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
their own I do not find they have any besides some Fabulous Legends of the Lives of their Monks of which I shall only give the Reader a Taste In the Life of Tecla Haymanot the most famous of all their Monks both for Piety and Miracles the following Account of the Succession of their Grand Abbots is given The Angel St. Michael gave the Cowl to St. Anthony St. Anthony gave it to St. Macarius Macarius gave it to Pachomius Pachomius to Abbot Araguni or Michael who was one of the Nine Monks that came into Ethiopia Araguni gave it to Bazana Bazana to Mazralmoa Mazralmoa to Abbot John John to Abbot Jesus Jesus to Tecla Haymanot to whom Christ appeared and promised that whosoever should kill a Serpent upon a Friday should be pardoned all the Sins he had committed in Forty Years But notwithstanding the Lives of the Habassin Monks are all of a piece with the Lives of all the other Monks that are extant that is extreamly fabulous yet this must be said for them that Monkery continues to this day much the same among them as it was in the beginning from which in the Church of Rome it is so strangely degenerated For in Habassia Monkery much the same in Habassia as it was in the beginning any one that has a mind to be a Monk retires thereupon to the Desart where he puts on what Habit he pleaseth or judgeth to be most sutable to his pretensions Their Obligation so long as they profess themselves Monks which they are always at their liberty to give over is to fast every day in the Year till three a Clock in the Afternoon and to Assemble together at Midnight and at other certain Hours to perform their Devotions they do generally exercise great Austerities upon themselves being very strict in their Fasts many of them eating but once in two days and some never but upon Sundays some of them are said to have made Holes in the Trunks of Trees and to have lodged in them till the Trees have grown to shut them in Their Monastries are more like Villages than Roman Convents Their Monastries are little Villages every Monk having his distinct dwelling House with as much Land laid to it as a Man is able to cultivate and when they come to dye they dispose of their Goods as they please only the Land remains still to the Monastries Now this course falls in exactly with that of the Primitive Monks who always lived in Deserts where they work'd hard and were under no Vows whereas the Roman Monks have their Monastries in or near Princes Courts and in all Populous Cities and tho generally hurried into that Profession either by their Parents or by some sudden fit of Melancholy are fettered in it by Vows for their Lives and are so far from putting their Hand to any work that they are every where become proverbial for Laziness and as for their Buildings they are much more like Palaces than the Dwellings of People that have renounced the World and taken a Vow of Poverty upon them The most famous of all their Monastries is that of Alelujah wherein formerly there are said to have been 40000 Monks together all the Country about having been given to the Monks thereof to cultivate I do not find that any sort of Learning did ever flourish among the Habassins so that they have but few Books besides the Bible the Canons of the first Councils the Homilies of the Greek Fathers and the Lives of their Saints The Habassins do hold the Scriptures to be the perfect Rule of the Christian Faith The Habassins hold the Scriptures to be the perfect Rule of Faith insomuch that they deny it to be in the Power of a General Council to oblige People to believe any thing as an Article of Faith without an express warrant from thence Their Canon of Scripture consists of 85 Books the Old Testament consisting of 46 and the New of 39. As to the Doctrine of our Saviour's Incarnation They are Eutychians they are all Eutychians holding that there is but one Nature in Christ which is the Divine by which they will have the Humane to have been swallowed up they were led into this Heresy by Dioscorus Patriarch of Alexandria who was condemned with Eutyches for it by the General Council of Calcedon whose Authority they for that reason reject pretending that its Decrees were imposed on the Church by Marcian the Emperor on which account they call all those who have yielded Obedience to it Mellites or Royalists as they themselves are called Jacobites from one James a Syrian who was a great Stickler for the Eutychian Heresy They allow the Bishop of Rome to be the first Patriarch They deny the Popes Supremacy but condemn his pretending to a Supremacy over the whole Church as Antichristian and do detest Popery to that degree as to declare That of the two they would sooner turn Mahometans than Roman Catholicks The Supream Authority in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil The Emperor is Head of the Church is in the Emperor They have but one Bishop at a time who is stiled the Abuna that is our Father he is always an Alexandrian Monk and upon notice of a Vacancy is