Susenyos, the Jesuits and the Ethiopian Church

The Jesuit Pedro Páez reached Fremona in Ethiopia, where Portuguese Catholics lived, in May 1603 (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia p. 162). The abridged Ethiopian chronicle says that Susenyos, who reigned as Seltan Sagad, set his residence at Gorgora in the sixth year of his reign, and that in the seventh the disputes about the two natures began (Ethiopian Chronicle (trans. Basset) p. 122). By the account of the Jesuit historian Balthazar Tellez, it was proclaimed that no one should maintain “but one Nature in Christ” and that all should confess two, and the abuna, Simon, posted an excommunication against all who embraced the faith of the Portuguese (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia p. 205). The chronicle records under the eleventh year that Yolyos and the abuna Sem’on died on the same day, says of a later rebel that, like Yolyos, he had risen because of the Franks, and puts the king’s residence at Danqaz from the twelfth year (Ethiopian Chronicle (trans. Basset) p. 123). Tellez says that Yolyos, the emperor’s son-in-law, took arms against those who confessed two natures, that the abuna encouraged his soldiers, and that both were killed (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia pp. 208–209).

In 1622, Tellez says, Susenyos publicly professed “the Latin Faith”, and Páez, who had received him into the church, died soon afterwards at Gorgora (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia p. 212). The chronicle says under the seventeenth year that people perished in Wag because of the Franks, and under the nineteenth it notes the arrival of “Afonsu the patriarch”, Afonso Mendes, and the death, for the same cause, of a rebel who ruled in Shewa (Ethiopian Chronicle (trans. Basset) p. 124). On 11 February 1626, by Tellez’s account, the emperor knelt before the patriarch with the New Testament in his hands and swore obedience to the pope, and the nobles and clergy after him. It was then proclaimed that no priest or monk should say mass until he had been to the patriarch, because their ordinations were held doubtful, and that all should embrace the Roman faith on pain of death (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia p. 233).

The Jesuit Jerónimo Lobo, who served in the mission, writes that when he published the emperor’s edict some sixty monks threw themselves from a precipice rather than obey (Lobo, Voyage to Abyssinia part 2, chapter 11). In the twenty-fifth year, the chronicle says, before the king left Danqaz for the war, his son Fasil told him that everything was desolate and troubled by this belief of the Franks, which was not in the books of their fathers, and asked him to pray as the faith of Alexandria taught (Ethiopian Chronicle (trans. Basset) p. 125).

The chronicle goes on to tell that the king destroyed a rebel army at Wayna Dega and then returned to the faith of Alexandria by a proclamation: that faith was to be restored and his son Fasil was to reign, for he himself was weak, had done wrong and was ill (Ethiopian Chronicle (trans. Basset) pp. 125–126). Tellez counts about eight thousand dead in the battle (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia p. 241). He gives the proclamation in these words: “we first gave you this Faith, believing it was good, but innumerable People have been kill’d about it”, and so “we restore you the Faith of your Fore-Fathers” (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia p. 242). Tellez, who calls Dancaz the emperor’s usual residence (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia p. 241), says that he died there in September 1632, declaring that he died in the Roman faith (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia p. 243).

Under Fasilides, the chronicle says, a new patriarch arrived and the Frank Afonsu returned to his country (Ethiopian Chronicle (trans. Basset) p. 285). Tellez tells it as an expulsion: the patriarch and the Jesuits were sent to Fremona, which they reached in April 1633 (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia p. 246), and in May 1634 they were put into the hands of the Turks on the coast (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia pp. 254–255). Lobo sums up the mission: Susenyos “called us into his dominions in the year 1625, from whence we were expelled in 1634” (Lobo, Voyage to Abyssinia part 2, chapter 1).