he is or from whence he comes threatening us like Caterpillars against whom when they come the whole Countrey is up in Arms so that according to the word of David I am cast out like a locust you in what you do fulfilling what Christ said to the Jews I came in my Father's name and you received me not another will come in his own name and him you will receive the Children of Israel when they went out of Egypt carried not only their own goods but the Egyptians also which they had borrowed whereas we are forced to leave a great part of our own goods behind us but since we must leave them all when we come to die that gives us but little trouble but what afflicts us most is that your Highness should send the same Message to us which another King delivered with his own Mouth to Moses and Aaron in the Twelfth of Exodus Arise and go from among my people and that with the same haste as he forced the Jews out of Egypt by night it being said the Egyptians pressed the Hebrews to depart suddenly saying if they do not depart this night we are all dead men imputing the death of their First-born to the presence and detention of the Children of Israel whereas in Justice they should have attributed it to the hatred they bore to the Hebrews who had been their deliverers and to their own cruelty in having thrown their Sons into the Nile After the same manner Ethiopia ought to impute the just punishments they have received at the hand of God to the unjust hatred they have for the Portugueses their restorers and to their Manifold publick and scandalous Sins some whereof I shall just mention Most of their men are for having several Wives and their Women are for changing their Husbands Their Monks care not to have any thing more of Monks than the habit chusing the Houses of the Court of Ladies for their Monasteries The Nobles are for making themselves Lords of the Church and her Lands indulging the flesh in all things and would have their Pastors to be as so many Statues in having neither Eyes to see their Sins nor Mouths to reprove them nor hands to chastise them Nâ—w so long as these Sins continue in Ethiopia the Sword will never depart from it Open your Eyes Sir and follow the truth according to your knowledge thereof and suffer not the good Nature and Understanding which God has given you to be ruin'd by evil Counsellors but do justice to your Subjects remembering what God hath said by the Ecclesiasticus That Kingdoms are Translated from one to another and from one Family to another by reason of Injustice And since we are not to see one another again before we meet at the Tribunal of God's Justice I must tell you plainly That though I should not accuse you there you will accuse your self your Empire the Gospel the Councils and the Books of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church which I brought for your Instruction and you have rejected will all accuse you there Nevertheless I the Bishops and Fathers imitating our Master Jesus Christ who when he was on the Cross prayed for his Murtherers not attending to the hatred wherewith they persecuted him but to the precept of his Father's and his own willingness to die for them do from our hearts pray that God of his great Mercy would pardon you and your whole Empire and remove from you and it the Scourges of his wrath which the examples in holy Scripture threaten them withal who will go on in their Sins And whereas the Gauls since the time your Ancestors broke the Oath they made to the Portugueses That they would receive the Roman Faith have become Masters of the greatest part of your Empire so I pray God that the remaining part thereof may not be lost on this occasion wherein there have been so many Oaths and Excommunications with such a clear knowledge of the truth insomuch that what Saint Stephen said of the Jews â—ay be truly appli'd to you You do always resist the holy Spirit after the Example of your Fathers May that Divine Spirit which is the Temple and Fortress of Truth enlighten and strengthen your Highness to know and love the Roman Catholick Faith which is the true way and life Offonso Patriarch of Ethiopia Banished for Jesus Christ The Patriarch having been rifled by the way by a company of Banditties arrived at Fremona on the 24th of April and not being able to think of returning to the Indies to live there as a Private Friar and where he knew his Conduct would be censured if for no other reason for its having been unsuccessful he began to consider whether he might not in case the Emperor should command him to depart his Kingdoms which he every day expected he would do find some Nobles that would undertake to protect him against him but being sensible that that was not to be done any other way but by giving assurances that a Portuguese Army would come in a short time to succor them he immediately dispatched four Fathers to Goa The Patriarch so soon as he arrived at Fremona sends Four Jesuits to the Indies to sollicit for Troops to sollicit the sending of an Army to them as the greatest Service that could be done either to God or the Crown of Portugal and having done this he thought he might very well encourage some of the Grandees to take them under their protection by promises of a Portuguese Army being ready to embark at Goa to come to their assistance and being informed that Prince John Kay the Heir of their old friend Bahurnagays was living discontented upon his own Lands which were Mountainous and not far from the Sea Coast he sent two Fathers to him to try if they could persuade him to undertake their protection by promises of great things the Portuguese Army that was coming would do for him The Envoys managed matters so that they brought O Kay to promise to protect them it being agreed betwixt him and them He sues to O Kay a discontenred Lord for protection against the Emperor That whensoever the Emperor should command the Patriarch and Fathers to leave Ethiopia that he should send a Troop of Horse to fetch them from Fremona into his own Lands where when he had them once he promised to defend them till the Portuguese Army arrived This O Kay you must know was one of the chief Leaders in Guergis's Croisade for the extirpation of Popery O Kay undertakes to protect him which though the Patriarch knew well enough yet being sensible that he was discontented with the Emperor and the Court and believing Ambition to be much stronger in him than Religion he thought he might be a man proper enough for his purpose the very Peasants of Lasta being made use of by the Fathers against me Emperor as we shall see hereafter The Emperor who was too jealous of the Patriarch and
Faith of the Gospel and the Synods which do teach That Christ hath two Natures and two Operations and two Wills in one Person and that he is equal to the Father as to his Divinity but inferior to him as to his Humanity They do also keep a Festivity to Dioscorus the Defender of the Heretick Eutyches who together with Eutyches stands condemned by the Church for which reason Dioscorus ought not to be esteemed a Saint in Ethiopia holding divers other things that are contrary to the Roman Faith which ought not to be being there is but one Faith which is that of the Roman Church which by reason of Christ's promise to her can never err We do therefore admonish all our Spiritual Sons to separate themselves from these and all other Errors of Ethiopia c. so as not to fall into any of them And as for the Ethiopians we do remit them to the Judgment of the Church and of the Prelates thereof to Punish them in their Persons or Estates publickly or privately or to use mercy with them in whole or in part as they shall think fit and especially if they should be hereafter Converted which God in his Mercy give them Grace to be Made at Decome in Ethiopia upon the 2d of February 1559. Gancalo Cardozo Notary Apostolick Andrew Bishop of Hieropolis This was published in our Church of Decome on the 2d of February 1559. Whatever ease the publication of this Censure might give the Coadjutor's mind which was strangely exulcerated by the Triumphs of the Habassins it is certain it had no more effect upon the Emperor than his Conferences and Books had had Who the more he knew of Popery and its ways the worse he liked it But while Claudius his thoughts were wholly employed in Disputing with and Writing against the Bishop and Fathers Nur the Son of Madi Ali Guasil and the King of Adel having observed the present weakness of the Habassin Empire and how its Frontiers lay open Invaded it with a great Army and meeting with little or no opposition were got into the bowels of it before Claudius ever so much as dream'd of an Invasion nevertheless when the alarm of it came from all quarters Claudius laying aside his Pen and Books called for his Sword and having sweeped together a confused rabble of an Army he took the Field and being come within sight of the Enemy was so ill advised as to give him Battel in which Claudius was not so successful as he was said to have been in his ergoteering Combats his Army being totally Routed and he himself Slain fighting Manfully against the Infidels The Portugueses though angry with Claudius do him the Justice to acknowledge that he was a Prince of admirable natural Parts and for an Habassin of very good Learning and as he was every way much a Gentleman that he would also have been extraordinary kind to the Portugueses that remained in Ethiopia for the great Service they had done had it not been for two things the one was that they would never let him alone with his Religion which he was extreamly Zealous for and the other was that under a pretence of introducing the Roman Faith into Ethiopia they had a design either to make themselves Masters of its Sea-ports or to have put them into the hands of a Creature of their own as they had done in several parts of India after they had by some plausible pretence or other got footing in them and as the