sends an Army against the Rebels and routs them and knowing himself not to be strong enough to deal with him he Retreated to the Mountains where his Army's Zeal being allayed by the want of Provisions it moulder'd to nothing in a short time so that he was obliged with a small Party to take fanctuary among the Gauls who having been hired to it by the Emperor put him to death The Emperor being returned to Doncaz where he intended to spend the Winter was invited by the Fathers to come and visit the new Church they had built at Gorgora which he did with great Devotion putting his Shoes off when he entered into it but the late Proclamation had bred too much ill blood in Ethiopia for to let it be long quiet The Damotes a People inhabiting the banks of Nile being thrown into such a rage by Raz Cella their Viceroy's rigorous Execution thereof that they all flew to their Arms as one Man being likewise instigated so to do by great droves of Hermits who being alarmed by the late Proclamation flocked to them from all parts of the Desarts railing all the way they came at the Emperor and his Brother as Apostates and at the Jesuits as the Authors of all their troubles several of them running over the Countrey as men distracted and roaring as they went That all People were bound in Conscience to take up Arms against the Emperor and his Brother in defence of their Religion which they seemed to be resolved to destroy The Viceroy hearing of the mad work the Hermits were making among the Damotes writ to some of his Friends in those parts not to suffer themselves and the People to be any longer abused by such a pack of Ignorant and Hypocritical Rascals who taught them nothing but Lies but he could have no other answer from them than That unless he would burn all his Popish Books and deliver up all his Jesuits to them The Damotes take up Arms for their Religion and are routed that they might hang them all upon one great Tree for the mischiefs they had done in Ethiopia they would have nothing more to do with him being all to a man resolved to live and die in the Alexandrian Faith The Viceroy not caring to part with his Books and Jesuâ—â—s so easily advanced towards them with an Army of Seven Thousand well-disciplin'd Men the Damotes were near double the Number having Four hundred Hermits who had devoted their Lives to their Religion well Armed with Targets and Launces this great inequality in numbers did not hinder the Viceroy from offering them Battel so soon as he came up with them which they having accepted of the two Armies quickly came to blows but the Damotes being raw men and not well Armed were at the first onset put to the rout and besides a great slaughter that was made among the Soldiers as they fled towards the Mountains there were One hundred and eighteen of the Monks with their famous Captain Batare found slain upon the spot where the Fight was the Viceroy is said to have lost but One Man in the Action and he too which made the loss the less was a Heathen A Miraculous Evidence say the Jesuits of the Truth of the Roman and of the falshood of the Alexandrian Faith The Emperor when Father Peter Congratulated him upon this Victory told him He had great reason to thank God for it for that had the Damotes gained the least advantage he should have had the whole Empire presently in Arms against him whose Spirits he believed were now pretty well subdued and that after such a blow it would not be soâ—eâ—â—y for the Monks or Hermits to Roar them into any more Rebellions and whereas he had hitherto been with-held by his fear and his Wife 's The Emperor reconciles himself to the Church of Rome which he was very unwilling to have parted withal from Reconciling himself formally to the Church of Rome he told the Father he would delay to do it no longer the Father over-joyed to hear this upon his having first Abjured all the Alexandrian Errors and made a Confession of his whole Life to him gave him Absolution and Reconciled him to the Pope But the Father overcome it is like by the Joy of this Conversion outlived it but a few days his Death was much Lamented by the Emperor and his Brother to whom the Father was become a perfect Oracle in all State no less than Church-matters Presently after Father Peter's death there were Three Letters writ from Ethiopia to the Provincial and Visitor of the Jesuits in the Indies to send them a Patriarch with as many Fathers as they could spare The first was writ by the Emperor to the Provincial the second and third to the Visitor by Father Luis de Azevedo and Father Antony Fernandez The Contents of which Letters being much the same I shall set down that of Father Antony's only which is the shortest of them Father Antony Fernandez Letter to the Father Visitor of the Indies I Write this with the good News of this Kingdom to your Reverence to engage you to order Processions to be made and to have Masses said and the Te Deum sung to return Thanks to God for the favour he has shewed us in the Conversion of this Empire the doing whereof will very much refresh the Fathers and Brethren who labour here with me and will sweeten the great hardships they undergo The Emperor with his whole Court and all the Grandees and Princes Ecclesiastical and Secular of this Empire have abjured their Errors and made a publick Profession of their Obedience to the holy See of Rome The general Administration of all Churches and Parishes being put into my hands I have Established Curates in them all having made such new Laws as were necessary and abolished all the old ones that were contrary to the Roman Church I have had some thoughts of coming to you and have been ready to begin my Journey but have been still hindered by the Glory of God which obligeth me to keep close to the Emperor The thing we stand most in need of here at present is a Patriarch with a good number of Fathers to help us to carry on these good beginnings Your Reverence cannot but be sensible of this our want without my enlarging upon it Our Fathers and Brethren ought to run thorough fire and water Pikes and Swords for to assist this Countrey lest having the promised Land shewed us we may be excluded it thorough our own fault They ought to flock hither with all possible speed for notwithstanding the Heirs apparent of the Empire and all the Princes and Nobles thereof are at present true Catholicks Nevertheless should we happen to be deprived of the Emperor and his Brother Zela Christos by death it is to be feared that the Monks and Habassins might raise seditions to the pulling down of all that we have built and may persuade the people who are more
