believe Transubstantiation They do not believe Transubstantiation as is plain from their Liturgy in which the Words of Institution are thus set down This Bread is my Body this Cup is my Blood which Propositions the Romanists themselves acknowledge cannot be understood otherwise than siguratively Ludolphus farther tells us That when he asked Gregory the Habassin Whether he did not think that the Substance of the Bread and Wine was changed and converted into the Substance of the Body and Blood of Christ That he made answer That no such sort of Transubstantiation was known or understood by his Countreymen who were not so scrupulous neither did they use to start such thorny Questions Nevertheless it seemed to him probable and likely That the Common Bread and Wine was changed into the mysterious Representation of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and so was altered from Prophane to Sacred to represent the true Body and Blood of Christ to the Communicants Than which Declaration nothing can be more agreeable to the Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Eucharist Finally Paul de Roo Secretary to the Dutch East-India Company was in the Year 1691. told by the Habassin Ambassador who was sent to the Governor of Batavia That Transubstantiation and the Adoration of the Consecrated Bread in the Sacrament were what the Habassins abhorred They confess their Sins only in general They have only a general Confession saying Habassea Habassea I have sinned I have sinned without descending to particulars They deny Purgatory They deny Purgatory Confirmation and Extream Unction They condemn Graven Images They keep Saturday and Sunday Their Offices are all in the Vulgar Tongue and know nothing of Confirmation and Extream Unction they condemn Graven Images they keep both Saturday and Sunday and do never fast on either of them no not in Lent nor upon any day betwixt Easter and Whitsuntide their Church Offices are all in the Vulgar Tongue and are performed with extraordinary Devotion but especially their Litanies they go all betimes in the morning to Church to pay their Devotions which they do with great fervour and for the most part leave something of an offering behind them Whenever they come to any place that has a Church They are very devout They never go into a Church with their Shooes on nor sit in it but upon the ground let their Business be never so urgent they repair to it immediately they never go into any Church with their Shooes on nor sit down in it unless it be upon the ground on all occasions they express a deep sense of Religion but chiefly when they visit the Sick which they are very forward to do They are charitable to the Poor and to all Strangers if they are satisfied of their not being of the Roman Church for all whose Members the Cruel Persecutions which were raised and carried on for some years by the Jesuits while the Emperor was at their Devotion have created a perfect detestation in them The whole of their Divine Service consists in reading the Scriptures They seldom preach and some Homilies of the Fathers and the Administration of the Sacrament preaching being a rare Exercise among them at which when Mr. Ludolphus seemed to wonder he was asked by Gregory the Habassin Whether we of the Western Church thought our Preachers could say any thing better than what was written in the Sacred Sacred Scriptures and the Homilies of the Fathers or whether we thought their Sayings more efficacious than the Word of God and whether we did not fear lest those Preachers should utter something which might be repugnant to our Faith and Salvation and which might prove of dangerous consequence to the Peace of the Church An Account of the Discovery of Ethiopia by the Portugueses DON ENRIQUE the Fifth The Infante Don Henry the first and most zealous Promoter of the discovery of unknown Countries Son of Don Joan the first King of Portugal by his Queen the Lady Philipa the Daughter of John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster being a Prince much addicted to the study of Mathematicks was the first that ever entertained any thought of making Discoveries on the Western Coast of Africa to which he is said to have been encouraged by some Information he receiv'd from the Moors in Barbary when he was a Soldier there under his Father he was Master of the Military Order of Christ which together with his other Ecclesiastical Pensions brought him in a great Revenue all which together with his whole time he resolved to dedicate entirely to the gratification of his Curiosity after new Discoveries And in order to the better carrying on of this his great Design he retired from Court to a place in the Algarves called at that time Terranable but since from him Villa de Infante a few Months after his retirement he fitted out two Ships which having passed the Pillars of Hercules at that time the non ultra of Navigation they sailed to the Promontory of Ganaria but were discouraged from proceeding any further partly by strong Currents and partly by that Promontory running so far into the Sea that they could not discover its Cape This first Voyage was made in the Year 1410. His ill success at first after which it was 10 years before the Infante could prevail with any body to make a second Attempt the first Adventurers having to excuse their Cowardice reported terrible things of the Dangers they had escaped Neither did the Infante during all that time Not discouraged thereby nor by Railery nor