REI,IGION OF THE ARMENIANS. 
■54'S 
key and Persia, so called from their head Jezid, an Arabian prince, 
who slew the sons of Ali, Mahomet’s father-in-law, for which reason 
he is reckoned a parricide, and his followers heretics. There are 
about t-wenty thousand Jezides both in Turkey and Persia; who are 
of two sorts, black and white. The white are clad like Turks, and 
distinguished only by their shirts, which are not slit at the neck like 
those of others, but have a round hole to thrust their heads through. 
This is in memory of a golden ring or circle of light, which descended 
from heaven upon the neck of their chief, the head of their religion, 
after his undergoing a fast of forty days. The black Jezides, though 
married, are the monks of the religious order ; and these are called 
Fakirs. The Turks exact excessive taxes from the Jezides, who treat 
the Turks as their mortal enemies; and wdien, in their wrath, they 
curse any creature, they call it Mussulman ; but they are great lovers 
of the Christians, being more fond of Jesus Christ than of Mahomet, 
and are never circumcised but when they are forced to it. They are 
extremely ignorant, yet profess to believe both the Bible and the Koran, 
without reading either of them. They make vows and pilgrimages, 
but have no places of religious worship. All the adoration they pay 
to God consists of some songs in honour of Jesus Christ, the Virgin, 
Moses, and sometimes Mahomet ; and it is a principal point of their 
religion never to speak ill of the Devil, lest he should resent the injury 
if ever he should come to be in favour with God again, which they 
think possible; whenever they speak of him, they call him Angel Pea- 
cock. They bury their dead in the first place they come at, rejoicing 
as at a festival, and celebrating the entry of the deceased into heaven. 
They go in companies, like the Arabians, and change their habitations 
every fifteen days. When they get wine, they drink it to excess ; and 
it is said that they sometimes do this for a religious purpose, calling 
it the blood of Christ. They buy their wives, and the market price 
is two hundred crowns for all women, handsome or not, without dis- 
tinction. 
Religion OF THE Armenians. 
The religion of the inhabitants of Armenia, a country of Asia, is the 
Christian, which is said to have been planted arni.ng them by St. Bar- 
tholoniewT They are in general of the Eutychian sect, that is, they 
ow n but one nature in Jesus Christ ; and when they speak of the 
hypostatical union, say that he is perfect God and perfect man 
without mixture. They have a high esteem for a book they call the 
Little Gospel, which treats of the infancy of Jesus. The Armenian 
clergy consist of patriarchs, with bishops, doctors, secular priests, 
and monks. The secular priests are not allowed to marry a second 
time, and therefore they take care to choose young healthy wives; 
they maintain themselves and families by some occupation, insomuch 
that they have hardly time to perform their ecclesiastical functions*: 
they lie in the churches on the vigils of those days they are obliged to 
officiate. The Armenian monks are of the order of St Basil; and 
every Wednesday and Friday they eat neither fish, eggs, oil, nor any 
thing made of milk ; and during Lent they live upon nothing but 
