Appendix Theta: The Gondar Intellectual Line Connecting brothers of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity at Cornell University, tracing their fraternal Big Brother/Little Brother line to tri-Founder John Andrew Rea (1869) John Andrew Rea, tri-founder of Phi Kappa Psi at Cornell . . . . . . we begin towards the end of Appendix Gamma: The Halle Intellectual Line . . . . . . . Archbishop Bilson was a descendant of Wilhelm V, Duke of Bavaria . . . . . . Brother Pedro went on mission to Ethiopia, succeeding brother Oviedo . . . . . . Wilhelm Vth founded the University of Ingolstadt, home of the Jesuits . . . . . . Oviedo served God and Susenyos of Ethiopia . . . . . . Ingoldstadt was an intellectual base for Peter Canisus (1549-1552) . . . . . . Susenyos was preceded by Yekuno Amlak of Ethiopia . . . . . . Canisus inspired Francis Xavier and his Conferes . . . . . . and Yekuno came to power with the support of the Ethiopian theologians: Tekle Haymanot, Iyasus Mo'a and the Abbot Yohannes . . . . . . One of Xavier’s conferes was Pedro Paez . . . Below we present short biographies of the Gondor intellectual line of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity at Cornell University. “Who defends the House.”
Gondar Appendix Theta: The Gondar Intellectual Line
Connecting brothers of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity at Cornell
University, tracing their fraternal Big Brother/Little Brother
line
to tri-Founder John Andrew Rea (1869)
. . . we begin towards the end of Appendix Gamma: The Halle
Intellectual Line . . .
. . . . Archbishop Bilson was a descendant of Wilhelm V, Duke of
Bavaria . . .
. . . Brother Pedro went on mission to Ethiopia, succeeding brother
Oviedo . . .
. . . Wilhelm Vth founded the University of Ingolstadt, home of the
Jesuits . . .
. . . Oviedo served God and Susenyos of Ethiopia . . .
. . . Ingoldstadt was an intellectual base for
Peter Canisus (1549-1552) . . .
. . . Canisus inspired Francis Xavier and his Conferes . . .
. . . and Yekuno came to power with the support of the Ethiopian
theologians: Tekle
Haymanot, Iyasus Mo'a and the Abbot Yohannes . . .
. . . One of Xavier’s conferes was Pedro
Paez . . .
Below we present short biographies of the Gondor intellectual line
of
the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity at Cornell University.
“Who defends the House.”
New York Alpha’s intellectual, Archbishop William Laud, above, was
mentored by Bishop Thomas Bilson, below:
Dr. Thomas Bilson the great grandson of Wilhelm V, Duke of Bavaria,
a major force in the Catholic Reformation. He descended from a line
“bar sinister”, meaning it was illegitimate, but Dr. Bilson was
proud of the association, nonetheless. Duke Wilhelm’s liaision
produced a daughter, who married Albert Belsson, and the union of
this marriage was Hermann Bilson, father of the Bishiop. Bilson was
educated in the school of William de Wykeham. He entered New
College, at Oxford, and was made a Fellow of his College in 15645.
He began to distinguish himself as a poet; but, on receiving
ordination, gave himself wholly to theological studies.
New College, Oxford
He was soon made Prebendary of Winchester, and Warden of the
College there. In 1596, he was made Bishop of Worcester; and three
years later, was translated to the see of Winchester, his native
place.
He engaged in most of the polemical contests of his day, as a stiff
partizan of the Church of England. When the controversy arose as to
the meaning of the so called Apostles’ Creed, in asserting the
descent of Christ into hell, Bishop Bilson defended the literal
sense, and maintained that Christ went there, not to suffer, but to
wrest the keys of hell out of the Devil’s hands. For this doctrine
he was severely handled by Henry Jacob, who is often called the
father of modern Congregationalism, and also by other
Puritans.
Much feeling was excited by the controversy, and Queen Elizabeth,
in her ire, commanded her good bishop,
“neither to desert the doctrine, nor let the calling which he bore
in the Church of God, be trampled under foot, by such unquiet
refusers of truth and authority.”
Dr. Bilsons’ most famous work was entitled “The Perpetual
Government of Christ’s Church,” and was published in 1593. It is
still regarded as one of the ablest books ever written in behalf of
Episcopacy. Dr. Bilson died in 1616, at a good old age, and was
buried in Westminster Abbey. It was said of him, that he “carried
prelature in his very aspect.” Anthony Wood proclaims him so
“complete
in divinity, so well skilled in languages, so read in the Fathers
and Schoolmen, so judicious is making use of his readings, that at
length he was found to be no longer a soldier, but a commander in
chief in the spiritual warfare, especially when he became a
bishop!”
Bishop Thomas Bilson was the great grandson of Wilhelm V, “the
Pious” von Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria:
Wilhelm V, Duke of Bavaria, son of Duke Albrecht V. Born at Munich,
29 September, 1548; died at Schlessheim, 7 February, 1626. He
studied in 1563 at the University of Ingolstadt, but left on
account of an outbreak of the pest. Nevertheless, he continued his
studies elsewhere until 1568, and retained throughout life a keen
interest in learning and art. In 1579 he became the reigning duke.
He made a reputation by his strong religious opinions and devotion
to the Faith, and was called "the Pious". His life was under the
direction of the Jesuits. He attended Mass every day, when possible
several times a day, devoted four hours daily to prayer, one to
contemplation, and all his spare time to devotional reading.
House of Wittelsbach
He received the sacraments weekly, and twice a week in the Advent
season and during Lent. Whenever possible he took part in public
devotions, processions, and the pilgrimages; thus in 1585 he went
on a pilgrimage to Loreto and Rome. His court was jestingly called
a monastery, and his capital the German Rome. He founded several
Jesuit monasteries, in particular that of St. Michael at Munich,
and contributed to the missions in China and Japan.
He did everything possible in Bavaria and the German Empire to
further the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and laboured to prevent
the spread of Protestantism. Thus it was largely through his
efforts that the Archbishopric of Cologne did not become
Protestant, due mainly to the vigorous support he gave his brother
Ernst, who had been elected archbishop against Gebhard
Truchsess.
On the other hand, the manner in which he bestowed benefices upon
members of his family makes an unpleasant impression at the present
day, though, at that time, this was not considered so unseemly. In
the end his brother Ernest had, besides other benefices, five
dioceses, and Wilhelm's son Ferdinand was bishop of an equal
number; another son intended for the clerical life, Philip, was
made Bishop of Ratisbon in 1595 and cardinal in 1596, but died in
1598. Wilhelm had his eldest son Maximilian educated with much
care, and in 1597 he resigned the government to Maximilian and led
a retired life, devoted to works of piety, asceticism, and charity,
and also to the placid enjoyment of his collections of works of art
and curiosities.
The house of Wittelsbach in the years before William the Vth reign
was allegedly governed by a series of “compacts”. In spite of the
decree of 1506 William IV was compelled in 1516, after a violent
quarrel, to grant a share in the government to his brother Louis X,
an arrangement which lasted until the death of Louis in 1545.
William followed the traditional Wittelsbach policy of opposition
to the Habsburgs until in 1534 he made a treaty at Linz with
Ferdinand, king of Hungary and Bohemia. This link strengthened in
1546, when the emperor Charles V obtained the help of the duke
during the war of the league of Schmalkalden by promising him in
certain eventualities the succession to the Bohemian throne, and
the electoral dignity enjoyed by the count palatine of the
Rhine.