close Correspondence they maintained with Bahurnagays the Hereditary Governor of the Provinces on the Sea-Coast was sufficient to give Claudius some umbrage of this design so if he ever happened to intercept any of the Bishop's or Father's Letters he must have been abundantly satisfied of the truth of it the sending of Missionary Troops into Ethiopia without which the Ecclesiastical Missionaries would be able to do nothing there being as we shall see hereafter the burden of all their Letters So feeble a thing is Popery to make way for it self into any Countrey without the assistance of Apostolical Dragoons Nur after having ravaged and plundered the greatest and richest Provinces in Ethiopia returned home laden with Spoils and Honour but when he came near his Metropolis instead of making a Triumphant entry as was expected he mounted a sorry Mule wretchedly Equipp'd and rid thereon thorough all the Acclamations of his People and being asked the reason why he did so his answer was That since it was God alone that won the late Victory it was but just that he alone should have the whole Glory of it Claudius having left no Sons Adam succeeds Claudius was Succeeded by his Brother Adam who had been a Captive several years in Arabia and who from the day he came to the Crown Adam a fierce Enemy to Popery declared himself an irreconcilable Enemy to the Church of Rome and accordingly as his first act of Government was the prohibiting all Habassins whatsoever under severe Punishments to go into the Latin Church so his first act of severity was the ordering of a Habassin Woman for having turned Papist to be whipped thorough the streets and among other reasons that he gave for the greatness of this his Rage against Popery one was That the having Tolerated it in Ethiopia had cost his Brother his Life and his Empire a vast treasure both of Money and Blood And in order to the extirpating so pernicious an Inmate as he reckoned it to be he first took all the Lands which had been given by his Brother to the Portugueses for their Service from them and afterwards their Children committing them to the care of such as would be sure to Educate them in the Alexandrian Faith After this he Commanded the Coadjutor to be apprehended and thrown into Prison threatning to Burn him and his Jesuits alive if they did not give over corrupting his People with their false Doctrines And having one day ordered the Coadjutor to be brought before him A Dialogue betwixt the Emperor and Coadjutor he fell upon him after a most barbarous manner asking him Whether it was not sufficient that he suffered him to live in his Empire to look after his Portugueses but he must be corrupting his Monks and Subjects with his Heresies adding let me advise you as you love your Life not to tamper any more with my Subjects The Coadjutor made answer That he did nothing but what his Office obliged him to and that he would do whatever it cost him This resolute Answer put Adam into such a fury that after having called the Coadjutor a great many hard Names and asked him How he durst come into Ethiopia to Preach his Lies and Fopperies in it He flew upon him and tore his Robes the Courtiers having much ado to take him off and having sent for him another time he told him after a great deal of foul Language That if he would not promise to give over Corrupting his Subjects his
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
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
young a man to have attained to so great a stock of Learning I was told likewise that he read my Treatise over and that after he had once read it it was seldom out of his Hand and that he was still shewing it to his Mother and Brothers and the Grandees of the Court and that upon the Abuna's having denounced an Excommunication against all that should read it the King had sent to him for leave to read it again and was put into such a Passion by the Abuna's having deny'd it to him that he called him Mahometan and Heretick saying He would read the Alcoran of Mahomet himself and at the same time not give him leave to read a godly Book commanding him thereupon since he was their Abuna to answer a Book that was written by a poor Clerk who had no Dignity To which the Abuna's answer was That he did not come into Ethiopia to dispute but to confer holy Orders The Court however being divided about this Affair some seeming to favour the Roman but most and especially the Queen-Mother and all her Creatures stickling for the Alexandrian Faith the King resolved to call together some of the most Learned among his Monks to have their Opinion in the matter and in order thereunto he commanded my Treatise to be Translated into Habassin leaving out those Passages he was displeased with when he first looked into it namely that where I spoke of the Pope St. Leo and of Dioscorus Patriarch of Alexandria whom they reckon a Saint as they do Leo to be Excommunicated and Accursed and for whom they have such a detestation that they cannot endure so much as to have him named rejecting the Council of Calcedon and its Decrees which they say erred in the Faith in condemning St. Dioscorus as they unjustly Stile him Since which time they have always been separated from the Roman Church having now for 1067 years been involved in the Heresy of Sergius Paulus and Pyrhus who were all condemned in the Sixth Council of Constantinople and in that of Eutyches likewise which holds that there is but one nature in Christ The time being come when I was to receive the King's Answer I sent to know when I should wait upon him he sent me back word his Father's Embassador waited Ten years in Portugal before he could be dispatched I understood by this the King was for entertaining me with delays on purpose to keep me from returning with the Fleet which waited for us for fear least we might discover the weakness of his Empire to them and so when I went to have my Conge from him in order to my returning to Debora he commanded one to tell me That so great a man as I was and who had come so far was not to be dismissed quickly Besides that I could go no where where I could do so much good as where I was in confessing the Portugueses nevertheless if I was resolved not to remain in Ethiopia he would then desire me only to wait a month longer for his Answer and if I did not receive it then I might look upon my self as dismissed Presently after this he removed his Camp to a place that was two days journey from the place where it was we followed the Camp and being in the Field on Saturday and Sunday we set up an Altar whereon we said Mass on both those days where I was visited by three Monks who desired to have some Discourse with me about Matters of Religion One of them who was a Scholar told me That all that we did appeared well to him excepting that of our not observing Saturday and that of our cating Hare and Swine's Flesh Nevertheless after this he disgorged several Errors in Faith namely That the Souls when they leave the Body cannot presently behold the Divine Essence but are placed in a Terrestrial Paradise That the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son but from the Father only That the Son as to his Humanity was equal to the Father That none but Mahometans and Infidels were damned eternally in Hell I returned answers to all these Errors and declared the contrary Truths to him both from Scripture and Reason with which he was so fully satisfied that whispering me in the Ear that the two other Monks who were illiterate might not hear him he said What I had told him was the truth and that he believed it to be so in his heart The Month being expired I went to wait upon the King for his Answer and for leave to return home he bid me go in a good hour and as for the Fathers the King of Portugal designed to send to him he said He had appointed one to wait at Matrua to receive them when they landed being desirous to hear what they had to say to him With this I took my leave of him and passing thorough the Countries where divers of the Portugueses lived I confessed them and their Families and Married several of them to their Concubines having first reduced them to our holy Faith There was one among them who was nearly related to the King And whereas the Churches of that Countrey besides that they belong to Schismaticks have no Altars accommodated to our Service whereever we went we carried an Altar with us to celebrate on While I was in one of these places I received a Complement from a Prelate of a great Monastery of Monks of the Order of St. Anthony and one likewise from the Prelate of a Nunnery which were two Leagues off This Monastery of Monks is one of the biggest in Ethiopia it is called Debra Libanus and is of such Credit that all the Faith of Ethiopia depends upon it in a manner for which reason the Prelate thereof is in high Esteem I went to give him a Visit being attended by all the Portugueses of the place but he happened to be from home we nevertheless took a view of the Monastery which is no ways like ours neither as to Building nor as to their way of living every Monk having his distinct Dwelling-House and Land belonging to it which he cultivates with his own Hands so that the Habassin Monasteries look like Villages the Monks having their Houses on one side of the Street and the Nuns theirs on the other but not being kept asunder the Nuns are frequently troubled with Great Bellies These Monks are neither of the Order of St. Francis No mention of Rodriguez having seen the old Patriarch tho his chief business in Ethiopia was to fetch him from thence if he found him alive nor St. Austin but were founded by one Tecla Haymanot that is The Plant of the Faith who was of the Order of St. Anthony This Haymanot is a great Saint among them and is said to have killed a prodigious Serpent that was worshipped by the Heathens as a God whom he converted by that means to the Faith that is still taught in Ethiopia Thus much of Rodriguez's Relation the Jesuits have thought
