setled on the Patriarch was to settle a Revenue on the Patriarch suitable to the heighth of his Dignity to which the Lands and Perquisites of the former Abuna's were not reckoned to be sufficient the Emperor therefore bestowed a great Estate in Land lying upon the shoar of the Lake of Dembea upon him giving him also the Palace of the Empress Mariam Eima and ordering another Palace to be Built for him in Dancaz where the Court resided for the most part The Patriarch having thus feather'd his own Nest begun to look abroad and having got the Emperor to found a College for Sixty Students at Dancaz he begun to send his Missionaries about and not having Fathers enough for so great an harvest he was forc'd to make use of such Habassins as were observed to have the most Zeal for the Roman Church And as it is common with some People to reckon a work done before it is well begun The Jesuits do reckon their work done before it was well begun so when the News of this solemn submission came to Lisbon Ethiopia was reckoned to be the Pope's as sure as Portugal for in a Book Printed there in the year 1623. by one Vega a Jesuit the World was told That the fervour wherewith the Habassins crowded into the bosom of Mother Church was too great to be either expressed or conceived and that there was nothing to be heard all over that vast Empire but Praises of the Roman Faith Old and Young Rich and Poor declaring that there was nothing to be compared to it and that whereas hitherto they had been as blind as Bats and miserably imposed upon they do now behold the Light and are happily rescued from the Blindness and Cheats of false Teachers the Roman being the only Faith that deserved to be maintained and if there should be occasion that is worth the dying for Nay the Patriarch himself as appears from a Letter of his sent to Portugal about this time was pretty sanguine too having assured the Fathers of his Society That he spoke within compass when he said an Hundred thousand had been Converted within a Year to the Roman Church which considering that Ethiopia is no very populous Countrey was an extraordinary Harvest And I do well remember that in the year 1685. he would have been looked upon at Lisbon as one of the greatest lyars in the World that should have denied that in Eight Months time above Six hundred thousand Protestants had been Christened for that was the word in England There were likewise a great many pretty stories Pretty stories sent from Habassia either sent from Ethiopia or made at Lisbon upon this occasion I shall only set down one of them by which the Reader may judge of the rest The Emperor having one day commanded one of his Sons who was but a Child to take up the Cudgels for the Roman Church against one of the most Learned of the Habassin Monks Bellarmine for so the Emperor used to call that Child took the Monk to task presently asking him without any premeditation Whether he Believed Christ to have been God before he was Born The Monk made answer be did Bellarmine then asked him Whether he did not believe God's Nature to be different from Man's Nature The Monk answered It was undoubtedly Hold your hand then said Bellarmine since you acknowledge he was God that took Man's Nature upon him How can you deny that there must be Two Natures in Christ with which argument the poor Monk was struck as mute as a Fish It is no great matter whether this story was true or not it being enough that it was pat for a Sermon upon the Text Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings c. But as all other Orders as we have hinted before do accuse the Jesuit Missionaries of magnifying their own Labours and Successes thus beyond all the bounds of Credibility so they do complain likewise of their disparaging the Labours of all other Friars in their remote Missions Of which Proud and envious carriage the Jesuits resident at Agra do in their Letters of this Year to their Superiors at Goa furnish us with a notable instance where speaking of some Friars who I suppose were Carmelites being come newly to that City they say They were so high-flown as to pretend to nothing under Raising the Dead adding they have begun to work but we do not as yet hear that they have Raised any that were Dead to Life We pray God they may prove true Prophets But though the Roman Church was thus Triumphant at Court the whole Body of the Empire notwithstanding the late bloody Proclamation was extreamly
