Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part VI

A more important conquest still remained, of the patriarch, the
oracle and leader of the Egyptian church. Theodosius had resisted
the threats and promises of Justinian with the spirit of an
apostle or an enthusiast. “Such,” replied the patriarch, “were
the offers of the tempter when he showed the kingdoms of the
earth. But my soul is far dearer to me than life or dominion. The
churches are in the hands of a prince who can kill the body; but
my conscience is my own; and in exile, poverty, or chains, I will
steadfastly adhere to the faith of my holy predecessors,
Athanasius, Cyril, and Dioscorus. Anathema to the tome of Leo and
the synod of Chalcedon! Anathema to all who embrace their creed!
Anathema to them now and forevermore! Naked came I out of my
mother’s womb, naked shall I descend into the grave. Let those
who love God follow me and seek their salvation.” After
comforting his brethren, he embarked for Constantinople, and
sustained, in six successive interviews, the almost irresistible
weight of the royal presence. His opinions were favorably
entertained in the palace and the city; the influence of Theodora
assured him a safe conduct and honorable dismission; and he ended
his days, though not on the throne, yet in the bosom, of his
native country. On the news of his death, Apollinaris indecently
feasted the nobles and the clergy; but his joy was checked by the
intelligence of a new election; and while he enjoyed the wealth
of Alexandria, his rivals reigned in the monasteries of Thebais,
and were maintained by the voluntary oblations of the people. A
perpetual succession of patriarchs arose from the ashes of
Theodosius; and the Monophysite churches of Syria and Egypt were
united by the name of Jacobites and the communion of the faith.
But the same faith, which has been confined to a narrow sect of
the Syrians, was diffused over the mass of the Egyptian or Coptic
nation; who, almost unanimously, rejected the decrees of the
synod of Chalcedon. A thousand years were now elapsed since Egypt
had ceased to be a kingdom, since the conquerors of Asia and
Europe had trampled on the ready necks of a people, whose ancient
wisdom and power ascend beyond the records of history. The
conflict of zeal and persecution rekindled some sparks of their
national spirit. They abjured, with a foreign heresy, the manners
and language of the Greeks: every Melchite, in their eyes, was a
stranger, every Jacobite a citizen; the alliance of marriage, the
offices of humanity, were condemned as a deadly sin; the natives
renounced all allegiance to the emperor; and his orders, at a
distance from Alexandria, were obeyed only under the pressure of
military force. A generous effort might have redeemed the
religion and liberty of Egypt, and her six hundred monasteries
might have poured forth their myriads of holy warriors, for whom
death should have no terrors, since life had no comfort or
delight. But experience has proved the distinction of active and
passive courage; the fanatic who endures without a groan the
torture of the rack or the stake, would tremble and fly before
the face of an armed enemy. The pusillanimous temper of the
Egyptians could only hope for a change of masters; the arms of
Chosroes depopulated the land, yet under his reign the Jacobites
enjoyed a short and precarious respite. The victory of Heraclius
renewed and aggravated the persecution, and the patriarch again
escaped from Alexandria to the desert. In his flight, Benjamin
was encouraged by a voice, which bade him expect, at the end of
ten years, the aid of a foreign nation, marked, like the
Egyptians themselves, with the ancient rite of circumcision. The
character of these deliverers, and the nature of the deliverance,
will be hereafter explained; and I shall step over the interval
of eleven centuries to observe the present misery of the
Jacobites of Egypt. The populous city of Cairo affords a
residence, or rather a shelter, for their indigent patriarch, and
a remnant of ten bishops; forty monasteries have survived the
inroads of the Arabs; and the progress of servitude and apostasy
has reduced the Coptic nation to the despicable number of
twenty-five or thirty thousand families; 148 a race of illiterate
beggars, whose only consolation is derived from the superior
wretchedness of the Greek patriarch and his diminutive
congregation. 149

148 (return) [ This number is taken from the curious Recherches
sur les Egyptiens et les Chinois, (tom. ii. p. 192, 193,) and
appears more probable than the 600,000 ancient, or 15,000 modern,
Copts of Gemelli Carreri Cyril Lucar, the Protestant patriarch of
Constantinople, laments that those heretics were ten times more
numerous than his orthodox Greeks, ingeniously applying Homer,
(Iliad, ii. 128,) the most perfect expression of contempt,
(Fabric. Lux Evangelii, 740.)]

