Des jésuites au royaume du prêtre Jean

Des jésuites au royaume du prêtre Jean (Ethiopie): stratégies, rencontres et tentatives d'implantation, 1495-1633 by Hervé Pennec is another study of the Jesuits and the mission in Ethiopia. Since the scholarly literature and written sources on the topic is vast, Pennec proposes new interpretations and questions about the subject. While revisiting the sources and challenging readers to reconsider the strategies and tactics employed by both the Jesuits and ruler Susenyos, one can see that the topic of the Jesuits in Ethiopia and this transformation of Prester John of myth into the "real" Ethiopia which the Latin West engaged in the Early Modern Period still raises many questions.

The first third of the book begins with Portugal's early relations with the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia, and how Ignatius of Loyola (and others) mistakenly assumed the Abyssinian ruler was ready to submit to Christ. Relying on outdated information from Alvares, plus the issue of Bermudes and his claim to be Roman Catholic patriarch, confusion abounded. Despite being well-informed on some aspects of Ethiopia, the founder of the Jesuit order wrongly believed that Ethiopia was ready for submission to the papacy. Of course, Galadewos had no interest in doing such a thing, and the early wave of Jesuits in Ethiopia found themselves largely on the periphery. Still, despite their small numbers in the second half of the 16th century, Ethiopian religious literature engaged in a Christological written (and oral) debate with the Jesuit missionaries, particularly once Susenyos converted to Catholicism in 1622. Despite their complete lack of success in converting Ethiopian rulers, the early Jesuits did proselytize and preach to Luso-Ethiopians, maintaining Roman Catholicism among descendants of Portuguese in Abyssinia. Moreover, Goa, as the capital of Portuguese India and center of the Jesuit missions in the Orient, was also an early example of a periphery being arguably more important or essential for the survival of the Jesuit mission in Ethiopia than Rome, Portugal and Spain. Goa, much closer to the Jesuit missions and capable of receiving and sending information more quickly, shaped the decisions on personnel who were ultimately sent to Ethiopia. This was no simple matter, since Ottoman control of the Red Sea made the matter more difficult.

Pennec likewise focuses on how the Jesuits, once able to establish a foothold again in 1603, particularly with the arrival of Pero Paes. Whilst it would take several more years before an Ethiopian ruler converted to Catholicism, one can begin to see here the Jesuits establishing stone churches and residences (with Ethiopian workers and at least one Indian). By erecting churches in stone, some beautifully designed, the Jesuits were implanting themselves in the kingdom on a more permanent basis. By doing so, they were also increasingly drawn into what Pennec sees as royally-sponsored churches. Gifts of land (gult), money, supplies, and the involvement of Susenyos in the ceremony culminating the completion of churches was partly a way for Susenyos to assert his power. This meat that Susenyos, and his brother who converted to Catholicism before him, were incorporating the Jesuits into a familiar patter of royal sponsorship and assertions of power, particularly in Gojjam and around Lake Tana. While the Jesuits undoubtedly benefitted from receiving lands, supplies, funds, and elite backers, they were also part of a strategy of Ethiopian rulers to express their power, which even included enlisting the Jesuits (or the masons among them) to construct stone palaces and monumental architecture for him. This complex process was followed by the Jesuit experience in Ethiopia after the conversion of Susenyos. Part of this complex relationship was also due to Susenyos's desire for Spanish troops to be sent to Ethiopia to help him as a prerequisite for converting, while the Jesuits told him he would have to submit to the papacy before any European troops would come to his aid.