until he had rid Ethiopia of them as we shall see hereafter In the Year 1629 the Agau's of Begameder took up Arms for their Religion and having Massacred the Soldiers that were Quartered upon them and drive their Viceroy Za Mariam out of the Province The Agus take up Arms in Defence of their Religion they sent Envoys to a Prince of the Royal Family who had taken sanctuary among the Gauls to come and take the Crown of Ethiopia which belonged to him of right upon him promising to stand by him in Defence of their Religion with their Lives and Fortunes This Prince was probably Son either to the late Emperor Jacob or to Za Danguil who are both said to have had Sons though we hear nothing of them after their Fathers were slain unless we will believe Zaga Christi who died at Ruel near Paris in the Year 1629 to have been the Son of Jacob as he pretended and who reported there that it was with the assistance of the Portugueses that Suseneus had Conquered and Murthered his Father on the account of his being an Enemy to the Roman Faith But whosesoever Son this Prince was whom the Agau's had invited to take the Crown upon him he came to them with the Envoys they had sent to him and having accepted of the Crown did swear to defend the Alexandrian Faith against all the world Upon which the Monks who were enraged almost to madness by the Emperor's having commanded all his Subjects of what Degree or Quality soever immeditely to turn Roman Catholicks flocked to their Alexandrian Emperor from all Parts declaring against the Emperor as another Julian the Apostate and who was not content with having abandoned the Religion of his Fathers himself but he would force all the People of Ethiopia to follow his Example By which tragical Exclamations they raised the Countrey whereever they came chiefly the Peasants of Lasta who have the reputation of being the stoutest Men in the whole Empire But the Emperor having got together an Army of Twenty five thousand Foot and Two thousand Horse Marched towards the Peasants by the way of Gojam in the beginning of February and having attacked the strong Mountain of Lasta on all sides he was beat back having besides his General and several Persons of the first Quality Seven hundred Soldiers slain in the Action The Peasants flushed with this Success followed their blow so close that they obliged the Emperor to Retreat and had not Kebo Christos come in to him very seasonably with a Body of old Troops it was thought the Peasants would have gone near to have hemmed him in among the Mountains which if they had done they would have had him and his whole Army at their mercy The Emperor The Emperor is obliged to employ his Brother against them though very unwilling to have employed his Brother any more was forced by the condition of his Affairs to do it not having a Man besides him that knew how to Command an Army and accordingly he sent to him to come and take that Command upon him Raz Cella who since his Disgrace had retired into the Countrey of the Agau's having received this Message from the Emperor yeilded Obedience to it and having after he had got into Gojam placed Guards in all the Passages the Agau's had into that Province he repaired to Court where he was received with great appearances of Respect and Affection But the News which came a few days after of the Agau's being got into the heart of Gojam which they were plundering at a most unmerciful rate the Soldiers that had been left by Raz Cella to Guard the Passages having all either run home or gone over to the Agau's so soon as they approached them revived Peoples former jealousies of Raz Cella it being in every bodies mouth He is accused of treachery That he was in a Correspondence with the Agau 's and had placed such Men in the Passes as he knew certainly would go over to them or that at least would not oppose them Whereupon Raz Cella that he might clear himself of these suspicions Marched with all the speed he could towards the Agau's who having advice of his advancing towards them withdrew returning home full of the Spoils of that rich Countrey which the Alexandrians said considently Raz Cella might have prevented if he had had a mind to it But notwithstanding all these surmises and that his having thus obliged the Agau's to leave Gojam was no argument at all of his having had no hand in letting them into it the Emperor was it seems so well satisfied with his Conduct that he gave him the Viceroyship of that Kingdom again giving the Chief Command of the Army to the Prince The Prince abandons the Roman and goes intirely into the Alexandrian interest who was now become a mortal Enemy to the Patriarch and the Fathers The Alexandrians having thus got the Prince intirely in their Interest begun to contrive how to rid the Court of all that were Champions for Popery in it and having persuaded the Emperor to send his Brother into Gojam they got him likewise to send Kebo Christos who was the second great stickler for Popery into Tigre whereof he was Viceroy pretending his presence there was necessary by reason of its neighbourhood to the Peasants that were in Arms. Kebo though he was sensible upon what design he was Commanded to his Government yet not being in a condition to refuse The Romanists lose ground at Court daily he pretended to be very willing to leave the Court giving this for his reason That he was not able to bear the coldness that increased in it daily for Popery declaring That he had much rather be slain by the Peasants of Lasta Fighting for the Faith than continue Chamberlain to the Emperor and be obliged to Persecute those Good Men who had instructed him therein which he saw plainly the Court would be brought to do in a short time Thus Kebo full of fears and discontents left the Court and being arrived at Tigre went immediately to Fremona where having spent some days with the