consecrated and sent into Ethiopia by the Alexandrian Patriarch to whom this Church hath always been subject he has the seventh place in a General Council he Ordains only by Imposition of Hands he hath Lands both in the Kingdom of Dembea and Tigre from which besides several Perquisites he receives a considerable Revenue Their Priests Marry Their Priests may Marry after they are in Orders and as often as they are Widowers They are said to have divers Forms of Baptism viz. I baptize thee in the Holy Spirit They have divers Forms of Baptism I baptize thee in the Water of Jordan Let God Baptize thee Come thou to Baptism They Circumcise both Males and Females and all are Baptized every Year on the Feast of Epiphany they hold that Men derive their Souls no less than their Bodies from their Parents and that the Children of Christian Parents and especially of a Christian Mother are saved notwithstanding they dye without Baptism They celebrate the Eucharist but once a day in a Church All that are present at the Celebration of the Sacrament must communicate They do not elevate nor adore the Host nor keep it after the Communion They break it after it is consecrated They reckon the receiving of it breaks their Fast at which none must be present without communicating the Laity as well as the Clergy receive the Cup they do not elevate nor Worship the consecrated Elements neither are they kept after the Communion they consecrate unleavened Bread which they break after it is consecrated they reckon the receiving of the Sacrament breaks their Fast for which reason they never receive it on Fasting-days till after Three a Clock in the Afternoon They do not
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
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
Father Peter came to Fremona he continued there till the New Government was thoroughly settled during which time he employed himself in translating a Book of the Christian Doctrine composed by one Mark Jorge a Jesuit which is said to have been a Piece much admired in Ethiopia The Emperor being naturally curious The Emperor invites Father Peter to Court and hearing great things of Father Peter's Wisdom and Learning from some of the Grandees who had a great mind to have him at Court to cabal with him about Portuguese Troops he writ the following Letter to him to invite him to come to him THE Letter of the Emperor Asnaf Sagued cometh to the Honourable Father and Master of the Portugueses How do you Hear the good things God hath done for us We were seven years a Prisoner and did suffer innumerable Troubles but God taking compassion of our Misery has delivered us out of Prison and made us the Head of All according to that of David The Stone which the Builders rejected is made the Head of the Corner May the same God that hath begun this Work bring it to a good Issue Hear more We are very desirous to see you here and would have you bring the Books of the Laws of the King of Portugal if you have them along with you for we should be glad to see them As the Father was preparing upon the receipt of this Letter to have gone to the Court with the Viceroy of Tigre he was stopped by the News of the Gauls having invaded Ethiopia with Three Armies at once having been encouraged to do it by the unsettled Posture they expected to find the Affairs of that Empire in after so sudden a Revolution But they quickly found themselves deceived for notwithstanding they defeated the Viceroy of Tigre who had contrary to the King's Order come to blows with them their Two other Armies were both totally routed by the Emperor The Emperor being returned victorious to his Camps the Viceroy of Tigre sent to Father Peter to come to him that they might go to Court together who before he left Fremona took care to pack the Secular Priest Belchior de Sylva to the Indies Father Peter sends the Secular Priest home before he went to Court Some Instances of the Jesuits sacrificing all other Interests to that of their own Order which was somewhat strange considering that when he was gone there was not a Roman Priest left at Fremona to officiate to the Portugueses the Father himself being on the wing for the Court But the truth of the matter is the Jesuits knowing that with the assistance of 4 or 500 Portugueses Soldiers they should be able at any time to reduce Ethiopia to the Roman Church and not despairing in some juncture or other of obtaining such a Succor they studied nothing so much as the engrossing the whole Honour of so great a reduction to their own Order and for that reason they did all they could to hinder Foreigners from intruding themselves into it which made Father Peter choose to leave the Portugueses at Fremona without any Roman Priest rather than with one who was no Jesuit But however it were in those early days Luis Sotelo a Spanish Franciscan in his Letter written from Omura in Japan where he was a Prisoner to Pope Urban the VIIIth and James Collado a Dominican of the same Nation in a Memorial presented by him in the year 1631. to the King of