William also did much at a critical period to secure Bavaria for
Catholicism. The reformed doctrines had made considerable progress
in the duchy when the duke obtained from the pope extensive rights
over the bishoprics and monasteries, and took measures to repress
the reformers, many of whom were banished; while the Jesuits, whom
he invited into the duchy in 1541, made the university of
Ingolstadt their headquarters for Germany. William, whose death
occurred in March 1550, was succeeded by his son Albert V, who had
married a daughter of Ferdinand of Habsburg, afterwards the emperor
Ferdinand I. Early in his reign Albert made some concessions to the
reformers, who were still strong in Bavaria; but about 1563 he
changed his attitude, favoured the decrees of the
Council of Trent, and pressed forward the work of the
Counter-Reformation. As education passed by degrees into the hands
of the Jesuits the progress of Protestantism was effectually
arrested in Bavaria. Albert V patronised art extensively. Artists
of all kinds resorted to his court in Munich, and splendid
buildings arose in the city; while Italy and elsewhere contributed
to the collection of artistic works. The expenses of a magnificent
court led the duke to quarrel with the Landschaft (the nobles), to
oppress his subjects, and to leave a great burden of debt when he
died in October 1579.
The succeeding duke, Albert's son, William Vth (called the Pious),
had received a Jesuit education and showed keen attachment to
Jesuit tenets. He secured the archbishopric of Cologne for his
brother Ernest in 1583, and this dignity remained in the possession
of the family for nearly 200 years. In 1597 he abdicated in favour
of his son Maximilian I, and retired into a monastery, where he
died in 1626.
Wilhelm Vth studied at, and patronized, the University of
Ingoldstadt :
The University of Ingolstadt was founded in 1472 by Louis the Rich,
the Duke of Bavaria at the time, and its first Chancellor was the
Bishop of Eichstätt. It consisted of five faculties: humanities,
sciences, theology, law and medicine, all of which were contained
in the Hoheschule ('high school'). The university was modeled after
the University of Vienna, its chief goal was the propagation of the
Christian faith. The university closed in May 1800, by order of the
Prince-elector Maximilian IV (later Maximilian I, King of Bavaria).
In its first several decades, the university grew rapidly, opening
colleges not only for philosophers from the realist and nominalist
schools, but also for poor students wishing to study the liberal
arts.
University of Ingoldstadt
Among its most famous instructors in the late 1400s were the poet
Conrad
Celtes, the Hebrew scholar Johannes Reuchlin, and the Bavarian
historian Johannes Thurmair (also known as "Johannes
Aventinus").
The Lutheran movement took an early hold in Ingolstadt, but was
quickly put to flight by one of the chief figures of the
Counter-Reformation: Johann Eck, who made the university a bastion
for the traditional Catholic faith in southern Germany. In Eck's
wake, many Jesuits were appointed to key positions in the school,
and the university, over most of the 1600s, gradually came fully
under the control of the Jesuit order. Noted scholars of this
period include the theologian Gregory of Valentia, the astronomer
Christopher Scheiner (inventor of the helioscope), Johann Baptist
Cysat, and the poet Jacob Balde. The Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand
II received his education at the university.
The 1700s gave rise to the Enlightenment, a movement that was
opposed to the church-run universities of which Ingolstadt was a
prime example. The Jesuits gradually left the university as it
sought to change with the times, until the university finally had
become so secular that the greatest influence in Ingolstadt was
Adam Weishaupt, founder of the secret society of the Illuminati. On
November 25, 1799, the elector Maximilian IV announced that the
university's depleted finances had become too great a weight for
him to bear: the university would be moved to Landshut as a result.
The university finished that year's school term, and left
Ingolstadt in May 1800, bringing to a quiet end the school
that had, at its peak, been one of the most influential and
powerful institutes of higher learning in Europe.
The University of Ingolstadt (1472-1800), was founded by Louis the
Rich, Duke of Bavaria. The privileges of a studium generale with
all four faculties had been granted by Pope Pius II, 7 April, 1458,
but owing to the unsettled condition of the times, could not be put
into effect.
Ingolstadt, modelled on the University of Vienna, had as one of its
principal aims the furtherance and spread of Christian belief. For
its material equipment, an unusually large endowment was provided
out of the holdings of the clergy and the religious orders. The
Bishop of Eichstätt, to whom diocese Ingolstadt belongs, was
appointed chancellor. The formal inauguration of the university
took place on 26 June, 1472, and within the first semester 489
students matriculated. As in other universites prior to the
sixteenth century, the faculty of philosophy comprised two
sections, the Realists and the Nominalists, each under its own
dean.
In 1496 Duke George the Rich, son of Louis, established the
Collegium Georgianum for poor students in the faculty of arts, and
other foundations for similar purposes were subsequently made.
Popes Adrian VI and Clement VII bestowed on the university
additional revenues from ecclesiastical property. At the height of
the humanistic movement, Ingolstadt counted among its teachers a
series of remarkable savatns and writers; Conrad Celtes, the first
poet crowned by the German Emperor; his disciple Jacob Locher,
surnamed Philomusos; Johann Turmair, known as Aventinus from his
birthplace, Abensber, editor of the "Annales Boiorum" and of the
Bavarian "Chronica", father of Bavarian history and founder (1507)
of the"Sodalitas litteraria Angilostadensis". Johanees Reuchlin,
restorer of the Hebrew language and literature, was also for a time
at the university.
Although Duke William IV (1508-50) and his chancellor, Leonhard von
Eck, did their utmost during thirty years to keep Lutheranism out
of Ingolstadt, and though the adherents of the new doctrine were
obliged to retract or resign, some of the professors joined the
Lutheran movement. Their influence, however, was counteracted by
the tireless and successful endeavours of the foremost opponent of
the Reformation, Dr. Johann Maier, better known as Eck, from the
name of his birth-place, Egg, on the Gunz. He taught and laboured
(1510-43) to such good purpose that Ingolstadt, during the
Counter-Reformation, did more than any other university for the
defence of the Catholic Faith, and was for the church in Southern
Germany what Wittenberg was for Protestantism in the north.
In 1549, with the approval of Paul III, Peter Canisus, Salmeron,
Claude Lejay, and other Jesuits were appointed to professorships in
theology and philosophy. About the same time a college and a
boarding school for boys were established, though they were not
actually opened until 1556, when the statutes
of the university were revised. In 1568 the profession of faith in
accordance with the Council of Trent was required of the rector and
professors. In 1688 the teaching in the faculty of philosophy
passed entirely in the hands of the Jesuits.
Though the university after this change, in spite of vexations and
conflicts regarding exemption from taxes and juridical autonomy,
enjoyed a high degree of prosperity, its existence was frequently
imperilled during the troubles of the Thirty Years War. But its
fame as a home of earning was enhanced by men such as the
theologian, Gregory of Valentia; the controversialist, Jacob
Gretser (1558-1610); the moralist, Laymann (1603-1609); the
mathematician and cartographer, Philip Apian; the astronomer,
Christopher Scheiner (1610-1616), who, with the helioscope invented
by him, discovered the sun spots and calculated the ime of the
sun's rotation; and the poet, Jacob Balde, from Ensisheim in
Alsacc, professor of rhetoric. Prominent among the jurists in the
seventeenth century were Kaspar Manz and Christopher Berold.
During the latter half of that century, and especially in the
eighteenth, the
courses of instruction were improved and adapted to the
requirements of the age. After the founding of the Bavarian Academy
of Science at Munich in 1759, an anti-ecclesiastical tendency
sprang up at Ingolstadt and found an ardent supporter in Joseph
Adam, Baron of Ickstatt, whom the elector had placed at the head of
the university. Plans, moreover, were set on foot to have the
university of the third centenary the Society of Jesus was
suppressed, but some of the ex- Jesuits retained their
professorships for a while longer.
A movement was inaugurated in 1772 by Adam Weishaupt, professor
of
canon law, with a view to securing the triumph of the rationalistic
"enlightment" in Church and State by means of the secret society of
"Illuminati", which he founded. But this organization was
suppressed in 1786 by the Elector Carl Theodore, and Weishaupt was
dismissed. On 25 November, 1799, the elector Maximilian IV, later
King Maximilian I, decreed that the university, which was involved
in financial difficulties, should be transferred to Landshut; and
this was done in the following May. Among its leading professors
towards the close were Winter the church historian, Schrank the
naturalist, and Johann Michael Sailer, writer on moral philosophy
and pedagogy, who later became Bishop of Ratisbon.