by grave Nonsense from going on with his Projects escape the discouragement that new and great Enterprizes do commonly meet withal his Designs for some years having been not only the Jest of the Lazy Buffoon but were also censured as Chimera's or Idle Projects by Men of Speculation and Gravity who said The Countreys the Infante was in quest of were neither better nor worse than the Sandy Deserts of Arabia that God having allotted those Countries to Wild Beasts for their habitation if men should offer to intrude into them they would either die or turn wild like the Natives and that the very sight of them would turn Whites Negroes that there had never wanted younger Brothers among Princes who had sought to remedy the misfortune of their Birth by new Discoveries but which had always miscarried That the Infante's Father who was a wise Prince finding Portugal wanted People had invited Strangers from all parts into it and had given them Lands to cultivate whereas if his Project should take effect it would tend to the depopulating of it with a great many other such idle Reflections But the Infante who had too great a Soul to be discouraged either by Railery or grave Nonsense having with much ado wrought some Mariners up to an Opinion of the feasibleness of the Undertaking in the Year 1420. he equipped several Vessels which after having met with violent Storms discovered
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
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
body and drinketh my blood shall be with me Paul likewise speaketh to the same purpose when he saith the unbelieving husband is justified by the believing wife and the unbelieving wife by the believing husband otherwise your children would be unclean whereas now they are holy Now if the Children of an Unbelieving Mother are notwithstanding that Sanctified by the Faith of their Father how much more holy must they be whose Father and Mother are both Believers For which reason it is much more pious to call such Infants before they are Baptized Half-Christians than Pagans The Apostles in their Book of Synods do likewise affirm That all who had Faith though they were not Baptized may be called Half-Christians in which Books it is said that if a Jew or Gentile or Mahometan do embrace the Faith he shall not be received presently but must first come to the door of the Church there to hear Sermons and the words of our Saviour Christ and that being disposed to Believe he may understand what Christ's yoke is after which he may be called an Half-Christian even before he is admitted to Baptism which is also according to the Gospel which saith He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be condemned It is also the custom among us for Women when they are with Child to Confess their Sins and receive the Lord's Body before they are Delivered and they who neglect to do this are looked upon as Wicked and Impious Christians as are also their Husbands for not having obliged them to it Confirmation and Extream Unction are not reckoned Sacraments among us Confirmation and Extream Unction no Sacraments neither are they in use in our Church as I see they are in the Roman We do surthermore reckon it contrary to the Law of Moses and the Institutions of the Apostles to eat unclean Meats from all which we do abstain merely in Obedience to the Law and the Scriptures which with us consists of Eighty one Books that is to say the Old Testament consists of Forty one Books The Scripture the perfect Rule of Faith and the New of Thirty five which Canon or Number of Books we have expresly delivered to us by the Apostles themselves and to which it is not lawful for us to Add or Diminish any thing no not though an Angel from Heaven should persuade us to it and we do look upon him as Accursed that shall offer to do any such thing so that neither our Patriarch nor our Bishop do reckon that they can either by themselves or in a Council make any Laws That People are under an Obligation of a Mortal Sin to observe In the Books of our Synods it is ordained by the Holy Apostles That we must confess our selves before we can receive Penance from a Confessor according to the greatness of our Sin They teach us likewise how we ought to Pray and Fast and how to exercise Charity Confession is much in use among us for we have no sooner committed a Sin than we run and throw our selves at the feet of a Confessor this is the constant practice of all Men and Women of whatsoever Quality or Condition and whenever we Confess we do receive the Body of our Lord under both Species They all receive the Sacrament in both Elements It is not kept in their Churches and in Wheaten and Unleavened Bread so that if we Confess our selves daily we do daily receive the Sacrament as well Layicks as Ecclesiasticks The Sacrament of the Eucharist is not kept in our Churches as it is here in Europe neither is it at any time Administred to the Sick until after they are recovered All among us Layicks as well as Clerks do receive the Sacrament at least Three times a Week which is never received any where but in the Church It is never received but in the Church no not by the Patriarch or Precious John himself We do always make use of the same Confessor and do never go to any other but when our own is absent to whom when he returns we are bound to repair The Confessors do in the Name of the Church absolve from all Sins there being no cases no not the most heinous reserved to the Bishop or Patriarch Presbyters