With the 1620s, Pero Paes died but Susenyos's conversion gave the Jesuits their legitimacy and renewed the mission by the arrival of more missionaries. Although a failure within ten years, as Susenyos abdicated and his son, Fasiladas, later exiled the Jesuits, one can see this experience as the zenith of the mission. More missionaries on the ground, conversions of more Ethiopians (although the numbers given by the Jesuits are problematic, it seems that Gojjam had more converts), and Susenyos sidelining his Catholic brother as a supporter of the Catholics. Nonetheless, the mission's short-lived success came to an end with Susenyos's abdication. Pennec's study is less focused on this period, highlighting how Paes and d'Almeida's histories of Ethiopia must be analyzed carefully for the ways in which the authors engaged with Ethiopian written sources, especially the royal chronicle on the reign of Susenyos. Paes especially, despite his nearly 20 years spent in Ethiopia and his familiarity with ge'ez and Amharic, must be interpreted for the ways they cite, paraphrase, and refute Ethiopian sources. For instance, the question of the metropolitan accused of fathering children, drinking, and abusing his ecclesiastical authority in Paes's redaction of the chronicle of Susenyos, and being involved in a revolt in 1617 against the king, may not necessarily be an insertion by Paes. It is possible that later versions of the chronicle after Susenyos's reign censored that segment of the chronicle, but Paes, who was of course biased against the metropolitan sent from Egypt, may have been closer to the truth.

The Union of the Churches

Because it was co-written by Merid Wolde Aregay and frequently cited in Cohen's study of the Jesuit mission, The Question of the Union of the Churches in Luso-Ethiopian Relations, 1500-1632 was the next read on Solomonic Ethiopia. Although a short study of Luso-Ethiopian Relations and the failed unification of the respective churches under Roman authority, Aregay and Girma Beshah has written a cogent introduction to the complex topic of Portuguese-Ethiopian interactions beginning with the legend of Prester John and early contacts between the Latin West and the Horn in the late medieval period. While the authors do not seek to blame the Jesuits for the mission's failure or see in it a colonial relationship, they do acknowledge that expecting to uproot centuries-old customs and beliefs quickly was perhaps misguided. 

Ultimately, Susenyos, our Catholic negus, like Za Dengel before him, also lacked the means to effectively impose Catholicism. The dreamed for or expected Portuguese troops never arrived and resistance from the local clergy, nobility, and peasantry became too consistent and dangerous for Susenyos's rule to survive without freedom of religion. The role of peasant resistance in this process cannot be overlooked, and this essay suggests there was an aspect of class conflict expressed in the numerous revolts and rebellions. Indeed, if Za Dengel, as Crummey suggested, had hoped to win peasant support by attacking gult and building a new military base of peasant conscripts (presumably less destructive to the peasants than the older imperial military units), Susenyos alienated the peasantry with his imposition of Catholicism and the insecurity caused by frequent rebellions, Oromo raids, and banditry. 

As stated by later scholars on the Jesuits in Ethiopia, the Society of Jesus relied on the patronage of local rulers and elites. Once circumstances changed and those groups could not or would not back them, the Jesuit mission declined and often a mass support to rally it. Ethiopian Catholicism may have had that if Susenyos's brother, Sela Christos, had been able to rally forces around him and the defeated patriarch against Fasiladas. However, due to the forced conversions and general resistance to Roman Catholicism from above and below, one doubts local Catholics would have been able to stage an effective military resistance. Aregay and Beshah cite Jesuit sources suggesting over 100,000 local Catholics by 1630, but how many of these were the result of forced or coerced conversions or, perhaps like some of the conversions to Islam under Ahmad Gran, merely acts of opportunism or self-preservation in the face of a new boss or bully? One wishes Susenyos had found a way to consolidate his government and centralize the state without imposing Catholicism, perhaps a method that could have carried out some of Za Dengel's reforms with freedom of religion for Orthodox, Catholic, Muslims, Falasha, and "pagans." Ironically, his son would go on to establish a reinvigorated Solomonic dynasty that resisted the resurgence of the provincial nobility until the mid-18th century.