Oh yeah, Victor “the Doctor” Frankenstein from Mary Shelley's
novel
Frankenstein was a fictional student at the University of
Ingolstadt.
The University of Ingoldstadt was an intellectual base for Peter
Canisus, S.J.:
Blessed Peter Canisius. Born at Nimwegen in the Netherlands, 8 May,
1521; died in Fribourg, 21 November, 1597. His father was the
wealthy burgomaster, Jacob Canisius; his mother, Ægidia van
Houweningen, died shortly after Peter's birth. In 1536 Peter was
sent to Cologne, where he studied arts, civil law, and theology at
the university; he spent a part of 1539 at the University of
Louvain, and in 1540 received the degree of Master of Arts at
Cologne. Nicolaus van Esche was his spiritual adviser, and he was
on terms of friendship with such staunch Catholics as Georg of
Skodborg (the expelled Archbishop of Lund).
Köln University
Other mentors included Johann Gropper (canon of the cathedral),
Eberhard Billick (the Carmelite monk), Justus Lanspergius, and
other Carthusian monks. Although his father desired him to marry a
wealthy young woman, on 25 February, 1540 he pledged himself to
celibacy.
In 1543 he visited Peter Faber and, having made the "Spiritual
Exercises" under his direction, was admitted into the Society of
Jesus at Mainz, on 8 May. With the help of Leonhard Kessel and
others, Canisius, labouring under great difficulties, founded at
Cologne the first German house of the order; at the same time he
preached in the city and vicinity, and debated and taught in the
university.
In 1546 he was admitted to the priesthood, and soon afterwards was
sent by the clergy and university to obtain assistance from Emperor
Charles V, the nuncio, and the clergy of Liège against the apostate
Archbishop, Hermann von Wied, who had attempted to pervert the
diocese. In 1547, as the theologian of Cardinal Otto Truchsess von
Waldburg, Bishop of Augsburg, he participated in the general
ecclesiastical council (which sat first at Trent and then at
Bologna), and spoke twice in the congregation of the theologians.
After this he spent several months under the direction of Ignatius
in Rome. In 1548 he taught rhetoric at Messina, Sicily, preaching
in Italian and Latin. At this time Duke William IV of Bavaria
requested Paul III to send him some professors from the
Society of Jesus for the University of Ingolstadt; Canisius was
among those selected.
On 7 September, 1549, he made his solemn profession as Jesuit at
Rome, in the presence of the founder of the order. On his journey
northward he received, at Bologna, the degree of doctor of
theology. On 13 November, accompanied by Fathers Jaius and
Salmeron, he reached Ingolstadt, where he taught theology,
catechized, and preached. In 1550 he was elected rector of the
university.
In 1552, Peter was sent by Ignatius to the new college in Vienna;
there he also taught theology in the university, preached at the
Cathedral of St. Stephen, and at the court of Ferdinand I, and was
confessor at the hospital and prison. During Lent, 1553 he visited
many abandoned parishes in Lower Austria, preaching and
administering the sacraments. The king's eldest son (later
Maximilian II) had appointed to the office of court preacher,
Phauser, a married priest, who preached the Lutheran doctrine.
Canisius warned Ferdinand I, verbally and in writing, and opposed
Phauser in public disputations. Maximilian was obliged to dismiss
Phauser and, on this account, the rest of his life he harboured a
grudge against Canisius. Ferdinand three times offered him the
Bishopric of Vienna, but he refused. In 1557 Julius III appointed
him administrator of the bishopric for one year, but Canisius
succeeded in ridding himself of this burden (cf. N. Paulus in
"Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie", XXII, 742-8). In 1555 he
was present at the Diet of Augsburg with Ferdinand, and in 1555-56
he preached in the cathedral of Prague.
After long negotiations and preparations he was able to open Jesuit
colleges at Ingolstadt and Prague. In the same year Ignatius
appointed him first provincial superior of Upper Germany (Swabia,
Bavaria, Bohemia, Hungary, Lower and Upper Austria). During the
winter of 1556-57 he acted as adviser to the King of the Romans at
the Diet of Ratisbon and delivered many sermons in the cathedral.
By the appointment of the Catholic princes and the order of the
pope he took part in the religious discussions at Worms. As
champion of the Catholics he repeatedly spoke in opposition to
Melanchthon. The fact that the Protestants disagreed among
themselves and were obliged to leave the field was due in a great
measure to Canisius. He also preached in the cathedral of
Worms.
During Advent and Christmas he visited the Bishop of Strasburg at
Zabern, started negotiations for the building of a Jesuit college
there, preached, explained the catechism to the children, and heard
their confessions. He also preached in the cathedral of Strasburg
and strengthened the Catholics of Alsace and Freiburg in their
faith. Ferdinand, on his way to Frankfort to be proclaimed emperor,
met him at Nuremburg and confided his troubles to him. Then Duke
Albert V of Bavaria secured his services; at Straubing the pastors
and preachers had fled, after having persuaded the people to turn
from the Catholic faith. Canisius remained in the town for six
weeks, preaching three or four times a day,
and by his gentleness he undid much harm. From Straubing he was
called to Rome to be present at the First General Congregation of
his order, but before its close Paul IV sent him with the nuncio
Mentuati to Poland to the imperial Diet of Pieterkow; at Cracow he
addressed the clergy and members of the university.
In the year 1559 he was summoned by the emperor to be present at
the Diet of Augsburg. There, at the urgent request of the chapter,
he became preacher at the cathedral and held this position until
1566. His manuscripts show the care with which he wrote his
sermons. In a series of sermons he treats of the end of man, of the
Decalogue, the Mass, the prophecies of Jonas; at the same time he
rarely omitted to expound the Gospel of the day; he spoke in
keeping with the spirit of the age, explained the justification of
man, Christian liberty, the proper way of interpreting the
Scriptures, defended the worship of saints, the ceremonies of the
Church, religious vows, indulgences. urged obedience to the Church
authorities, confession, communion, fasting, and almsgiving; he
censured the faults of the clergy, at times perhaps too sharply, as
he felt that they were public and that he must avoid demanding
reformation from the laity only. Against the influence of evil
spirits he recommended the means of defence which had been in use
in the Church during the first centuries—lively faith, prayer,
ecclesiastical benedictions, and acts of penance. From 1561-62 he
preached about two hundred and ten sermons, besides giving retreats
and teaching catechism. In the cathedral, his confessional and the
altar at which he said Mass were surrounded by crowds, and alms
were placed on the altar. The envy of some of the cathedral clergy
was aroused, and Canisius and his companions were accused of
usurping the parochial rights. The pope and bishop favoured the
Jesuits, but the majority of the chapter opposed them. Canisius was
obliged to sign an agreement according to which he retained the
pulpit but gave up the right of administering the sacraments in the
cathedral.
In 1559 he opened a college in Munich; in 1562 he appeared at Trent
as papal theologian. The council was discussing the question
whether communion should be administered under both forms to those
of the laity who asked for it. Lainez, the general of the Society
of Jesus, opposed it unconditionally. Canisius held that the cup
might be administered to the Bohemians and to some Catholics whose
faith was not very firm. After one month he departed from Trent,
but he continued to support the work of the Fathers by urging the
bishops to appear at the council, by giving expert opinion
regarding the Index and other matters, by reports on the state of
public opinion, and on newly-published books. In the spring of 1563
he rendered a specially important service to the Church; the
emperor had come to Innsbruck (near Trent), and had summoned
thither several scholars, including Canisius, as advisers. Some of
these men fomented the displeasure of the emperor with the pope and
the cardinals who presided over the council. For months Canisius
strove to reconcile him with the Curia. He has been blamed unjustly
for communicating to his general and to the pope's representatives
some of Ferdinand's plans, which otherwise might have ended
contrary to the intention of all concerned in the dissolution of
the council and in a
new national apostasy. The emperor finally granted all the pope's
demands and the council was able to proceed and to end peacefully.
