Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 2 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773Bruce, James
History
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, Volume 2 (of 5): In the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772 and 1773
Bruce, James
Egypt -- Description and travel; Ethiopia -- Description and travel; Ethiopia -- History; Natural history -- Ethiopia; Nile River
This treaty with the Turks, made by Facilidas, probably gave rise
to that calumny of the Jesuits, that, for fear of a return of the
Portuguese, that prince had embraced the Mahometan religion, and sent
for preceptors from Mocha to instruct him in their tenets. This, I say,
if not founded upon the treaty I mention, was destitute of the least
shadow of truth; but, like other calumnies then propagated in great
number, arose solely from the rage, malice, and heated imaginations of
desperate fanatics.
Amidst the general regret this revolution in the church of Ethiopia
occasioned at Rome, there were some who thought the pride, obstinacy,
and violence of the Jesuits, the hardness and cruelty of their hearts
in instigating Socinios to that perpetual effusion of blood, and
their independence, their encroachments upon, and resistance of the
civil power, were faults resulting from the institutions of that
particular society, and that these occasioned the miscarriage; that a
well-grounded aversion to the teachers had created a repugnance to the
doctrines preached, and was the reason of the expulsion of the fathers,
and the relapse of Abyssinia to the Alexandrian faith. From this
persuasion, six capuchins, all of them Frenchmen of the reformed Order
of St Francis, were sent from Rome after the death of Nogeyra, by the
congregation _De Propagandâ Fide_, and these had protections from the
grand signior.
Two attempted the entering Abyssinia by way of the Indian Ocean, that
is, from Magadoxa, and were slain by the Galla, after advancing a very
short way into the country. Two of them penetrated into Abyssinia, and
were stoned to death. The remaining two, hearing the fate of their
companions at Masuah, and not being so violently bent upon a crown of
martyrdom as were the Portuguese missionaries, prudently returned home,
carrying with them the account of this bad success.
Three other capuchins were sent after this. It is impossible to judge
from their conduct what idea they had formed; for they themselves
gave the first information of their intended coming to Facilidas, who
thereupon recommended it to the basha to receive them according to
their merits; and thereupon, on their arrival at Suakem, their heads
were cut off by his order; the skins of their heads and faces stripped
off and sent to the king of Abyssinia, that, by their colour, he might
know them to be franks, and by their tonsure to be priests. Nor was
it possible afterwards to introduce any Catholic missionaries, either
during this or the following reign.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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