During the darkness of the middle ages, the church of Abyssinia had
fallen into complete oblivion; but about the commencement of the
sixteenth century rumours were whispered abroad of a Christian monarch
and a Christian nation established in the centre of Africa; and the
happy news was first brought to the court of Portugal that a Christian
church still existed, which had for ages successfully resisted, among
the lofty mountains of Abyssinia, the fierce attacks of the sanguinary
Saracen.
In the year 1499, Pedro Covilham succeeded in reaching Shoa, where he
was received with that favour which novelty usually secures; and
although the stranger was prevented by the existing ancient laws from
leaving the kingdom, the quest had been successfully performed. The
first link was re-established of a chain which had been broken for ages;
and shortly afterwards the glories of Prester John and his Christian
court were fully disclosed, to abate the intense anxiety that reigned in
the heart of every inhabitant of the West.
In due process of time an Abyssinian ambassador made his appearance in
Portugal. Unbounded delight was experienced by King Emanuel, and every
honour was lavished upon Matthew the merchant of Shoa. All believed
that the Abyssinians were devout Catholics, and that a vast empire,
estimated at four times its actual extent, was about to fall under the
dominion of the Roman church. A mission on a great scale was fitted
out--the journey was safely accomplished--and excited fancy rioted for a
time in the description of palaces and fountains which never existed,
and pomp, riches, and regal power, utterly unknown in the land.
Missions continued from either court during the succeeding forty years.
An alliance was formed. Men learned in the arts and sciences were
despatched to settle in Abyssinia. Zaga Zaba arrived in Lisbon,
invested with full powers to satisfy the interests of both countries,
temporal as well as spiritual. But the difference of faith was now for
the first time understood. The bitter enmity of the Roman creed stood
prominently to view; and the envoy, after studying the details of the
Catholic doctrine, and refusing to subscribe a similar contract on
behalf of his church, was unscrupulously put to a violent death in a
Portuguese prison.
The first flattering ideas regarding the religion of the country being
thus found erroneous, the delusion respecting the extent and power of
the mighty empire was next to fall to the ground. The Galla were now
streaming in hordes from the interior, and Graan, the Mohammadan
invader, was carrying fire and sword throughout the country. The dying
Coptish patriarch of Abyssinia was prevailed upon to nominate as his
successor John Bermudez, a resident Portuguese; and, hurried by the
king, this priest proceeded, without loss of time, to seek military
assistance from the courts of Rome and Lisbon.
Schemes of ambition flitted over the minds of the first conquerors of
India, and an alliance with Ethiopia seemed highly desirable as a handle
for further acquisition in the East. But dilatory measures delayed the
arrival of the Portuguese fleet until the suing monarch had been
gathered to his fathers; and it has already been seen that Christopher,
the son of the famous Vasco de Gama, anchored in the harbour of Massowah
at a time when the new Emperor Claudius was sorely pressed to sustain
himself upon the throne of his ancestors. The opportunity was not
neglected by the archbishop to reduce the heretic Church to the fold of
the Roman see; and a series of attempts were commenced, equally to be
deplored from the mischief which they created, and the unworthy means
that were employed during the struggle.
The signal service rendered by the Portuguese troops in the ensuing
wars, the total rout of the Galla and the Moslem, with the slaughter of
their invading leader in battle, placed Bermudez in a position to demand
high terms from the reinstated monarch. The conversion of the emperor
to the Roman Catholic faith and the possession of one-third of the
kingdom, were imperiously proposed, and scornfully rejected.
Excommunication was threatened by the proud prelate of the West, and
utterly disregarded by King Claudius, who retorted that the pope himself
was a heretic. Open hostilities broke out; and although the superior
discipline of the Europeans for a time gave them the advantage, they
were at length separated by a wily stratagem, and hurried to different
quarters of the kingdom; and Bermudez being then seized, was conveyed in
honourable exile to the rugged mountains of Efat.
Although much blood and considerable treasure had been thus fruitlessly
expended, the conversion of Ethiopia was far from being forgotten in
Europe; and the spark of hope was further kept alive by an Abyssinian
priest, who asserted, on his arrival in Rome, that the failure of
Bermudez had entirely arisen from his own absurd and brutal conduct, and
that the utmost deference would be paid to men of sense and capacity.