are not allowed to Confess themselves to those that they Confess and among us all Presbyters and Monks and all Officers of the Church do live by their own Labour for the Church hath no Tythes it has Lands which are Cultivated by the Priests and Monks either in Person or by their servants and as for Alms they receive none but those that are offered in the Church for the Burial of the dead and other Holy Offices it not being lawful for any of them to beg about the streets or to extort Alms from the common people Furthermore The Sacrament is never administred above once a day in a Church It is not shewed to the People No Masses are said for the Dead in our Churches there is never but one Mass a day which we do reckon to be a Sacrifice neither is it lawful for us according to ancient Custom to Celebrate more for which Mass we never receive any Money the Sacrament of the Eucharist is not shewed to the People among us as I observe it is here and all Priests Deacons and Subdeacons and all People whatsoever that are present at the Celebration are obliged to Communicate We say no Masses for the remission of Souls but our Dead are Buried in a Consecrated Place with Prayers and Crosses over whom among other things we recite the beginning of St. John's Gospel and do offer Alms for them the day after they are Buried and at certain other times when we have Funeral Feasts This is what I have to say of our Faith and Religion But whereas since my coming to Portugal I have had several Debates with some Doctors namely with Didacus Ortis Bishop of the Island of St. Thomas and Dean of the King's Chappel and Pedro Magalho concerning the distinction of Meats it will not be improper for me to say something of it in this place It is to be observed that it is in obedience to the Old Testament that we observe a distinction of meats which distinction is ordained by the Word of God who was afterwards born of the Virgin Mary and walked and conversed with his Apostles which Living Word of God had always an entire and irrevocable Speech or Word and who did no where in his Gospel say that such things might be eat as were before prohibited as unclean For as to those words in the Gospel That whatsoever entreth into the mouth doth not defile the man but that which cometh forth of the mouth Christ's intent therein was not to dissolve the Law he had formerly enacted but only to confute the Superstition of the Jews who blamed the Apostles for having eat Bread with unwashen hands neither did the Apostles
with there not having been one Portuguese Killed or Wounded in the whole Action that looking upon it as a Miracle he immediately turned Christian and thereupon had the Government of the Mountain conferred upon him by Gama being ordered to send word to the Emperor of the Passes being opened for him and his Army There were 300 Mules and 800 good Horses taken all which Gama ordered to be brought after him to the Camp whither he with the greatest part of his Men Rode Post fearing lest he might have been intercepted by Granhe Neither was Granhe Idle all this Winter who having observed that his Army besides that it would require time to bring them to endure the Thunder of Cannon were strangely cowed by their having been Beat so often by a handful of Portugueses writ to the Bashaw of Zebid a Province in Arabia for some Turkish Troops and a Train of Artillery to enable him to deal with the Portugueses representing the driving of them out of Ethiopia as one of the best Services that could be done the Grand Seignior The Bashaw having 3000 Turks all Veteran Soldiers for the Guard of the Red-Sea sent him 600 some say 900 of them with several Peices of Ordnance and besides these he is said to have received considerable Supplies from some of his other Friends in Arabia These Foreign Troops came up to Granhe the very night that Gama returned to the Camp Granhe being reinforced by a Body of Turks and a Train of Artillery forceth Gama to come to a Battel with which Auxiliaries he instantly advanced towards the Portugueses and Encamped so near them as to make them both hear and feel that he had now got Cannon as well as they Upon this new scene of Affairs Gama called a Council of War to consult what was fit to be done and it being agreed on all hands That there was now no possibility of Retreating no nor of waiting where they were till the Emperor came up with them they had therefore nothing to think of but of Fighting it out so as either to Conquer or to sell their lives dear only that they should do all that they were able to avoid coming to Battel before the Mules and Horses that had been taken lately by Gama arrived in the Camp But Granhe having now got men that were not afraid to go upon the mouth of a Cannon advanced next day within Musket-shot of the Portugueses resolving if they did not come out to Fight to storm their Camp which he reckoned himself strong enough to do Gama perceiving their design Sally'd out to demolish a Mount Granhe was raising to plant his Cannon upon and which would have commanded his whole Camp in which Sally he made the Turks give ground until over-powered by Number he was forced to retreat having lost some Officers and several of his Soldiers in the Action Gama made several other brisk Sallies but was still repulsed with loss Gama routed and taken Prisoner and in one of them was himself Wounded When night came on the Empressand all the Officers were at Gama to retire to the Mountains it not being possible for them