All Rome praised Canisius, but soon after he lost favour with
Ferdinand and was denounced as disloyal; at this time he also
changed his views regarding the giving of the cup to the laity (in
which the emperor saw a means of relieving all his difficulties),
saying that such a concession would only tend to confuse faithful
Catholics and to encourage the disobedience of the
recalcitrant.
In 1562 the College of Innsbruck was opened by Canisius, and at
that time he acted as confessor to the "Queen" Magdalena (declared
Venerable in 1906 by Pius X; daughter of Ferdinand I, who lived
with her four sisters at Innsbruck), and as spiritual adviser to
her sisters. At their request he sent them a confessor from the
society, and, when Magdalena presided over the convent, which she
had founded at Hall, he sent her complete directions for attaining
Christian perfection. In 1563 he preached at many monasteries in
Swabia; in 1564 he sent the first missionaries to Lower Bavaria,
and recommended the provincial synod of Salzburg not to allow the
cup to the laity, as it had authority to do; his advice, however,
was not accepted. In this year Canisius opened a college at
Dillingen and assumed, in the name of the order, the administration
of the university which had been founded there by Cardinal
Truchsess. In 1565 he took part in the Second General Congregation
of the order in Rome. While in Rome he visited Philip, son of the
Protestant philologist Joachim Camerarius, at that time a prisoner
of the Inquisition, and instructed and consoled him.
Pius IV sent him as his secret nuncio to deliver the decrees of the
Council of Trent to Germany; the pope also commissioned him to urge
their enforcement, to ask the Catholic princes to defend the Church
at the coming diet, and to negotiate for the founding of colleges
and seminaries. Canisius negotiated more or less successfully with
the Electors of Mainz and Trier, with the bishops of Augsburg,
Würzburg, Osnabrück, Münster, and Paderborn, with the Duke of
Jülich-Cleves-Berg, and with the City and University of Cologne; he
also visited Nimwegen, preaching there and at other places; his
mission, however, was interrupted by the death of the pope. Pius V
desired its continuation, but Canisius requested to be relieved; he
said that it aroused suspicions of espionage, of arrogance, and of
interference in politics (for a detailed account of his mission see
"Stimmen aus Maria-Laach", LXXI, 58, 164, 301).
At the Diet of Augsburg (1566), Canisius and other theologians, by
order of the pope, gave their services to the cardinal legate
Commendone; with the help of his friends he succeeded, although
with great difficulty, in persuading the legate not to issue his
protest against the religious peace, and thus prevented a new
fratricidal war. The Catholic members of the diet accepted the
decrees of the council, the designs of the Protestants were
frustrated, and from that time a new and vigorous life began for
the Catholics in Germany. In the same year Canisius went to
Wiesensteig, where he visited and brought back to the Church
the
Lutheran Count of Helfenstein and his entire countship, and where
he prepared for death two witches who had been abandoned by the
Lutheran preachers.
In 1567 he preached the Lenten sermons in the cathedral of
Würzburg, gave instruction in the Franciscan church twice a week to
the children and domestics of the town, and discussed the foundling
of a Jesuit college at Würzburg with the bishop. Then followed the
diocesan synod of Dillingen (at which Canisius was principal
adviser of the Bishop of Augsburg), journeys to Würzburg, Mainz,
Speyer, and a visit to the Bishop of Strasburg, whom he advised,
though unsuccessfully, to take a coadjutor. At Dillingen he
received the application of Stanislaus Kostka to enter the Society
af Jesus, and sent him with hearty recommendations to the general
of the order at Rome. At this time he successfully settled a
dispute in the philosophical faculty of the University of
Ingolstadt. In 1567 and 1568 he went several times to Innsbruck,
where in the name of the general he consulted with the Archduke
Ferdinand II and his sisters about the confessors of the
archduchesses and about the establishment of a Jesuit house at
Hall. In 1569 the general decided to accept the college at
Hall.
During Lent of 1568 Canisius preached at Ellwangen, in Würtemberg;
from there he went with Cardinal Truchsess to Rome. The Upper
German province of the order had elected the provincial as its
representative at the meeting of the procurators; this election was
illegal, but Canisius was admitted. For months he collected in the
libraries of Rome material for a great work which he was preparing.
In 1569 he returned to Augsburg and preached Lenten sermons in the
Church of St. Mauritius. Having been a provincial for thirteen
years (an unusually long time) he was relieved of the office at his
own request, and went to Dillingen, where he wrote, catechized, and
heard confessions, his respite, however, was short; in 1570 he was
obliged again to go to Augsburg. A year latter he was compelled to
move to Innsbruck and to accept the office of court preacher to
Archduke Ferdinand II.
In 1575 Gregory XIII sent him with papal messages to the archduke
and to the Duke of Bavaria. When he arrived in Rome to make his
report, the Third General Congregation of the order was assembled
and, by special favour, Canisius was invited to be present. From
this time he was preacher in the parish church of Innsbruck until
the Diet of Ratisbon (1576), which he attended as theologian of the
cardinal legate Morone. In the following year he supervised at
Ingolstadt the printing of an important work, and induced the
students of the university to found a sodality of the Blessed
Virgin. During Lent, 1578, he preached at the court of Duke William
of Bavaria at Landshut. The nuncio Bonhomini desired to have a
college of the society at Fribourg; the order at first refused on
account of the lack of men, but the pope intervened and, at the end
of 1580, Canisius laid the foundation stone. In 1581 he founded a
sodality of the Blessed Virgin among the citizens and, soon
afterwards, sodalities for women and students; in 1582 schools were
opened, and he preached in the parish church and in other places
until 1589.
The canton had not been left uninfluenced by the Protestant
movement. Canisius worked indefatigably with the provost Peter
Schnewly, the Franciscan Johannes Michel, and others, for the
revival of religious sentiments amongst the people; since then
Fribourg has remained a stronghold of the Catholic Church. In 1584,
while on the way to take part in another meeting of the order at
Augsburg, he preached at Lucerne and made a pilgrimage to the
miraculous image of the Blessed Virgin at Einsiedeln. According to
his own account, it was then that St. Nicholas, the patron saint of
Fribourg, made known to him his desire that Canisius should not
leave Fribourg again. Many times the superiors of the order planned
to transfer him to another house, but the nuncio, the city council,
and the citizens themselves opposed the measure; they would not
consent to lose this celebrated and saintly man. The last years of
his life he devoted to the instruction of converts, to making
spiritual addresses to the brothers of the order, to writing and
re-editing books. The city authorities ordered his body to be
buried before the high altar of the principal church, the Church of
St. Nicolaus, from which they were translated in 1625 to that of
St. Michael, the church of the Jesuit College.
Canisius held that to defend the Catholic truths with the pen was
just as important as to convert the Hindus. At Rome and Trent he
strongly urged the appointment at the council, at the papal court,
and in other parts of Italy, of able theologians to write in
defence of the Catholic faith. He begged Pius V to send yearly
subsidies to the Catholic printers of Germany, and to permit German
scholars to edit Roman manuscripts; he induced the city council of
Fribourg to erect a printing establishment, and he secured special
privileges for printers. He also kept in touch with the chief
Catholic printers of his time &151; Plantin of Antwerp, Cholin
of Cologne, and Mayer of Dillingen &151; and had foreign works
of importance reprinted in Germany, for example, the works of
Andrada, Fontidonio, and Villalpando in defence of the Council of
Trent.
