156

PORTUGUESE IN ABYSSINIA.

713

The Portuguese in Abyssinia, A. D. 1525

1553, &c.

the rival chiefs, with their patrons, Justinian and Theodora, strove to outstrip each other in the conquest of a remote and independent province. The industry of the empress was again victorious, and the pious Theodora* has established in that sequestered church the faith and discipline of the Jacobites. Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, the Ethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world, by whom they were forgotten. They were awakened by the Portuguese, who, turning the southern promontory of Africa, appeared in India and the Red sea, as if they had descended through the air from a distant planet. In the first moments of their interview, the subjects of Rome and Alexandria observed the resemblance, rather than the difference, of their faith; and each nation expected the most important benefits from an alliance with their Christian brethren. In their lonely situation, the Ethiopians had almost relapsed into the savage life Their vessels, which had traded to Ceylon, scarcely presumed to navigate the rivers of Africa; the ruins of Axume were deserted, the nation was scattered in villages, and the emperor, a pompous name, was content, both in peace and war, with the movable residence of a camp. Conscious of their own indigence, the Abyssinians had formed the rational project of importing the arts and ingenuity of Europe;' and their ambassadors at Rome and Lisbon were instructed to solicit a colony of smiths, carpenters, tilers, masons, printers, surgeons, and physicians, for the use of their country. But the public danger soon called for the instant and effectual aid of arms and soldiers to defend an unwarlike people from the barbarians who ravaged the inland country,

157

156 I know not why Assemannus, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii. p. 384), should call in question these probable missions of Theodora into Nubia and Ethiopia. The slight notices of Abyssinia till the year 1500 are supplied by Renaudot, (pp. 336, 341, 381, 382. 405, 443, &c., 452, 456, 463, 475. 480, 511, 525, 559-564, from the Coptic writers. The mind of Ludolphus was a perfect blank.

157 Ludolph. Hist. Ethiop. 1. iv. c. 5. The most necessary arts are now exercised by the Jews, and the foreign trade is in the hands of the Armenians. What Gregory principally admired and envied was the industry of Europe-artes et opificia.

*Theodora, the beautiful daughter of Acacius, the bear-keeper, after a suc cessful theatrical career, marred, however, by the grossest licentiousness, captured Justinian, and became empress of the East. She is celebrated for her prudence, courage, tyranny, cruelty and piety. Her labors in the cause of Christianity only ended with her life; and one of her last religious acts was the establishment of this Jacobite church in Abyssinia. Clergymen, when denouncing the stage, should remember with gratitude the services of the actress Theodora, who commenced life as a beggar, was successful as a pantomimist, a courtezan, a Christian and an empress: and who, after exerting a paramount influence in establishing Christian creeds and inventing Christian dogmas during her life, was celebrated and honored as a Christian saint after her death.-E.

714

INVASION OF ABYSSINIA.

and the Turks and Arabs who advanced from the sea-coast

in more formidable array. Æthiopia was saved by four hundred and fifty Portuguese, who displayed in the field the native valor of Europeans, and the artificial powers of the musket and cannon. In a moment of terror, the emperor had promised to reconcile himself and his subjects to the Catholic faith; a Latin patriarch represented the supremacy of the pope; the empire, enlarged in a tenfold proportion, was supposed to contain more gold than the mines of America; and the wildest hopes of avarice and zeal were built on the willing submission of the Christians of Africa.

158

Mission of the

A. D. 1557.

But the vows which pain had extorted, were Jesuits, forsworn on the return of health. The Abyssinians still adhered with unshaken constancy to the Monophysite faith; their languid belief was inflamed by the exercise of dispute; they branded the Latins with the names of Arians and Nestorians, and imputed the adoration of four gods, to those who separated the two natures of Christ. Fremona, a place of worship, or rather of exile, was assigned to the Jesuit missionaries. Their skill in the liberal and mechanic arts, their theological learning. and the decency of their manners, inspired a barren esteem; but they were not endowed with the gift of miracles,159 and they vainly solicited a reinforcement of European troops. The patience and dexterity of forty years at length obtained a more favorable audience, and two emperors of Abyssinia were persuaded that Rome could ensure the temporal and everlasting happiness of her votaries. The first of these royal converts lost his crown and his life; and the rebel arny was sanctified by the abuna, who hurled an anathema at the apostate, and absolved his subjects from their oath of fidelity. The fate of Zadenghel was revenged by the courage and fortune of Susneus, who ascended the throne under the name of Segued, and more vigorously prosecuted the pious enterprise of his kinsman. After the amusement of some unequal combats between the Jesuits and his illiterate priests, the emperor declared himself a proselyte to the synod of Chalcedon, presuming that his clergy and 158 John Bermudez, whose relation, printed at Lisbon, 1569, was translated into English by Purchas, (Pilgrims, 1. vii. c. 7, p. 1149, &c.), and from thence into French by La Croze, (Christianisme d'Ethiopie, pp. 92-265). The piece is curious; but the author may be suspected of deceiving Abyssinia, Rome, and Portugal. His title to the rank of patriarch is dark and doubtful, (Lud. Com. No. 101, p. 473) 159 Religio Romana nec precibus patrum nec miraculis ab ipsis editis suffulciebatur, is the uncontradicted assurance of the devout emperor Susneus to his patriarch Mendez, (Ludolph. Comment. No. 126, p. 529); and such assurances should be preciously kept, as an antidote against any marvelous legends.