little respect to the most Potent Precious John and his Subjects as to load them with Reproaches calling us Jews and Mahometans because we circumcise and sanctify the Sabbath after the manner of the Jews and do continue our Fasts till Sunset as the Mahometans do They do likewise object to us with great bitterness That our Priests do marry after the manner of the Lay-men and that mistrusting our first Baptism we are baptized yearly and that we circumcise not only Males but Females also which the Jews never did lastly that we observe a distinction of Meats with great strictness and that we call Children Half-Christians before they are baptized To which things I was obliged to return an Answer to vindicate our people from the Calumnies that are cast upon them and to render the Roman Doctors more affable to us who how piously I will not say have ever since I came into Portugal which is now Seven Years deny'd me the Sacrament so that I cannot speak it but with extreme Grief and Tears I am treated by my Christian Brethren as a Heathen and an Anathema He that enliveneth all things to whom I commit it does take notice of these matters I was not sent by the most Potent Lord the Emperor of Ethiopia to the Roman Pontiff and to the most Serene John King of Portugal to brangle and dispute but to contract a Friendship and Alliance betwixt them not to increase or diminish Human Traditions but to enquire diligently into the Errors of Arius the Prince of Hereticks and to learn whether the European Christians do agree with us in confuting his Opinions upon account of whose Errors a Council of Three hundred and eighteen Bishops were assembled at Nice under Pope Julius And that I might learn likewise whether what the Apostles have commanded in their Book of Synods was observed among the European Christians to wit That Two Councils be celebrated every Year in the Christian Church to treat concerning Matters of Faith the first whereof they ordered to be assembled at the Feast of Pentecost and the second on the 10th of October And to learn also how it stood betwixt us as to the Errors of Macedonius upon whose account a Council of an Hundred and Fifty Bishops was assembled at Constantinople under Pope Damasus And also the Errors of Nestorius against whom a Council of Two hundred were assembled at Ephesus under Pope Celestine And lastly That I might be informed of the Fourth and Great Council of Chalcedon assembled upon the account of the Errors of Eutyches at the time when St. Leo was Bishop of Rome from which Council after having had hot Disputes the Bishops returned without having concluded any thing for the Peace of the Church both Parties maintaining their own Opinions The Books of which Synods and of divers others that were afterwards celebrated my Lord the Emperor of Ethiopia hath by him who is very much troubled as are also all his Christian Subjects at the Tares which the Devil the Enemy of Truth has sown among Christians Our people from the beginning have acknowledged the Roman Pontiff to be the first Bishop to whom as the Vicar of Christ we do at this time submit our selves and in whose Court we would be frequently were it not for the great distance we are at from it and our being denied a free passage through the Mahometan Kingdoms which lye betwixt us insomuch that many times after having exposed our Persons to great dangers we are not able to get thither The most Prudent and Invincible King Emanuel of happy memory was the first that by Divine Direction opened a Passage by his Navigation to the East-Indies which for the future gives us great hopes of a commodious Correspondence Emanuel made himself Master of the Red Sea with his Fleets not being discouraged from doing it by the greatness of the Charge that so he might augment the Faith of Christ and open a Passage for us to correspond with him and to make use of each other's assistance by which means we do hope with our united Forces to drive all the Mahometans and Heathens not only from the Coasts of the Red-Sea but also out of Arabia Persia and India And as we do not in the least doubt but that we shall be able to do this so we do wish that all European Christians were in Peace with one another that so they might join together The design of this Habossin Embassy in order to expel the Enemies of the Cross of Christ out of the Mediterranean Countries and Pontus and other Provinces that according to the Word of Christ there may be but one Law one Shepherd and one Pastor upon the face of the whole earth of which we have two Prophecies one in the Prophecies of St. Ficator and another of St. Synoda a Hermit born among the Rocks in the extremities of Egypt both which Prophecies do agree in this matter For which reason we have reckoned the Events of those Prophecies to be drawing near ever since my most Potent Lord had Ambassadors sent to him by the Serene and Wise King Emanuel And it is certain that ever since that time my Prince hath