to hold out another day against so great and well-disciplin'd an Army Gama was put into such a rage by the motion that he drew his Sword and brandishing it cri'd out They that will steal away by night may do it but for my own part I am resolved to stay and fight the Infidels and if his Countreymen would be so base as to desert him and leave him alone to defend the Camp he could not hinder them but out of it he was resolved not to stir unless it was to Fight the Enemy The Officers finding there was no persuading of Gama to go with them laid violent hands on him and having set him upon a Mule carried him with them as a Prisoner They were not well got out of their Camp with Gama the Empress and Patriarch having departed some time before when the Turks broke into it where finding 40 Portugueses who by reason of their Wounds had been left behind they knocked them all on the head and understanding that Gama could not be got far a Body of Turks was ordered immediately to pursue him who having before Sun-rising got between him and the Mountains by noon they found them lying under a Tree quite spent with the loss of Blood and the Fatigue of the Battel and having mounted him on a Horse they carried him to Granhe The Portuguese Historians as if they reckoned that to have neither Fear nor Wit were the true Character of a Hero do according to their custom on this occasion sacrifice Gama 's discretion to the Reputation of his Courage Who they say upon Granhe's asking him How he would have treated him had the Fortune of War made him his Prisoner made answer That he would have cut off his Head and have sent it as a Present to the Emperor The foolish Bravery of which Answer was so far from obliging Granhe to give him his Life that he gave him Lex talionis having after he had treated him barbarously for a day or two Gama beheaded order'd his Head to be chopped off in his presence at which the Turks who design'd to have made a Present of him to their Bassa are said to have been very angry A Portuguese who was a Prisoner and present when Gama was murthered having afterwards made his escape gave an ample account of all the Particulars of Gama's carriage at his death and among other things affirmed that he saw with his own eyes a great fountain of most delicate water gush out of the earth Gama 's Head fell upon when it was chopped off This Miracle was the easier swallowed it being no more than what the Heads of all Legendary Saints have done who have happened to be beheaded This is the substance of the so much celebrated Expedition of Don Christopher Da Gama which as I have related it is I doubt big enough for the belief of any indifferent person but is much too great for that of the most credulous if impartial as it is magnified by his Countreymen to whose Romantick way of writing their Lives the Memory of their Heroes of which Race few Kingdoms of its bigness have produced either more or greater than Portugal is little beholden Which common Fault in the Spanish and Portuguese Writers I do not in the least attribute to any defect of Natural Judgment in them that being a talent that few Nations excel them in but purely to their reading Romances so much when they are young and especially Ecclesiastical ones that is the Lives and Legends of their Saints the Writers whereof instead of troubling themselves to collect Informations do shut themselves up in a Cell and say every thing of their Hero that they think will make for his Honour After this Rout the Empress and Patriarch retreated to the strong Mountain Gama had made himself Master of a little before
of the Alexandrians was sent before to streighten them with a Flying Army Raz Cella upon his being denied his Old Troops which were intirely at his devotion would fain have been excused from going on this Expedition but the Emperor pressed him so hard that he saw he must either break with him or do it and as his heart misgave him all the way he went so his Success was answerable to his forebodings for he was no sooner got among the Mouniains Raz Cella is routed by the Pesants than he was fallen upon by a Body of Twenty thousand Peasants and being Deserted by his own Men most of which went over to the Enemy he narrowly escaped being made Prisoner The Alexandrians who it is probable had sent him against the Peasants on purpose to be beat by them could not conceal their joy on the occasion of this Defeat the blame whereof they laid wholy at his door which sunk him so low that he was never able to rise again to do the Roman Church any service The Emperor fearing least the Peasants might upon this advantage have advanced towards Dancas retired from thence to Gojam to be at a greater distance from them where having made up an Army that consisted chiefly of Gauls being afraid to trust his own Subjects any longer he went to offer the Peasants a Battel who since their late Victory over Raz Cella had ventured down into the Low Countries reckoning themselves strong enough to Fight any Army the Emperor could bring against them The Two Armies having looked each other in the face for some Hours the Emperor The Emperor marcheth against them who had placed a stout Body of Gaulish Horse in the Front ordered them to fall on which they did so furiously that at the first Onset which is commonly the last too with the Habassin Armies they broke through the Peasants main body which Dispersed immediately and Throwing down their Arms fled towards the Mountains the Gauls pursued them till night