Pedro Páez’s History of Ethiopia , 1622 (review)

Abstract

African Pedro Paez's History of Ethiopia, 1622. Edited by Isabel Boavida, Herve Pennee, and Manuel Joao Ramos.Translated by Christopher J. Tribe. 2 vols. [Hakluyt Society: Series m, Nos. 23 and 24.] (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing for the Hakluyt Society. 201 1. Pp. xxiii, 501; ix, 429- $ 195.00 the set. ISBN 978-1-908145-00-0; 978-1-908145-01-7.)The publication of Pedro Paez's History of Ethiopia makes available a most valuable text for an understanding of the history of Ethiopia and of European missionary activity there in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It offers a firsthand account of the first two decades of the seventeenth century, an unusually turbulent period in Ethiopian history. The state had shrunk in territory, faced the continuing challenge of inroads from the Oromo people, and experienced the threat of nobles rebelling against its monarchical institutions. Under the influence of Jesuit missionaries, Paez foremost among them, its rulers adopted the Catholic faith and institutions.Paez had arrived in Ethiopia in 1603 and was soon summoned to the court of King ZaDengel (r. 1603-04), who expressed an interest in Catholicism. ZaDengel's eventual successor, Susenyos (r. 1607-32), went beyond this to support and protect the missionaries. In 1617 Susenyos faced a major rebellion motivated by opposition to his pro-Catholic leanings, during which Abuna Simon, the metropolitan and champion of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, died. In 1621 Susenyos formally declared Catholicism as the state religion. This declaration precipitated civil war, which led, in 1632, to a restoration of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the expulsion of the Jesuit missionaries. Although Paez received positive press, which compares favorably his ostensible flexibility and pragmatism with the intransigence of his successor, Alfonso Mendes, his History makes clear that Paez viewed the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as deeply in error. He condemned its rejection of the Council of Chalcedon's Christology and a host of its practices, which included observation of the Sabbath and circumcision.Paez's History is one of the most important firsthand accounts of Ethiopia written by a European observer. It was composed over a seven-year period, which ended with the author's death in 1622. Its point of departure was a refutation of Friar Luis de Urreta's Historia eclesiastica, politica, natural y moral, de los grandes y remotoes Reynos de la Etiopia (1610-1 1). Urreta's book was an ill-founded Dominican attempt to discredit the Jesuit mission to Ethiopia (1555-1632). …