Spain have proved beyond contradiction That the Souls of the Jesuits are wrapped up so entirely in their own Order that they will sacrifice all other Interests that of Converting Heretical and Infidel Kingdoms not excepted to its Interest and Honour Which Letter and Memorial tho extreamly well worth the reading being too long to be here inserted I shall only set down so much of them as is sufficient to justify this Charge Sotelo about the middle of his Letter delivers what follows IF a Friar of any other Order do either out of a Zeal of Charity or being called by the Faithful come into these Parts to give Spiritual Consolation or to administer the Sacraments of the Church after he has heard the Confessions of great numbers of persons who have not seen a Priest in Twenty years to Confess themselves to and Confirmed such as were wavering in the Faith and restored such as had Apostatised from it the Provincial of the Jesuits shall no sooner hear thereof let the Province be at never so great a distance from him and notwithstanding he had never set his foot in it before than he shall immediately fly thither to oppress so good a Minister To whom he will represent That that Countrey being a Parish under his Jurisdiction he ought not to have administred the Sacraments therein and upon pretence of the Peoples being his Sheep will hinder him from performing any more Religious Offices to them And if the Priest should happen to have the courage to ask him Why if those People are under his care he had abandoned them for so long a time And whether he thought that one who had so deserted his Flock ought any longer to be esteemed its Pastor The Jesuit will answer him with What Authority have you to ask me any such question Or to meddle with things that do not belong to you And having affirmed that he has a right to what he pretends to he will produce the Council of Trent and read the Constitution to him Which prohibits Priests upon pain of Excommunication to administer the Sacraments in any Parish without the Curate's leave Neither will he content himself with that but will render that Constitution into Japan and publish it to all the People And in case the said Father should reply That the words of the Council have no relation to the Countries of Infidels or to places which are newly Converted or to Christians who are Novices in the Faith but are to be understood only of Countries which have been under Christian Princes for divers Ages and of ancient Parishes where People have been long Christians The Jesuit shall notwithstanding that treat him publickly as a Transgressor of the Council and do all that is in his power to drive him away forbidding the People to take any notice of him or to have any communication with him and if after that any Christian should either out of Compassion or Devotion receive him into his House or should enter himself into the Brotherhood of the Rosary or of the Cord of St. Francis he shall be reprimanded for it as boisterously and be treated by the Jesuit with as much contempt as if he had intirely renounced the Christian Faith And as to the places where the Jesuits are ordinarily resident the Faithful dare not so much as offer to entertain a Friar that is not of their Order nor have the least communication with such a one unless it be privately and if the Jesuits come to hear of it they will Chastise
Affection the Patriarch having paid his Devoirs to the Emperor went up to the Altar where having spent some time in Devotion he seated himself in his Pontifical Chair and begun a Sermon taking for his Text those words of the Psalmist Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to live together in unity His Discourse is said to have been the more applauded for its having been the first Sermon that was ever preached in Ethiopia by an Abuna Upon which as if all Popes and Roman Archbishops were constant and laborious Preachers and mortal haters of Money the Jesuits triumphed and made this reflection That by this if there had been nothing else the Habassins might have seen the difference there was betwixt their Church and that of Rome their former Abunas having come amongst them for no other end but to get money out of them the Patriarch having given the blessing was told the Emperor staid for him in the great Hall of the Palace who when the Patriarch came near ris up and made him sit down by him in a Chair that differed nothing from that he himself sate on the Emperor after they were both seated enquired very kindly about the Patriarch's health The day is fixt for the Emperor's submitting himself and his Empire to the Pope and the length and fatigues of his Voyage and some Complements and Ejaculations having passed on both sides they fixed the day whereon the Emperor and all his Converts were publickly to swear obedience to the Pope in the hands of the Patriarch The Eleventh of December which was the day appointed for the Solemnity being come the Emperor and all the Court-Converts repaired to the great Hall of the Palace in which there