149 (return) [ The history of the Copts, their religion, manners,
&c., may be found in the Abbe Renaudot’s motley work, neither a
translation nor an original; the Chronicon Orientale of Peter, a
Jacobite; in the two versions of Abraham Ecchellensis, Paris,
1651; and John Simon Asseman, Venet. 1729. These annals descend
no lower than the xiiith century. The more recent accounts must
be searched for in the travellers into Egypt and the Nouveaux
Memoires des Missions du Levant. In the last century, Joseph
Abudacnus, a native of Cairo, published at Oxford, in thirty
pages, a slight Historia Jacobitarum, 147, post p.150]

VI. The Coptic patriarch, a rebel to the Caesars, or a slave to
the khalifs, still gloried in the filial obedience of the kings
of Nubia and Aethiopia. He repaid their homage by magnifying
their greatness; and it was boldly asserted that they could bring
into the field a hundred thousand horse, with an equal number of
camels; 150 that their hand could pour out or restrain the waters
of the Nile; 151 and the peace and plenty of Egypt was obtained,
even in this world, by the intercession of the patriarch. In
exile at Constantinople, Theodosius recommended to his patroness
the conversion of the black nations of Nubia, from the tropic of
Cancer to the confines of Abyssinia. 152 Her design was suspected
and emulated by the more orthodox emperor. The rival
missionaries, a Melchite and a Jacobite, embarked at the same
time; but the empress, from a motive of love or fear, was more
effectually obeyed; and the Catholic priest was detained by the
president of Thebais, while the king of Nubia and his court were
hastily baptized in the faith of Dioscorus. The tardy envoy of
Justinian was received and dismissed with honor: but when he
accused the heresy and treason of the Egyptians, the negro
convert was instructed to reply that he would never abandon his
brethren, the true believers, to the persecuting ministers of the
synod of Chalcedon. 153 During several ages, the bishops of Nubia
were named and consecrated by the Jacobite patriarch of
Alexandria: as late as the twelfth century, Christianity
prevailed; and some rites, some ruins, are still visible in the
savage towns of Sennaar and Dongola. 154 But the Nubians at
length executed their threats of returning to the worship of
idols; the climate required the indulgence of polygamy, and they
have finally preferred the triumph of the Koran to the abasement
of the Cross. A metaphysical religion may appear too refined for
the capacity of the negro race: yet a black or a parrot might be
taught to repeat the words of the Chalcedonian or Monophysite
creed.

150 (return) [ About the year 737. See Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch.
Alex p. 221, 222. Elmacin, Hist. Saracen. p. 99.]

151 (return) [ Ludolph. Hist. Aethiopic. et Comment. l. i. c. 8.
Renaudot Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 480, &c. This opinion,
introduced into Egypt and Europe by the artifice of the Copts,
the pride of the Abyssinians, the fear and ignorance of the Turks
and Arabs, has not even the semblance of truth. The rains of
Aethiopia do not, in the increase of the Nile, consult the will
of the monarch. If the river approaches at Napata within three
days’ journey of the Red Sea (see D’Anville’s Maps,) a canal that
should divert its course would demand, and most probably surpass,
the power of the Caesars.]

152 (return) [ The Abyssinians, who still preserve the features
and olive complexion of the Arabs, afford a proof that two
thousand years are not sufficient to change the color of the
human race. The Nubians, an African race, are pure negroes, as
black as those of Senegal or Congo, with flat noses, thick lips,
and woolly hair, (Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. v. p. 117, 143,
144, 166, 219, edit. in 12mo., Paris, 1769.) The ancients beheld,
without much attention, the extraordinary phenomenon which has
exercised the philosophers and theologians of modern times]

153 (return) [ Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 329.]

154 (return) [ The Christianity of the Nubians (A.D. 1153) is
attested by the sheriff al Edrisi, falsely described under the
name of the Nubian geographer, (p. 18,) who represents them as a
nation of Jacobites. The rays of historical light that twinkle in
the history of Ranaudot (p. 178, 220—224, 281—286, 405, 434, 451,
464) are all previous to this aera. See the modern state in the
Lettres Edifiantes (Recueil, iv.) and Busching, (tom. ix. p.
152—139, par Berenger.)]