thought of nothing so much as of destroying the Mahometans from off the Face of the earth for the advancing of which design and of some other matters which I have laid before the most Serene King John the Son of Emanuel I was sent hither by my most Potent Lord and not to engage in frivolous and empty Disputations I do wish the great God may bring the Intentions and Endeavours of my Prince which I was sent hither to promote to an happy Issue so as to be for his Glory Amen Having given some Account of these things I will now with great Brevity say something of the state of our Patriarch and Empire When our Patriarch dies Precious John our Emperor immediately dispatcheth a Messenger to the Monks that live at Jerusalem A false account of the Election of the Abuna who having received notice and the Presents that are sent to the Holy Sepulchre by the Emperor do straightways chuse a Patriarch by a Majority of Voices who must always be an Alexandrian Monk of an unblameable life When they have chosen a Patriarch they seal up their Votes and transmit them by the Emperor's Messenger to the Patriarch of Alexandria residing at Grand Cairo who immediately consecrates the Monk that is chosen to that great Dignity and sends him with the Messenger into Ethiopia The Person elected according to ancient custom must be a Monk of the Order of St. Anthony the Hermit and who when he arrives in Ethiopia is there received with great Joy and Honour This Affair is not sometimes finished under a Year or two during which Vacancy all the Rents of the Patriarch are paid to Precious John The chief business of the Patriarch is to confer Holy Orders which none besides him can either give or take away He collates to no
would sooner put themselves under the Mahometans than turn Papists This put me upon writing all that I could have Preached to them if I could have spoke their Language that so I might by the answer the King returned to it clearly discover his thoughts which he had so long dissembled when we heard of the King 's being returned to the Camp we went presently to wait upon him and were told by several Portugueses that belonged to the Court That the King had not so much as once mentioned our Names since our Audience Now the Treatise I had composed being in Portuguese it was necessary if I would have the King to read it to get it Translated into Chaldee whereupon I writ a Letter to the King himself to desire him to let me have a couple of Learned Monks to Translate the Truths of our Faith into Chaldee I having put them together on purpose to shew how little reason his people had to call us of the Roman Communion Hereticks and to affirm that we were worse than Mahometans and being informed that the Habassins had a Book among them written by the Schismaticks and Hereticks of Alexandria from whence they have their Abuna's having paid a Tribute to the Turk for that priviledge Entituled The Adultery of the Franks wherein among other things the Council of Calcedon is condemned pretending that it taught that there were Four Persons in the Holy Trinity and we are likewise charged with divers Errors I begg'd of the King that I might have a sight of that Book The King would not let me have the Book and was very angry that I had been told of it but as to the Monks I had desired he ordered a couple to come to me but they had not well begun the Translation before either out of fear that the King would be displeased with them if they went on with it or because he had privately Commanded them not to do it they gave it over so that I was obliged to repair to a Portuguese Captain to speak to them to finish it who with much ado prevailed with them to go on The Interpreter on my side was a worthy Portuguese who understood both the Languages well Having at last got my Treatise Translated the next thing I had to do was to get it written out fair and having desired an Amanuensis of the King to do it for me after having granted me one he repented presently and sent me word That if I would let him see my Treatise as it was he would read it over and that otherwise he would never trouble himself with it so I was obliged to carry it to him as it was having first dated it and put my name to it it bore date the 20th of August When I delivered it to him I was accompanied by a Portuguese Captain and Seven or Eight more of the same Nation and after having paid the customary Obeisances I began a short speech concerning the occasion of my coming into Ethiopia but the King interrupted me and began to talk of other things as one prepared to ward off the blows that I had designed to have given him when I had put my Treatise into his hand he begun to read in it but had read but a little way before he was put into such a passion by it as made him vomit out the poison he had so long concealed telling me I had desired leave to set down the Truths of my own Faith and to have some Monks to Translate them into Chaldee but instead of that I had charged those with Errors who had none he told me further That that was a work no ways proper for a simple Priest like me but was the work of some Great Bishop or Prelate like the Pope I made answer It was true I was but a mean man but the things I had set down were nevertheless the Truths of the Gospel and of the Holy Councils whom and not me I desired his Highness to hear He told me I had imposed several things upon them which they never held I replied I knew very well that his Highness was in no Error of Faith but that his Subjects were and that I had set down nothing but what was true and what I was ready to demonstrate to him He said He was no friend to Disputations but there was one thing he was certain of which was that Ethiopia had always held the same Faith that it did now or at least that it had for