The two natures in Christ, the two persons, their unity, their equality, the inferiority of the manhood, doctrines, and definitions of the time of St Athanasius, are all wrapt up in tenfold darkness, and inextricable from amidst the thick clouds of heresy and ignorance of language. Nature is often mistaken for person, and person for nature; the same of the human substance. It is monstrous to hear their reasoning upon it. One would think, that every different monk, every time he talks, purposely broached some new heresy. Scarce one of them that ever I conversed with, and those of the very best of them, would suffer it to be said, that Christ’s body was perfectly like our’s. Nay, it was easily seen that, in their hearts, they went still further, and were very loth to believe, if they did believe it at all, that the body of the Virgin Mary and St Anne were perfectly human.
Not to trouble the reader further with these uninteresting particulars and distinctions, I shall only add, that the Jesuits, in the account they give of the heresies, ignorance, and obstinacy of the Abyssinian clergy, have not misrepresented them, in the imputations made against them, either in point of faith or of morals. Whether, this being the case, the mission they undertook of themselves into that country, gave them authority to destroy the many with a view to convert the few, is a question to be resolved hereafter; I believe it did not; and that the tares and the wheat should have been suffered to grow together till a hand of more authority, guided by unerring judgment, pulled them, with that portion of safety he had pre-ordained for both.
The Protestant writers again unfairly triumph over their adversaries, the Catholics, by asking, Why all that noise about the two natures in Christ? It is plain, say they, from passages in the Haimanout Abou, and their other tracts upon orthodox belief, that they acknowledge that Christ was perfect God and perfect man, of a rational soul and human flesh subsisting, and that all the confessions of unity, co-equality, and inferiority, are there expressed in the clearest manner as received in the Greek church. What necessity was there for more; and what need of disputing upon these points already so fully settled?
This, I beg leave to say, is unfair; for though it is true that, at the time of collecting the Haimanout Abou, and at the time St Athanasius, St Cyril, and St Chrysostom wrote, the explanation of these points was uniform in favour of orthodoxy, and that while access could easily be had to Jerusalem or Alexandria, then Greek and Christian cities, difficulties, if any arose, were easily resolved; yet, at the time the Jesuits came, those books were very rare in the country, and the contents of them so far from being understood, that they were applied to the support of the grossest heresies, from the misinterpretation of the ignorant monks of these latter times. That the Abyssinians had been orthodox availed nothing: they were then become as ignorant of the doctrines of St Athanasius and St Cyril, as if those fathers had never wrote; and it is their religion at this period which the Jesuits condemn, not that of the church of Alexandria, when in its purity under the first patriarchs; and, to complete all their misfortunes, no access to Jerusalem is any longer open to them, and very rarely communication with Cairo.
On the other hand, the Jesuits, who found that the Abyssinians were often wrong in some things, were resolved to deny that they could be right in any thing; and, from attacking their tenets, they fell upon their ceremonies received in the Greek church at the same time with Christianity; and in this dispute they shewed great ignorance and malevolence, which they supported by the help of falsehood and invention. I shall take notice of only one instance in many, because it has been insisted upon by both parties with unusual vehemence, and very little candour.
It was settled by the first general council, that one baptism only was necessary for the regeneration of man, for freeing him from the sin of our first parents, and lifting him under the banner of Christ,—“I confess one baptism for the remission of sins,” says the Symbol. Now it was maintained by the Jesuits, that in Abyssinia, once every year, they baptised all grown people, or adults. I shall, as briefly as possible, set down what I myself saw while on the spot.
The small river, running between the town of Adowa and the church, had been dammed up for several days; the stream was scanty, so that it scarcely overflowed. It was in places three feet deep, in some, perhaps, four, or little more. Three large tents were pitched the morning before the feast of the Epiphany; one on the north for the priests to repose in during intervals of the service, and beside this one to communicate in; on the south there was a third tent for the monks and priests of another church to rest themselves in their turn. About twelve o’clock at night the monks and priests met together, and began their prayers and psalms at the water-side, one party relieving each other. At dawn of day the governor, Welleta Michael, came thither with some soldiers to raise men for Ras Michael, then on his march against Waragna Fasil, and far down on a small hill by the water-side, the troops all skirmishing on foot and on horseback around them.
As soon as the sun began to appear, three large crosses of wood were carried by three priests dressed in their sacerdotal vestments, and who, coming to the side of the river, dipt the cross into the water, and all this time the firing, skirmishing, and praying went on together. The priests with the crosses returned, one of their number before them carrying something less than an English quart of water in a silver cup or chalice; when they were about fifty yards from Welleta Michael, that general stood up, and the priest took as much water as he could hold in his hands and sprinkled it upon his head, holding the cup at the same time to Welleta Michael’s mouth to taste; after which the priest received it back again, saying, at the same time, “Gzier y’barak,” which is simply, “May God bless you.” Each of the three crosses were then brought forward to Welleta Michael, and he kissed them. The ceremony of sprinkling the water was then repeated to all the great men in the tent, all cleanly dressed as in gala. Some of them, not contented with aspersion, received the water in the palms of their hands joined, and drank it there; more water was brought for those that had not partaken of the first; and, after the whole of the governor’s company was sprinkled, the crosses returned to the river, their bearers singing hallelujahs, and the skirmishing and firing continuing.
Janni, my Greek friend, had recommended me to the priest of Adowa; and, as the governor had placed me by him, I had an opportunity, for both these reasons, of being served among the first. My friend the priest sprinkled water upon my head, and gave me his blessing in the same words he had used to the others; but, as I saw it was not necessary to drink, I declined putting the cup to my lips, for two reasons; one, because I knew the Abyssinians have a scruple to eat or drink after strangers; the other, because I apprehended the water was not perfectly clean; for no sooner had the crosses first touched the pool, and the cup filled from the clean part for the governor, than two or three hundred boys, calling themselves deacons, plunged in with only a white cloth, or rag, tied round their middle; in all other respects they were perfectly naked. All their friends and relations (indeed everybody) went close down to the edge of the pool, where water was thrown upon them, and first decently enough by boys of the town, and those brought on purpose as deacons; but, after the better sort of people had received the aspersion, the whole was turned into a riot, the boys, muddying the water, threw it round them upon every one they saw well-dressed or clean. The governor retreated first, then the monks, and then the crosses, and left the brook in possession of the boys and blackguards, who rioted there till two o’clock in the afternoon.
I must, however, observe, that, a very little time after the governor had been sprinkled, two horses and two mules, belonging to Ras Michael and Ozoro Esther, came and were washed. Afterwards the soldiers went in and bathed their horses and guns; those who had wounds bathed them also. I saw no women in the bath uncovered, even to the knee; nor did I see any person of the rank of decent servants go into the water at all except with the horses. Heaps of platters and pots, that had been used by Mahometans or Jews, were brought thither likewise to be purified; and thus the whole ended.