[Footnote 161: The three Protestant historians, Ludolphus,
(Hist. Aethiopica, Francofurt. 1681; Commentarius, 1691;
Relatio Nova, &c., 1693, in folio,) Geddes, (Church History
of Aethiopia, London, 1696, in 8vo..) and La Croze, (Hist.
du Christianisme d'Ethiopie et d'Armenie, La Haye, 1739, in
12mo.,) have drawn their principal materials from the
Jesuits, especially from the General History of Tellez,
published in Portuguese at Coimbra, 1660. We might be
surprised at their frankness; but their most flagitious
vice, the spirit of persecution, was in their eyes the most
meritorious virtue. Ludolphus possessed some, though a
slight, advantage from the Aethiopic language, and the
personal conversation of Gregory, a free-spirited Abyssinian
priest, whom he invited from Rome to the court of
Saxe-Gotha. See the Theologia Aethiopica of Gregory, in
Fabric. Lux Evangelii, p. 716 - 734.)]