the following Letter To the High and Powerful Emperor SUch as are in Office have two ways of speaking the one is as in their own Person and the other as in the Post they are in So that tho as to what concerns their own Persons they ought to be humble and patient when they are contradicted as our Lord himself was when he was upon earth both in his Life and Death nevertheless as to what concerns their Office and Embassy they must speak the truth without respect of persons as Christ did when he answered the President in a matter wherein his Father's Honour was concerned What I have to tell your Highness as a Publick Person is to lay before you the business that brought me into Ethiopia with which notwithstanding your Highness has been already acquainted both by Letter and by other ways I do now tell you again That I come from Rome being sent by the Pope to be Coadjutor to the Patriarch who is now in the Indies with whose Authority I am invested that as our case is at present being what his Holiness was pleased to bestow upon me as appears from a Bull that I have brought with me and which your Highness may see when you please I do intend therefore at present to give an account of my having been sent hither by the Pope and of what moved his Holiness to send a Patriarch with two Episcopal Coadjutors and several Jesuits of great Learning and Piety into Ethiopia When the Pope sends a Legat or Patriarch to any Kingdom he does not pretend thereby to make it his own neither can he sell such Dignities for that would be Simony but he is always moved thereunto merely by the prospect of doing good to their Souls as Christ hath commanded him in the Gospel bidding him Feed his Sheep And it was thus in our present case wherein the Pope without having any temporal view but purely for the service of Christ and the spiritual good of these Kingdoms has done your Highness this Favour being thereunto moved both by the great love he hath for your Highness and for all Christian Kings who are many in number and are all much concerned for your Highness and the Grandeur of your State having a great affection for you and by the good desires and disposition he was informed were in this Empire and which he had a mind to improve Now your Highness is to take notice that these motives are things of great moment and no slight matters betwixt such Eminent Persons Your Father writ a Letter to the Pope a Copy whereof I my self have seen at Rome wherein he did acknowledge his Holiness to be Christ's Vicar desiring him to send him some of his Learned Men And besides the King of Portugal who is a Prince of great Truth said in my hearing That your Highness had writ to him that your Father had commanded you never to suffer any Abuna or Patriarch to come into Ethiopia but who should be sent from Rome and that he was furthermore informed from hence That your Highness had publickly yielded Obedience to the Pope which notwithstanding it was done during the War He acknowledges Bermudes to have been Patriarch of Ethiopia yet after the War was over Dom John Bermudes continued Patriarch here for three years your Highness having bestowed all the Lands belonging to that Dignity upon him For which reason notwithstanding his Holiness should have demanded something of you considering his good intentions and what he hath done in order to the sending of this Mission together with the Trouble and Dangers whereunto we have exposed our Persons your Highness would have had no cause to have been displeased with him upon that account how much less then ought you to be so when he desires nothing from you and hath without any thing of self-interest sent into your Empire the largest Powers of Spiritual Graces that so far as I know were ever sent before into any Christian Countrey and has furthermore in his Bulls called your Highness My Beloved Son giving you also the Title of The Illustrious Emperor of Ethiopia Your Highness must therefore let me have your Answer to what I have desired of you in his Holiness's Name that I may take my measures accordingly And in case your Highness has any Scruples about Matters of Faith you would then do well to call a Convocation of your Learned Men whose Objections I shall endeavour to answer in the Name of Christ for since the Faith of Christ is but one as St. Paul saith in the 4th Chapter to the Ephesians one God one Faith one Baptism why should there be any differences among Christians And why should they not all agree in all Matters of Faith so as to hold nothing that is contrary to the Gospel of Christ And if there is any thing wherein you think we are mistaken and will offer any reason for it either out of the Gospel or the General Councils of the Church we shall be ready to follow the Truth as on the other side if you should be made sensible of our being in no Error you ought then together with us to follow the Truth of the Faith according to what St. Paul saith in his first Chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians See that you all say the same things that so there may be no Schisms and not to follow the customs of your forefathers when they are contrary to the Truth So when the Doctrine of Truth was preached by our Lord Christ to the Gentiles and Pagans which he converted ought not they to have received his Doctrines alledging they were contrary to the Customs of their Ancestors and so have never believed in Christ to their utter Perdition neither is the known Truth to be forsaken for fear or shame of the World for our Lord Christ hath said He that is ashamed of me and of my words c. David likewise in the 94th Psalm saith To day if you will hear his voice c. Your Highness would do well therefore to consider how much it imports you to take good Advice in an Affair of so high a nature in which seeing all your People do depend upon you our Lord will call you to a strict Account for their Souls Consider how dangerous a thing evil Councellors are as appears from the Case of Rehoboam and Jacob speaking of such said of Simeon and Judah they were Vessels of Iniquity my Soul enter not into their councils and David They have taken evil Council against his People And Isaiah saith The wise counsellers of Pharoah have given foolish counsel for which reason Solomon in the 6th of Ecclesiasticus saith Be in peace with mrny nevertheless have but one counseller of a thousand And in the first Psalm David saith Blessed is the man that entereth not into the counsel of the wicked furthermore Parents and Relations are seldom good Counsellers in Spiritual Matters As our Lord Christ told St. Peter in
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
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
my whole heart to you May our Lord God bring all to an happy Issue and grant your Excellency many years of Life Amen Had the Jesuits been so kind as to have published those Letters of Father Peter that these refer to we might then probably have known the true cause of that Father's having left Za Danguil's Court so abruptly as he did but however that were it is plain from what Athenateus writes of the Father's being acquainted with all his Secrets so as to be able to disclose his whole heart to the Viceroy that they two had been plotting together so that had the Thousand Portugueses Athenateus wrote for so earnestly come it is more than probable that he would have made use of them for his own Service the getting the Ports of Matzua and Arkiko into the hands of the Portugueses and the erecting of Tigre by their Assistance into a Kingdom Independent of that of Ethiopia being a thing the Fathers even when most in favour with the Emperors were continually labouring to bring about For Athenateus was not only never in favour with the Emperor whose name he made use of in these Letters but on the contrary as the Jesuits themselves confess he was reduced by him to the Miserable condition of a probre escudero or poor Waiting-man Neither is it unlikely that it was Athenateus having ruined himself and his Family by intrieguing with the Fathers that made him when he was upon his Death-bed reject their Assistance when they offered themselves to him and that with indignation not caring it is like to have any thing more to do with people that had deceived him so often Tho to do the Fathers Justice it was none of their fault that the Soldiers did not come by the first fair wind after they had promised them But the Habassin Empire notwithstanding all its late great bleedings was too full of bad humours to continue long quiet A Mock Emperor set up and Murthered For Seltam Saged was not well warm in his Throne when a Fellow of base extraction was set up for the Emperor Jacob and though he is said not to have resembled him in the least either in Face or Person yet he acted him so well that he was followed by vast Multitudes This Perkin after having cost Ethiopia a vast quantity of blood was killed at last by some of the Grandees of his own Party being grown weary of maintaining a Mock Prince at so great a charge Father Peter is said to have made himself very Popular on this occasion by having persuaded the Emperor to pardon all the Common People and most of the Nobles that had been engaged in this Rebellion as likewise to Pardon a great herd of Peasants who had provoked him more by their Rudeness and Insolence than by their having taken up Arms against him The Emperor having thus rid his hands of his Sham-Rival removed his Camp from Coja The Emperor and his Brother Ras Cella Christos convinced of Christ having two Natures to a place called Deqhana on the North-Side of the Lake of Dembea which was not far from Gorgora the new Residence of the Jesuits by which means the Fathers had daily opportunities of waiting on him and of Discoursing with him about Matters of Religion The argument of all others that persuaded the Emperor the most