came on He obtains a great Victory so that though few or none of them were killed Fighting there were Eight thousand of them found dead next morning whereas had they had the Courage to have fought it out they might with half that loss have had a Victory for had they but routed the Gauls who charged them first it is certain the Imperial Habassins would either have gone over to them or have thrown down their Arms. The Court Alexandrians though they were extreamly mortified by this great blow yet did so manage the matter that they gained their point by it for having persuaded the Emperor to go next morning to view the Field which was covered all over with dead bodies and observing him to be touched with so direful a sight they came about him and with Tears in their eyes told him Six You see how many dead bodies are lying here Whose were all these Were they the Bodies of Mahometans or Heathens No not so much as one of them but they were all to a man your Highness's Natural-born Subjects and our own Blood and Kindred we do therefore beg of your Highness to consider That this is a War in which whether you Conquer or are Beat you thrust a Sword into your own Bowels Neither were these poor wretches you see lying here dissatisfied with your Highness for any thing but for forcing a New Religion upon them How many Thousands have already lost their Lives in this Quarrel and how many Thousands more must be Massacred before Popery can be established in Ethiopia Wherefore for God's sake Sir He is moved by the passionate Remonstrances of the Grandees and others to restore the Alexandrian Religion let your People alone with the Religion of their Fathers which you must either do or resolve to destroy your Empire with your own hands We must tell your Highness farther That the very Gauls and Heathens do condemn us for what we are doing calling us Apostates and Renegado's for having forsaken the Religion of our Ancestors And that they might clinch the matter the Prince and Amana Christos had got the Gauls as the Emperor passed by them to cry out That they would serve him no longer being quite weary of Cutting poor Mens Throats for no other reason but because they would not leave the Religion they had been Born and Bred in The Empress interposed likewise and desired him for God's sake and his own and his Posterities not to go on destroying his Subjects at such a merciless rate and to consider that in all his Wars with them he did as it were but cut off his left hand with his right and whether any thing could be more dishonourable than for a Prince to employ Foreigners and Heathens to Massacre his Christian Subjects and all this to introduce a Religion into Ethiopia which it was plain to all the World it would never be reconciled to These passionate Remonstrances one upon the neck of another together with the sad sight of so many dead bodies did affect the Emperor so much that instead of returning to Dancaz in triumph after so great a Victory he returned thither so extreamly disconsolate that he did not care to see or speak with any body The Patriarch Bishops and Fathers hearing how things went hastened to Court not to Congratulate the Emperor upon his late Victory for that their Friends had told them he could not bear but to see if they could get him out of the hands of the Alexandrians who at present were in full possession of him the Champions of the Roman Faith being all either Dead or in Disgrace at Court We are not told what passed betwixt the Emperor and the Patriarch at his first Audience but whatever it was a great Council was called a few days after to consider the state of the Empire and by what means the Peace thereof might be restored in which it was quickly agreed That there was no other way of doing it but by restoring all the Alexandrian Rites and Customs and by leaving People to their Liberty to be of which of the two Religions they pleased This Resolution is said to have been opposed by one Abithaca Johanes a Nephew of the Empeperor's who told the Council boldly That all the Miseries of Ethiopia were owing to their Sins and not to Popery's having been Established in it To whom the Council gave no other answer but that something must be done to restore the Empire to its former peace and that there was nothing would do it but what they had agreed to do The Patriarch being alarm'd with this resolution of the Council The Patriarch and Fathers wait upon him to divert him from doing it sent immediately to demand an audience of the Emperor and having obtained one with some difficulty he went on the Twentieth of June 1632 attended by the Bishop of Nice and Five Fathers to wait upon him to whom lying in Bed very pensive he deliver'd the following Speech the Bishop
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