above a Thousand years that Disputations were never to be used but with Heathens and that his Faith being thus Ancient there was no body before me had ever presumed to say it was Erroneous To this I answered That God did sometimes for peoples Sins suffer such things and that his Highness had reason to thank God for having in his time visited Ethiopia with the truth of the Gospel He said the Catholick Church was divided into four Chairs and that they had from the beginning been subject to one of them I repli'd it was true but so it was likewise that all Churches were Anciently subject to the Roman Bishop who was above all the rest as his Highness was above his Subjects insomuch that the three other Chairs for having denied obedience to the Roman were all become Schismatical together with all those who were subject to them That his Highness if he would be pleased to peruse my Treatise would therein meet with full Answers to all his Objections exhorting him to take care not to make himself of that number of People the Prophet speaks of who would not understand that they might do well The Emperor's defence of himself and his Faith After a great deal of arguing I told him that my design in writing that Paper was to discover how his mind stood disposed towards the Pope and the Learned Friars which his Brother the King of Portugal was about to send to him for that if he was not willing that they should come it would be to no purpose for the King to send them so far I did therefore beseech his Highness to declare whether he intended to submit himself to the Pope as he had promised he said he had learned Friars enough in his Kingdom and that it was needless for the King of Portugal to trouble himself to send him any more and as for the Pope That he had never yielded him any obedience that Submission that was carried to him by Gasper de Magalhaens being what he had never made and was either a trick or mistake of the Monk who Translated his Letters to the King of Portugal concluding That he was resolved never to yield Obedience to any Patriarch but the Patriarch of Alexandria whom he would always obey as all his Ancestors had done before him When I found the King thus absolutely determined I took my leave of him who after I was gone begun to extol me for a mighty Scholar saying He wondered how it was possible for so
already in a manner submitted himself to the Roman See by having in his Letters both to the present Pope and to Paul the IVth stiled them the Pastor of Pastors and Father of Fathers and Head of the whole Church To which he reply'd That he gave the Pope those Titles only in Civility and that it was not fair to strain Complements that pass betwixt friends to such purposes and if there was any thing in the Letters he sent to the Pope that was not agreeable with the Doctrine of the Church that it was not to be laid at his door but at Abraham the bearer's who to make his Court the better at Rome The Alexandrian after having taken the Pope's Money denies to submit himself to him had foisted several things into those Letters which he knew would be grateful to the Pope Abraham who was present when the Patriarch made this Declaration did not deny his having done it but smiling told the Jesuits That he believed it was lawful on several occasions to dissemble as much as that came to that being no more than what St. Paul himself had done who declared That he became all things to all men He added further A trick of an Alexandrian Monk That he had a Book wherein it was said That St. Paul when he was among the Heathens did act as a Heathen and to ingratiate himself with them the more in order to their Conversion at last did worship their Idols But notwithstanding Pius was thus Defeated as to this Patriarchal Submission he had a Sham-one of a Mock-Patriarch of Babylon ready for the Council of Trent against it Sate next Year Rodriguez as he was returning to the Indies had the following Account sent him by one Alfonso de Franca a Portuguese Captain that belonged to the Court of a Conference he had with the Emperor about Religion His Highness saith Franca intended to have caught me in the same trap he had set for your Reverence and having drawn his water over great flats to his Mill he charged me before all the Portugueses and the whole Court with having called him and Dioscorus Hereticks I made answer That our Sacred Writings of the holy Councils and our other Histories of the Church for 1070 years had still called them so and that the Eastern Churches that were separated from the Roman did the same To this he repli'd That tho our History might call them so A Conference betwixt the Emperor and a Portuguese about Religion yet God knew what his own Scriptures said of them I rejoined I was sensible that the Habassins did look upon us as Nestorian Hereticks pretending that we hold that there are Two Persons in Christ which is what I am told to my face every day and that the Treatise your Reverence Presented to his Highness did not prove the Truth of our Faith by affirming that it was not credible that so many Christian Kings being all united in one Faith and under one Pastor should be all in the Wrong and the Emperor of Ethiopia only in the Right He Answered I have hitherto lived in Peace and Amity with all Christian Kings and that it was I only that endeavoured to bring him to be upon ill terms with them I told him the Pope and my Lord the King of Portugal had sent me to reveal the secret of our Holy Faith to him which was all that I endeavoured and for which if his Highness was displeased with me I had a Religion and a King I would die for sooner than deny them He told me further That I had reported among his Subjects that their Abuna's were sent to them from the Turks I answered that was a great