The Life and Adventures of Bruce, the African Traveller

by Sir Francis Bond Head

What an abject picture is here presented to us! and how melancholy the change in the aspect of the Christian faith, since we saw it first established among the simple inhabitants of Abyssinia!

As soon as the oath was concluded, one of the king's governors drew his sword, and swore that he would punish with that weapon any one who should fall from his religious vows; and that he would even be the greatest enemy of his prince if he should desert the Catholic faith. These declarations were repeated by many of the officers of state. A solemn excommunication was then pronounced against all who did not keep the oath, and a proclamation was immediately issued, requiring all persons intending to become priests to embrace the Catholic religion under pain of death; and that all persons should follow the forms of the Church of Rome in the celebration of Easter and Lent, under the same dreadful penalty. Mendez vigorously followed up his success. The Abyssinian clergy were reordained; the churches were reconsecrated; grown men as well as children were again baptized; the feasts and festivals of the Church of Rome were established; and the forms and tenets of the Alexandrian faith were formally abrogated.

Mendez, however, had overacted his part: unlike Paez, he had neglected to make himself competent first to lead the people whom he so hastily desired to drive; and, in a short time, a violent reaction naturally took place. The Abyssinians, still simple in their habits, and long accustomed to the placid enjoyment of unaffected devotion, soon felt that there was no real satisfaction to be derived from repeating prayers in words which they could not comprehend. The king, meanwhile, finding that his own power was gradually diminishing, and that he was losing the affections as well as the obedience of his subjects, patiently listened to their complaints: impressed by the native eloquence with which they insisted on their right of addressing the Almighty in their own language, he at length yielded to their request; and, though he himself continued to follow the tenets of the Church of Rome, declared that, by his people, prayers need no longer be uttered in a foreign tongue.

This concession, apparently simple and unobjectionable, was fatal to the views of Mendez. As long, therefore, as he was able, he obstinately resisted; but the voice of the people so resounded in his ears, that he was very shortly obliged to pretend to submit, although in secret he still did everything in his power to uphold his system. Thus Abyssinia again became, as might naturally be expected, a scene of war; and Tellez, the Portuguese historian, has published a long list of the names of those who died in that country, martyrs to the Catholic faith. Many battles were fought; and, for a considerable period, Socinios, who still strenuously supported the religion of Rome, met with continued defeats; until adversity, that stern but useful monitor, at last made him sensible of the error he had committed. "These men whom you see slaughtered," said one of his nobles rudely to him on a field of battle, "were neither Pagans nor Mohammedans: they were Christians, once your subjects and your friends. In killing these you drive the sword into your own vitals." Still, however, the Jesuit Mendez hovered around him, and for some time succeeded in keeping him in arms; but the spell was at last broken, and Socinios, seeing that his subjects were all deserting him, issued, on the 14th of June, 1632, the following singular proclamation:

"Hear us! hear us! hear us! First of all, we gave you the Roman Catholic faith, as thinking it a good one; but many people have died fighting against it, and lastly these rude peasants of Lasta. Now, therefore, we restore to you the faith of your ancestors; let your own priests say their mass in their own churches; let the people have their own altars for the sacrament, and their own liturgy, and be happy! As for myself, I am now old, and worn out with war and infirmities, and no longer capable of governing: I name my son, Facilidas, to reign in my stead."

Thus in one day fell the whole fabric of the Roman Catholic faith and hierarchy in Abyssinia. Socinios lingered for two or three months after this, and died firmly professing himself a Catholic to the last.

As soon as the new king had buried his father, he began to compose those disorders which had so long distracted the country from difference of religion. Accordingly, he at once wrote to Mendez to inform him that the Alexandrian faith being now restored, his leaving the country had become indispensable. He therefore commanded him and the Catholic priests to retire to Fremona, there to await his farther pleasure.

Mendez, by subtle arguments, persuasions, and, lastly, by entreaties, endeavoured to evade, or, at least, to defer the execution of this mandate; but his words were now powerless, and he was peremptorily told that if he did not depart, the time might arrive when it would be too late for him to do so.

He and his companions were accordingly conducted by a party of soldiers. On the road they were robbed and ill-treated, their guards conniving at the attack; and at the end of April, 1633, they reached Fremona. Among the Jesuits who accompanied Mendez was Jerome Lobo, one of the most bigoted of the Portuguese, yet a man of enterprise and talent, who had travelled over the greatest part of Abyssinia. For a short time it was determined by these banished monks to send Lobo to India or Spain, to solicit troops for the country. The king, however, perfectly aware of all that passed, ordered the Jesuits at once to set out for Masuah. On receiving this command, they managed, at the suggestion of Lobo, to escape to the protection of a man of considerable power who favoured them. The king wrote to this person, and desired him to give them up, which he declined to do; but, by an odd sort of compromise, agreed, instead of it, to sell them to the Turks.