Ignatius Loyola volunteered to repair in person to re-unite the Ethiopic
and Roman Catholic churches; but his talents being required for more
important objects, the pope refused the desired permission to the great
founder of the society of Jesus, and thirteen missionaries from the new
order were chosen instead. Nunez Baretto was elevated to the dignity of
patriarch, and Andre Oviedo appointed provisional successor.
At that period the navigation of the Red Sea was rendered dangerous by
numerous Saracen fleets; and the patriarch, deeming it inexpedient to
hazard his own valuable person in the perils of the voyage, reposed
quietly at Goa, whilst a deputation headed by Gonsalvez Rodrigues, a
priest of secondary rank, was despatched in advance, to ascertain the
capabilities of the route, and the sentiments of the reigning monarch.
The Emperor Claudius little relished the arrival of these monks, and
Rodrigues entirely failed in every attempt at conviction on the points
at issue--that the pope, as representative of Christ upon earth, was the
true head of all Christians, and that there was no salvation out of the
pale of the Catholic church. Dismissed with the reply that the people
of Ethiopia would not lightly abandon the faith of their forefathers,
the monk retired to work upon the mind of the monarch by the brilliancy
of his controversial writing; but a lengthy treatise on the true faith
produced no happy result, and the envoy, disgusted with his reception,
returned shortly afterwards to Goa.
The spiritual conclave was plunged into consternation by the untoward
intelligence; and after much mature deliberation it was resolved, that
the dignity of the patriarch, and of the great King of Portugal, could
not be exposed to the consequences attending the ill favour of the
Emperor of Abyssinia; and that therefore the prelate should still remain
the guest of the Bishop of Nicea, whilst the daring and restless Oviedo,
with a small train of attendants, attempted the business.
Arriving in safety, the Jesuit experienced a most friendly reception
from the Emperor Claudius; and although the letters of recommendation
from the pope were received with mistrust and impatience, the habitual
mildness of the monarch restrained him from any overt act of oppression.
Deceived by this calm behaviour, the bishop, during a second audience,
was sufficiently foolhardy to represent, in the most insolent language,
the enormous errors under which the Emperor laboured, and to demand
imperatively whether or not he intended to submit himself to the
authority of the successor of Saint Peter, and thus remove the heavy
obligation under which his empire already groaned. King Claudius
replied that he was well inclined towards the Portuguese nation--that he
would grant lands and settlements in his country--that permission would
not be withheld to the private exercise of the religion of the West; but
that as the Abyssinian church had been for ages united to the charge of
the patriarch of Alexandria, a subject of such serious alteration must
be canvassed before a full assembly of divines.
Indignant at what he termed Ethiopian perfidy, but still buoyed up with
the faint hope of realising his object, Oviedo changed his mode of
attack, and addressed a laboured remonstrance to the monarch, written in
the hypocritical tone of false friendship, earnestly entreating him to
recall to his remembrance the assistance rendered by Europeans to his
afflicted country, and the many promises made by his sire in the day of
his urgent distress; imploring him at the same time to preserve a stern
vigilance upon the evil influence of the Empress and of the ministers of
state; "for in matters of faith the love of kindred must give way to the
love of Christ, and in similar situations the nearest relation often
proves the bitterest enemy to the salvation of the soul."
This insidious reasoning was, however, vainly expended upon the
intelligent Claudius, and served but to turn his heart further from the
Roman and his cause. The offer of a public controversy on points of
disputed faith being shortly afterwards accepted, the Emperor entered
the lists in presence of the assembled court, and by his clear knowledge
of the Holy Scriptures, utterly defeated the subtilties of the Italian
priest; and thus, notwithstanding the conviction of the Portuguese
missionary that by supernatural aid he had triumphantly refuted all the
arguments urged by his illustrious antagonist, it was fully decreed by
the Abyssinian conference, that neither king nor people owed any
obligation or obedience whatsoever to the church of Rome.