Fathers only about Ghostly business he advanced from thence with a small Body into the Kingdom of Amahara where the Prince had promised to joyn him with the Army but Kebo having been sent thither by the Alexandrians on purpose to be Sacrificed Their great Champion Kebo is sent into Tigre to be Sacrificed no Prince came near him and having waited for him till his Provisions were all spent the Peasants as he was retreating to Tigre fell upon his Rear and having Slain him as he was Fighting Manfully to have made good his Retreat his Soldiers who were all in their hearts Alexandrians so soon as they saw their General fall went over to the Peasants as to the Defenders of their Faith The Patriarch who performed a solemn Office for Kebo's Soul was wonderfully afflicted for the loss of such a Champion
Patriarch Replied That as to the Customs of Fasting on Wednesdays and of using their Old Offices as he had mended them and of Observing the Festivities as formerly which were all that his Highness had desired of him he had granted them all already and was ready to grant them every thing that was in his Power and not contrary to the Faith wherefore since his Highness did not intend that there should be any Alteration made in Matters of Faith he beseeched him to put forth a Proclamation declaring That as he was of the Roman Faith himself so it was his Will and Pleasure That all his Subjects should be of the same and that as to matters of Custom he was ready to comply with them therein so far as the Faith would permit him In which request the Bishop and Five Fathers seconded him with great earnestness but to no purpose the Emperor telling them plainly That he could do no more for Popery than he had done The Patriarch who was for leaving no stone unturned went from the Emperor to wait upon the Prince and having told him the same story he told his Father the Prince seemed to be surprized with the news and returned such Answers as would have imposed upon a weak Man but the Patriarch knowing him to be Master of a most profound Dissimulation and an inveterate Enemy to the Roman Church gathered from his ambiguous Answers That without a Miracle the Roman Faith could not be much longer supported in Ethiopia So they all returned to the Patriarch's Palace desperately afflicted with the present sad prospect of their Affairs The Alexandrians that they might bring the Emperor under a necessity of executing what had been agreed on in Council had industriously spread a report That on St. John Baptist's day their Ancient Faith was to be restored to them which report having brought all the Countrey to the Camp to be present at the Solemnity they then told the Emperor That there was no remedy but he must either Restore to his People the Religion of their Fathers or run a great hazard of his Crown since the Pecple who were come in such vast multitudes in hopes of having it done if they were disappointed would be thrown into such a Fury that no body could tell where it might end The Emperor made answer That he was willing his good Subjects should enjoy their Old Religion but that he might not be worse than his word to the Patriarch he commanded some of his Servants to go and wait upon him and acquaint him with the necessity there was of gratifying his People with a Toleration of the Alexandrian Faith Za Mariam who was in the number of those that were commanded to carry this Message to the Patriarch being admitted to speak with him told him in the Emperor's Name and words We have embraced your Faith and have been at much pains about it but our People do not care for it so though it was really out of hatred to Raz Cella that Julius took up Arms nevertheless the pretence that helped him to an Army was that he would defend the Old Religion who with vast multitudes of People that had flocked in to him was destroyed Cabrael and Guergis used the same pretence and had the same success And Cerca Christos and the Peasants who are now in Arms have no Quarrel with me but for having prohibited them the exercise of their Religion The Faith of Rome is not bad but as I have told you formerly my People do not understand it and are very well contented to live and die in the Religion they were brought up in I am resolved therefore since they are so fond of it to let them alone with it and if there are any that are inclinable to the Roman Faith they shall have free Liberty to Profess it as the Portugueses who have been among us ever since the Reign of Asnaf Saged have had When Mariam had done speaking the Patriarch asked him Whether it was by the Emperor 's Express Order that he had delivered him that Message Mariam told him it was The Patriarch made no other reply But that Ethiopia had never been without Wars before the Roman Faith was known in it and that he would return an Answer to the Emperor after he had advised with his Brethren Who having consulted together drew up the following Manifesto which they sent to the Emperor by Father Manuel YOUR Highness has sent me word The Patriarch's manifesto against it That being upon the point of losing your Empire for your Zeal to establish the Roman Religion you are