Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/189

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 167 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,^^- and they vainly solicited a reinforcement of European troops. The patience and dexterity of forty years at length obtained a more favourable audience, and two emperors of Abyssinia were persuaded that Rome could ensure 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 ahuna, 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 Je«'"ts 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 we/e enjoined to work and to play on the Sabbath ; and Segued, in the face of Europe and Africa, renounced his connexion with the Alexandrian church. A Jesuit, Alphonso conversion Mendez, the Catholic patriarch of ^Ethiopia, accepted in the peror. a.d. name of Urban VIII. the homage and abjuration of his 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 honours 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 i"'^ Religio Romana . . . nee precibus patrum nee miraeulis ab ipsis editis suffulciebatur, is the uneontradicted 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.