Jesuit Missionary Strategies in Ethiopia

Although we are still only beginning to grapple with the large body of literature on the Jesuits in Ethiopia, Cohen's Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits in Ethiopia (1555-1632) is a good overview on Jesuit strategies of evangelizing. Based on Portuguese, Jesuit, and Ethiopian sources, Cohen succeeds in demonstrating the key areas of religious, political, cultural, and theological contention and proselytization. Unlike other areas of Africa, Asia, or the Americas, the Jesuits perceived Ethiopia to be more "civilized" (like China and Japan) and an area of schismatic Christianity in need of reformation. For these reasons, the Jesuits employed sophisticated techniques of Christological debate, biblical exegesis, translation, theater, architectonics, and top-down evangelization based on the hopes of converting the emperor and nobility. The Catholic Counter-Reformation also influenced the Jesuit mission as a reformed Church sought to standardize rituals, centralize authority, and counter Protestant theological debate. 

Ethiopian Christianity's encounter with Roman Catholicism naturally led to conflict, evolution, and the discovery of shared commonalities. Jesuits, for instance, realized the Ethiopian Church drew from the same sources (the Bible, patristic literature). Both also shared a similar belief in the uses of icons and visual arts and the practice of Eucharist and baptism. Nonetheless, Ethiopian persistence in circumcision, anti-Chalcedonian perspectives, adherence to the Alexandrian See, lack of uniformity in some sacraments, observance of the Sabbath, and frequency of divorce revealed huge differences. The debate between the two Churches appears to have played a major role in fomenting Ethiopian religious literature that sought to clarify and define the tenets of the church. Some of this literature was clearly influenced by earlier Ge'ez translations of Church Fathers, and appears to have influenced subsequent internal theological debate within the Ethiopian Christian tradition. The Jesuit debate with local clergy and monks reminds us of their arguments with Buddhist priests in Japan. 

However, according to Cohen, the Jesuits did not properly prepare themselves for the centrifugal forces in Ethiopian Christianity which opposed them, particularly monastic clergy, members of the nobility, and the political crises and rebellions which forced Susenyos to restore freedom of worship. The near total conquest by Muslims in the 1500s had further fragmented the Church while ongoing Oromo expansion further weakened the authority of the Solomonic emperors. Perhaps seeing the absolutizing tendencies of the Jesuits as something that could strengthen their authority, Za Dengel and Susenyos favored the Jesuits. Unfortunately for the latter, Za Dengel's assassination and the inability of Susenyos to end revolts flight of hermits or monks, and stifle resistance to the prohibitions imposed on the Orthodox faith entailed an end of the mission when the political support from the top disappeared under the next emperor. Anyway, it looks like our next read into this topic will have to be either Caraman, the short work coauthored by Merid Wolde Aregay or the hagiography of Walatta Petros. 

The Jesuits, or Envoys of a Human God

Several months ago, we were invited to participate in a reading group formed to devour several books on Ethiopian history, with an emphasis on the Jesuits. It took us quite some time to get to it, but we have been periodically reading whatever we can find on Ethiopian history, particularly the medieval and early modern eras of the Solomonic kingdom. Since there are so many studies and translated sources on the Jesuits in Ethiopia, we decided Envoys of a Human God: The Jesuit Mission to Christian Ethiopia, 1557-1632 to be a good introduction to a complex topic with such an ample documentary trail. Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner's study contextualizes the Mission in the larger East of Jesuit missionary activity during the 16th and 17th centuries, an approach we appreciate due to our readings of Jesuit relations in the Americas and China. 

This is not to ignore the specificity and distinct place of Ethiopia in the Jesuit and Western Christian imagination. After all, Ethiopia's ruler has been associated with the Prester John and even the founder of the Society of Jesus conceived of Ethiopia's "restoration" into the Roman Catholic fold as one of the special projects of the order. And, of course, the Solomonic state's already Christian population was not the same as non-Christian Japanese or Chinese or Muslims and Hindus in India. But Jesuit perceptions of Ethiopian Christianity as wayward or aberrant because of the observance of the Sabbath, the widespread practice of circumcision, belief in the uniquely divine nature of Christ, excessive fasting and the negative influence of the Coptic Church of Alexandria made Ethiopians in need of a restitution of their original Roman tutelage. Several chapters explore these theological, political, and social differences between Ethiopian Christianity and the Catholicism of the Counter-Reformation and Jesuits. Some of these aforementioned differences in practice and interpretation led to problems for the missionaries that they could never resolve, particularly over their more pronounced use of icons and certain rites in public, which were perceived by Ethiopians as profaning the sacred mysteries. 

