Cap. xcvii.—How the Prester questioned me about the ceremony of holy orders, and also how I went to the lesser orders which they call zagonais, and what sort of people are ordained.
On the following day, 9th of January, Prester John sent to call me, and as soon as I arrived, there came a message to say that they had told him that I had been to see how they made his priests, and what did I think of it? I answered that I had seen two things, which if I had not seen, even though another should have told them to me with an oath, I should not have believed, and which would not be believed from me, although I should affirm that I had seen them, as I did see them. One was the multitude of clergy and crosses at the reception of His Highness, and the other was the great number of priests that I had seen ordained together; and the office seemed to me very good, but what did not seem to me good was the great indecency with which those priests came who were ordained; and so I had seen the order of the Church transgressed in the ordaining of those priests. Then there came a message that I should not be astonished at any of these things, for, as to his reception, there had only come to it the priests of the churches of his ancestors which were in those districts, and that these wore mitres, and hats, and crosses, which his ancestors had left them; and that the clergy who had been ordained were very few for what there usually are, as there are always about five or six thousand ordained; and now there were few because they did not know that the Abima was coming: and he asked me to tell him what indecency I had seen and what breach of the commands of the Church. I answered that it seemed to me very indecent and a very shameful thing that priests who were ordained for the mass, and were to receive the body of the Lord, to come almost naked and showing their nakedness, and that Adam and Eve as soon as they had sinned saw that they were naked and covered themselves because they had to appear before the Lord: and these had to receive him: and also that a friar had come entirely blind, how was he, who never had eyes, to be made a priest for the mass: also another entirely paralysed of the right hand, and four or five who were paralysed in the legs: these also they made priests, and a priest had to be sound in his limbs. The answer came, that he rejoiced much that I looked at all things and spoke of what did not seem to me right, so as to amend them. As to the priests that were naked he would see to that. With respect to the cripples, that I should speak to Ajaze Raphael, who was present on the occasion. This Ajaze Raphael was the honourable priest and great gentleman to whom we were entrusted when we came to the Court. Then I went to dine with him in his tent, and before we dined he sent for a book, which, according to what they read in it, must have been a sacramental of their fashion, and he read in it that a priest had to be complete, as I had said. I told him that the book spoke the truth, and that a priest had to be complete in age, judgment, learning, and limbs: and that those that I saw and had called cripples were wanting in some of their limbs; firstly, the blind man who had never seen, how could he know learning, or administer the sacrament? The Ajaze answered, that I had good reason if our books spoke thus. I said that they did so, and at great length. He asked me what such as these would do if they had not alms from the church. I answered that in this country I did not know, but that in our country such as these, being given to the church, might serve and would have alms in the churches and monasteries, and such as the blind would be organ blowers and bell ringers, and do other things which there are there, and which there are not in this country. And if they did not serve in monasteries or churches, that the Kings of the country had in their cities and towns large hospitals, with much revenue, for the blind and cripples, and sick and poor. The Ajaze answered, that this all seemed very good, and that the Prester should know it, and would be much pleased.
On the 10th day of the said month of January the Abima made deacons. They do not examine for this office, and they make deacons of children in the lap who cannot yet speak, and, to the age of fifteen years, when they are still unmarried, and if they are married, they cannot be deacons. Those who are going to be mass priests, as soon as they are deacons they get married, and, when married, are ordained for the mass; because if they got ordained for the mass before being married, they could not afterwards be married or have a wife. The children who can neither speak nor walk, are carried by men in their arms, because women cannot enter into the church, and their lamentations resemble those of kids in a yard without the mothers, when they are separated and are dying of hunger, because they finish the office at hours of vespers; and they are without food because they have to receive the communion. The little children of such age we know that they cannot read, and of the bigger ones there are but few who can read, and the ceremony with regard to them is this. The Abima is seated on a chair in the church tent, and these deacons pass before him in a line after he has said a short prayer, and when they pass thus, he cuts a lock of hair from the head of each; then he takes the book and again reads a prayer; they come another time and he gives them keys to touch, and they open the door of the tent or only put their hands to it.[186] Also they put a cloth on their head, and each of these things they do in turn; and he gives them small earthenware pots (to touch),[187] for there are no cruets there; and they return another time and he puts his hands upon their heads; and between each of these things he always prays a little, and the little ones come in arms, as has been said. Then they follow with their mass, and at the end of it they give the communion to all of them, and it is an amazing thing the danger of the little ones, for even by force of water they cannot make them swallow the Sacrament, both on account of their tender age, and their much crying. This office having been concluded, the Abima begged me to come and dine with him at his abode, and when I was there he asked me to give him my opinion of that office, as I had been present, and had seen it well, and the Prester had sent to tell him to talk to me about the said office, because he would find in me good reason. Then I told him what I had said to Ajaze Rafael of the enormity and indecency of the priests and cripples and blind men who had come to be ordained. He answered, that the Prester had already sent him word of this, and of what had passed about it, and of what ought to be done, and also he had sent him word of what the Ajaze had said, but he asked me about the zagonais whom he had just made. I said to him that his services seemed to me very good, but that to ordain children newly born, and great ignorant boys, did not seem to me well, neither should it be done in the house of God. He answered that God had brought us to this country to speak the truth, and that he only did that which he was commanded, and that the Prester ordered him to make zagonais[188] of all the children, and that they would learn, because he was very old, and he did not know when they would have another Abima, and that this country had already been twenty-three years without an Abima, and that it was not very long ago that they had sent two thousand ounces of gold to Cairo in search for an Abima: and on account of the wars of the Sultan[189] with the Turk, they had not sent him, and they had taken the gold, and that now God had brought us to this country for us to speak the truth, and that this country might quickly be provided with an Abima, because his life as Abima was short. After these two times of going to see how orders were conferred, I went an infinite number of times later to see them, for they were given nearly every day, and also on Sundays, for they did not wait for the four seasons, nor Lent. If some day they desisted from conferring them, then at once some came to me and made friends with me without my knowing them before, and they entreated me for the love of God to speak to the Abima, and ask him to confer orders, as they had nothing to eat: and if I went to ask it of him at vespers, at that time he ordered the tent to be pitched in order to confer them next day; and certainly I never asked it but what he did it, for he had a very good will towards me; and all the things which I said to him he used to do them as though I had been his equal in dignity.