Canisius advised the generals of the order to create a college of
authors; urged scholars like Bartholomæus Latomus, Friedrich
Staphylus, and Hieronymus Torensis to publish their works; assisted
Onofrio Panvinio and the polemic Stanislaus Hosius, reading their
manuscripts and correcting proofs; and contributed to the work of
his friend Surius on the councils. At his solicitation the "Briefe
aus Indien", the first relations of Catholic missioners, were
published (Dillingen, 1563-71); "Canisius", wrote the Protestant
preacher, Witz, "by this activity gave an impulse which deserves
our undivided recognition, indeed which arouses our admiration"
("Petrus Canisius", Vienna, 1897, p. 12).
With apostolic zeal he loved the Society of Jesus; the day of his
admission to the order he called his second birthday. Obedience to
his superiors was his first rule. As a superior he cared with
parental love for the necessities of his subordinates. Shortly
before his death he declared that he had never regretted becoming a
Jesuit, and recalled the abuses which the opponents of the Church
had heaped upon his order and his person. Johann Wigand wrote a
vile pamphlet against his "Catechism"; Flacius Illyricus, Johann
Gnypheus, and Paul
Scheidlich wrote books against it; Melanchthon declared that he
defended errors wilfully; Chemnitz called him a cynic; the satirist
Fischart scoffed at him; Andreæ Dathen, Gallus, Hesshusen,
Osiander, Platzius, Roding, Vergerio, and others wrote vigorous
attacks against him; at Prague the Hussites threw stones into the
church where he was saying Mass; at Berne he was derided by a
Protestant mob. At Easter, 1568, he was obliged to preach in the
Cathedral of Würzburg in order to disprove the rumour that he had
become a Protestant. Unembittered by all this, he said, "the more
our opponents calumniate us, the more we must love them".
He requested Catholic authors to advocate the truth with modesty
and dignity without scoffing or ridicule. The names of Luther and
Melanchthon were never mentioned in his "Catechism". His love for
the German people is characteristic; he urged the brothers of the
order to practise German diligently, and he liked to hear the
German national hymns sung. At his desire St. Ignatius decreed that
all the members of the order should offer monthly Masses and
prayers for the welfare of Germany and the North. Ever the faithful
advocate of the Germans at the Holy See, he obtained clemency for
them in questions of ecclesiastical censures, and permission to
give extraordinary absolutions and to dispense from the law of
fasting. He also wished the Index to be modified that German
confessors might be authorized to permit the reading of some books,
but in his sermons he warned the faithful to abstain from reading
such books without permission. While he was rector of the
University of Ingolstadt, a resolution was passed forbidding the
use of Protestant textbooks and, at his request, the Duke of
Bavaria forbade the importation of books opposed to religion and
morals. At Cologne he requested the town council to forbid the
printing or sale of books hostile to the Faith or immoral, and in
the Tyrol had Archduke Ferdinand II suppress such books. He also
advised Bishop Urban of Gurk, the court preacher of Ferdinand I,
not to read so many Protestant books, but to study instead the
Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers. At Nimwegen he searched
the libraries of his friends, and burned all heretical books. In
the midst of all these cares Canisius remained essentially a man of
prayer; he was an ardent advocate of the Rosary and its sodalities.
He was also one of the precursors of the modern devotion of the
Sacred Heart.
During his lifetime his "Catechism" appeared in more than 200
editions in at least twelve languages. It was one of the works
which influenced St. Aloysius Gonzaga to enter the Society of
Jesus; it converted, among others, Count Palatine Wolfgang Wilhelm
of Neuburg; and as late as the eighteenth century in many places
the words "Canisi" and catechism were synonymous. It remained the
foundation and pattern for the catechisms printed later. His
preaching also had great influence; in 1560 the clergy of the
cathedral of Augsburg testified that by his sermons nine hundred
persons had been brought back to the Church, and in May, 1562, it
was reported the Easter communicants numbered one thousand more
than in former years. Canisius induced some of the prominent
Fuggers to return to the Church, and converted the leader of the
Augsburg Anabaptists.
In 1537 the Catholic clergy had been banished from Augsburg by the
city council; but after the preaching of Canisius public
processions were held, monasteries gained novices, people crowded
to the jubilee indulgence, pilgrimages were revived, and frequent
Communion again became the rule. After the elections of 1562 there
were eighteen Protestants and twenty-seven Catholics on the city
council. He received the approbation of Pius IV by a special Brief
in 1561. Great services were rendered by Canisius to the Church
through the extension of the Society of Jesus; the difficulties
were great: lack of novices, insufficient education of some of the
younger members, poverty, plague, animosity of the Protestants,
jealousy on the part of fellow-Catholics, the interference of
princes and city councils. Notwithstanding all this, Canisius
introduced the order into Bavaria, Bohemia, Swabia, the Tyrol, and
Hungary, and prepared the way in Alsace, the Palatinate, Hesse, and
Poland.
Even opponents admit that to the Jesuits principally is due the
credit of saving a large part of Germany from religious innovation.
In this work Canisius was the leader. In many respects Canisius was
the product of an age which believed in strange miracles, put
witches to death, and had recourse to force against the adherents
of another faiih; but notwithstanding all this, Johannes Janssen
does not hesitate to declare that Canisius was the most prominent
and most influential Catholic reformer of the sixteenth century
(Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, 15th and 16th editions, IV, p.
406). "Canisius more than any other man", writes A. Chroust, "saved
for the Church of Rome the Catholic Germany of today" (Deutsche
Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, new series, II, 106). It
has often been declared that Canisius in many ways resembles St.
Boniface, and he is therefore called the second Apostle of Germany.
The Protestant professor of theology, Paul Drews, says: "It must be
admitted that, from the standpoint of Rome, he deserves the title
of Apostle of Germany" ("Petrus Canisius", Halle, 1892, p.
103).
Soon after his death reports spread of the miraculous help obtained
by invoking his name. His tomb was visited by pilgrims. The Society
of Jesus decided to urge his beatification. The ecclesiastical
investigations of his virtues and miracles were at first conducted
by the Bishops of Fribourg, Dillingen, and Freising (1625-90); the
apostolic proceedings began in 1734, but were interrupted by
political and religions disorders. Gregory XVI resumed them about
1833; Pius IX on 17 April, 1864, approved of four of the miracles
submitted, and on 20 November, 1869, the solemn beatification took
place in St. Peter's at Rome. In connection with this, there
appeared between 1864-66 more than thirty different biographies. On
the occasion of the tercentenarv of his death, Leo XIII issued to
the bishops of Austria, Germany, and Switzerland his much-discussed
"Epistola Encyclica de memoria sæculari B. Petri Canisii"; the
bishops of Switzerland issued a collective pastoral; in numerous
places of Europe and in some places in the United States this
tercentenary was celebrated and about fifty pamphlets were
published.
his brothers, Francis Xavier and his conferes, to revive
orthodoxy
beyond the Suez:
University of Paris in 1529, Pierre Favre, Francisco Xavier, and
Iñigo de Loyola began sharing a room. They went on to change the
world. Early 16th- century Paris was a time of major changes.
Influenced by the discovery of the Americas and an ongoing European
Renaissance, the culture began embodying the new values of a modern
world. Economies were shifting, and a time of scientific innovation
was dawning. Stirred by the advent of the printing press,
information spread with hitherto unmatched ease. Similar to how the
Internet is influencing our times, mass-produced printed materials
fueled a new level of literacy, as publications of the Bible,
theological concepts, and philosophical musings blew a spirit of
inquiry through the Church.
University of Paris “the Sorbonne”
Long before electricity had been discovered and harnessed, the
urban
landscape of The emblematic image of University of Paris today—an
edifice constructed as part of a rebuilding of the university,
launched the same year Loyola and Xavier were canonized.