66

Conversion of

A D. 1626.

people would embrace without delay the religion of their prince. The liberty of choice was succeeded by a law, which imposed, under pain of death, the belief of the two natures of Christ: the Abyssinians were enjoined to work and to play on the sabbath; and Segued, in the face of Europe and Africa, renounced his connexion with the Alexandrian church. A Jesuit, Alphonso Mendez, the Catholic patriarch of Æthiopia, accepted the emperor, in the name of Urban VIII. the homage and abjuration of his penitent. "I confess," said the emperor on his knees, "I confess that the pope is the vicar of Christ, "the successor of St. Peter, and the sovereign of the world. To him I swear true obedience, and at his feet I offer my "person and kingdom." A similar oath was repeated by his son, his brother, the clergy, the nobles, and even the ladies of the court: the Latin patriarch was invested with honors and wealth; and his missionaries erected their churches or citadels in the most convenient stations of the empire. The Jesuits themselves deplore the fatal indiscretion of their chief, who forgot the mildness of the gospel and the policy of his order, to introduce with hasty violence the liturgy of Rome and the Inquisition of Portugal. He condemned the ancient practice of circumcision, which health rather than superstition had first invented in the climate of Ethiopia.160 A new baptism, a new ordination, 160 I am aware how tender is the question of circumcision. Yet I will affirm, 1. That the Ethiopians have a physical reason for the circumcision of males, and even of females, (Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, tom. ii.) 2. That it was practiced in Ethiopia long before the introduction of Judaism or Christianity. (Herodot. 1. ii. c. 14. Marsham, Canon. Chron. pp. 72, 73.) "Infantes circumcidunt ob consuetudinem, non ob Judaismum," says Gregory the Abyssinian priest, (apud Fabric. Lux Christiana, p. 720.) Yet in the heat of dispute, the Portuguese were sometimes branded with the name of uncircumcised. (La Croze, p. 8o. Ludolph. Hist. and Comment. 1. iii. c 1.)

716

EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS

was inflicted on the natives; and they trembled with horror when the most holy of the dead were torn from their graves, when the most illustrious of the living were excommunicated by a foreign priest. In the defe ice of their religion and liberty, the Abyssinians rose in arms, with desperate but unsuccessful zeal. Five rebellions were extinguished in the blood of the insurgents: two abunas were slain in battle, whole legions were slaughtered in the field, or suffocated in their caverns; and neither merit, nor rank, nor sex, could save from an ignominious death the enemies of Rome. But the victorious monarch was finally subdued by the constancy of the nation, of his mother, of his son, and of his most faithful friends. Segued listened to the voice of pity, of reason, perhaps of fear; and his edict of liberty of conscience instantly revealed the tyranny and weakness of the Jesuits. On the death of his father, Basilides expelled the Latin patriarch, and restored to the wishes of the nation the faith and discipline of Egypt. The Monophysite churches resounded with a song of triumph. Final expul" that the sheep of Ethiopia were now delivered Jesuits, from the hyænas of the West ;" and the gates A. D. 1632, &c. of that solitary realm were for ever shut against the arts, the science, and the fanaticism of Europe.'

sion of the 66

161

161 The three Protestant historians, Ludolphus, (Hist. Ethiopica Francofurt. 1681; Commentarius, 1691; Relatio Nova, &c. 1693, in folio); Geddes, (Church History of Ethiopia, London, 1696, in octavo), and La Croze, (Hist. du Christianisme d'Ethiopie et d'Armenie, La Haye, 1739, in duodecimo), have drawn their principal materials from the Jesuits, especially from the General History of Tellez, published in Portuguese at Conimbra, 1660. We might be surprised at their frankness; but their most flagitious vice, the spirit of persecution, was, in their eyes, the most meritorious virtue. Ludolphus possessed some, though a slight, advantage from the Ethiopic language, and the personal conversation of Gregory, a free-spirited Abyssinian priest, whom he invited from Rome to the court of Saxe-Gotha. See Theo. Ethi. of Greg., in Fabricius, Lux Evan. p. 716, 734

The travels of Bruce, illustrated by those of Mr. Salt, and the narrative of Nathaniel Pearce, have brought us again acquainted with this remote region. Whatever may be their speculative opinions, the barbarous manners of the Ethiopians seem to be gaining more and more the ascendancy over the practice of Christianity.-MILMAN.