The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros: A Seventeenth Century African Biography of an Ethiopian Woman by Galawdewos (review)

Religious literature was a thriving enterprise in medieval Ethiopia. Besides translations of classic Christian patristic texts, the Early Solomonic period (1270–1528) produced original theological works as well as hagiographies of local saints. The latter genre, which was widespread from the fourteenth century onwards, is considered one of the primary sources for reconstructing the history of Ethiopia, all the more so for periods with a dearth of external records. During the 1900s many medieval hagiographies were rendered into Western languages—in particular French, Italian, German, and Portuguese. Given the paucity of English translations, The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros is a welcome addition. Published nearly seventy years ago in Classical Ethiopic (Carlo Conti Rossini and C. Jeager, Vita Sanctorum Indigenarum I Acta S. Walatta Pētros, Il Miracula S. Zara-Buruk, Louvain, 1954) and translated into Italian in 1970 (Lafranco Ricci, Vita de Walatta Piētros, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium vol. 316, SAe 61, Louvain, 1970) this text was previously only available to a small cadre of researchers. However, this new edition promises to bring this compelling biography to a wider audience.

Wälättä Peṭros, a seventeenth-century noblewoman, is one of Ethiopia’s more renowned female personages. During this period, the Jesuits endeavored to win over the souls of the country’s Orthodox Christian populace. The mission’s efforts sparked heated disputes over ceremonial, ritual, political, and social issues, including the status of women. In the process, an assortment of local groups developed strong antagonism towards Catholic institutions. Yet, despite this tenacious resistance, the Society of Jesus managed to persuade Emperor Susənyos to declare Catholicism the official religion of the land in 1622. Within a decade, though, the newly-crowned emperor, Fasilädäs, restored the Orthodox faith as the official one.

The importance of Wälättä Peṭros’s hagiography stems from its anti-Catholic and pro-Monophysite bent. Furthermore, this text offers an alternative reading to the one put forth by the Jesuits about a turbulent chapter in the annals of Ethiopia. As Belcher notes, the saint passionately opposed the Jesuit mission. She left her husband, a supporter of the Latin faith, and helped found a small, aristocratic circle of Orthodox nuns on the shore of Lake Ṭana. In response to the imperial adoption of Catholicism, Wälättä Peṭros urged the empire’s subjects to ignore the edict. Consequently, she was hauled before Susənyos, who undertook, albeit in vain, to convert the noblewoman. Gälawdewos, the Orthodox clergyman who penned the book under review, compares his protagonist to two leaders of fourth-century monasticism: “He [God] had prepared another path for her, namely, the path of Antony and Macarius” (128). By dint of Wälättä Peṭros’s efforts, Gälawdewos argues, many Ethiopians indeed refused to embrace the Latin rite.

With the ascension of Emperor Fasilädäs, the noblewoman was no longer an enemy of the state. On the contrary, the monarch honored Wälättä Peṭros and backed her religious activism. Abiding to the monastic way of life, she travelled around the empire and attracted scores of disciples.

Princeton University Press has spared little effort on this commendable project. To begin with, the text is graced by handsome color plates bearing images of the saint. Basing his work on several manuscripts, Michael Kleiner has produced an accurate translation. Furthermore, this book is accessible to the nonspecialist reader, as Wendy Laura Belcher’s comprehensive introduction outlines the saint’s life and describes the historical context in which she operated.

The introduction also unveils a pair of novel approaches to the topic. Together with Coptic, Syriac, and Armenian religious texts, philologists have long associated Gə‘əz (Classical Ethiopic) literature with Eastern Christianity and...