resolved to let your People alone with their Old Faith and that you will at the same time grant Liberty to all that shall have a mind to embrace Popery Sir My Affection for you is nothing inferior to that I have for the King of Portugal being as ready to condescend to every thing that is for the Interest of your Kingdoms as you can desire provided it do not clash with the Purity of the Faith for as whatever is a Sin can never be for the good of any Kingdom so neither can I grant any such thing neither ought your Highness to desire it of me There are two things to be observed in this great Affair the one concerns the Peasants who having never embraced the Roman Faith your Highness may for some time wink at their living in the Heresie of their Fathers the other concerns those who have embraced the Roman Faith and Communicated with that Church and not only so but have obliged themselves by Oaths to be always Obedient to her Now to these your Highness cannot say You may if you please live in the Faith of your Fathers since it would be a grievous Sin against God in you to do so as it would be in me likewise if I should either advife you to it or consent to your doing it And were it lawful for one that is a Foreigner to meddle with your Government or to give advice about it I would tell you that it is my Opinion That your Highness will certainly Ruin your Empire by granting Liberty of Conscience which must necessarily fill it with Dissentions and Civil Wars For what but Blood and Wars can follow upon one part of your Subjects being for the Roman and the other part for the Alexandrian Faith And must not the having of an Abuna for one Party and a Patriarch for the other infallibly end in Two Kingdoms and Two Kings Whether the Patriarch believed the Popish Party to be so Numerous in Ethiopia as to have made a considerable division therein upon a Toleration or talked so only to terrifie the Emperor it is certain that the Toleration was no sooner published than the whole Body of the Court and Countrey returned to their Old Religion insomuch that Father Manuel happening after he had delivered the Patriarch's Manifesto to the Emperor to tell him That by granting Liberty of Conscience he would undoubtedly
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
and false in another The Patriarch's Letter having been read in the Council it was Debated therein Whether they should gratifie him with a publick Disputation and though that was carried in the Negative it was judged convenient however that an Answer in the Emperor's Name should be returned to it Which was as followeth The Letter of Seltem Saged cometh to the Patriarch with the Peace of God My Lord HEAR what we say and write to you The Emperor's answer to the Patriarch We have received your Letter and do understand all that it contains As to your desiring to know why we have turned you out of the Post wherein God and the Emperor had placed you Your Lordship cannot but be sensible that so long as we were under our Father the Emperor we never disobeyed him in any one thing nor did we ever so much as open our mouth against any thing that he did but were so submissive to him in all things that we never said I will have this or I will have that or I like this or dislike that insomuch that I do not remember that during his life I ever did any thing of my own head but did still what he Commanded me As to the business of your Religion our Soul never entered into its Councils neither did we ever joyn with any Counsellors either to build it up or destroy it We need not be told that the Emperor sent for your Lordship and that the Fathers likewise came with his Consent as we need not that ever since your coming he has been continually embroiled in Wars for endeavouring to establish your Faith Fighting sometimes with his Sons and at other times with his Slaves whom he had raised from the dunghil to great honours Insomuch that from the first hour we were able to bear Arms we have never done any thing but fight in obedience to our Father's Commands which we always obeyed After the Battel I had in the beginning of this Winter with Ognadega our Learned Monks and People having assembled themselves together in the Camp took the confidence to tell my Father their thoughts freely in the following words Sir How long are we to be plagued thus and to tire our selves about things that are good for nothing We desire to know When we are to give over fighting with our Kinsfolk and Brethren or cutting our right hand off with our left What great difference is there betwixt the Roman Faith and ours For do they of Rome teach That there are Two Natures in Christ and have not we always believed and taught the same in affirming that our Lord Christ is perfect God and perfect Man perfect Man as to his Humanity and perfect God as to his Divinity But whereas those his Two Natures are not separated his Divinity being United to the Flesh and not separated from it and his Flesh to the Divinity we do not for that reason affirm them to be Two but One being made so out of two Causes and that not so as to Confound and Mix those Natures in their Beings but on