truth since none of them were ever consecrated at Rome or sent from thence He then asked me Why since I was so great a Romanist and a Bigot for my Faith I had desired to be Baptized in Ethiopia and to receive the Eucharist from them As to Baptism I said there was no such thing I having been Baptized when I was but Eight days old but as to the Eucharist it was true that being once dangerously stick I had desired it which was a thing I thought I might lawfully do in the extream necessity I was in at that time and that I would do it again if there were the same occasion and could not have the opportunity of a Roman Priest He told me he would order it not to be given to me St. Paul having said there is but one Faith and one Baptism To that I repli'd If St. Paul saith so why is your Highness Baptized once a year This put him into a great Passion and having given me a great many hard words he put his Hand to his Sword which I having observed I said to him Sir I would not have your Highness defer punishing me for for this Truth of the good Jesus I do not fear all the Kings of the Earth nor none but him whom we desire not to chasten us in his wrath but for you I would have you to chasten me in your anger for as there is nothing so excellent as the Soul so Iregard nothing that is not Infinite I spoke all this to him with an extraordinary courage so that seeing me much more resolute than he had ever done at any time before he went away and left me in the Field so that by what I can perceive by him he will sooner put himself under the Turks and so will his whole people too who are all Dioscoreans as are the Alexandrians than yield obedieace to the Holy Pope I did not care to acquaint you with this sooner for fear of having discouraged your Reverence from using your utmost diligence in your Office But while things were in this Posture in Ethiopia at Rome and Lisbon they still continued to reckon it as good as reduced to the Roman Obedience and that there was nothing wanting to perfect it but the new Patriarch's Presence among them who on the 15th of March 1556 set Sail from Lisbon upon the Ship called the Graca as Bishop Andrew did at the same time upon the St. Vincent and after a Tempestuous Voyage they arrived at Goa on the 13th of September of the same Year It cannot be expressed how much the Patriarch was troubled at the News of the present Posture of Affairs in Ethiopia The new Patriarch arrives at Goa which were brought by Redriguez to Goa a few days before he landed it being a terrible disappointment to him to find that a Work which he had thought would have done it self was next to impossible The Patriarch and Bishop with all their Companions were lodged in the Jesuits Collage where they found the old Patriarch but not a word of what passed betwixt them or of their having ever so much as seen one another tho' undoubtedly they did having been several Months together in the same House The new Patriarch having consecrated Melchior Elect of Nice they begun to
him would needs know what this extraordinary business was he told him There was a Portuguese or two Sick at that place and that he must needs go and hear their Confession before they died The Emperor finding the Father was not to be persuaded out of his Journey allowed him two Months which he reckoned was time long enough for the hearing of two Confessions to be absent from Court But the Father who had left the main body of the Portugueses not a year before without any Confessor to go to Court with the Viceroy of Tigre had not left the Court above a Month when the true cause of his retiring broke out in a Rebellion that was Headed by his good Friend Raz Athanateus the Habassin Earl of Warwick who having upon a disgust taken the Crown off Jacob's Head and placed it on Za Danguil's was now for taking it from Za Danguil again being displeased with him for preferring Luca Mariam to him A Rebellion breaks out presently after So hard a matter it is for Princes to please People who either have or think they have been instrumental in helping them to their Crowns But whatever it was that had disposed the People for a new Revolution whether the Emperor's Male-administration of Affairs or only an itch for the Festivity of a new Acclamation or a false compassion for the deposed Emperor it is certain Za Danguil was deserted by the main body both of the Grandees and People neither would they be satisfied unless they had Jacob restored to his Throne again But Za Danguil being a Prince of great Courage resolved they should not have the Crown but with his Head and having made up a small Army marched directly towards the Rebels who as he was informed were encamped on the banks of the Nile Nanina where Father Peter continued still confessing his two Portugueses happening to be in the Emperor's way as he marched he sent for the Father to come and speak with him The Emperor marcheth against the Rebels and when he saw him he cried out Alas your Reverence sees what they are doing to me for endeavouring to shew them the way of Truth and because I will not suffer the great to Oppress the small What would you advise me to do in this case The Father is said to have been sorry to see him with so small an Army and having comforted him as well as he could to have advised him to put his trust in God and to avoid coming to a Battel It is said farther that he offered to have gone along with him but having told him at the same time That his Spiritual Patients were not yet recovered and that he was busie repairing the Chappel the Portugueses had in that Village the Emperor bid him stay and go on with his good Works but be sure to recommend him to God in his Prayers and after two Months were expired not to fail where-ever he should be to come to him The Emperor hearing