This was the city into which Iñigo Lopez de Oñaz y Loyola (Ignatius
of Loyola) trekked, on fire with a desire to attend the University
of Paris and expand his own intellectual and spiritual horizons. He
was assigned to a room with two younger men—Pierre Favre (Peter
Faber) and Francisco de Isaau de Xavier (Francis Xavier). The
friendship of these three college roommates would profoundly affect
the times in which they lived and all the centuries since.
Historians usually search for deep causes of developments that
reshape the world, but sometimes luck or chance play the major
role. Such was the case in 1525 when fate, fortune, or maybe the
mysterious working of divine providence assigned Pierre Favre and
Francisco Xavier to the same room at the University of Paris, which
they shared until 1536. A third roommate, Iñigo de Loyola, joined
them for six years (1529-35) until returning to Spain.
From their relationship, the Society of Jesus arose. The blessings
that have flowed from this event reach down to our day and affect
more than half the nations of our world. St. Francisco Xavier and
Blessed Pierre Favre were both born in 1506, so this is the 500th
anniversary of their births. St. Ignatius of Loyola died 450 years
ago, in 1556. We celebrate all three of these anniversaries
in
2006.
In 1534, the three roommates and four friends celebrated Mass in a
chapel atop Montmarte. All seven took a vow to work for souls in
Jerusalem.
Of peasant origins, Favre worked as a shepherd in the hill country
of
Savoy in his youth and was fortunate to receive an excellent
education in the cities of Thônes and La Roche, both near his home
village of Villaret. His training included Latin, Greek,
philosophy, and some theology—a fine combination for success at
Europe’s finest university. A degree from Paris would open many
doors for a peasant lad. An accomplished student, and almost
certainly more learned than his more famous roommates, he helped
Loyola grapple with the Greek text of Aristotle. Loyola more than
returned the favor.
Favre was a devout student but tortured by scruples till Loyola
opened his eyes to see and rejoice in the God of mercy and
forgiveness. After returning to Paris from a seven-month visit to
Villaret, Favre spent 30 days in 1534 on retreat making the
Spiritual Exercises under the direction of Loyola, their
originator. Favre was ordained a priest in May of the same year and
became a superb director of retreats. St. Peter Canisius made the
Spiritual Exercises under Favre’s direction in 1541 and wrote,
“Never have I seen nor heard such a learned or profound theologian,
nor a man of such shining and exalted virtue.... I can hardly
describe how the Spiritual Exercises transformed my soul and
senses...I feel changed into a new man.”
Xavier and Favre made an odd pair. Favre was a peasant, pious and
studious; Xavier was a Basque nobleman—dark haired, tall, a fine
athlete, outgoing. Noblemen of that era seldom took university
degrees, but Xavier had few career opportunities in Spain since his
family had fought against Charles V during the same French invasion
in which Loyola was wounded. This undoubtedly influenced Xavier’s
decision to seek an academic career in Paris. While Favre was
pious, Xavier was worldly, so Loyola, who wanted to recruit others
to serve God, needed a different strategy to win over Xavier.
Loyola attended some classes in philosophy taught by Xavier at the
College of St. Bauvais and helped pay some of his debts. Several
accounts relate that he kept asking Xavier the question of Jesus:
“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the
loss of his soul?”
Gradually Loyola won Favre and Xavier over to his own plan to spend
their lives in Jerusalem working for souls. Once won over, Xavier,
with his usual enthusiasm, wanted to cancel his three-year
commitment to teach at Paris. Loyola and Favre dissuaded him, but
as a result he could not devote 30 days to making the Spiritual
Exercises until late 1534.
Meanwhile Loyola was winning other gifted students to his Jerusalem
plan. On the feast of the Assumption 1534, the three roommates plus
four new companions (Diego Laínez, Alfonso Salmerón, Simón
Rodrigues, and Nicolás Alonso Bobadilla) climbed up to a chapel
atop Montmarte in central Paris. Favre, the only priest among them,
celebrated a Mass at which all seven took a vow to work for souls
in Jerusalem. From these seven companions sprang the Society of
Jesus, the religious order of priests and brothers commonly called
the Jesuits. Loyola always regarded the original seven as the
Society’s co-founders.
Loyola returned to Spain while the others completed their academic
degrees and recruited three more students for the Jerusalem
project. They gathered at Venice in 1537, where all but the
previously ordained Favre and Salmerón became priests.
Again chance and luck intervened. Bad luck: War between Venice and
the Ottoman Empire (which controlled Palestine) broke out. There
would be no ship to Palestine. Good luck: The Turks would never
have allowed 10 companions to proselytize in Jerusalem. They would
have been executed or made into galley slaves, never to be heard
from again.
Fortunately, the Montmarte vow had a backup clause: If the
companions could not go to Jerusalem, they would put themselves at
the pope’s disposal to work for souls. They waited several months,
preaching and helping the needy, before they went to Rome and
undertook work suggested by Pope Paul III. Favre lectured on
scripture at the University of Rome. Loyola directed people through
the Spiritual Exercises. Later the pope assigned others of the
companions to preaching in various Italian towns. While this
arrangement offered opportunities to serve God, it placed their
companionship at risk, prompting them to form a religious order
whose rules and goals would bind them together, however dispersed
their work.
In 1540 they requested and received papal approval for the Society
of Jesus. Loyola remained in Rome as superior general of the
Jesuits until his death in 1556. The others brought the good news
of Christ to the far corners of the world.
Favre helped reform the diocese of Parma in north-central Italy
before being sent to the famous Colloquy of Regensburg in Germany,
which tried and failed to work out a doctrinal agreement between
Lutherans and Catholics. There, Favre gave the Spiritual Exercises
to bishops and priests. His next stops
were his native Savoy, then on to Madrid where he spent three
months preaching, hearing confessions, and explaining that new
order—the Jesuits. He also lectured on the psalms at the University
of Cologne, where he gave the Exercises to Peter Canisius, who then
entered the Jesuits. Favre’s next assignment was Portugal. Paul III
also appointed him a papal theologian at the Council of Trent. He
went to Rome where he conversed with Loyola for the first time in
seven years. But his health was broken, and he died at age 40 on
Aug. 1, 1546, with his old roommate, Loyola, at his bedside.
Xavier’s travels dwarfed those of Favre. King John III of Portugal
asked for two Jesuits to serve as missionaries in India. Loyola
appointed Rodrigues and Bobadilla, but Bobadilla fell ill. Loyola
then asked Xavier, who had been serving in Rome as his secretary,
if he would take Bobadilla’s place. Xavier volunteered
enthusiastically, left Rome on March 15, 1540, and never saw Loyola
or Favre again.
Xavier sailed from Lisbon on a 13-month journey, six of them
working in
Mozambique, before arriving at Goa, the main Portuguese base in
India.
He set up confraternities to help ex-prostitutes find better lives
and
another confraternity to prevent poor young women from falling into
prostitution.
At Goa he preached to the Portuguese and tried, not very
successfully, to learn the Tamil language. Therefore he required
translators during two years of work along the south coast of India
where it is believed he baptized more than 10,000 converts. In
September 1545 he sailed to Malaysia and spent the next year
working in Indonesia. In 1549 he and several other Jesuits sailed
to Japan where they converted some 700 Japanese, a people who
impressed him as extremely intelligent. He returned to Malaysia and
then India in 1551, almost perishing in a typhoon.
Back in India, he reorganized Jesuit work there, then departed for
China at a time when foreigners were forbidden to enter. He tried
persuading Chinese smugglers to take him ashore, but they
considered it too risky. He died on the little island of Sancian
near Hong Kong on Dec. 3, 1552, at age 46.
Xavier pioneered and organized Jesuit missionary work in Asia and
the Pacific islands. The publication of his letters in Europe
attracted many young men to missionary work. Xavier is considered
the greatest missionary since St. Paul.