effectually of the truth of Christ's having two Natures was the Fathers shewing him a place in his own Hamanot Abea a Book of the same nature with the Bibliotheca Patrum wherein it was affirmed That that Doctrine was believed by all the Ancient Doctors of the Church and that Dioscorus the Patriarch of Alexandria was the first Bishop that had ever denied it Raz Cella Christos a Prince of great heat and who was made Viceroy of Gojam by his Brother the Emperor at this time Cella Christos turns a Zealous Roman Catholick thereupon was likewise convinced of the truth of that Doctrine by the same argument and being once convinced of it nothing would serve him but he would publickly declare himself a Roman Catholick upon it reckoning that the Alexandrians who had so grosly imposed upon him in one particular had Mislead him in every point wherein they differ'd from the Roman Church He would gladly have made his Abjuration and first Confession at the feet of Father Peter but the Father not happening to be in the way when he was called to go against the Gauls who had made a great inroad into his Provinces he would defer the doing of it no longer and so made them at the feet of Father Francis whom for that reason he ever after called his Master Nevertheless after the Expedition was over he made a general Confession of his whole Life to Father Peter and with it a Solemn and Publick Declaration of his resolution to Live and Dye in the Roman Faith His Example is said to have been followed by most of his Officers and by several of the Grandees of the Court. In the year 1607. Father Peter having writ a Letter to the K. of Spain to acquaint him with Seltem Saged being Established in the Throne of Ethiopia and to desire him to send to Congratulate his accession to it and to thank him for his kindness to the Fathers that King complied so far with the Father's request as in the Year 1609 to write the following Letter to the Emperor MOST Powerful Emperor of Ethiopia The King of Spain's Letter to Emperor of Ethiopia I Don Philip by the Grace of God King of Portugal and Algarves Lord of Guinea and of the Conquest Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia Arabia Persia and India c. Do send you much Health as my Brother whom I love and prize much Now since there has always been a good Correspondence and Amity between the Emperors your Ancestors and the Kings of Portugal to me it seemed just and fitting to write this to you to let you know how much I rejoice at the News of your accession to the Empire and shall always rejoice to hear of your Prosperity being ready as occasions shall offer to satisfy you in all things and accordingly I have recommended your affairs to these my Kingdoms and to my State of India and the Viceroy thereof that they knowing how acceptable it will be to me may be sure to comply with all your desires and that this our Amity may continue I do most passionately desire you to write all your News to me as I shall do mine to you I do earnestly recommend the Friars that are in your Kingdom to you which is my chief Obligation namely Father Peter Pays desiring that they no less than the Portugueses may be Treated as it is reasonable Most Powerful Emperor whom I love and prize as my Brother May our Lord have your Royal Person and State in his holy Protection Written at Madrid the 15th of March 1609. The Emperor is said to have been very proud of this Letter and the
more because it was writ before the King had received the Letter he is said to have sent to him in the year 1607. In the year 1611 the Emperor received the following Letter from the Pope in answer to that he is said to have writ to him in the year 1607. Paul the Vth 's Letter to the Emperor of Ethiopia To our most dear Son in Christ Health ad Apostolical Benediction WE give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ The Pope's Letter to the same Emperor for having been so merciful to you as to restore you to your Royal Throne as you write he has done We do Congratulate your success and do commend you mightily for your Zeal in Defence of the Christian Faith for which as we understand by your first and second Letters you are very fervent We have according to your desires recommended the necessity of your Kingdoms to our most dear Son in Christ Philip the Catholick and Powerful King of Spain who we hope will be induced by his Magnanimity and Zeal for the Christian Faith to assist you powerfully having order'd our Apostolical Nuncio that is with his Catholick Majesty to sollicit what you have desired with great diligence What remains dear Son is to exhort you to persevere constantly and immoveably in the fear of God and Stoutly and Zealously to defend the Christian name and to continue always devoted to the holy Roman Catholick and Apostolick Church your most loving Mother as we in our Prayers which we make to God before the Most holy Bodies of the Apostles for our Sons the Christian Kings and Catholick Princes shall always be sure to remember you and to beg of him from whom all good things do proceed that he would so enlighten your Understanding with the Light of his holy Spirit that you may do his will and from the inward Bowels of our Charity we do most tenderly give our Blessing to your Majesty Written at Rome at St. Peter's under the Ring of the Fisherman on the 4th of January in the Year 1611 and in the Sixth year of our Pontificate It is plain from this Letter that the Popes do not stand so much upon their Punctilio's with remote Heretick Princes The Popes are civiler to remote Hereticks than Domestick ones as they do with those in Europe they reckon to be Hereticks Paul in this Letter calling a Prince who was a Professed Euâ—ychian Heretick his most dear Son in Christ a Title neither Urban would bestow upon King James nor Gregory the Fifteenth upon the Prince of Wales in their answers to the unhappy Letters wherein those Princes had been so civil as to give them the title of The most blessed Father The Emperor growing every day more and more inclinable to the Roman Church for which his Brother Cella Christos had declared himself openly a Champion suffering none to be about him that were not either actually of her Communion or that appeared not to be well disposed for it did upon the Receipt of this kind Letter from the Pope begin to think of Professing himself a Roman Catholick too but being sensible that that could not be done without raising such a storm in his Empire as it would not be possible for him to weather without Portuguese Troops Embassadors are sent from Ethiopia to Partugel He is said to have resolved to send an Embassy to the King of Spain to Sollicit that Affair by the way of Melinde and Goa The persons named for this Employment were Father Anthony Fernandes and one Tecur Egzy an Habassin of Quality by whom the following Letters were sent to the Pope The Emperor's Letter to the Pope The Letter of the Emperor Seltem Saged cometh with the Peace of the good Pastor Jesus to the Holy Roman Pope Paul the Vth. the Head and Pastor of the Universal Church Holy and Loving Father WE have received your Letter of January 1611 The Emperor's Letter to the Pope which is full of that love wherewith a tender Father is inflamed when he receives a penitent Prodigal Son and not having been able by reason of the sudden departure of the India Ships to return you an answer so soon as we desired we have now determined to do it by another way which we hope God will open unto us and to that end we have sent Father Antonio Fernandes of the Society of Jesus who has for some time resided at our Court and with him our Embassador Tecur Egzy desiring that your Holiness may have speedy notice of our being brought by the preaching of the Fathers of the Society who are resident in our Empire to the Knowledge of the truth of the faith of the Chair of the Blessed St. Peter and of our being resolved to embrace the same and to yield obedience to your Holiness as the Head of the Universal Church so as for the future to be governed by a Patriarch of your sending and that we may be put into a condition of yielding this obedience publickly it will be necessary for us to have some Troops from Don Philip the Powerful King of Portugal without which we shall never be able to do it openly We do therefore most humbly beseech your Holiness that since as you have writ to us you have been pleased to order your Apostolick Nuncio residing at his Catholick Majesty's Court to sollicit this Affair with great diligence that you will renew your Orders to him that so they may be both effectually and speedily executed and so good an occasion may not be lost and that in our days and during his happy years our Empire may find this necessary remedy And since you are the Father of all Catholick Kings hold us in the number of such and as you offer Prayers to God for them before the most holy Bodies of the Apostles do the same for us your humble Son Written at our Court of Dembea on the 13th of January 1613. But as the Emperor's Brother Ras Cella Christos was the chief promoter of this Embassy so he likewise writ a Letter to the Pope by it which was as followeth The Letter of Cella Christos Viceroy of Gojam cometh with the Peace of the Eternal Father to the Holy Father Paul the Vth. the chief Pontiff the Successor of St. Peter and Head of the Church Most Beloved Father IF according to the Holy Scriptures Cella Christos's Letter to the Pope they who were far off are come near I who was at a vast distance am now brought near by the Preaching of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus that reside in this Empire for I having been commanded by my Brother Seltem Saged my Lord the Emperor to be present at several Conferences between the Fathers and our Learned men I came at last to the Knowledge of the Truth of the Faith of the Chair of St. Peter and of that Chair's being the Head of the Universal Church which faith I thereupon embraced and obliged my Brother the