the account of their being one and the same Principle we call them by the name of that Union so that our Controversie with them in this matter is of small importance Neither was it the cause of our having had so much fighting but it was because they denied us the Blood in the Communion notwithstanding Christ has told us positively in his Gospel that unless we eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood you shall not inherit eternal Life And notwithstanding that Christ himself when he Instituted the Sacrament after having given his Body to his Disciples and received it himself did not say The blood is in my flesh which I have given you but on the contrary he said Take and drink and divide it among you His Disciples doing as he Commanded them and as he gave them to understand by saying Do this in remembrance of me Neither was this the only thing that discontented the People but moreover the prohibiting them to Fast on Wednesdays which St. Peter and St. Paul and no fewer than Eight Synods had Commanded them to do upon pain of Excommunication Neither was that all but because they saw us Eat and Drink in the first week of Lent Eating on the Morning of Good Friday from which time till Easter they do never taste any thing They heard likewise that we received the Sacrament in the Morning on Fasting-days and that the Roman Church permits People on Fasting-days to eat Milk and Butter and to drink Water having changed all the Festivities of the Year and suffering Men and Women promiscuously to enter into the Church without keeping any out for being unclean But the things of all others for which they abhorred us the most was for saying That they Baptized themselves as if they were Heathens and Publicans whereas in truth there is no great difference betwixt the Romanists and them as to that point And because the Romanists treated their Priests and Deacons as if they had not been in Holy Orders giving them Priesthood upon Priesthood and Diaconate upon Diaconate and for burning some of their Altars for no other reason but because they were made of Wood and Consecrating those again that were made of Stone as if they had been Profane before The Monks were also inraged against the Romanists for not living like Monks who are not to be left to their liberty whether they will Fast or not and because the Fathers took state upon them and did not visit them according to the Custom of Monks For these and divers other reasons the People far and near were much discontented and said to the Emperor Hear what we have to say and either give us leave to live quietly or knock us on the head since the War does thicken upon us daily When the Emperor was told this by all his People he without our joyning with them in it finding that there was no other way to quiet their minds and that he would not be able to punish them much longer commanded his Counsellors to advise together what was best to be done who after a serious consult came to this Resolution That they must all return to their Ancient Religion and Customs Your Lordship in being acquainted with this will know the reason why you are turned out of your Place which God and the Emperor had bestowed on you and that the very same Emperor that sent for your Lordship and gave you your Authority was the Person that deprived you of it Wherefore since an Alexandrian Abuna is on his way hither and he has sent us word that he cannot be in the same Countrey with a Roman Patriarch and Fathers we have ordered you to Repair to Fremona and there to remain As to what your Lordship now offers which is That if the People of Ethiopia will but continue in the Obedience of the Roman Church that you will dispense with them
as to all matters which are not contrary to the Faith that comes too late now for how is it possible for them to return to that which they have not only forsaken but do abominate now they have had a taste of their Old Religion again For can a grown Man be born again or enter a second time into his Mother's womb Your Lordship further desires That we would assemble our Learned Men to Dispute with you before you depart about matters of Faith This ought also to have been done in the beginning besides Is that Cause like to be supported by Arguments which has been maintained hitherto only by Force and Violence By taking Estates from some The Cruelty of the Persecutions raised by the Jesuits and throwing others into Prison and Punishing others more severely and that for no other reason but because they would not embrace your Faith And as if that had not been sufficient you have dragg'd great multitudes out of the Desarts who would have been contented to have lived there upon Herbs and confined them to Prisons nay the poor People that would have been glad to have Buried themselves in Caves not having escaped your Persecution Now what a Barbarity would it be to go and tease poor People with Arguments who have suffered so much in Desarts and Banishments It would certainly be a very unjust thing both in the sight of God and Man As to your Lordship's desiring to have a Portuguese Guard to attend you that cannot be but we shall appoint a