So it was from the Archdiocese of Goa, or Goanensis, that Xavier
sailed to evangelize to Asia and his conferes worked to reunited
Christian Ethiopia with the West, bridging the divided caused by
the expansion of the Ottoman Empire and its allies in the Maghreb.
Goa was therefore the Patriarchate of the East
Indies, the chief see of the Portuguese dominions in the East;
metropolitan to the province of Goa, which comprised as suffragans
the sees of Cochin, Mylapore, and Damão (or Damaun) in India, Macao
in China, and Mozambique in East Africa. Mozambique was the gateway
to Ethiopia.
The archbishop, who resided at Panjim, or New Goa, had the honorary
titles of Primate of the East and (from 1886) Patriarch of the East
Indies. He enjoyed the privilege of presiding over all national
councils of the East Indies, which were originally be held at Goa
(Concordat of 1886 between the Holy See and Portugal, art. 2). The
Patronage of the see and of its suffragans belonged to the Crown of
Portugal.
The history of the Portuguese conquests in India dates from the
arrival of Vasco da Gama in 1498, followed by the acquisition of
Cranganore in 1500, Cochin in 1506, Goa in 1510, Chaul in 1512,
Calicut in 1513, Damao in 1531, Bombay, Salsette, and Bassein in
1534, Diu in 1535, etc.
From the year 1500, missionaries of the different orders
(Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, Augustinians, etc.) flocked out
with the conquerors, and began at once to build churches along the
coast districts wherever the Portuguese power made itself felt. In
1534 was created an episcopal see suffragan to Funchal in the
Madeiras, with a jurisdiction extending potentially over all past
and future conquests from the Cape of Good Hope to China. In 1557
it was made an independent archbishopric, and its first suffragan
sees were erected at Cochin and Malacca. In 1576 the suffragan was
added; and in 1588, that of Funai in Japan. In 1600 another
suffragan see was erected at Angamale (transferred to Craganore in
1605) for the sake of the newly-united Thomas Christians; while, in
1606 a sixth suffragan see was established at San Thome, Mylapore,
near the modern Madras. In 1612 the prelacy of Mozambique was
added, and in 1690 two other sees at Peking and Nanking in China.
By the Bulls establishing these sees the right of nomination was
conferred in perpetuity on the King of Portugal, under the titles
of foundation and endowment.
The limits between the various sees of India were defined by a
papal Bull in 1616. The suffragan sees comprised roughly the south
of the peninsula and the east coast, as far as Burma inclusive, the
rest of India remaining potentially under the jurisdiction of the
archdiocese and this potential jurisdiction was the actually
exercised even outside Portuguese dominions wherever the Faith was
extended by Portuguese missionaries. Missionary work progressed on
a large scale and with great success along the western coasts,
chiefly at Chaul, Bombay, Salsette, Bassein, Damao, and Diu; and on
the eastern coasts at San Thome of Mylapore, and as far as Bengal
etc. In the southern districts the Jesuit mission in Madura was the
most famous. It extended to the Kistna river, with a number of
outlaying stations beyond it. The mission of Cochin, on the Malabar
Coast, was also one of the most fruitful. Several missions were
also established in the interior northwardds, e.g., that of Agra
and Lahore in 1570 and that of Tibet in 1624. Still, even with
these efforts, the greater part even of the coast line was
by no means fully worked, and many vast tracts of the interior
northwards were practically untouched.
The decline of Portuguese power in the seventheenth century,
followed as it was by a decline in the supply of missionaries,
etc., soon put limits to the extension of missionary work; and it
was sometimes with difficulty that the results actually achieved
could be kept up. Consequently, about this time the Holy See began,
through the Congregation of Propaganda to send out missionaries
independently of Portugal--appointing vicars Apostolic over several
districts (The Great Mogul, 1637; Verapoly, 1657; Burma, 1722;
Karnatic and Madura, after the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773;
Tibet, 1826; Bengal, Madras, and Ceylon, 1834, and others later).
In certain places where these vicars Apostolic came into contact
with the Portuguese clergy, there arose a conflict of jurisdiction.
This was particularly the case in Bombay, which had been ceded to
the British in 1661.
The city of Goa, originally a fortress in the hands first of the
Hindus and then of the Mohammedans, was taken by the Duke of
Albuquerque in 1510. As soon as he became master of the place he
built the first church--that of St. Catherine, who thus became the
patron of the new city. This was the beginning of a vast series of
churches, large and small, numbering over fifty, with convents,
hospices and other institutions attached, which made Goa one of the
most interesting ecclesiastical cities in the world. The civil
splendour was in keeping with the ecclesiastical. But the situation
was an unfortunate one. Lying on a low stretch of coast-land,
surrounded on two sides by shallow creeks and on the other two by
miasmic marshes, the place was soon found unhealthy to such a
degree that, after several ravages by epidemics, it was gradually
abandoned in favour of Panjim, five miles nearer the sea. The
transfer of the Government in 1759 soon led to the total desertion
of the old city. In consequence the civil buildings gradually fell
into decay or were demolished for the sake of building materials,
and, especially after the expulsion of the religious orders in
1835, many churches and monasteries followed suit. In place of
houses thick palmgroves gradually grew up, which now, with the
exception of a few open spaces, occupy the whole area. The original
city extended almost two miles from east to west along the river,
and comprised three low hills crowned with religious
edifices.
Most of the churches have disappeared, leaving nothing but a cross
to mark their site. Others are in various stages of decay, while a
few are kept in repair. The finest of those still standing are
grouped about the great square: the cathedral (built 1571), in
which alone the full liturgy is kept up by a body of resident
canons, and adjoining which is an archiepiscopal palace, the Bom
Jesus church (Jesuit, built c. 1586), containing the body of St.
Francis Xavier incorrupt in a rich shrine; St. Cajetan's, built
about 1655, belonging to the Theatines; the Franciscan church of
St. Francis of Assisi, built on the site of a mosque 1517-21: and
finally the little chapel of St. Catherine, built in 1510. Farther
away, on the western hill, stand the great nunnery of St. Monica
(1598), still in full repair,
formerly occupied by a large community of native nuns --the only
female religious in Goa; the Augustinian church and convent built
in 1572, now in ruins; convent and church of St. John of God
(1685), now partly in ruins; the Rosary church of the Dominicans,
built before 1543; the viceregal chapel of St. Anthony, of about
the same date. The last two were still in full repair at the turn
of the nineteenth century.
To the south are the ruins of the Jesuit college of St. Paul, built
about 1541, and the Carmelite church and convent, built about 1612,
occupied after 1707 by Oratorians. The chapel of St. Francis
Xavier, the scene of the "Domine, satis est", built before 1542, is
still in repair. The following either have entirely disappeared or
their sites are marked only by ruins: the chapel of St. Martin,
built shortly after 1547; college and church of St. Bonaventure
(about 1602); Nossa Senhora de Serra (1513); convent and church of
St. Dominic, built about 1548, rebuilt 1550, Santa Luzia at Daujim
(about 1544); church of St. Thomas, built to receive the relics of
St. Thomas brought from Mylapore in 1560; church of St. Alexis,
built before 1600; church of the Holy Trinity, built about the same
time; convent and church of Cruz dos Milagres, built after 1619;
Nossa Senhora da Luz built before 1543; new college and church of
St. Paul (alias convent of St. Roch) used as a college in 1610,
church rebuilt later. From the church of Our Lady of the Mount, on
the eastern hill, which is still in repair, a magnificent panorama
is obtained.
As for Francis Xavier, he was born in the Castle of Xavier near
Sanguesa, in Navarre, 7 April, 1506; died on the Island of Sancian
near the coast of China, 2 December, 1552. In 1525, having
completed a preliminary course of studies in his own country,
Francis Xavier went to Paris, where he entered the collège de
Sainte-Barbe. Here he met the Savoyard, Pierre Favre, and a warm
personal friendship sprang up between them. It was at this same
college that St. Ignatius Loyola, who was already planning the
foundation of the Society of Jesus, resided for a time as a guest
in 1529. He soon won the confidence of the two young men; first
Favre and later Xavier offered themselves with him in the formation
of the Society. Four others, Lainez, Salmerón, Rodríguez, and
Bobadilla, having joined them, the seven made the famous vow of
Montmartre, 15 Aug., 1534.