that Athanateâ—s who must have left the Court much about the same time with Father Peter had not as yet joined his Troops with those of Za Selasse whose pretence for Rebelling was Religion being in danger endeavoured to have got between them so as to have hindered their conjunction but Athanateus having had notice of this design defeated it by passing the River Nile sooner than otherwise he intended to have done Upon this design miscarrying for want of having been kept secret or by having been communicated to some of Athanateus Friends that were about the Emperor John Gabriel who commanded all the Portugueses that were in the Imperial Army advised the Emperor to delay coming to a Battel and the rather because the Heads of the Rebels were men of such different designs that it was not likely that they could hold long together but the Emperor pushed on by his own natural Courage and provoked by the Insolency of the Rebels was deaf to this advice and so did not only March directly towards them but did offer them Battel so soon as he came up with them and notwithstanding Seventy of his best Troopers who I doubt were Portugueses before a stroke was struck went over to the Enemy that did not hinder the Emperor from engaging with them the fight was bloody for some time the Victory continuing doubtful till the Emperor as he was fighting in Person more like a Heroe than a General was Slain upon whose fall The Emperor is Killed Fighting his Men reckoning that they had then nothing to Fight for threw down their Arms and cri'd out for Quarter Those of the Portuguese Blood on both sides are said to have done Miracles on this occasion but we have had so many of those Miracles in Gama's Expedition that it would make the Reader sick to trouble him with any more There are said to have been Two hundred of the Roman Catholick Profession in the Two Armies which if it was so it ought to have obliged Father Peter to have gone with the Emperor to have Confessed those that were in his Army before they engaged rather than to have staid behind to do it to Two of that Profession and whom he had then been Confessing for above Six Weeks But as we know little of what the Jesuits did in Ethiopia but from their own reports so if any thing be brought to light in the managing of these Missions that does not make much for the honour of their Order the discovery thereof must be owing purely to the irresistible power of truth which though never so artificially disguised will still give some glimpses of it self The Emperor though not actually reconciled to the Church of Rome when he was slain is said for his good inclinations to it to have had a Miracle wrought on his Body it was not to bring him to life again which the Emperor who took it out of the Earth to give it a more honourable Enterment would have been very sorry should have been the effect of his Piety but the Miracle was That his Body when taken out of the Ground Ten years after it had been lodged in it was found intire A plain evidence saith a Jesuit of the integrity of his Faith Death not being strong enough to exercise its tyranny on a body which had been so incorrupt in all matters of Justice As to Father Peter's lamenting the Emperor's Death so much as he does in a Letter I do not take that to be any argument at all of his not having been privy to the Conspiracy but of the Conspirators having either carried things farther than he would have had them or perhaps than they themselves at first intended or of his having been too far engaged therein by his first Patron the Viceroy of Tigre before he saw the Court to go back with honour or safety Athanateus amidst the triumphs of his Victory was not unmindful of his Friend Father Peter Father Peter repairs to the Victorious Rebels but writ to him
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
dead before his nomination arrived the Patriarch was nominated by the King of Portugal to the Archbishoprick of Goa which Dignity he did not live to take possession of having departed this life on the Twenty ninth of June before the arrival of the Fleet by which the nomination was sent He died in the Seventy Seventh Year of his Age having been Sixty Three Years a Friar of the Society of whom though his Brethren the Jesuits have wrote great things the poor Ethiopick Church might justly apply to him what Moses's Ethiopick Wife said to him in a passion Thou hast been an Husband of blood to me Basilides having by a total extirpation of Popery out of his Empire Basilides having extirpated Popery recovers most of his lost Provinces quieted the minds of his Subjects set about recovering the Provinces his Infidel Neighbours had during the Habassin broils about Religion tore from his Predecessors and was so prosperous in his Wars as to regain most of them having if Morad the Habassin Ambassador at Batavia did not stretch extended his Empire Northward to the confines of Nubia and Southward to Hadea the people of which Kingdom were converted by him to the Christian Faith Basilides having Reign'd Two and Thirty Years After a happy Reign of Thirty Two years is succeeded by his Son Aelaf Saged was after his Death succeeded by his Son Aelaf Saged in the Year 1665. Aelaf swayed the Ethiopick Scepter Fifteen Years without doing any thing that was Memorable only having heard of the greatness of the Dutch power in the Indies he sent one Morad an Armenian his Ambassador in the Year 1672 to the Governor of Batavia Aelaf dying in the Year 1681 Aelaf is succeeded by his Son Adjam Saged the present Emperor of Ethiopia was succeeded by his Son Jaso Adian Saged who sent Morad a Second time to the Governor of Batavia in the Year 1689. The account Morad gave of his Master was That he was exceeding tall of Stature had a fierce Countenance and was