The Highlands of Ethiopia

by Sir William Cornwallis Harris

In order to obtain the desired and enviable position of eating the bread of comparative idleness, a sacrifice is indispensable. The priest is restricted to the possession of a single wife; and on her demise or infidelity, no second marriage is authorised. A small portion of lore must, moreover, be imbibed—the Psalms of David must be carefully conned—and the mysteries of Abyssinian song and dance be fully penetrated, before the sacred office can be attained. The lessons of early youth are, however, speedily forgotten, and the constant repetition of the same words removes the necessity of retaining the character. Few in after years can read—still fewer respect the vow of chastity—and the employment of the morning hours of the Sabbath, and of the holydays, in dancing and shouting within the walls of the church, entitle the performer to all the immunities and comforts pertaining unto holy orders.

In every clerical conclave the king possesses the supreme voice of authority; and the despotic monarch may in Shoa be justly regarded as the head of his own church. Loss of office is the great punishment inflicted by the spiritual court, which is composed of the assembled members of the individual church, and degradation is followed by the expulsion of the offending brother from the community. But the great hall of justice is not unfrequently graced with the presence of the refractory priest; and fetters in the dungeon, or banishment from the realm, maintain a wholesome fear of the royal power of investigation in matters ecclesiastical.

The monk is admitted to the order of his choice by any officiating priest. A prayer is repeated, the skull-cap blessed with the sign of the cross, and the ceremony is complete. But a more imposing rite attends the oath of celibacy before the Abuna. The clergy assemble in numbers, and fires are lighted around the person of the candidate. His loins are bound about with the leathern girdle of Saint John, and the prayer and the requiem for the dead rise pealing from the circle. The Glaswa—a narrow strip of black cloth adorned with coloured crosses—is then placed on the shaven crown, and shrouded from view by the enveloping shawl; and the archbishop, clad in his robes of state, having repeated the concluding prayer and blessing, signs with his own hand the emblem of faith over the various parts of the body.

Education was in former days to be obtained alone from the inmate of the monastic abode, and a life of scanty food, austerity, and severe fasting, was embraced only by the more enthusiastic. But the skin-cloak, and the dirty head-dress, now envelope the listless monk, who, satisfied with a dreamy and indolent existence, basks during the day on the grassy banks of the sparkling rivulet, and prefers a bare sufficiency of coarse fare from the hand of royal charity, to the sweeter morsel earned by the sweat of his brow.

Priest-ridden and bigoted to the last degree, the chains of bondage are firmly riveted around the neck of the infatuated Abyssinian. The most ridiculous doctrines must be believed, and the most severe fasts and penances must be endured, according to the pleasure and the fiat of the church. Uncharitable and uncompromising, her anger often blazes forth into the furious blast of excommunication; and for offences the most trivial, the souls of men are consigned to eternal perdition.

Fasts, penances, and excommunication form, in fact, 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. Spiritual offences are indeed of rare occurrence; for murder and sacrilege alone give umbrage to the easy conscience of the native of Shoa, and all other crimes written in the book of Christian commandment have been well-nigh effaced from his tablet. Abstinence and the disbursement of suitable largesses to the priest and mendicant, are of themselves quite sufficient to ensure the requisite absolution for every sin committed in the flesh.

The death-bed and the funeral feast are attended with much advantage to the temporal interests of the church. The choicest food is unsparingly dealt out, and the bereaved widow is glad to leave the management of her affairs to the assiduous father confessor, who is entertained in the house of all who can afford the expense. The dying man bestows a portion of his estate in this world for the bright hopes which absolution extends in that which is to come; and the holy sacrament is even administered after the soul has quitted the tenement of clay, in order that the superstition of grateful relatives may grant a rich reward for the blessing of the priest, and for his undeniable assurance of exemption from punishment hereafter.

But the Abyssinian possesses no idea of the more salutary doctrine of Christianity. Polluted faith is here reflected in the mirror of depraved manners, and long severe fastings constitute the essence of his degenerate religion. The idol worship of saints has made rapid progress in the land, and the ignorance of the clergy is only to be equalled by the impurity of the lay classes. Their belief in Christianity, if that term can be applied, is strange, childish, and inconsistent; and bigoted to the faith of their ancestors, they abhor and despise all who refuse acquiescence in this their absurd confession:—

“That the Alexandrian faith is the only true belief.

“That faith, together with baptism, is sufficient for justification; but that God demands alms and fasting, as amends for sin committed prior to the performance of the baptismal rite.