Cap. xcviii.—How long a time the Prester’s country was without an Abima, and for what cause and where they go to seek them, and of the state of the Abima, and how he goes when he rides.
How this country was for twenty-three years without an Abima: they say that after the time when the Abima died in the time of the great grandfather of this Prester, who was named Zeriaco, the father of Alexander, the grandfather of this king, and father of his father Nahu, for ten years after the death of the said Abima, the Prester would not send for another, and he said he did not choose that an Abima should come from Alexandria, and that he should not come from Rome, for he did not choose it, and he would rather lose his countries than have a reverend father from the country of the heretics: and he died also at the end of ten years that the country had been without an Abima: and his son Alexander, grandfather of this Prester, had remained in the same opinion for thirteen years without choosing to send for an Abima, until the people complained, saying that now there were neither priests nor zagonais to serve the churches, and that the servants being lost, the churches would be lost, and that when the churches were lost the faith would be lost. Therefore, seeing this, Alexander sent to Cairo to seek for an Abima from the Patriarch of Alexandria who was there, and he sent him two, so that one should succeed the other, and both were alive in our time. Whilst we were here the Abima Jacob died, who was to succeed this one who is now living; and he told me that he had been fifty years in the country, and that he had come as white as he now was, and he was then of the age of sixty-five years, and that he was getting to the age of one hundred and twenty and odd years. That the Prester who sent for them was most Christian, and that soon after they had come, the Prester John by his command had ordered that Saturday should not be kept, and that they should not do other erroneous ceremonies which they used to do, and that they should eat pig’s flesh and all other meat, although it had not had its throat cut. When this had begun to be done at the Court and its neighbourhood, not very long ago, there came to this country two Franks, who are still living in it, that is to say, one Marcoreo, a Venetian, and after him Pero de Covilhan, a Portuguese; these, when they arrived, before they were at Court, began to keep the usages of the country which are still kept in some parts, that is, to keep Saturdays, and to eat like the people of the country. Some priests and friars who pretended to know something of the Bible seeing this, came to the Prester and complained of the two Abimas, principally of the Vicar, and saying, What thing is this? these Franks who have now come from Frankland, each one from his own kingdom, and they keep our ancient customs, how is it that this Abima, who came from Alexandria, orders things to be done which are not written in the books? and on this account the Prester had given orders to return to the former usages. This the Abima related to me, giving great thanks to God for our arrival, and because the Prester had seen and heard our mass, and was much pleased with all our offices, and Church matters, and he, the Abima, hoped in God that by our coming, and others who should come after us, this country would return to the truth, and he did not pray to the Lord for anything else but to grant him life until he should see in this country a ruler of the Church of Rome, and to hear tell that the Latin mass was celebrated in the house of Mekkah which belongs to Mahomed; and he trusted in God that it would soon be, because the Abyssinians had a prophecy that there would not be more than a hundred Popes in their country, and that then there would be a new ruler belonging to the Church of Rome, and that the Abima would complete the hundred; and also he held it to be a prophecy that the Franks from the end of the earth would come by sea and would join with the Abyssinians, and would destroy Jiddah and Tor[190] and Mekkah; and that so many people would cross over and would pull down Mekkah, and without moving would hand the stones from one to another and would throw them into the Red Sea, and Mekkah would remain a razed plain, and that also they would take the great city of Cairo, and upon that there would be great differences as to whose it should be, and the Franks would remain in the great city.
The manner of this Abima in his person and state is in this wise. I will relate how he was in his tent, for I never saw him more than once in his house. He is always seated on a bedstead, such as the great people of this country are accustomed to use, and he has a curtain over the bedstead: he wears a white cotton robe of fine thin stuff, and in India from whence it comes it is called cacha: he has an upper garment which does not seem like a good cloak for rain,[191] nor like a church cloak, he has a hood like that of a cloak for rain, it is of camlet of blue silk. On his head he has a large turban, also of blue stuff, and, as I have said, he is a very old man, small and bald. He has a beard like very white wool, thin and of middling length, for in this country the clergy do not use to wear beards. He is pleasing in his speech, and rarely speaks without giving thanks to God. When he goes out to the King’s tent, or to confer orders, he goes on a mule well caparisoned and accompanied by many both on mules and on foot. He carries a cross in his hand, and at his side they carry three crosses on poles raised higher than him. With respect to this I told him that these crosses ought to go in front of him. He told me that the cross which he carried in his hand was most excellent, and that no others had to go before it. He carries before him through all the country wherever he goes two tall umbrellas with long supports, like those of the Prester, but not rich; there also go before him four men with whips, who make the people withdraw on each side where he goes on the roads. The country is covered with children and youths and priests and friars who follow after him shouting, each in his language. I asked what they shouted, they told me that they said: My lord make us priests or zagonais, and may God grant you a long life.
Cap. xcix.—Of the assembly of clergy, which took place in the church of Macham Selasem when they consecrated it, and of the translation of the King Nahum, father of this Prester, and of a small church there is there.