very brave and wise and of indefatigable application to business and as to his affairs both at home and abroad he affirmed them to be in a most flourishing condition The Letters of those Embassies together with the Dutch Governors answers to them are published by the great Mr. Ludolphus at the end of his Commentaries as are also the Answers which were given by the said Ambassador to the Questions which that Learned Person had sent some Years before to the Indies for which I refer the curious Reader to that Learned Book A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE Dominican History of Ethiopia Composed by Father Lewis De Uuretta a Dominican and Printed at Valentia in the Year 1610. IN the Year 1316 Eight Dominican Friars with a Holy Sister Santer'd from Rome to Jerusalem where having Visited the Holy Sepulcher taking Bethlehem in their way they went down into Egypt and from thence to Ethiopia and having there Learned the Language of the Countrey perfectly in a few days they begun to preach to the Astonishment of that whole Empire confirming the truth of all they taught by Miracles Prester John the Emperor hearing of those wonderful Preachers sent to bid them welcome into his Empire and to let them know they had free liberty to build Convents enough therein to hold all Europe and to exercise their power of Inquisitors upon all his Subjects and that he would allow them all the same Privileges and Immunities that they enjoy in the Latin Church The Fathers overjoy'd at this news begun presently to make use of the liberty that was granted them and having penetrated Six Hundred Leagues into Ethiopia they came at last to the Lake of Cafates on the other side of the Equinoctial where the head of the River Nile riseth where upon the Mountains of the Moon and in the Kingdom of Gojam and among the Caffres and in the Provinces bordering on the Cape of Goodhope they built several Convents filling them all presently with Friars of their own Order most of which came afterwards to be as famous for their Learning and Piety as they were for their Miracles but the topping man of all those Novices was one Tecla Haymonot the only Child of King Sacasab and Queen Sarah who having wrought divers Miracles in his Infancy when he came to be a Man preferred the Dominican habit to a Crown and came afterwards to be the Chief Glory of his Order having had the Honour done him whenever he said Mass to have the Wafer and the Wine brought down from Heaven to him by an Angel and whenever he went to any City to Preach he was constantly attended by all the Lyons Tygers Wolves Snakes and Serpents in the Neighbourhood who never left him till he dismissed them with the blessing for which they all expressed themselves very thankful and who having founded a Monastery for Nine thousand Dominican Friars obliged the Devil to do all the servile work thereof for Seven Years which he did alone so exactly that the Convent has never been so well served since which made an Emperor when he was told of it say That Tecla Hamonot was to blame for not having made the Devil serve the Convent as long as it stood While the Friars were thus employed the Holy Sister was not idle who as if she had intended to have taken the Emperor at his word built a Monastery wherein she placed Five Hundred Dominican Benta's of the third Rule This great Nunnery was at first called Bado Nagh but at this time Santa Clara the History of all which Convents is to this day curiously Painted in the Cloisters of the Plurimanos whither any who are so unreasonable as to doubt of the truth of them may go and be satisfied The Monastery of Plurimanos in which there are Nine thousand Dominican Friars was founded by Tecla Haymonot It is four Leagues in Compass and hath Eighty Dormitories which have all the great Church at one end and the Refectory at the other Some of these Dormitories have One hundred and twenty some One hundred and fifty and some Two hundred Cells Every Dormitory has a particular Chappel and Library belonging to it The great Church is Six hundred paces long and so it had need since all the Friars repair to it together on Sundays and Holidays The Second great Dominican Convent in Ethiopia is that of the Allelujah which was built by Bartholomew de Tiroli a Dominican Friar who was Consecrated Bishop of the City of Dangola at Rome it has but Seven thousand Friars who on high Days Dine all together in the Refectory From these two Convents there are vast numbers of Missionaries sent once a year to Arabia Bengala Siam Pegu and China as also to Congo Monopatata and the Cape of Goodhope by some of which Missionaries the King of Congo and Angola was Baptized in the Year 1580. These Missionaries do all return home at Whitsuntide and our Historian being sensible that
amongst them any longer Here our Historian falls into a most violent fit of Railing against those Portuguese Jews and for their sake against their whole Race calling them an Impious Cruel Malicious Pestilent Contagious Infamous Vile Nasty Loathsome Generation and at last desires all the Devils in Hell to fetch the whole Race of them for having dared to report such impudent lies of an Empire that was much more Catholick than France in having received both the Inquisition and the Council of Trent which was what France could never yet be perswaded to do he likewise blames the old Christians among the Portuguese for having been so easy as to give Credit to such malicious and groundless Reports and as to what the Popes and the Kings of Portugal have said and done upon supposition of the Habassins being Enemies to the Roman Church he saith they had been miserably imposed upon by the stories which were raised by those Villanous Jews as they were also in the case of the Patriarch Oviedo who at the