riage with her lover solemnly and publicly. For which purpose she applied to the patriarch to dispense with the affinity between her and Za Christos, arising from his having been married before to her sister.
It is not to be supposed that the patriarch would have resisted, if nothing had stood in the way except the affinity: but weighty impediments presented themselves befides; for either the first marriage was valid, or it was not. If it was valid, then Wengelawit could not marry Za Christos or any one else, because her husband was alive; nor could she marry her second, nor Tecla Georgis, her third. If the first marriage was not valid, then the second was, which husband was still alive; and, in this case, a licence to marry was giving her liberty of having three husbands at one time. The patriarch, for these reasons, refused his authority to this manifold adultery and incest; nor could he, notwithstanding the intercession of the whole court, ever be brought to comply. His firmness (however commendable) greatly increased the hatred to his person, and aversion to the church of Rome.
One day when the king was fitting in his apartment, a monk entered the room, crying with a loud voice, "Hear the ambassador of God and of the Virgin Mary!" The king, upon first sight of the man, expecting some improper liberty might be taken, ordered his attendants to turn him out at the door, and, being removed from his presence, to bring word what he had to say, which was to this effect: "It is three days since I rose from the dead. One day when I was standing in paradise, God called me, and sent me with this message to you: — O emperor! says God, it is now many years
