82 
TRAVELS IN ABYSS^IA. 
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 instru- 
ment with success, seems somewhat incomprehen- 
sible. However, on the ^d of February 1559, he 
issued a rescript, a copy of which is given by Tel- 
lez. It begins by announcing that the whole na- 
tion of Abyssinia, high and low, learned and un- 
learned, had refused to obey ^he church of Rome, 
which they were bound to obey ; that they prac- 
tised circumcision ; that they used baptism of- 
tener 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 consideration of these enormities, he 
delivers them over to the judgment of the church, 
to be punished in person and goodSy 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 ap- 
pears, that, very soon after, a most furious perse- 
cution arose, from which they very narrowly es- 
caped with their lives. Unfortunately, about this • 
time the emperor Claudius diedj whom, unless 