Alexandrian Faith if it had any such to defend their Religion if they were able before the Emperor Which bold challenge being accepted Several publick Conferences about Religion there were divers publick Conferences about Religion held thereupon before the Emperor In all which the Fathers but by their own Brethren are said to have been Victorious and by their great skill in School-Divinity to whose subtleties the Habassins were utter strangers to have baffled them shamefully at every turn to the admiration of the whole Court When the Monks and Fathers had done Disputing the Emperor with the advice of his Cabinet Council An Edict is published by the Emperor prohibiting any to affirm that there is but one Nature in Christ The Abuna comes to Court and is angry with the Conferences that had been held without his leave put forth a Proclamation prohibiting all his Subjects upon severe Penalties to affirm that there is but one Nature in Christ The Abuna Simon hearing of the Disputations that had been held at Court and of the Proclamation they had ended in made all the speed he could thither and being come to Court he threatned the Emperor with an Excommunication for having held publick Disputations about Religion without his leave The Emperor endeavoured to pacify the angry Old Man by telling him That it was true that he had permitted some Conferences but for no other end but to remove a Schism that was in the Church but now that be was come he might if he pleased have the Conferences renewed again The Abuna though his talent is said not to have lain much that way gave his Consent to have the Disputations renewed and Learned Men having been appointed on both sides to manage the Debate the Fathers in the Conferences did demonstrate the Truth of Christ's having two Natures so evidently The Conferences are renewed before him from the Scriptures Councils and right Reason that the Habassins had nothing that was material to say against it the Abuna himself not having offered one word in defence of his Faith when he saw his Monks most miserably baffled It is remarkable That it was the policy of the Jesuits to make the Doctrine of Christ's having two Natures and not that of the Pope's Supremacy against which by what the Emperor Claudius did we know the Habassins had enough to say the point that was debated in all their publick Conferences which was not so proper considering that the Habassins might have believed that Doctrine as the Reformed and Greek Churches do without being the nearer to the Church of Rome for it for it does not at all follow That because Christ had two Natures that the Pope must therefore he his Vicar upon Earth and that all Christian Churches must submit themselves to him The very Fathers that established that Doctrine in the Council of Calcedon having denied that the Pope had any Supremacy but what he owed to Rome 's being the first City is the Roman Empire as I have observed elsewhere Upon the Habassins being thus baffled upon a point the Church of Rome was no more concerned in than the Church of England the Fathers in the heat of their triumph did drive on the Emperor at a most furious rate persuading him to set forth another Proclamation making it death for any one to deny that there are two Natures in Christ But the Abuna though he had little to say for his Religion at the Conferences The Abuna leaves the Court in wrath and Excommuicates the Emperor endeavoured after he had left the Court to make amends for his silence there by roaring the louder through the Countrey as he went home and being sensible that besides the whole body of the People he had the Emperor's Mother and his half-brother Emana Christos with several other Grandees on his side he was no sooner got home then he thundered out an Excommunication against all not excepting the Emperor that had or should submit themselves to the Pope The Emperor was at first troubled at this Censure The Emperor is provoked thereby to publish a Proclamation Commanding all his Subjects to turn Roman Catholicks The Agau's thereupon take up Arms. The Abuna promotes an Association in desence of their Religion Julius enters into it and takes the Field against the Emperor but being afterwards satisfied by the Fathers of its Nullity he was provoked by it to set forth a Proclamation desiring all his Subjects to embrace the Roman Faith Commanding that Proclamation to be published by the Judges throughout the whole Empire which most of them did notwithstanding it was contrary to their private Judgments This Proclamation having put the whole Empire into a flame and provoked the Agau's to take up Arms the Abuna who waited only for such an opportunity so soon as he found the Emperor engaged in that War writ Circular Letters to all his Confidents exhorting them and all the Nobles and People that were not weary of the Faith of their Forefathers to enter into an Association in Defence of it against the Emperor and his Brother who had now both declared themselves open Enemies to it Julius the Viceroy of Tigre who had Married a Daughter of the Emperor's so soon as he had received the Abuna's Letter did not only begin to Persecute the Fathers that resided at Fremona but seized likewise upon the Estates of all the Habassins within his Province that had turned Roman Catholicks declaring he would Defend his Religion against all the world with the last drop of his blood The Emperor hearing of the Circular Letter and the Association that was going on was very angry with the Abuna wishing he had him in his hands to put a stop to his enflaming his Subjects against him but knowing that if he discovered himself to be displeased with him that he would either not come if he sent for him or come with such a Guard that it would not be safe for him to offer him any violence he thought fit to dissemble his passion so far as to write a kind Letter to him desiring him to repair to him with all possible speed to satisfy some scruples which gave him great disturbance writing at the same time to Father Peter to come likewise which the Father did immediately bringing with him the news of the Persecution that was set on soot in Tigre against the Fathers and their Converts The Queen and several Grandees of the Court seeing what a storm the Emperor was like to raise by endeavouring to introduce Popery into his Empire waited upon him in a body The Emperor is addressed to not to trouble his Subjects about their Religion beseeching him as he loved his Crown and his people to give over that design as a thing not feasible since not only the Monks but the whole body of the Nation did openly declare That they would Defend their Religion against him and all the world with their Lives and Fortunes and would dye a thousand
but may the Swine never see it that so they may not trample it under their unclean feet for it is written You shall not throw Jewels before Swine This Libel galled the Emperor so terribly that to be revenged on its Authors he published a Second Proclamation by which he commanded all his Subjects to work on Saturdays being to pay a Crown for the first fault The Emperor by a Second Proclamation commands all his Subjects to work upon Saturdays and to forfeit their whole Estate for the second to which penalty the Offenders were to continue liable Seven Years after the fault was committed by which time the Fathers hoped that Popery might have got strength enough in Ethiopia to execute this Law as they should see occasion being sensible that there would be few or none of any Estate that would not be under its lash This rigorous Proclamation being sent to Joanel the Viceroy of Begameder who waited for such an opportunity to raise the people against the Emperor to publish he commanded it to be done presently with great Solemnity taking care at the same time to declare to all the World that it was what he abominated from his Soul Neither was Joanel deceived in his thoughts of the effects of this Proclamation for the people no sooner heard of the Emperor's having commanded them under severe Penalties for to work upon Saturdays than they began to rail at him as one who had no Religion and who for that and other reasons was become so intolerable to his Subjects that they must be Beasts of Burden to endure him any longer and hearing that Joanel had declared himself openly in all Companies against what the Emperor had commanded A Rebellion breaks out upon it they flocked to him from all Quarters beseeching him as he had any love for God and his Countrey not to suffer their Religion to be thus trampled on promising to die by his side in the defence of it Joanel having foreseen what the Emperor by his Zeal for Popery would quickly bring things to had obtained a promise of considerable Succours from the Gauls whenever he should take the Field upon the strength of which and the fury the Emperor's late Proclamation had put the whole Empire into he formed a great Army out of the people that flocked in to him assuring them now he had taken up Arms that he would never lay them down until he had secured their Religion to them When the news of this second Croisade came to Court great numbers of the first Quality of both Sexes set upon the Emperor again An address is made to the Emperor not to trouble his people with Popery beseeching him as he loved himself and his Empire to give over all thoughts of introducing Popery into a Countrey that of all things in the world could not endure it The Emperor though much troubled to find that Joanel and his Cause had so many friends in his Court yet not being willing to do any thing that might intimmedate his Converts The Addressers are punished he told the Grandees that had addressed to him with an angry countenance That it was his Subjects duty to obey and not to dispute his Commands and that he would teach them better manners than to fly thus in their Prince's face when