If there is anywhere a leisured and adventurous student of comparative hagiology, he would obtain some interesting results by tracing the origin and growth of the legends which glorify these worthies.
A survey of what has been said shows that Consul Plowden was fully justified when he wrote, “the Christianity professed and taught in Abyssinia is much materialized.” Nevertheless, the credulity and superstition which prevail in the country are not in essence grosser than the unwarranted beliefs which were accepted in Europe when the Aurea Legenda passed as sound devotional reading, and it would be as unjustifiable to judge the intellectual capability of the Habashes by their faith in myths as it would have been to estimate the ability of our forefathers by a similar standard. Nor is it certain that any sudden reformation would improve the religious state of the people. An intemperate zeal for enlightening them might, by introducing an ideal far above their real sympathies and comprehension, discredit the old conceptions without effectually substituting the new. Moreover, the fabulous feats of the saints may require a cautious and sparing criticism; for to differentiate the degrees of probability in miracles, among an unscientific but argumentative race, would, perhaps, be more likely to promote scepticism as to all thaumaturgy than to lead to the repudiation of certain miracles and the continued acceptance of others.
It is, of course, the fact that at present “religion” consists of little more than a mere series of outward observances. Veneration of the fabric of the church takes the place of devotion within its precincts. Dufton wrote:—“The prayers are read in Ethiopic” (Geez), “a language which the people know nothing about, so that little profit can be derived from the service. Indeed, most persons content themselves with kissing the floor or the walls of the edifice, and such is a criterion of a man’s piety; he kisses the church, they say, and so esteem him a good Christian. Some will utter a prayer. The petition takes a form similar to the following, which an old woman was heard to offer up during my visit, though the last clause is probably in most cases omitted—
“‘O Lord, give me plenty to eat and drink, good raiment, and a comfortable home, or else kill me outright!’”
Mr. Vivian visited the Church of the Blessed Virgin at Entotto, and noticed that all the Abyssinians who were with him “hastened to kiss the floor-beam and side-posts or lintels of the door in the outer wall.” And at Trinity Church in Addis Abiba “whenever a peasant approached the church on a mule, he dismounted and kissed a large black stone which stood some twenty yards away. Other persons of a more pious turn of mind went right up to the entrance and kissed not only the lintels, but even the floor-beam of the doorway. This was also done by everybody who was coming to church, and my servant, in whom I had never detected any semblance of piety on the road, was particularly punctilious in this respect.”[160]
But it is not the case that the Habashes avoid all religious duties that are irksome. Parkyns wrote: “Their fasts are more numerous perhaps than those of any other Christian people, more than two-thirds of the year being assigned to abstinence. Nor in their fasting do they get off as easily as Roman Catholics; for it is not sufficient that they should abstain from animal food only; an Abyssinian, during fast-time, neither eats nor drinks anything till late in the afternoon. . . . It is true the Mohammedans do nearly the same during their month of Ramadan; but they only change the day into night, feasting during the night-time on more luxurious food than many of them could allow themselves during the remainder of the year; while the Abyssinian, when he does eat, confines himself to dried peas, dressed in a sort of bad oil, or to an equally unpalatable dish made of a kind of spinach, called ‘hamly’ or ‘goummen.’ . . . Many of the Abyssinian fasts are of long duration. The time of day when the people may eat is determined by the length of a man’s shadow, measured by his own feet, and varies in different fasts. Thus the fast of Advent is during the last ten days of the month Hedar (October) and the whole of Tahsas (November), and during each day till a man’s shadow measures nine and a half feet. The fast of Lent lasts till sunset during fifty-five days. . . . Besides these are the Wednesdays and Fridays, making nearly 260 days of fasting. . . . Some of the priests are very rigorous in keeping all these fasts, and many even voluntarily add a number for their own observance. The people, too, in general are tolerably attentive to this duty; and I have frequently met with men undergoing extreme labour, yet persevering in what they have been brought up to consider as one of the most essential parts of their religion; for, strictly speaking, a man who has been known to neglect the rules of the Church is looked upon almost as an infidel, and should he die in such a state of disobedience, his body would be refused sepulture in the churches. Good Friday and the following day are passed by the priests and the rigidly devout in an absolute fast of forty-eight hours.”[161]
Plowden remarked: “So much do they attach importance to this (fasting) and other outward forms that a man of Hamazayn[162] will slay his near relative, and returning home calmly, will be horror-stricken should his wife have ground flour on a saint’s day, or prepared his meal before the hours of fasting have expired.”[163]
It must be owned that the Habashes recompense themselves as far as possible for the severity of their abstinence by gluttony at the numerous feasts which the Church also ordains.
Major Cornwallis Harris drew attention to a singular custom in the following words—“Fasts, penances, and excommunication form the chief props of the clerical power; but the repentant sinner can always purchase a substitute to undergo the two former, and the ban of the Church is readily averted by a timely offering.”[164] This seems to indicate an opinion among the Abyssinians that a sin is expiated not by the contrition of the evil-doer, but by a formal amount of punishment undergone somewhere by some one—no matter by whom.
The Abyssinian Church teaches, and the great majority of the people accept, the doctrine of transubstantiation. Those who hold this belief “assert that the actual body and blood of our Saviour are partaken of by the faithful, but that an angel takes them away from an unbeliever, and restores the bread and wine, in his hands, in their natural state, such as they were previous to the benediction. The wine is merely an infusion of dried raisins.”[165] Stern tells the story of a miracle which is supposed to have established the fact of transubstantiation, and adds, “The erudite reject the legend, and, in their sentiments, approximate to the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation.”[166] The Church also teaches the doctrine of purgatory and that “prayers for the dead are necessary, and absolution indispensable. The souls of the departed do not immediately enter upon a state of happiness, the period being in exact accordance with the alms and prayers that are expended upon earth.”[167] Stern declared that “the number of masses requisite for the repose of the soul has not been defined by the Church, and thus the misery or bliss of the defunct is at the mercy of niggardly relatives and exacting priests.”[168] Both writers attribute the introduction of this opinion to the Jews.