Confessio Claudii

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God. This is my faith and the faith of my fathers, the kings of the Israelites, and the faith of my subjects, who are in the court of my kingdom. We believe in one God, and in the only Son, Jesus Christ, who is his Word and his Power; he is his Counsel and his Wisdom, who was with him before the world was created. And at the end of times, he came to us, without leaving his throne of divinity, and was incarnated from the Holy Spirit and from Mary, the holy virgin, and was baptized in the Jordan at thirty years of age, and became a perfect man. And he was crucified upon the wood of the cross in the time of Pilate the Pontian; he suffered and died and was buried, and rose on the third day. And then, after forty days, he ascended in glory into the heavens and sat at the right hand of his Father. And again he will come in glory to judge the living and the dead, and there is no end to his kingdom. And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father. And we believe in one baptism for the remission of sins. And we await the resurrection of the dead for the life which is to come, forever. Amen.

We, however, walk in the path of the true and faithful king, and we do not deviate to the right or to the left, nor from the teaching of our fathers, the twelve apostles and Paul, the flower of wisdom, and the seventy-two elders, and the three hundred and eighteen orthodox of the faith who assembled at Nicaea, and the one hundred and fifty at Constantinople, and the two hundred at Ephesus. As I preach and as I teach, I, Claudius, king of Ethiopia, and the name of my kingdom, the borders of Seged, Walda Seged, and Walda Naod. And concerning the reason for our honoring the first day of the week, it is not that we honor it as the Jews do, who crucified Christ, saying, "His blood is upon us and upon our children." For those Jews do not bless water, nor light fire, nor cook food, nor bake bread, nor move from house to house. But we honor it by offering the Eucharist in it and performing the liturgy in it, as our fathers the apostles commanded us in the Didascalia. It is not that we honor it as the Sabbath of Sunday, which is the day of the new [covenant], concerning which David says, "This day, which the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it." For on it our Lord Jesus Christ arose, and on it the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles in the upper room of Zion, and on it he was incarnated in the womb of the holy virgin Mary at all times, and on it he will come again for the reward of the righteous and the judgment of the sinners.

And concerning the rite of circumcision, we do not circumcise as the Jews do, for we know the word of the teaching of Paul, the flower of wisdom, who said: "Whether one is circumcised or not circumcised, it neither avails nor hinders," except that the new creation, which is faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, is sufficient. And again he said to the people of Corinth: "He who has received circumcision, let him not receive the foreskin." All the books of the teaching of Paul are with us, and he teaches us concerning circumcision and concerning the foreskin. But circumcision which exists among us is by the custom of the country, like the scarification of the face of Ethiopia and Nubia, and like the piercing of the ears of the people of India. This we do, not in accordance with the law of the Torah, but by the custom of men. And concerning the eating of unclean things, we do not abstain in accordance with the law of the Torah as the Jews do. For if one has eaten, we do not condemn him, and if one has not eaten, we do not compel him. But as our father Paul wrote to the Romans, saying: "Let him who eats not despise him who does not eat, and for all of them, God has accepted them." The kingdom of God does not consist in food and drink. All is pure for the pure, and evil for men is the eating of carrion. And Matthew the Evangelist said: "There is none who can compel a man to eat without his will." And what enters the stomach and is digested, becomes excrement and is cast out and is purified, all foods.

And by this word, he removed all the building of the errors of the Jews, who were taught from the book of the Law. As for me, my faith and the faith of the priests and teachers who teach according to my commandment, in the court of my kingdom, they do not depart from the path of the Gospel and from the teaching of our father Paul, neither to the left nor to the right. And in our book of history it is written: there is in our book that the king Constantine decreed in the time of his reign that all those Jews who were baptized should eat the flesh of swine on the day of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. But only according to the inclination of a person's heart, one abstains from eating the flesh of animals. For there is one who loves the flesh of fish, and there is one who loves the flesh of fowl, and there is one who abstains from eating the flesh of sheep. And everything is as the inclination of one's heart wills. For thus it is the desire and will of the person. Concerning the eating of animal flesh, there is no law and no canon in the New Testament; everything is pure for the pure. And Paul also, if he believes, let him eat everything.

All this which is written, so that you may know the righteousness of my faith, was written in the year 155 of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, on the 23rd of Sane, in the city of Damot.