he did any thing that displeased them and hoping to have terrifi'd the Grandees from troubling him with any more Addresses he commanded one of the most forward Addressers to be put to death banishing another of them for his life to the Kingdom of Narea which cruelty was so far from having the effect that was expected from it that it did but Exasperate peoples spirits and put them into a greater rage against Popery than they were in before The Emperor though he could not but see the storm thicken upon him on all sides yet was so far from seeking to divert it by any Compliances that having called a full Assembly of the Grandees Monks and Military Officers together in the great Hall of the Palace he made the following Speech to them YOU Ris against the Emperor Jacob and having Deposed him for several Misdemeanors The Emperor's Speech thereupon you advanced my Cousin Za Danguil to the Throne whom for having forsaken your Religion and embraced that of the Portugueses you afterwards Murthered and after having conferred the Crown upon me you made Jacob King a Second time but though you intended to have Deposed me God was pleased to give me Victory from that day to this I have done wrong to no body but on the contrary have pardoned great numbers having been prodigal of my favours to a fault but all this has not been sufficient to keep you from Rebelling upon a pretence that I am endeavouring to destroy your Religion when in truth I do only seek to reform it for as I do profess with you That our Lord Christ is true God and true Man so I do moreover affirm That as he cannot be perfect God without having the Nature of God so neither can he be perfect Man without a Human Nature now since it is evident by the light of reason That the Divine and Human Nature are really distinguished it must follow therefore that there are two Natures in Christ and since there can be no Confusion in the Godhead those two Natures must necessarily be united in one and the same Person of the Eternal Word so that what I am doing is not to forsake the Faith but to profess it in truth And I do further affirm That the Divine Nature is Superior to the Human. It is true I have forbid you to observe Saturday any longer and it is an amazing thing that you who value your selves upon being Christians should be for keeping the Sabbath of the Jews what is this but as the Prophet Elias said to go halting c. As this is my Faith so I do not follow it because it is the Faith of the Portugueses or of the Roman Church but because it is the Faith that was established by Six hundred Fathers in the Council of Calcedon which Condemn'd Dioscorus and Eutyches and for being a truth founded on the Scriptures and derived from the Apostles who were the Teachers of the World Undeceive your selves therefore for for this Faith I am ready to lay down my life if there should be occasion though I must tell you at the same time it shall cost them their Lives first that shall dare to contradict me therein How seasonable a Speech of this strain was in which Father Peter who was now become the first Minister had a hand undoubtedly for one in the Emperor's Circumstances let the world judge The Emperor having received an insolent Letter from Joanel wherein he insisted upon having the Jesuits all turned out of Ethiopia and his being declared Viceroy of Begameder for his Life was so incensed that he marched against him in Person but Joanel having advice thereof The Emperor
that they found in Arms in the Emperor's Camp and that he would Canonize the Man that would kill the Emperor assuring them that all that should be slain sighting against him would die Martyrs and go straightways to Heaven encouraging Julius 's Soldiers after the example of Satan to fight against us but God was pleased to give us the Victory and the Divine Justice having laid its Military hands upon him he died an ill death But to return to our chief intent these Patriarchs in having from the time of Dioscorus denied Obedience to the Popes of Rome who are the Successors of St. Peter the foundation of the Faith and the Head of the Holy Church and in having affirmed that there is only One Nature in Christ and in having refused the Ordinances and Canons of the Apostles of our Lord and wrested all writings to their own wicked purposes have not lead the People in the paths of Truth Let us therefore give over yeilding Obedience any longer to the Patriarchs of Alexandria who are all Jacobites walking in the ways of their Errors and treading in the steps of Arius Macedonius Sabellius Eutyches and Dioscorus and let us yeild Obedience to the Bishop of Rome who sits in the Chair of St. Peter which Chair cannot Err in any matter of Faith or good Manners And do you all in Peace follow the Holy Faith which Christ our Lord built with his Holy Blood on the Cross which he shed for the Salvation of all that do believe in him for ever and ever Amen This Manifesto notwithstanding it is Orthodox as to what relates to the two Natures in Christ yet its throwng so much dirt and in all probability unjustly on the Memories of the Habassin Abuna's was a thing infinitely below the Dignity as well as Charity of a Christian Emperor who let his Religion be what it will is not to write Libels but to burn them rather as Constantine did And as to the policy of such a Manifesto at this time unless the Emperor's Affairs were in such a condition that it was safe for him to provoke his Subjects to Rebel that so by subduing them he might destroy the established Religion with the more case it was certainly stark naught there being nothing that he could have done that could have enraged his People more against him than the making of such lew'd reflections on Prelates for whose Memories the Habassins had a most profound veneration but such blunders as these are to be expected in places where Princes Councils are governed by People who have spent most of their days in a Cell under the discipline of a blind Obedience The Emperor about this time finding that notwithstanding he had enraged his Subjects almost to a madness against him by his Manifesto's and Proclamations in favour of Popery The Emperor grows jealous of his Brother that his Brother Raz Cella was still courted by the whole Roman Party as their Head so that he was left in a manner without a Friend that he could confide in he resolved upon some pretence or other to strip his Brother not only of the Viceroyship of Gojam but of all the Posts of Authority that he was possessed of judging it to be necessary to his safety to keep him as low as it was possible and especially if the Portuguese Succors should come which had been desired Raz Cella who was a Prince of a violent and rash Temper having discovered his Brother's jealousies of him together with the resolutions they had made him take did storm at such rate in all Companies as to make the Emperor much more jealous than ever who though resolved to throw him down yet being willing to do it as gently as might be he called him out of Gojam to Command an Army he was sending against one Cabrael who had raised a Croisade against him Raz Cella He sends him against Cabrael who was at the head of a Croisade though he was not ignorant of what was his Brother's design in giving him this Command yet being sensible that the Roman Party in Ethiopia was but a handful and that the Alexandrians who were a Thousand to One would upon the Emperor's abandoning all Popish Interests which a rupture with him at that time would have forced him to not only have forgave him all that was past but would as one man have declared for him and stood by him in defence of their Religion he judged it most advisable for him to obey the summons and accordingly went and took the Command of the Army upon him and having made a Vow to Francis Xavier to build a Church to him if he returned Victorious he marched against Cabrael who finding himself too weak to resist the Royal Army trussed up his Baggage so soon as it approached him retiring with what speed he could to the Gauls by whom being hired to do it he was Murthered which success was so far from reconciling the Emperor to his Brother that it made him more afraid of him than ever Now while things were thus in Ethiopia at Rome and Madrid they thought it was more than time that a Patriarch were sent thither with Two Coadjutors A Patriarch of Ethiopia is consecrated at Lisbon and with the same Power as the former and accordingly one Alfonso Mendez being named Patriarch and James Seco and John da Rocha Bishops of Nice and Hieropolis his Two Coadjutors by Philip the Fourth they were approved by the Pope and having obtained their Dispensations for they were all Three Jesuits and Bulls the Patriarch and Bishop Elect of Nice were Consecrated at Lisbon by Prelates of a much higher Sphere than the former Patriarch their Order by this time having pretty well wore off the odium of Novelty the Consecration of the Bishop Elect of Hieropolis being prorogued to the Indies On the 28th of May The Patriarch arrives at Goa the Patriarch with the Elect of Hieropolis the Bishop of Nice having died in the Voyage arrived at Goa where he stayed till the 17th of September and then embarked for Chaul where he met with the following Letters from the Emperor and his Brother The Emperor's Letter WITH the Peace of the good Pastor who gave his Life for his Sheep The Emperor's Letter to the Patriarch We do give many thanks to God our Lord who has granted us our desires and petitions and has been pleased to fulfil the time when your Lordship was to come to be our Patriarch with two Bishops Coadjutors who will be all found little enough to help these straying Sheep in a stormy day May God bring your Lordship to us in Peace and health and give you such a passage that we may have you among us quickly as the necessity of this Empire does require with the greatness of which the Fathers have I presume acquainted you at large in the mean time we do beseech God so to order matters that they may all redound to his Glory and Honour
