TRAVELS IN ABYSSINIA. 
51 
his people lay under no obligation whatever to pay 
obedience to the church of Rome. Oviedo seeing 
thus, that by persuasion he could entertain no hope 
of making a single convert among prince or people, 
determined, as he states, to employ force. How he 
could hope, in the circumstances under which he 
stood, to wield such an instrument with success, 
seems somewhat incomprehensible. However, on 
the 2d of February 1559, he issued a rescript, a 
copy of which is given by Tellez. It begins by 
announcing that the whole nation of Abyssinia, 
high and low, learned and unlearned, had re- 
fused to obey the church of Rome, which they 
were bound to obey ; that they practised circum- 
cision ; that they used baptism oftener than once ; 
that they scrupled to eat the flesh of the hog and 
the hare ; and that they deemed it unlawful to 
go to church for a certain time after having had 
communication with their wives. In consider- 
ation of these enormities, he delivers them over 
to the judgment of the church, to be punished in 
person and goods, in 'public and private, by every 
means which the faithful could devise ; unless in 
cases where the rules of the church would allow 
mercy to be extended to them. — What steps the 
missionaries took to enforce this curious rescript, is 
not recorded. It only appears that, very soon after, 
a most furious persecution arose, from which they 
very narrowly escaped with their lives. Unfortu* 