of holy Mother Church In the Second place I do declare That I so long as I do live and am not loosed from that bond of Spiritual Marriage which I have Contracted with the Church of Ethiopia am the true Patriarch and Pastor and Abuna thereof and that whosoever is or shall come from any part is a stranger and cannot enter into it by the door it not being opened to him by the faithful and prudent Steward to whom Christ has delivered the Keys of his House Such a one therefore must be an Adulterer in taking another man's Wife while her lawful Husband is living I have been placed in this Chair by the true Successor of St. Peter and that with the same Authority as St. Peter placed his Disciple St. Mark in the Chair of Alexandria all that are in that Chair and do deny Obedience to the Pope and his Successors being Patriarchs only in name for the branch cannot bear fruit of it self if it continueth not in the vine In the Third place I am to put your Highness and the whole Empire in mind of those words of St. Paul Be not deceived for God no nor men will not be Mocked by your pretending that you have not forsaken the Roman faith but only in some customs for it is plain you have departed from her by divers Heresies namely the using of Circumcision together with Baptism the repeating of Baptism the keeping Saturday and the ceremonial Law about Legal uncleannesses and distinctions of meat and in dissolving Marriages many of you affirming that Christ is the Son of God by grace only Others affirming that there are Two persons in Christ others that he has one person made of Two and that he has not two Wills nor two Operations others that he died without his Divinity others that the Humanity is equal to the Divinity and is every where You do affirm likewise that water squeezed from dry grapes may be Consecrated and that the Souls of Children are derived from their Parents with a great many other things that are repugnant to the holy Scriptures and have been Condemned and Anathematized in divers Councils In the Fourth place I do beseech your Highness by the Precious Blood of Christ and by the Bowels of Our Lady the Virgin Mary and I do in the name of God and by the Authority which he hath given me by the Pontifical Oil that was poured on my head as upon that of Aaron on the day of my Consecration command you neither by force nor promises to endeavour to oblige the Portugueses that shall remain here to renounce the true Roman Faith Nor to set any Captain over them that is not a Catholick by Descent and chosen by Catholicks And I do pronounce the greater Excommunication to be Ipso facto incurred and do invocate the Indignation and Curse of Almighty God and of the holy Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul and of St. Thomas the Patron of India and of St. James the Great the Patron of Spain and Portugal on all that shall any ways offend in this matter or who shall at any time forsake the Roman Faith In the Fifth place I do advertise your Highness and all and every one in your Empire that there is no Nation under Heaven that has the like Obligations to another as Ethiopia has to Portugal The Portugueses not having come among you as the Children of Israel went into Egypt with Asses to have them laden with Provisions to satisfy their hunger but were moved to it purely out of Charity and Zeal for the faith It is not above an Hundred years since they were sent by their King to his great cost laden with Arms and Muskets and accompanied with a train of Artillery which is at this time in your Camp with the Royal Arms of Portugal upon them with their Pockets full of Money and that not to make themselves Masters of Ethiopia nor to Conquer it for their King but to deliver the Habassins out of a Mahometan Captivity and to free them from the Yoke which that cursed Sect had laid upon their necks for which great Service they have been so ill rewarded that their Children and Grandchildren were reduced to that Penury that the King of Portugal was obliged to allow them a yearly Maintenance Wherefore I do beseech your Highness to let them enjoy the Privileges which their Fathers purchased for them with their Blood and which have been granted them by former Kings for their services In the Sixth place I would have your Highness remember that several of the Fathers of the Society who are Eminent for their Piety and Learning have come into Ethiopia at divers times not to seek after Honours or Riches but to serve God and your people in much humility and to teach them the true faith some of them having given the greatest Testimonies of love that are possible in having laid down their Lives for their Friends which Three of them did one after having been several years a prisoner at Matzua and the other two at Adel and those that are now alive have served your Father with all the fidelity of Doctors Servants and Slaves as he himself has many times told me all which notwithstanding after they had built several Churches and Houses they are now turned out of them all and that in the midst of Winter their Churches and Goods being all given to the Enemies of the Roman Faith the Fathers that were at Gorgora having in little more than three Months time been sent from three several places they that were at Dembea and Gojam having been likewise turned out of all notwithstanding all which hard usage they continue to pray to God to Establish your Highness's Empire for ever and that he would give you a House that has the true faith for its Foundation and Heaven for its Roof Furthermore I would have your Highness remember That your Father desired the Bishop of Rome to send a Patriarch and Bishops into Ethiopia at whose request he sent me and a Bishop we were both Masters of Divinity and Readers of the holy Scriptures Neither did the most Catholick Powerful and Munificient King of Portugal expect that your Father should have remitted Gold to him to defray the charges of our Mission or that he should have taxed his Nobles on that account but he took the whole charge thereof upon himself which amounted to several Thousand Oquea's giving us also many rich pieces to make Presents of some of which are at this time in your Royal Palace and in several great Houses in Ethiopia Neither did he so much as charge your Father with the Maintenance of our persons having sent me yearly an Hundred Oquea's to support my Dignity Now all the return you have made to your Brother the King of Portugal and to the Bishop and me for all the charge and trouble that we have been at is to throw us out of all at a blow and to entertain another without knowing who