Christianity was more deeply rooted in the Abyssinian empire;
and, although the correspondence has been sometimes interrupted
above seventy or a hundred years, the mother-church of Alexandria
retains her colony in a state of perpetual pupilage. Seven
bishops once composed the Aethiopic synod: had their number
amounted to ten, they might have elected an independent primate;
and one of their kings was ambitious of promoting his brother to
the ecclesiastical throne. But the event was foreseen, the
increase was denied: the episcopal office has been gradually
confined to the abuna, 155 the head and author of the Abyssinian
priesthood; the patriarch supplies each vacancy with an Egyptian
monk; and the character of a stranger appears more venerable in
the eyes of the people, less dangerous in those of the monarch.
In the sixth century, when the schism of Egypt was confirmed, the
rival chiefs, with their patrons, Justinian and Theodora, strove
to outstrip each other in the conquest of a remote and
independent province. The industry of the empress was again
victorious, and the pious Theodora has established in that
sequestered church the faith and discipline of the Jacobites. 156
Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, the
Aethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world,
by whom they were forgotten. They were awakened by the
Portuguese, who, turning the southern promontory of Africa,
appeared in India and the Red Sea, as if they had descended
through the air from a distant planet. In the first moments of
their interview, the subjects of Rome and Alexandria observed the
resemblance, rather than the difference, of their faith; and each
nation expected the most important benefits from an alliance with
their Christian brethren. In their lonely situation, the
Aethiopians had almost relapsed into the savage life. Their
vessels, which had traded to Ceylon, scarcely presumed to
navigate the rivers of Africa; the ruins of Axume were deserted,
the nation was scattered in villages, and the emperor, a pompous
name, was content, both in peace and war, with the immovable
residence of a camp. Conscious of their own indigence, the
Abyssinians had formed the rational project of importing the arts
and ingenuity of Europe; 157 and their ambassadors at Rome and
Lisbon were instructed to solicit a colony of smiths, carpenters,
tilers, masons, printers, surgeons, and physicians, for the use
of their country. But the public danger soon called for the
instant and effectual aid of arms and soldiers, to defend an
unwarlike people from the Barbarians who ravaged the inland
country and the Turks and Arabs who advanced from the sea-coast
in more formidable array. Aethiopia was saved by four hundred and
fifty Portuguese, who displayed in the field the native valor of
Europeans, and the artificial power of the musket and cannon. In
a moment of terror, the emperor had promised to reconcile himself
and his subjects to the Catholic faith; a Latin patriarch
represented the supremacy of the pope: 158 the empire, enlarged
in a tenfold proportion, was supposed to contain more gold than
the mines of America; and the wildest hopes of avarice and zeal
were built on the willing submission of the Christians of Africa.

155 (return) [ The abuna is improperly dignified by the Latins
with the title of patriarch. The Abyssinians acknowledge only the
four patriarchs, and their chief is no more than a metropolitan
or national primate, (Ludolph. Hist. Aethiopic. et Comment. l.
iii. c. 7.) The seven bishops of Renaudot, (p. 511,) who existed
A.D. 1131, are unknown to the historian.]

156 (return) [ I know not why Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom.
ii. p. 384) should call in question these probable missions of
Theodora into Nubia and Aethiopia. The slight notices of
Abyssinia till the year 1500 are supplied by Renaudot (p.
336-341, 381, 382, 405, 443, &c., 452, 456, 463, 475, 480, 511,
525, 559—564) from the Coptic writers. The mind of Ludolphus was
a perfect blank.]

157 (return) [ Ludolph. Hist. Aethiop. l. iv. c. 5. The most
necessary arts are now exercised by the Jews, and the foreign
trade is in the hands of the Armenians. What Gregory principally
admired and envied was the industry of Europe—artes et opificia.]

158 (return) [ John Bermudez, whose relation, printed at Lisbon,
1569, was translated into English by Purchas, (Pilgrims, l. vii.
c. 7, p. 1149, &c.,) and from thence into French by La Croze,
(Christianisme d’Ethiopie, p. 92—265.) The piece is curious; but
the author may be suspected of deceiving Abyssinia, Rome, and
Portugal. His title to the rank of patriarch is dark and
doubtful, (Ludolph. Comment. No. 101, p. 473.)]