were two Chairs of State placed near the Throne one on the right side for the Emperor and another on the left for the Patriarch who being seated with his Tiara on his head and in a Cope of Asperges he begun a Sermon taking for his Text Thou art Peter c. I shall not trouble the Reader with the Sermon there being nothing in it but the common Roman Mumpsimus upon these words The Patriarch preacheth before the Emperor and the gross fallacy of confounding the Supremacy the Church of Rome now pretends to with that primacy of order that was anciently given to it purely in consideration of Rome 's being the first City in the Empire to which purpose the Patriarch quoted a Canon of the Council of Nice which he told the Habassins they would find in their own Books which run as follows There are four principal Chairs in the World which are as the four Rivers that flow out of Paradise or as the four universal Winds or as the four Elements but above all the Chair of St. Peter has the Dignity and Primacy and in the second place that of St. Mark of Alexandria in the third place that of St. John in the fourth that of Antioch which was also St. Peter 's from which four all the other Bishops are derived Now this Canon besides that it is not a Canon of the Council of Nice which in its Constitution relating to the Hierarchy contradicts it in making Antioch and not Ephesus the third Chair and Jerusalem the fourth it overthrows that very Supremacy to which the Habassins were about to swear obedience in giving no other Primacy to the Roman over the other three Patriarchs than it do's to the Alexandrian over the other two which was undoubtedly a Primacy only of Order and not of Jurisdiction for had the Primacy that is here given to these Chairs been given out of respect to the Apostles who were their first Bishops then Antioch must have been the second if not the first and Alexandria the last but notwithstanding it is not easy to imagine that the patriarch should be ignorant of these two great flaws in his Canon he concluded it with this flourish See now to whom you ought to give most Credit to a gross Falsary or Cheat or to a Decree of Three hundred and eighteen Catholick Fathers There was another thing he much insisted upon which was That there had been Heretical Bishops in all the other Chairs whereas no Bishop that had sate in the Chair of Rome had ever been so much as suspected of any Heresy which to say no worse of it was a bold word considering That Liberius stands accused by all his Contemporaries of Arianism and Honorius Bishop of the same See was condemned by Name in Two General Councils as a Heretick But the Habassins having little or no Knowledge in Church-History encouraged the Patriarch to make so bold with them When the Patriarch had ended his Sermon the Emperor Commanded the Viceroy of Cemen who was Lord High Chamberlain to speak in his Name There is but one thing remarkable in the Chamberlain's Speech that is his saying The High Chamberlain's Speech That the People of Ethiopia did compel the Emperor much against his will to take the Crown upon him and that if they would have let him alone he would have been much better contented to have lived and died in the Monastery they found him in than to have been made an Emperor Now this is very different from the History we have of him which makes him during Jacob and Za Danguil's Reign to have scoured about with a Body of Raperees and to have fought his way to the Throne When the Chamberlain had done speaking the Emperor turned about to the Patriarch and told him Your Lordship is not to think that what I am about to do now is a new thing I having some years ago yeilded Obedience to the Pope in the hands of the Father Superior who is here present nevertheless being willing to do it again with more Solemnity he took the Book of the Gospels in his hand and Kneeling down before the Patriarch made his Submission in the form following WE Seltem Saged The Emperor's Submission Emperor of Ethiopia Do Believe and Confess That St. Peter was Constituted Prince of the Apostles by our Lord Jesus Christ as also Head of the whole Christian Church Christ having given him a Principality and Dominion over the whole World when he said unto him Thou art Peter and when at another time he Commanded him to feed his Sheep We do also Believe and Confess That the Pope of Rome being lawfully Elected is the true Successor of the Apostle St. Peter in that Government having the same Power Dignity and Primacy over the whole Christian Church And to the Holy Father Urban the VIIIth who is by the Grace of God Pope at this time and our Lord and to his Successors in the Government of the Church We do Promise Offer and Swear true Obedience and Subjection with all humility at his Feet for our own Person and Empire So help us God and this Holy Gospel Upon this Submission the Emperor was represented here in Europe by the Missionaries as one of the
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
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