very Honest Man and who has a great train of Servants to convey your Lordship and all your Goods in safety to the place whither you are to go This Letter gives us a great deal of light into the Affairs of Ethiopia at this time For First We see plainly thereby that Popery as to its Persecuting spirit is the same in all Climates it having no sooner got the Power of the Government of Ethiopia on its side than it made the penalty of not embracing it the loss of Estate Liberty and Life and Herbs were reckoned too high a Diet and Caves and Desarts too good a Dwelling for those that left all and fled to them to preserve a good Conscience Secondly That their denying the Cup in the Sacrament to the Laity and the validity of the Alexandrian Ordinations and not their believing that there were Two Natures in Christ were among the chief causes of the Habassins having such an Aversion for Popery Lastly That Popery owed all the footing that it ever had in Ethiopia to Violence so that it no sooner lost the assistance of the Secular Arm than it came to nothing There are two passages likewise in this Letter which do seem to make it evident That the Habassins do not believe Transubstantiation the one is where they do absolutely deny our Saviour's Blood to be in the Element of Bread and the other is where they seem to intimate That our Saviour made his Disciples understand what he meant by calling the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament his Body and Blood by bidding them Celebrate it in Memory of him The Patriarch finding that there was no remedy but that he must go to Fremona and that the Emperor would neither lend him his own Arms nor appoint him a Portuguese Guard did thereupon desire him to charge some Responsible Man with the Books and every thing else that belonged to the Church declaring that if that was not done That he would not take them with him The Answer the Emperor returned to this petition was very short which was That for his part he did not know how to pack Goods and that he must therefore e'en do it himself and having done it be gone with them And the Patriarch having desired to know who it was that was to be his Convoy he had word sent him on Holy Thursday That they were two Messengers and two Nobles who would go well attended with Servants and that he must begin his Journey next Morning which being come the Patriarch made his Farewel-Sermon and after that was ended The Patriarch begins his Journey to Fremona he took off his Shoes and having shaked the Dust that was on them in the Air he put them on again and begun his Journey on the Second day whereof he dispatched the following Memorial to the Emperor Now that your Highness's Counsellors do reckon that the security of your Empire dos consist in the Extirpation of the Roman Faith His Memorial to the Emperor which is the only true Catholick and Apostolick Faith and in the Banishment of the Patriarch Bishop and Fathers I for my part notwithstanding I know your Highness is most miserably abused by those men do say with Jonas Take me and throw me into the Sea it being better that one man should die than that a whole Nation should perish However your Highness must know that the Roman Faith can never be destroyed it not being founded on the mud wherewith the Nile fills Egypt but on the firm Rock of St. Peter 's Confession to whom Christ hath promised that the gates of hell shall never prevail against it having also said to him at another time Peter I have prayed to my Father for thee that thy faith may not fail Wherefore being now banished for having preached the Gospel I can say with St. Paul I labour even unto bonds nevertheless the Word of God is not bound Wherefore as Fathers when they come to die or when they are to part with their Children for any long time do speak to them as Jacob did to his Twelve Sons or as old Tobit did to the young one and as Christ when he ascended into Heaven did to his Disciples so upon my departure I will speak to your Highness and your whole Empire all the truths which it imports you to be acquainted with In the First place I do testify to your Highness before God and Christ Jesus who is to Judge the quick and the dead That the Church of Rome is the Mother Mistress and Head of all Churches Christ having commanded her in the person of her Founder St. Peter to confirm his brethren and feed his sheep that is all the faithful of the world who are all the Sheep of Christ so that none can have God for their Father but they who have this holy Church for their Mother out of which there is no Salvation no more than there was out of the Ark in the time of the Deluge And I do farther declare That your Highness and all that are in your Empire who have violated the Oath you made in my hands To live and die in the Faith and Obedience of the Roman Church have incurred thereby the Excommunication which was pronounced by me and divers Priests in the name of God at that time and by the Authority of St. Peter and the Roman Pontiff his Successor from which you cannot be absolved before you return to the Obedience and Union
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