Afonso Mendes
Afonso Mendes | |
---|---|
Born | 18 June 1579 Jesuit theologian |
Known for | Patriarch of Ethiopia |
Father Afonso Mendes (18 June 1579 – 21 June 1659) was a Portuguese
Education
Mendes was born in Santo Aleixo.[3] He entered the Society of Jesus, where he was ordained priest, he received his doctorate in theology at the University of Coimbra, where he subsequently taught at the College of Arts.
Journey to Ethiopia
In response to the favor
The journey to Ethiopia was long and difficult. Mendes' party reached
Career in Ethiopia
At a public ceremony on 11 February 1626, the Emperor Susenyos and Patriarch Mendes publicly acknowledged the primacy of the Roman See and made Catholicism the state religion.[8]
Mendes condemned a number of local practices, which included
For a time, conversions were made.
However, strife and rebellions over the enforced changes began within days of the public ceremony, and soon the Emperor's son,
After many years of civil war, and devastated by what his own soldiers had done to the local people in a battle on 7 June 1632,[11] Emperor Susenyos rescinded his edict on 14 June 1632, and issued a formal declaration that those who would follow the Catholic faith were allowed to do so, but no one would be forced to do so any further. Patriarch Mendes confirmed that this was, indeed, the actual will of the Emperor, his protector.[13]
Upon succeeding his father, Fasilides first confined the Catholic hierarchy to Fremona, then in 1634 exiled Mendes (who had served for nine years in Ethiopia) and most of the Catholic missionaries from Ethiopia.[11]
On March 29, 1633, Mendes began his journey out of Ethiopia, a journey fraught with difficulties. When they reached the Ottoman
Career in Goa
They reached Diu a month later, and Mendes immediately continued on to Goa, where he unsuccessfully sought military support for his restoration.[14]
He appears to have spent the rest of his life in Goa, where he wrote his book on Ethiopian history and geography and the Jesuit mission in Ethiopia, Expeditionis Aethiopicae.[15] His letters and annual reports in Latin appear in other volumes of the series Rerum Aethiopicarum Scriptores Occidentales[16] and many have been translated into English.[4]
Reputation
Mendes is frequently blamed for the failure of the Jesuit mission in Ethiopia.[1] Indeed, the only other country where the Jesuit mission failed was Japan.
However, some have argued that the Jesuit organization blamed Mendes, who was only carrying out their orders, to avoid the failure being laid at their feet.[2][17] [11]
"Scholars have tended to see Pedro Páez, who converted Susənyos, as a tolerant intellectual who built relations, and to see Mendes as an intolerant hard-liner who destroyed relations by insisting on culturally unacceptable religious practices. But some scholars have argued otherwise. In the 1930s, the Portuguese scholar Paulo Durão pointed out that in the environment of the seventeenth century, the Jesuits were less worried about accusations of intolerance than in accusations about their condescending attitudes. Decades later, Merid Wolde Aregay suggested that Mendes feared appearing lax and weak in the eyes of his superiors in Rome and behaved accordingly. ... [His own letters and reports] suggest that Mendes was not, in fact, a hard-liner by personality but rather was implementing the new rules handed down by the new missionary oversight institution of the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide."[11]
Mendes himself blamed the royal Ethiopian women. For instance, he described the emperor's daughter Wängelawit as the “principal figura nesta tragédia” (principal figure in this tragedy [of the Jesuits' failure]).[4]
See also
References
- ^ a b Wallis Budge, A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia, 1928 (Oosterhout: Anthropological Publications, 1970), p. 390
- ^ a b Merid Wolde Aregay, "The Legacy of Jesuit Missionary Activities in Ethiopia," in The Missionary Factor in Ethiopia: Papers from a Symposium on the Impact of European Missions on Ethiopian Society, ed. Getatchew Haile, Samuel Rubenson, and Aasulv Lande (Frankfurt: Verlag, 1998); Hervé Pennec, Des Jésuites Au Royaume Du Prêtre Jean (Éthiopie): Stratégies, Rencontres Et Tentatives D'implantation 1495–1633 (Paris: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2003).
- ^ Cardoso, Luiz (1747). Diccionário ou Noticia Histórica de todas as Cidades, Villas, Lugares (...) (in Portuguese). Retrieved 1 November 2011.
- ^ ISBN 978-3447108799.
- ^ Téllez, Balthazar (1710). The Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia. J. Knapton. p. 224.
- ^ Téllez, Travels, p. 225
- ^ Mendes' journey from Diu to Fremona is described in Jerónimo Lobo, The Itinerário of Jerónimo Lobo, translated by Donald M. Lockhart (London: Hakluyt Society, 1984), pp. 71–153
- ^ Téllez, Travels.
- ISSN 0740-9133.
- ^ M. Gonçalves da Costa, “Introdução,” in Itinerário e Outros Escritos Inéditos (Porto: Civilização, 1971), pp. 40, 49.
- ^ a b c d e f Leonardo Cohen, "Introduction to the Text," in The Jesuits in Ethiopia (1609–1641): Latin Letters in Translation (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2017), pp. 1f.
- ^ Pankhurst, The Ethiopians: A History (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), p. 107
- ^ James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile (1805 edition), vol. 3 pp. 403ff
- ^ Téllez, Travels, p. 260
- ^ Mendes, Alphonso. Expeditionis Aethiopicae. Edited by Camillo Beccari. 15 vols. Vol. 8 & 9, Rerum Aethiopicarum Scriptores Occidentales Inediti a Saeculo Xvi Ad Xix. Rome: Printed for C. de Luigi, 1908.
- ^ Beccari, Camillo, ed. Relationes Et Epistolae Variorum. 15 vols. Vol. 10–14, Rerum Aethiopicarum Scriptores Occidentales Inediti a Saeculo Xvi Ad Xix. Rome: C. de Luigi, 1910.
- ^ Leonardo Cohen, Andreu Martínez d’Alòs-Moner, “The Jesuit Mission to Ethiopia (16th–17th Centuries): An Analytical Bibliography” Aethiopica 9 (2006): 190–212.