Popery which was slackened so much of late I shall nevertheless set them down as they are published by the Jesuits leaving them to the censure of the judicious Reader Pope Urban the VIIIth To Seltem Saged Emperor of Ethiopia Health and Apostolical Benediction MOST dear Son in Christ The Stream of the River Nile doth at this time make glad the City of God Fruits fit for the Banquets of Angels being brought from the thirsty Land of Ethiopia to the Palace of St. Peter there being nothing that the Mother of Riches or that Africk which is so fruitful of Monsters can bring to Rome the Mother of Christianity that is so Precious and wonderful as your Majesty's Letters addressed to Gregory the XVth of happy Memory to whose place though unworthy of it the Holy Spirit has been pleased to call us when we read them we could not forbear weeping for joy to hear that the vast Empire of Ethiopia had submitted it self to the Laws of the Roman Pontificate O happy Prince who after having Conquered divers Nations and triumphed over all your Enemies have been able to exalt the Trophies of the Cross of Christ upon the Towers of your Provinces For you do really plant Heaven in your Empire so long as the favour of so great a King is sought after by the making a profession of the Catholick truth Go on my Dear Son since God favours you and Rome by its applauses exalts you to the Society of those Princes who for having propogated the Kingdom of Heaven have an immortal memory in the praises of Mankind for notwithstanding your Majesty's Empire is beyond the anciently known ways of the Sun the Apostolical Senate which comprehends all the Nations of the Christian Commonwealth beholdeth all your Heroick Actions giving manifold applauses on the Theatre of the world to your Majesty and to all that are employed by you in suppressing the rashness of Rebels and in breaking the horns of Fiends We the Vicar of the Almighty Majesty in this Throne which all Christians do with bended knees adore have turned the eyes of our Apostolical solicitude towards your Majesty praying that the most exalted Arbiter of Princes may send his Angels to be Soliders in your Triumphant Armies we are not ignorant of what some people drive at for we behold whole Legions of Devils fighting against the Scepter of Christ which is the strength of your Majesty's Right-arm we know the Professors of false Doctrines do likewise whet their Tongues as a Sword that so they may with the poison of their Impiety infect the Bread of Life Assume a courage therefore worthy of the Race of David in whom the House of Ethiopia glories as in their Ancestor who when such people placed their Camps against him did put his trust in God and so found by Experience that the name of the Lord was the Tower of David guarded by aâ— heavenly Host and praised by a victorious Army My most dear Son it is undoubtedly as you write that the Pests of their Countrey and the Disturbers of the people shall not God assisting you be suffered to reign We do most affectionately impart our Apostolical Benediction to your self and your best Brother and to all your Royal Family and faithful People and shall pray continually that you may always have the Arms of light from the Sanctuary of the Divinity and we do here with the keys of the Pontiff open unto you the Treasure of the heavenly Indulgence with whose healthful riches we do at this time bless the Ethiopick Church we shall likewise be always mindful to sollicit the most Powerful King of Spain to grant you all that you shall desire of the Austrian House Most Dear Son we do embrace you in the arms of our Apostolical Charity and carrying you in our hearts we shall always adorn you with the Patronage of our Pontificate and while you do with a Royal Piety venerate the Patriarch of Ethiopia and his Coadjutors you give Examples to others to honour the Priesthood and do whet the sollicitude of holy Prelates to labour in Ethiopia we wish you joy of the obedience of your people who so long as a Religious King fights under the standard of Christ do never Desert him Dated at Rome at St. Peter's under the Ring of the Fisherman this First of February 1627. in the Fourth Year of our Pontificate Pope Urban the VIIIth's Letter to the Prince Our Most Beloved Son in Christ Health and Apostolical Benediction THE Wealth of Nile floweth to the glory of your Name Urban's Letter to the Prince and you the Son of the Ethiopick Empire do grow up in the hopes of a most powerful Principality you do nevertheless understand God having taught you how miserable you had been had you not drank of the streams of the Gospel out of the Fountain of the Catholick Church and if you had not by adoring St. Peter in the Roman Pontificate been made the Son of God whose Possession and Workmanship the whole frame of Heaven and Earth is in the Roman Church The holy Quire of Reigning Priests and of Obedient Nations do applaud the Heir that is to rule in Ethiopia with Christian Virtue rejoicing that a Kingdom is prepared for you out of which your triumphant Father the Scepter of whose Empire is the Rod of Direction do's thorough the Divine Assistance extirpate the Synagogue of Satan you having been Educated in the Domestick imitation of such splendid virtues and being in a Post that draws the eyes of Heaven and Earth upon you Such Councils are expected from your Wisdom as are to be like the lights of the Holy Spirit and the Thunderbolts of the Divine Vengeance And being it is thus beloved Son you must not think of living at ease in your Father's Palace before you have made all Ethiopia throw it self at the feet of St. Peter that so they may find Heaven in the Vatican For the Doctrines of the Pope will not be only the hope of Salvation to you but they will be also the Anchor of quietness and the safety of your Dominions We do embrace you most Dear Son with the Arms of Apostolical Charity and do wish you an obedient people and favourable Angels amidst the Trophies of your Arms and the Joys of your Prosperity and we do from the bottom of our heart impart our fatherly Benediction to you Dated at Rome at St. Peter's under the Ring of the Fisherman the Twenty Eighth of December 1630. in the Seventh Year of our Pontificate Now besides that the Phrase of these Letters do very much resemble that of the Patriarch Mendez who affected a Tinsil Oratory in every thing he writ That to the Prince bears Date the same Month of the same Year when it was deliver'd This Jubilee The Emperor's Zeal revived by this Letter and a Jabilee notwithstanding it was Laughed at by the Habassins who asked by what Authority the Pope pretended to forgive Sins is said to have warmed
and Five Fathers standing behind him SIR I thought we had had the Victory in the last Fight but I now begin to understand that we had the worst on 't for notwithstanding in reality the design of the Rebels was to have taken your Crown from you nevertheless what they gave out was that they fought only to have the Religion of their Fathers restored so that if they should gain that point though they were beat they may be reckoned to have been Victorious but as before the Engagement was the proper time for the making of Vows and Promises so now is the time for fulfilling them In order to Engage God to confer more such mercies upon you who by this last Victory has as it were set his seal to all the former and that for no other end but to oblige your Highness to advance his holy Faith under the banner whereof you obtained it Besides it was the Catholicks that are in your Army that did the work and who are not so few as your Highness is told they are The reason why they do not appear to be numerous is because they have no favour shew'd them whereas if your Highness would but be pleased to call them about your Person and bestow all Offices of Honour and Trust upon them you would quickly see how they would multiply and how by that means both your Empire and the faith would flourish whereas of late they have been kept from coming near you none but Serpents having been admitted into your Councils a whole Nest of which Serpents did on Friday last assemble together in the Hall of your Palace where they treated no longer about the out-works of Religion but laid the ax to the root consulting together how they might destroy the Catholick Faith which they agreed at last to put to the Vote by leaving the People and Soldiers to be of which Religion they like best who whenever they are asked whether they will have Christ or Barabbas will certainly prefer Barabbas for having been of their own Office and Profession Sir Matters of Faith are not to be treated in such a manner but are to be setled by Councils consisting of great numbers of Bishops where they may be had or else of Grave and Learned Priests and Friars For though in Matters of State these very men do not think fit to consult with every body but only with persons of known Prudence and Experience nevertheless in Matters of Religion the Otadores Gauls Mahometans and Heathens are reckoned to be good Counsellors and are all called in by them to determine which is the true and which is the false faith I would have your Highness call to mind the many mercies God hath conferred on you since you embraced the Roman Faith and though it is true there have been many Rebellions which is a Plague Ethiopia never was nor never will be free from until the Faith is deeply rooted therein yet God has always been so kind to you as to lay the Rebels at your feet and particularly in the last Fight when your affairs were come to a crisis so that your Arm is not shortned but extended Remember likewise that you did not forsake the Faith of Ethiopia out of fear the Fathers being in no condition to oblige you to do it by force of Arms but you did it purely upon your being convinced of its falshood and