The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits in Ethiopia (1555–1632) by Leonardo Cohen (review)

This book draws on Leonardo Cohen’s 2005 doctoral thesis for the University of Haifa. It shows that from the Jesuits’ point of view, undertaking their missionary endeavor in Africa meant nothing less than giving their lives to Jesus. The missionaries had to travel a most perilous route to reach their destination and were not rewarded with converts for their dedication. Traversing territories hostile to their religion, they went from Lisbon to Goa (India), then Goa to Gonder and Frimona (Ethiopia). As Cohen notes, “Fearing he might be caught by Muslims, [when the mission failed, Patriarch Andrés] de Oviedo decided not to risk leaving Ethiopia, and finally died in Fremona in 1577” (p. 21). Ethiopians, by contrast, viewed the destruction caused by the Jesuit enterprise on nearly the same level as that caused by the sixteenth-century revolt and invasion of Muslims led by Imam Ahmad Ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi.

The book has eight well-structured chapters, an ample bibliography of pertinent primary and secondary sources, and an adequate index. The historical outline gives sufficient background on the age-old controversy between the Monophysites and Duophysites. The second chapter, “Evangelization from Top to Bottom,” invites an interesting question. As head of both church and state, the king of Ethiopia could decree any rule for the state and any dogma for the Church. Therefore, the strategy of the Jesuits, who were well aware of the powers of the throne, was to win the hearts and minds of the emperors (from Gelawdewos to Susenyos) who would then decree the new beliefs to the populace. This is not evangelization from top by persuasion but conversion from top by decree.

The author reminds us that the Jesuits first “aimed to serve the pope, and its members vowed to work among infidels and Protestants, dissidents and believers” (p. 1). The Jesuits do not seem to have worked among “the infidel” in Ethiopia. Instead, they wasted their energies and sacrificed untold lives in a futile exercise of “evangelizing the evangelized.” Nevertheless, had not other issues become involved, such as changing the calendar, the theological disputes alone might have not divided the Jesuits and the Ethiopian monks so deeply. Even today, there is still a chance for the two churches to be in communion.

The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits in Ethiopia is a well-written book. The reader only wishes the author had been able to access Amharic sources, including works by the historian Tekle Tsadik Mekuria.