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The Catholic Historical Review 89.1 (2003) 106-108



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Monumenta Proximi-Orientis, V: Egypte (1591-1699). By Charles Libois, S.J. [Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, Vol. 152; Monumenta Missionum Societatis Iesu, Vol. LXV.] (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu. 2002. Pp. lxii, 593. Paperback.)

This book, in keeping with the plan of the collection "Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu," publishes archival documents concerning the Jesuits who set foot in Egypt in the seventeenth century.

Except for Father Marciano Manieri, a Neapolitan, who devoted himself to ransoming captives, the documents as a whole concern the efforts of Jesuits to enter Ethiopia setting out from Cairo. It was, therefore, not Egypt that interested them but rather "Abyssinia" to the point that their first residence was called "Residence of the Missionary Fathers for Ethiopia."

The mission of Ethiopia, begun in the sixteenth century, at the outset had as the center of interest only the chaplaincy of the Portuguese who had established themselves in Tigré on the shore of the Red Sea. Subsequently it developed into attempts to lead the Church of Ethiopia back into the bosom of the Church of Rome. The Jesuits who then tried to reach Ethiopia were Portuguese, and for the most part they set out from Goa to try to reach Eritrea by way of Mocha. Because of the almost insurmountable difficulties of these journeyings the Jesuits, taking advantage of the good relations existing between France and the Sublime Porte during the reign of Louis XIV, tried with the help of the French consuls in Cairo to make contact with Ethiopia through the north, the valley of the Nile.

Three expeditions mark off the century.

The first, in 1627, was an abortive attempt; the four Jesuits who began the journey did not get beyond Guirga, approximately 500 kilometers south of Cairo. Denounced as spies by a Maltese, a slave merchant, the four Jesuits were arrested by the police, brought back to Cairo with a heavy escort, and thrown into a dungeon. They were not set free until the French consul, Gabriel Fernoux, paid a large ransom, which the Society of Jesus afterwards had to repay. [End Page 106]

A second attempt was made in 1698. A French physician, Charles Poncet, before going to Abyssinia, agreed to take Father Charles de Brédevent along as a factotum. They departed from Boulac, the port of Cairo, on July 10, 1698, but Father Brévedent, who had already been stricken with dysentery even before his departure, succumbed to the fatigue of the journey and died at Barko, a half-day's journey from the capital of Abyssinia, on July 9, 1699, one year after their departure. Charles Poncet for his part seems to have reached the court of the King of Kings at Congar and even to have returned to Egypt.

A third attempt took place in 1700 with the journey of Fathers Louis Grenier and Antoine Paulet, who set out in search of Father Brédevent, of whom they had had no news. They went as far as Congar, but they were quickly expelled from there. Father Grenier died at Silica near Congar on September 25, 1701, and Father Paulet at Senaar on March 3, 1702. The documents of this third expedition will be published in the next volume.

The first residence of the Jesuits was not established in Cairo until 1697, by Father Verzeau, who was at that time superior of the Jesuit missions for the Levant, but the first superior of the residence, Father Marquart, died of cholera a week after his arrival in Cairo.

This foundation gave rise to a whole series of disputes between the Franciscans of the Custody of the Holy Land and the Jesuits—disputes which were the subject of a great number of documents. The Custody claimed to have been established in Egypt since the time of St. Louis. They were chaplains and the ordinary pastors of the foreigners at Alexandria, Damietta, and Cairo, and they feared that the Jesuits desired to steal their titles of pastor, especially with regard to the foreigners of French nationality...

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