of the truth of that of Rome Neither must you forget that I did not come to you of my own head but was sent by the Roman Pontiff and your Brother the King of Portugal upon your having writ to them several time to send you a Patriarch and some Bishops in which affair if there was any delay it was occasioned by the jealousy they had of the fickleness of the Habassins which we now begin to experience and which the King of Portugal had formerly had experience of when he sent Don Christopher De Gama hither with a stout body of Troops by whom this Empire was rescued out of the hands of the Mahometans who had Conquer'd it and that not with an intention of keeping it to themselves but of restoring it to your Ancestors as they did Neither had the King of Portugal ever any other view nor did he expect any other reward for what he did for you but only your Friendship and the union of this Empire with the Roman Church to which end I and the Bishop that is here behind me were sent by his Holiness and his Majesty to you Neither did we come among you as Beggars but well stored with Books and Pontifical Vestments and Ornaments they not being willing to charge your Highness with so much as the Maintenance of our persons Consider Sir how just cause those Princes will have to be displeased with you and though they may be at too great a distance to have due satisfaction God nevertheless who is every where will not fail to require it of you Consider likewise what a blot this will be in the Scutcheon of the Lion of Judah and what an eternal stain both to your own and your Empire 's honour and how many Souls you will ruin by your Apostacy which that I may not live to see nor the Divine Judgments that will befal you thereupon The Emperor continues immoveable in his resolution let me beg it of your Highness to command my head to be here struck off before you At these words the Patriarch Bishop and Five Fathers threw themselves at the Emperor's Feet to receive his answer At which sight notwithstanding the By-standers seemed to be all touched the Emperor himself did not appear to be in the least affected with it in so much that the Patriarch saith those Verses of the Poet were very applicable to him Nec Magis incepto vultum Sermone Movetur Quam si Dura Silex vel stet Marpesia cautes Only making a sign with his hand that they should rise he asked the Patriarch with what face he could say that he had not shewed favour to the Catholicks since he had favoured none else but such but the Hereticks said he are numerous and all that have rebelled against me have given no other reason for their doing it but my having changed the Religion of my Countrey How many Thousands have I killed already in order to introduce Popery And how many Thousands more must I kill before I shall be able to do it My People are all weary of cutting one another's Throats and are all upon the point of deserting me I can do no more than I have done Besides We are not medling with the Faith but only with some Customs or if any are about changing it they have not acquainted me with it if you are told otherwise abroad you must inquire abroad whether it be so or not For my own part I do here Promise That I will never Decree any thing about Religion without first Consulting with your Lordship The Emperor stopping here The
confirmed the Truth of the Gospel conquered Tyrants triumphed over Wild Beasts and with your hands full of Palms and your Heads crowned with Laurels are entered into the Palaces of Heaven pardon my Ignorance and pray for us Sacred Virgins shining Religious the Glory of the World the Honour of Heaven the Beauty of Humane Nature and the singular Ornaments of the Order of St. Dominick Pardon all the Defects of this Book in relation to your Praises and pray for us Amen After this studied Prayer which is a sufficient Indication of the Romantick Genius of the Man he imagining I suppose that Protestants notwithstanding all his Apologies and begging of Pardons for having said so little of his Heroes would not be so civil as to believe one half of what he has said of them falls foul upon them and thanks God that he did not write these things to Luther and Calvin or any other excommunicated Hereticks who do ignorantly brutally rashly and blasphemously deny the profitable Intercession of the most glorious Saints with God but to most Catholick Spaniards whose Cridulity having never been tainted with the Heresies of their Neighbours of France and England he hoped would swallow his Book of Prodigies without chewing and especially coming recommended to them by all its Licenses as a Book of wonderful Edification to all pious Souls most of them vouching likewise for the truth of it Its Licensers and Vouchers being no less Men than Don Batasar de Boria Doctor of Law Archdeacon of Xativa Canon of the Church of Valentia and Vicar-General and Official of the Archbishoprick of Valentia Juan Pasqual Rector of the Church of St. Martin and Licenser of the Patriarch of Antioch and Archbishop of Valentia Fryar Raphael Riphez Prior Provincial of the Dominicans in the Kingdom of Arragon Fryar Lupero de Huette and Fryar Jeronymo Mos Licensers of the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition who do all in their Licenses give great Commendations both to this History and its Author But this History having been written chiefly to blast the rising-Reputation of the Jesuits and the credit of all their Reports it s having so many and so great Vouchers for its Truth and the Master of the Sacred Palace likewise to whom it is Dedicated for its Patron was not enough to hinder the Jesuits from exposing it so soon as ever it crept out of its cell to the world in its true colours whole Battalions of them falling upon it at once at such an unmerciful rate that as I have been told they made the Dominicans so much ashamed of this Romance which they had endeavoured to have obtruded upon the world for a true History that they have laboured ever since to get all the Copies of it into their hands to destroy them for which reason I shall do all that I can to preserve that which I have by giving it to a Library which next to that of the Emperor of Ethiopia 's is the greatest in the World But this is not the only pious fraud the Dominicans have miscarried in after having promised their Order great honour from them History of the Lisbon Nun called Maria of the Annunciation but above all is that of the Nun at Lisbon the History whereof I shall here set down more at length than I have seen it any where in one Book Maria of the Annunciation was Born at Lisbon and at the age of Thirteen was put into the Dominican Convent of the Annunciation in that City in which so soon as she was of age to do it she professed her self a Nun which she had not done long before she begun to have Miraculous Visions and to be daily visited by Christ in Person whom she still saluted with the Doxology thus Glory be to the Father and to Thee and to the Holy Spirit Whenever she received the Sacrament her Soul was in a Rapture and was honoured with the Vision of the Heavenly Coire of Angels and when she embraced the Crucifix which she still called her Husband it constantly darted out beams of Light much brighter and stronger than those of the Sun One day as she was at her Devotion Christ appeared to her and made her a promise to visit her again upon St. Thomas Aquinas's day and thereon to do her the greatest honour that any Creature was capable of Maria having acquainted Antonio de la Cerda the Provincial of her Order who upon her Name being so high for Miracles was become her Confessor with the Promise had been made her she was directed by him how to prepare her self for the reception of so great a favour whose Directions she punctually observed for never was any creature more submissive to a Confessor Thomas Aquinas's day being come and all the Nuns and Friars being assembled to Mattins while Maria was in a most profound fit of Devotion Christ Crucified appeared to her and in the sight of the whole Congregation printed all the Wounds of his Head Side Hands and Feet upon the same parts of her Body she had Two and thirty Wounds such as Thorns use to make on her Head and in her Side a Gash that resembled a Wound made with a Spear and on her Hands and Feet the Wounds were of a Triangular Figure as if made by a Nail and in order to excite the Devotion of the absent as well as present the Rags she laid to the Wounds on Thursdays had always the Five Wounds of Christ printed on them in the form of a Cross and happy was the Roman Catholick Prince or Princess who could obtain some of those Sacred Rags The Pope he had one and the King of Spain who was strangely devoted to her had another and the Empress had one sent her against she lay in neither was there a Roman Catholick Prince or Princess in Europe but what had obtained one of them by some interest or other Paramus in his History of the Inquisition saith That he being at that time an Inquisitor in Sicily saw one of them which had been sent to the Viceroy Don Henrique de Gusman's Lady who he saith adored it as the most Sacred Relick in the World And Philip the IId. to satisfie the World that he firmly believed all that was reported of the Sanctity and Miracles of the Lisbon Nun had the Royal Standard of the Armada which came against England in the year 1588. Blessed by her The Inquisition whose business it is to enquire severely into the truth of things which are reported to be Miracles having summoned her Confessor and all the rest of the Friars who belonged to the Convent to appear before them was fully satisfied by their Depositions and Oaths as Eye-Witnesses of the Truth of the whole matter as it was reported Whereupon Gregory the XIIIth writ her a very Godly Letter exhorting her to Humility Thankfulness and Perseverance in her Devotions and as there was no Roman Catholick that did in the least doubt of the truth of what