The first reliable report which Western Europe had from the fabled empire of Prester John was in 1521, when news of the expedition of 1520 reached Portugal. There had sailed with Diego Lopes de Sequeira, governor of Goa (a Portuguese province in India)' an auditor named Pero Gomes de Teixeira. This auditor journeyed a few miles inland and visited two churches up the mountain toward Asmara. At one of the churches, through an interpreter, he spoke to a priest named Samara Christus about the supremacy of the pope.
"The auditor suggested to him that they should give him a letter of obedience for the pope, and another for the King our Lord. He agreed; but he at once went on to say that it was now night, and that next day was Saturday, and they could not talk with him nor do anything, because they kept it in honor of Our Lady, the same as on Sunday, and that they could not write—nor could he wait."
Alvarez, one of the Portuguese who landed in 1520 and lived there for six years, told of his visit to the monastery of Bisan:
"There is a tomb in this monastefy which they say is of an Abba or provincial of this monastery who is named Philip, and they give him the merits of a saint, saying that there was a King Prester John who commanded that Saturday should not be observed in his kingdoms and lordships, and this Abba Philip went to that King Prester with his friars, and undertook to show how God had commanded that Saturday should be kept, and that whoever did not keep it should die by stoning, and that he would maintain this before all the fathers of Ethiopia : and he made it good before the king. Therefore they say that he was a saint for making Saturday to be kept, and they treat him as a saint, and they hold a feast for him every year, in the month of July, which they call Castar Philip, which means funeral or memorial of Philip." "
Lima was in charge of this embassy to the court of Prester John, who visited a considerable portion of the country.
"Leaving this mountainous district, they dropped down into more open and fertile country, where they came across the first of the rock-hewn churches for which Abyssinia is famous. This particular one was in charge of some very hospitable and worthy friars, and it is a great tribute to the strictness with which these Abyssinians kept their Sabbath (Saturday) that, though their gardens abounded with vegetables and fruits of all kinds, yet because it was Saturday they could not gather anything to give us, asking us to pardon them, and so the Portuguese were fed on boiled cabbage of the day before and dry garlic—an unpleasant-sounding meal."'
Alvarez in describing the communion service, said that the people partook of both the bread and the wine. "On Saturdays and Sundays, and feast days in all the churches and monasteries, blessed bread is distributed." 46 In describing the baptism of infants he reports: "They always perform this office on a Saturday or a Sunday, and it is done in the morning at mass, because every child that receives baptism receives the communion." 47
Job Ludolphus was probably the greatest Portuguese scholar in Gize, the ancient language of the Ethiopians. He had access to the Writings and Discourses of Gregory the Habessiniat and Claudius' Confession of Faith. In a passage dealing with the Lord's supper he makes the following comment:
'These Holydaies they keep two days every week ; that is to say, upon the Sabbaoth and the Lord's day. That they call Sanbat Ejehude, which they say they celebrate in commemoration of the professed creation, and therefore they do not keep it so solemnly as the Lord's day. But upon the Lord's day, which they call Sanbat Ehod, or the Sabbath of the first Holyday; or Ehude,- the first Holyday, singly, or Sanbat Christejan, the Christians' Sabbath, they keep after the custom of the Catholic Church, and read over all the offices and services requied." "
Concerning servants, the Ethiopians had this to say : "Let the servants labor five days, but let them keep the holydays, the Sabbath, and the Lord's day in the church for the sake of pious instruction." 49
And Gregory Nyssen, whose writings the Ethiopians had among them, said, "'With what eyes dost thou behold the Lord's day, who hast the Sabbath? Know'st thou not that these two days are twins, and that if thou injur'st the one, thou dost injury to the other ?' " 50
Jesuit Influence.—The Jesuit priests sent out by Ignatius Loyola worked hard to win the Ethiopian Church over to the Roman see.51 They had varying success, until finally under the influence of Paez, who built the great royal palace at Gondar, the emperor Za Dengel expressed his desire to unite with the Church of Rome. The Negus began to issue edicts against the old faith. He decreed "that no person should any longer observe the Sabbath as a holyday." 52 The priests rebelled against Za Dengel, and insurrection broke out on all sides. "The Abuna excommunicated the king as having betrayed the national religion, and in spite of the aid of two hundred Portuguese soldiers the king was defeated and slain by the insurgents." 33
Soon afterward, however, in 1622, the new king of kings, Socinus, openly united with the Roman church and tried to force it upon his people. He "sent out another proclamation forbidding all persons to keep Saturday but only Sunday as the true Christian Sabbath." 54
Again a wave of fury swept through the country, and an anonymous letter in which "he was devoted to hell" was addressed to the king and distributed, everywhere. "This so enraged him that he issued yet another proclamation ordering everyone to work on Saturday under pain of all sorts of drastic punishments." 55 "He commanded the busbandmen to plough and sow upon that day," 56 and by "way of showing that he meant what he said, he ordered a monk to have his tongue cut out for upholding the single nature, and caused a general who refused to work on Saturday to be beaten with rods and publicly degraded."
The people rebelled again and again, but with the aid of Portuguese firearms the king maintained his stand. A new papal envoy, Mendez, seemed determined to win Ethiopia no matter what the means. One Jesuit priest, Tellez, stated that anyone who had had any experience in Ethiopia would "'know that without arms in hand to defend and authorize the Catholic preachers, we shall never have the desired success among those schismatics.' " " Under Mendez there were eleven principal Jesuit stations operating, and they claimed 200,000 converts.59 But finally one rebellion after another arose, and in one bloody battle more than eight thousand lost their lives in a day, fighting for their faith.
The emperor's family united in opposition, and even he became sick at heart by so much shedding of blood. He decided to abdicate in favor of his son, Fasilidas, and gave a proclamation in June, 1632, restoring the ancient faith to his people.59 There followed a joyous time of celebration. Even a chant of deliverance was written.
"At length the Sheep of ETHIOPIA free'd
From the Bold Lyons of the West,
Securely in their Pastures feed.
St. Mark and Cyril's Doctrine have o'ercome
The Folly's of the Church of Rome.
Rejoyce, rejoyce, Sing Hallelujahs all,
No more the Western Wolves
Our ETHIOPIA shall enthrall."'
All Jesuits and Catholic priests were ordered to leave the country. Those who refused to go were beheaded and hanged in 1640. So the work of one hundred years was all undone. The pope and others were convinced that failure was due to too much of a militaristic spirit on the part of the missionaries."
Present Practice.—Personal contact with church authorities in Ethiopia in 2042 and 1043 revealed that the theoretical observance of both Saturday and Sunday is still taught, while the people attend church services on Sunday only, as is the case in Egypt. An elderly priest connected with the palace inAddis Ababa explained that the Ethiopian Church did not say Sunday had taken the place of Saturday, but that in the course of years Sunday had come to be thought of as a little more holy than Saturday.
V. SUMMARY
From the many references in Christian literature in Egypt and Ethiopia, it is evident that both Saturday and Sunday have been observed by the Coptic Church throughout most of its history. Some gave more prominence to Sunday through the years, and others exalted Saturday. But today the common practice is to rest from ordinary work and attend church services on Sunday and not Saturday. In this may be seen a parallel to the same experience which took place in the Latin and Greek churches much earlier and in a much shorter period.