But the vows which pain had extorted were forsworn on the return
of health. The Abyssinians still adhered with unshaken constancy
to the Monophysite faith; their languid belief was inflamed by
the exercise of dispute; they branded the Latins with the names
of Arians and Nestorians, and imputed the adoration of four gods
to those who separated the two natures of Christ. Fremona, a
place of worship, or rather of exile, was assigned to the Jesuit
missionaries. Their skill in the liberal and mechanic arts, their
theological learning, and the decency of their manners, inspired
a barren esteem; but they were not endowed with the gift of
miracles, 159 and they vainly solicited a reenforcement of
European troops. The patience and dexterity of forty years at
length obtained a more favorable audience, and two emperors of
Abyssinia were persuaded that Rome could insure the temporal and
everlasting happiness of her votaries. The first of these royal
converts lost his crown and his life; and the rebel army was
sanctified by the abuna, who hurled an anathema at the apostate,
and absolved his subjects from their oath of fidelity. The fate
of Zadenghel was revenged by the courage and fortune of Susneus,
who ascended the throne under the name of Segued, and more
vigorously prosecuted the pious enterprise of his kinsman. After
the amusement of some unequal combats between the Jesuits and his
illiterate priests, the emperor declared himself a proselyte to
the synod of Chalcedon, presuming that his clergy and people
would embrace without delay the religion of their prince. The
liberty of choice was succeeded by a law, which imposed, under
pain of death, the belief of the two natures of Christ: the
Abyssinians were enjoined to work and to play on the Sabbath; and
Segued, in the face of Europe and Africa, renounced his
connection with the Alexandrian church. A Jesuit, Alphonso
Mendez, the Catholic patriarch of Aethiopia, accepted, in the
name of Urban VIII., the homage and abjuration of the penitent.
“I confess,” said the emperor on his knees, “I confess that the
pope is the vicar of Christ, the successor of St. Peter, and the
sovereign of the world. To him I swear true obedience, and at his
feet I offer my person and kingdom.” A similar oath was repeated
by his son, his brother, the clergy, the nobles, and even the
ladies of the court: the Latin patriarch was invested with honors
and wealth; and his missionaries erected their churches or
citadels in the most convenient stations of the empire. The
Jesuits themselves deplore the fatal indiscretion of their chief,
who forgot the mildness of the gospel and the policy of his
order, to introduce with hasty violence the liturgy of Rome and
the inquisition of Portugal. He condemned the ancient practice of
circumcision, which health, rather than superstition, had first
invented in the climate of Aethiopia. 160 A new baptism, a new
ordination, was inflicted on the natives; and they trembled with
horror when the most holy of the dead were torn from their
graves, when the most illustrious of the living were
excommunicated by a foreign priest. In the defense of their
religion and liberty, the Abyssinians rose in arms, with
desperate but unsuccessful zeal. Five rebellions were
extinguished in the blood of the insurgents: two abunas were
slain in battle, whole legions were slaughtered in the field, or
suffocated in their caverns; and neither merit, nor rank, nor
sex, could save from an ignominious death the enemies of Rome.
But the victorious monarch was finally subdued by the constancy
of the nation, of his mother, of his son, and of his most
faithful friends. Segued listened to the voice of pity, of
reason, perhaps of fear: and his edict of liberty of conscience
instantly revealed the tyranny and weakness of the Jesuits. On
the death of his father, Basilides expelled the Latin patriarch,
and restored to the wishes of the nation the faith and the
discipline of Egypt. The Monophysite churches resounded with a
song of triumph, “that the sheep of Aethiopia were now delivered
from the hyaenas of the West;” and the gates of that solitary
realm were forever shut against the arts, the science, and the
fanaticism of Europe. 161

159 (return) [ Religio Romana...nec precibus patrum nec miraculis
ab ipsis editis suffulciebatur, is the uncontradicted assurance
of the devout emperor Susneus to his patriarch Mendez, (Ludolph.
Comment. No. 126, p. 529;) and such assurances should be
preciously kept, as an antidote against any marvellous legends.]

160 (return) [ I am aware how tender is the question of
circumcision. Yet I will affirm, 1. That the Aethiopians have a
physical reason for the circumcision of males, and even of
females, (Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, tom. ii.)
2. That it was practised in Aethiopia long before the
introduction of Judaism or Christianity, (Herodot. l. ii. c. 104.
Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 72, 73.) “Infantes circumcidunt ob
consuetudinemn, non ob Judaismum,” says Gregory the Abyssinian
priest, (apud Fabric. Lux Christiana, p. 720.) Yet in the heat of
dispute, the Portuguese were sometimes branded with the name of
uncircumcised, (La Croze, p. 90. Ludolph. Hist. and Comment. l.
iii. c. l.)]

161 (return) [ The three Protestant historians, Ludolphus, (Hist.
Aethiopica, Francofurt. 1681; Commentarius, 1691; Relatio Nova,
&c., 1693, in folio,) Geddes, (Church History of Aethiopia,
London, 1696, in 8vo..) and La Croze, (Hist. du Christianisme
d’Ethiopie et d’Armenie, La Haye, 1739, in 12mo.,) have drawn
their principal materials from the Jesuits, especially from the
General History of Tellez, published in Portuguese at Coimbra,
1660. We might be surprised at their frankness; but their most
flagitious vice, the spirit of persecution, was in their eyes the
most meritorious virtue. Ludolphus possessed some, though a
slight, advantage from the Aethiopic language, and the personal
conversation of Gregory, a free-spirited Abyssinian priest, whom
he invited from Rome to the court of Saxe-Gotha. See the
Theologia Aethiopica of Gregory, in (Fabric. Lux Evangelii, p.
716—734.) * Note: The travels of Bruce, illustrated by those of
Mr. Salt, and the narrative of Nathaniel Pearce, have brought us
again acquainted with this remote region. Whatever may be their
speculative opinions the barbarous manners of the Ethiopians seem
to be gaining more and more the ascendency over the practice of
Christianity.—M.]