A rival king now stood up to oppose Socinios, and the whole country was filled with rebellion and bloodshed. Socinios resolving publicly to renounce the Alexandrian faith and to profess the Catholic, Paez most willingly came forward, and with great pomp received his confession. Delighted that his great object was at last attained, Paez, during the heat of the day, returned to his house with his head uncovered, triumphantly saying the "Nunc dimittis!" "Lord! now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation!" and from being thus exposed to the burning sun, aided perhaps by the highly excited state of his feelings, he was taken violently ill, and died of a raging fever on the 3d of May, 1624.
After the death of Paez, Alphonso Mendez, a Jesuit doctor of divinity, and a man of great learning, having been ordained at Lisbon on the 25th of May, 1625, reached Abyssinia the following year. Accompanied by several missionaries, they experienced very great difficulties and dangers in crossing the country to join King Socinios. When they at length presented themselves before the king, he ordered Mendez to be placed on his right hand; and at that very audience (on the 11th of February, 1626) it was settled that Socinios should take an oath of religious submission to the See of Rome. This ceremony was celebrated with all the pageantry of a heathen festival. The palace was adorned with great pomp, and Mendez there preached a sermon to the king and his people, in Portuguese and Latin, not a word of either of which languages could they understand. In return, a sermon was preached to Mendez, and the missionaries who attended him, in the Amharic, which was equally unintelligible to them. When this prelude was over, Mendez advanced, holding in his hand the New Testament, and upon that sacred volume Socinios, the degraded king of Abyssinia, was made to take the following oath, the Jesuit Mendez standing by his side:
"We, Sultan Sequed, emperor of Ethiopia, do believe and confess that St. Peter, prince of the apostles, was constituted by Christ our Lord head of the whole Christian Church; and that he gave him the principality and dominion over the whole world, by saying to him, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church; and I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven;' and again, when he said, 'Feed my sheep.' Also we believe and confess, that the pope at Rome, lawfully elected, is the true successor of St. Peter the apostle in government; that he holdeth the same power, dignity, and primacy in the whole Christian Church; and to the holy father, Urban VIII. of that name, by the mercy of God, pope, and our lord, and to his successor in the government of the church, we do promise, offer, and swear true obedience, and subject with humility at his feet our person and empire: so help us God, and these holy gospels."