same time that he was revoked by the Pope because there was no hopes of his doing any good in Ethiopia by reason of the Emperor and the Peoples obstinacy in the Alexandrian Faith was reverenced by all the Habassins as a Saint and beloved by them as a Father and listned to as a wise Man and reckoned as an Apostle sent by God to them and was so far from being in Disgrace with the Emperor that he was President of his Latin Council It is true the Portuguese Patriarchs and Fathers having done several indiscreet things whereby they had disobliged the Habassin Clergy grew sick of Ethiopia quickly and returned to the Indies The Portuguese saith he being a People who cannot live long out of their own Country or at least from among their Countrymen whereas Bishop Andre Oviedo being a Spaniard and one who weighed and considered things would neither leave his Flock nor quarrel with them about Trifles and so lived and died in Ethiopia with great Honour his Memory being precious amongst them to this day of the truth of which the Pope was quickly afterwards fully satisfied for the Habassins of St. Stephen's Colledge at Rome understanding how their Church was misrepresented sent one of their Body immediately to acquaint the Emperor Menna who succeeded Claudius therewith who was put into such a Rage by the news of his being represented not to be a Roman-Catholick by the Portuguese Jews that he presently made a Law prohibiting all Portuguese upon pain of Death to come into Ethiopia without a Certificate of their being Old Christians from the Inquisitions of Lisbon and Goa He writ also immediately to Goa Lisbon and Rome to disabuse those Courts and to let them know that none but rascally Jews would have had the Impudence to have reported That he and his Empire were not true Roman Catholicks He writ also to the Colledge of Cardinals and particularly to the Protector of his Empire obliging his Council of State to do the same with passionate Declarations of their great Zeal for the Roman Faith and to give the Pope yet further satisfaction he made a new Submission of himself and his Empire to him Alexander the Third who succeeded Menna in the Empire reckoning that his Predecessor had not done enough in sending only one Ambassador to the Pope sent an Embassy to Rome which consisted of Twenty four Priests and Two Gentlemen to yield Obedience in his Name to the Holy See So much of the Dominican History of Ethiopia In which though it is an Octavo of 1130 odd Pages and a small Print there is not one syllable of truth from the beginning to the end yet notwithstanding that I do not know that I ever saw an History in any Language that had more of the Magisterial Air of Truth in it the Author seeming every where to value himself extreamly upon his Fidelity and his care of setting down nothing without being first well assured of its Truth appealing constantly to Authentick Records though a great way off for such falshoods as had the least of the Colours of Truth in them insomuch that in the beginning of his Book he saith with the greatest assurance imaginable That none could doubt of the truth of any thing he had reported in his History but Scepticks who called the truth of all things into question as in another place he reflects severely upon the Jesuits Maffenis and Mariana accusing them both of not having had that sacred regard for Truth in their Writings which all who write Histories ought to have and as if he had a mind to impose his Fictions upon God as well as Man for Truths he concludes his Legend of the Lives of several Habassin Dominican Saints some of which we have reason to believe were never in Nature or if they were were undoubtedly neither Dominicans nor Papists with the following Prayers to them MOST Glorious Illustrious and Holy Saints who being now in the Caelestial Palaces cloathed with Robes of Immortality do enjoy the clear Vision of the most Holy Trinity and being disarmed of your bodily Weapons wherewith you fought so manfully in the World are now seated under the Shades of the Victorious Palms and of the Triumphant Laurel in the Pavillions and Tabernacles of Glory Pardon me all my Faults pardon all my Errors pardon my weak Capacity pardon the Injury I have done the height of your Triumph worthy of all Immortal Trophy by my rude Pen and pray for us O most Glorious Saints who in Company of the Angelical Spirits and in the Caelestial Quire of God do Sing the Sanctus of the Mass of the most Holy Trinity and are perpetually employed in the Praises of God pardon the unpolishedness shortness and grossness of my Tongue your Prowesses being so Great your Works so Heroick and your Victory so Glorious that nothing but the Tongues of Angels are fit to celebrate them Pray for us O high exalted Princes who do live as Grandees in the Palace of the King of Glory and are as Cavaliers of the Golden Key in the Cabinet of God being always in his Presence Pardon that little that I have writ of your Feats your Glories being so great that no Pen without it be taken from the Wings of Archangels is fit to celebrate them Pray for us Most Glorious Stars of Heaven most Resplendent Meteors of the Earth Golden Artizans of the Church and the bright Light of the Predicant Order who out of the Pulpits did astonish the World like Thunder confounding Hereticks and Pagans and converting Souls to God Pardon me if the brightness of your Virtues is eclipsed by the little I have said of them and pray for us Apostolical Preachers who are in Glory about the Father of Light pardon me if your Travels Missions Peregrinations Sermons and Labours Virtues and Prodigies or if the Glory of your Glory is not aggrandized as it ought to be And pray for us Valiant Martyrs who with your Blood
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