Still Oviedo was far from being reduced to silence. Treatise after
treatise was published on the controversy, to confound the minds of the
Ethiopians. The errors of the Alexandrian faith were fiercely attacked
in every form and fashion; and the superior beauties of the Catholic
religion fully expounded. But no advantage resulted. Rejoinders and
confutations followed fast from the insulted clergy; and the bishop,
furious at the thoughts of his futile exertions to gain a footing in the
country--entertaining no hope of making one single convert, whether
among prince or people--resolved upon a last effort in the struggle. On
the fifth of February, 1559, he issued his spiritual ban over the land,
proclaiming that the entire nation of Abyssinia, high and low, learned
and ignorant, having refused to obey the church of Rome--practising the
unholy rite of circumcision--scrupling to eat the flesh of the hog and
the hare--and indulging in many other flagrant enormities--were
delivered over to the judgment of the spiritual court, to be punished in
person and goods, in public and in private, by every means the faithful
could devise.
But the folly of issuing this curious rescript without any means of
enforcing it was fully appreciated; and the tyrannical conduct of the
bishop did but serve to strengthen the Emperor in the bonds of his own
faith, finding, as was observed by an historian of the times, "that
popery and its wiles were the more dangerous and reprehensible, as the
veil was withdrawn from before the spirit of her tenets."
There is every reason to believe that the succeeding invasion of the
Adaiel was procured through the treacherous designs of the Jesuits, but
the event again proved disastrous to their cause. Although the revenge
of the baffled bishop was allayed in a torrent of blood, yet the death
of the mild, moderate, and liberal Claudius, who perished on the
battlefield, shed a baneful influence on their ensuing efforts; and the
sceptre devolved into the hands of his brother Adam, a haughty and
vindictive prince, who is depicted in Portuguese records as "cruel and
hard of heart, and utterly insensible to the beauteous mysteries of the
Catholic faith."
Swearing vengeance against the Latins, to whose treason he attributed
the murder of his brother and the ruin of his country, the new monarch
seized all the estates which had been granted to the Portuguese for
rendered service, and threatened the bishop and his colleagues with
instantaneous death if they presumed to propagate the errors of the
Romish church; and on a humble remonstrance being attempted, in the
violence of his wrath, he rushed upon the missionary with a drawn sword,
vowing to immolate him upon the spot. "The weapon, however," say the
holy fathers, "dropped miraculously from his impious hand," and for a
season the last extremity of vengeance was exchanged for a system of
vile durance.
Portuguese troops in the meantime arrived from Goa, and the Bahr Negash,
"the lord of the sea-coast," bought over by the gold of India, and
stirred up by the wily emissaries of the viceroy, assembled his forces
in rebellion. Marching with his European allies to the capital, he
defeated and slew the Emperor in a pitched battle, and rescued the
Jesuit missionaries from their unpleasant captivity.
Warned by former difficulty and distress, the worthy fathers now assumed
a more modest and humble demeanour, and were allowed to settle again in
their old haunt of Maiguagua, where they remained for a time unmolested
by the new Emperor Malek Sashed, who inherited all the horror of his
father to the Catholic creed, although tempered by the mildness of his
uncle Claudius. But the jealous monks had not yet relinquished their
hope of advancement, and bending to the pressure of the times, the deep
plot was veiled under the garb of passive obedience. The most pressing
solicitations were despatched to Goa for assistance; and the dauntless
Oviedo pledged himself with six hundred staunch Europeans to convert,
not only the empire of Abyssinia, but all the countries adjacent.
The scheme, however, did not suit the politics of the day; and in 1560
the bishop received an order from the head of his society to repair
forthwith to his more promising charge in Japan. Loth to abandon all
his favourite projects of ambition in the country, and utterly reckless
of truth, he addressed the most specious letters to the pope, holding
out a certain prospect of prostrating the church of Ethiopia before the
apostolic throne, whilst to his immediate superior he dilated upon the
richness of the land, and the mines of pure gold which he falsely
asserted to exist in every province of the kingdom. But his artful
motives were thoroughly pierced by the more wily successor of Saint
Peter; and vessels soon after arrived on the coast of Africa, to convey
the reluctant fathers to the monastery of Saint Xavier, in Goa.
Volume 3, Chapter XIII.