was reported of her by her Confessor who published a large account of her Miracles So the poor Protestants were triumphed over strangely on that occasion as the most perverse Hereticks that ever were in the World for neither believing those reports nor going to Lisbon where their own eyes would convince them of the truth of them So Petrus Matheus in a Bullary he Printed in France at this time and which I have now by me after a long encomium of the Lisbon Nun adds Nihil est quod possit hujus Historiae veritati in ficiari vivit enim beata Virgo vivunt Sorores testes locus visitur clarissimorum Theologorum Oculato testimonio probatur confirmatur that is Nothing can be offered in contradiction to this story for the blessed Virgin is still living as are the Sisters also who are her Witnesses the Place is visited and the whole is prov'd and confirmed by most eminent Divines who were Eye-Witnesses to it After all this one would little have expected that this fraud could have miscarried or at least so far as to have been Owned and Condemn'd as a meer Cheat by the Inquisition it self But so it was for the Lady Abbess which for her greater Mortification the Nuns and Friars had forced her to be when she wanted nothing but to have Died to have been Canonized a Saint for her extraordinary Piety and Miracles finding all that she said was received by every body as an Oracle she begun to mutter That it was revealed to her that Philip the IId. had no Title to the Crown of Portugal but that the right thereof was in the Duchess of Braganza The consequence whereof being That Philip must either resign that Crown or the Title of the Most Catholick or look upon her he had express'd so great a veneration for as an Impostor he chose the latter the Inquisition striking the Oracle Dumb so soon as it began to Antiphilipise For the Inquisition having thereupon ordered her Wounds and other Pretensions The Impostor discovered to be searched to the bottom they were at it quickly her Wounds being found not to lye so deep as her Skin and upon examination to be nothing else but marks made thereon very artificially with Red Lead Whereupon she was Condemned by the Archbishop of Braga and Lisbon the Bishop of Guarda and the Apostolical Inquisitors of whom at that time the Cardinal Archduke of Austria was the Chief as an Hypocrite and Impostor upon the Eighth day of December 1588. being in the Thirty second Year of her Age to the following Penances 1st Her Penances assigned She was to be a Prisoner during her Life in some Nunnery out of Lisbon and which must not be of the Dominican Order 2d. For Five years after the day of her Sentence she was not to have the Sacrament Administred to her excepting on the Feasts of Easter Whitsuntide and Christmas or unless the receiving thereof should happen to be necessary to the partaking of the Benefits of a Jubilee 3d. On every Wednesday and Friday of the Year she was to be brought into the Chapter-house of the Nunnery and there to be Whipped publickly before all the Nuns all the time the Miserere Mei Deus was Reading 4th At Meals she was not to be suffered to sit at a Table but must have her Meat given her sitting on the Pavement of the Refectory neither must any Person eat what she leaves and both before and after Meat she must lie a-cross the door of the Refectory where the Nuns must tread upon her as they come in and go out 5th She must during her Life keep the Ecclesiastical Fast and must never be chose Abbess nor bear any Office in the Nunnery but must always be the Lowest in the Convent 6th She must not be suffered to speak with any Body within nor without the Convent without the Abbess's Leave 7th All the Rags stained with Blood which had been distributed by her and all her false Relicks and all Pictures of her must be brought into the Inquisition or where that cannot be done conveniently must be carried to the next Prelate Lastly She must never be suffered to cover her Head with her Veil and on all Wednesdays and Fridays of the Year must be Fed with nothing but Bread and Water and must every day in the Refectory make a publick Confession of her Crime before all the Nuns Unhappy Nun had'st thou but let alone Princes Titles and had'st made no other use of thy Impostures but to have confounded Protestants and their Doctrines thou might'st have died with the Honour of thy Wounds and have been Worshipped upon an Altar and have wrought a Thousand Miracles before this time and that very Court which condemned thee to all these shameful Punishments for pretending to them would have Condemned all of Impiety and Heresie who should have presumed to have called the Truth of any of them in question I could never learn what was done to the Provincial her Confessor and the other Friars among whom was the great Lewis de Granada for having imposed such a Cheat on the Pope the Inquisition and the whole Roman Catholick World however it is plain from the first Penance mentioned in the Sentence that the King of Spain did not care to trust so dangerous a Tool any longer in the hands of the Dominican Friars FINIS