P. 2 and 75-76; Epiph. de
Gemmis, etc., p. 15; R. Bacon, Opus Majus, p. 148; Matt. Paris, p.
372.)
Wadding gives a letter from the Pope (Alex. II.) under date 3rd Sept.
1329, addressed to the Emperor of Ethiopia, to inform him of the
appointment of a Bishop of Diagorgan. As this place is the capital of a
district near Tabriz (Dehi-Khorkhan) the papal geography looks a little
hazy.
NOTE 2. - The allegation against the Abyssinian Christians, sometimes
extended to the whole Jacobite Church, that they accompanied the rite of
Baptism by branding with a hot iron on the face, is pretty old and
persistent.
The letter quoted from Matt. Paris in the preceding note relates of the
Jacobite Christians "who occupy the kingdoms between Nubia and India,"
that some of them brand the foreheads of their children before Baptism
with a hot iron (p. 302). A quaint Low-German account of the East, in a
MS. of the 14th century, tells of the Christians of India that when a
Bishop ordains a priest he fires him with a sharp and hot iron from the
forehead down the nose, and the scar of this wound abides till the day of
his death. And this they do for a token that the Holy Ghost came on the
Apostles with fire.