Unlike the previous historical works we have read which have touched upon the Jesuit interlude in Ethiopian history, Envoys of a Human God challenges previous scholarship's unproven assumptions. For example, the idea that the Jesuit missionaries were attractive to Susenyos because the order supported political absolutism is completely absent from the voluminous sources left behind by the Jesuits. Instead, Susenyos probably saw in the Jesuits and the Portuguese a cosmopolitan group whose support for rationalization of the royal court would have appealed to a ruler in a politically decentralized kingdom or empire with recent upheaval for much of the 16h and early 17th centuries. Of course, the impressive architectural and technological knowledge of Europe and India also appealed to Susenyos and their foreign textiles, exotic wares, and trade connections could not have hurt. Likewise, one cannot blame Mendes or Paez for the successes and failures of the overall Mission since their personalities and perceived policy differences were not significant enough to have caused the failure of the mission. Both Paez and Mendes pursued a policy of "Latinization" of Ethiopian Christianity through a top-down strategy of winning over Susenyos and key nobles. Both believed Ethiopian Christianity needed to be aligned with Catholic dogma and practice and were largely opposed to compromise. 

This lack of compromise and a few other practices of the Jesuits, unsurprisingly, sparked unrest, conflict, debate, and, eventually, outright rebellions that led to the fall of Susenyos and the restoration of the local Church. The Jesuit reliance on royal and local elite donors contributed to the precarious nature of the Mission, too. Perceived as attacking local traditions and beliefs, they further antagonized the population as recipients of land grants and donations which worried traditionalists fearful of losing land and influence. When one thinks about it in the larger picture, it is not surprising that the Jesuits failed so quickly after several decades because, as Envoys of a Human God argues, their moment of greatest success was in a period of socio-political transition with a sympathetic ruler whose patronage was necessary to maintain and expand. Once those conditions changed and the ruler was unable to fund or publicly support the Jesuits, they were exiled, persecuted, forced underground, or killed. Outside of a legacy in architecture, painting, and, perhaps, new theological discourse within Ethiopian Orthodoxy, the Jesuit legacy disappeared with the expulsion of the last Ethio-Portuguese or their complete assimilation by the late 17th century. As for what else happened to the converts to Catholicism is not entirely clear, probably due to a paucity of sources. We know several local Catholics faced persecution and execution but it would be fascinating to find out more about crypto-Catholic communities during the reign of Fasiladas and Yohannes. We have encountered the figure of 100,000 for local converts to Catholicism in other studies, which seems small, but the eventual suppression and disappearance of this population and those of mixed-race Ethio-Portuguese descent as a recognized group might suggest something about the nature of the state and nation-building in Gondarine Ethiopia. 

Last but certainly not least, one cannot understand the Ethiopia Mission without mentioning India, particularly Goa and Diu. Without the strong Portuguese base in Goa and relationships with banyan and Muslim traders passing between Diu and the Red Sea, the Portuguese would have struggled to send missionaries to the Ethiopian highlands. Furthermore, Indian craftsmen, masons, and building techniques (Indo-Portuguese and Mughal) seem to have clearly influenced Jesuit constructions in Ethiopia, an example of what the author calls architectonics that shaped Gondarine architecture long after the suppression of Catholicism in the 1630s and beyond. Undoubtedly, the Church infrastructure organized in Goa, and Indian artisans and masons were central to the project until the decline of Portuguese India and the Mission's greater reliance on Susenyos and local, elite backers. Indian textiles, artisans, architectural styles, and the cosmopolitan world of the Indian Ocean were a necessary background for the Jesuits to pass through Red Sea ports and enter Ethiopia. Despite never establishing a foothold in Massawa or the coast of today's Eritrea, which would have facilitated the Jesuits tremendously, Portuguese India served as an essential base for communication, supplies, educated missionary personnel, and skilled workmen