After completing his studies in Paris and filling the post of
teacher there for some time, Xavier left the city with his
companions 15 November, 1536, and turned his steps to Venice, where
he displayed zeal and charity in attending the sick in the
hospitals. On 24 June, 1537, he received Holy orders with St.
Ignatius. The following year he went to Rome, and after doing
apostolic work there for some months, during the spring of 1539 he
took part in the conferences which St. Ignatius held with his
companions to prepare for the definitive foundation of the Society
of Jesus. The order was approved verbally 3 September, and before
the written approbation was secured, which was not until a year
later, Xavier was appointed, at the earnest solicitation of the
John III, King of Portugal, to evangelize the people of the East
Indies. He left Rome 16 March, 1540, and
reached Lisbon about June. Here he remained nine months, giving
many admirable examples of apostolic zeal.
On 7 April, 1541, he embarked in a sailing vessel for India, and
after a tedious and dangerous voyage landed at Goa, 6 May, 1542.
The first five months he spent in preaching and ministering to the
sick in the hospitals. He would go through the streets ringing a
little bell and inviting the children to hear the word of God. When
he had gathered a number, he would take them to a certain church
and would there explain the catechism to them. About October, 1542,
he started for the pearl fisheries of the extreme southern coast of
the peninsula, desirous of restoring Christanity which, although
introduced years before, had almost disappeared on account of the
lack of priests. He devoted almost three years to the work of
preaching to the people of Western India, converting many, and
reaching in his journeys even the Island of Ceylon. Many were the
difficulties and hardships which Xavier had to encounter at this
time, sometimes on account of the cruel persecutions which some of
the petty kings of the country carried on against the neophytes,
and again because the Portuguese soldiers, far from seconding the
work of the saint, retarded it by their bad example and vicious
habits.
In the spring of 1545 Xavier started for Malacca. He laboured there
for the last months of that year, and although he reaped an
abundant spiritual harvest, he was not able to root out certain
abuses, and was conscious that many sinners had resisted his
efforts to bring them back to God. About January, 1546, Xavier left
Malacca and went to Molucca Islands, where the Portuguese had some
settlements, and for a year and a half he preached the Gospel to
the inhabitants of Amboyna, Ternate, Baranura, and other lesser
islands which it has been difficult to identify. It is claimed by
some that during this expedition he landed on the island of
Mindanao, and for this reason St. Francis Xavier has been called
the first Apostle of the Philippines. But although this statement
is made by some writers of the seventeenth century, and in the Bull
of canonization issued in 1623, it is said that he preached the
Gospel in Mindanao, up to the present time it has not been proved
absolutely that St. Francis Xavier ever landed in the
Philippines.
By July, 1547, he was again in Malacca. Here he met a Japanese
called Anger (Han-Sir), from whom he obtained much information
about Japan. His zeal was at once aroused by the idea of
introducing Christanity into Japan, but for the time being the
affairs of the Society demanded his presence at goa, whither he
went, taking Anger with him. During the six years that Xavier had
been working among the infidels, other Jesuit missionaries had
arrived at Goa, sent from Europe by St. Ignatius; moreover some who
had been born in the country had been received into the Society. In
1548 Xavier sent these missionaries to the principal centres of
India, where he had established missions, so that the work might be
preserved and continued. He also established a novitiate and house
of studies, and having received into the Society Father Cosme de
Torres, a spanish priest whom he had met in the Maluccas, he
started with him and Brother Juan
Fernández for Japan towards the end of June, 1549. The Japanese
Anger, who had been baptized at Goa and given the name of Pablo de
Santa Fe, accompanied them.
They landed at the city of Kagoshima in Japan, 15 Aug., 1549. The
entire first year was devoted to learning the Japanese language and
translating into Japanese, with the help of Pablo de Santa Fe, the
principal articles of faith and short treatises which were to be
employed in preaching and catechizing. When he was able to express
himself, Xavier began preaching and made some converts, but these
aroused the ill will of the bonzes, who had him banished from the
city. Leaving Kagoshima about August, 1550, he penetrated to the
centre of Japan, and preached the Gospel in some of the cities of
southern Japan. Towards the end of that year he reached Meaco, then
the principal city of Japan, but he was unable to make any headway
here because of the dissensions the rending the country. He
retraced his steps to the centre of Japan, and during 1551 preached
in some important cities, forming the nucleus of several Christian
communities, which in time increased with extraordinary
rapidity.
After working about two years and a half in Japan he left this
mission in charge of Father Cosme de Torres and Brother Juan
Fernández, and returned to Goa, arriving there at the beginning of
1552. Here domestic troubles awaited him. Certain disagreements
between the superior who had been left in charge of the missions,
and the rector of the college, had to be adjusted. This, however,
being arranged, Xavier turned his thoughts to China, and began to
plan an expedition there. During his stay in Japan he had heard
much of the Celestial Empire, and though he probably had not formed
a proper estimate of his extent and greatness, he nevertheless
understood how wide a field it afforded for the spread of the light
of the Gospel. With the help of friends he arranged a commission or
embassy the Sovereign of China, obtained from the Viceroy of India
the appointment of ambassador, and in April, 1552, he left Goa. At
Malacca the party encountered difficulties because the influential
Portuguese disapproved of the expedition, but Xavier knew how to
overcome this opposition, and in the autumn he arrived in a
Portuguese vessel at the small island of Sancian near the coast of
China. While planning the best means for reaching the mainland, he
was taken ill, and as the movement of the vessel seemed to
aggravate his condition, he was removed to the land, where a rude
hut had been built to shelter him. In these wretched surroundings
he breathed his last.
At the time when Ignatius founded his order Portugal was in her
heroic age. Her rulers were full of enterprise, her universities
were full of life, her trade routes extended over the then known
world. The Jesuits were welcomed with enthusiasm, and made good use
of their opportunities. St. Francis Xavier, traversing Portuguese
colonies and settlements, proceeded to make his splendid missionary
conquests. These were continued by his confreres in such distant
lands as Abyssinia, the Congo, South Africa, China, and Japan, by
Fathers Nunhes, Silveria, Acosta, Fernandes, and others. At
Coimbra, and afterwards at
Evora, the Society made the most surprising progress under such
professors as Pedro de Fonseca (d. 1599), Luis Molina (d. 1600),
Christovão Gil, Sebastão de Abreu, etc., and from here also comes
the first comprehensive series of philosophical and theological
textbooks for students. With the advent of Spanish monarchy, 1581,
the Portuguese Jesuits suffered no less than the rest of their
country. Luis Carvalho joined the Spanish opponents of Father
Acquaviva, and when the apostolic collector, Ottavio Accoramboni,
launched an interdict against the government of Lisbon, the
Jesuits, especially Diego de Arida, became involved in the
undignified strife. One the other hand, they played an honorable
part in the restoration of Portugal's liberty in 1640, and on its
success, the difficulty was to restrain King João IV from giving
Father Manuel Fernandes a seat in the Cortes, and employing others
in diplomatic missions. Among these Fathers were Antonio Vieira,
one of Portugal's most eloquent orators. Up to the Suppression,
Portugal and her colonists supported the following missions, of
which further notices will be found elsewhere, Goa (originally
India), Malabar, Japan, China, Brazil, Maranhao.
It is truly a matter of wonder that one man in the short space of
ten years (6 May, 1542 - 2 December, 1552) could have visited so
many countries, traversed so many seas, preached the Gospel to so
many nations, and converted so many infidels. The incomparable
apostolic zeal which animated him, and the stupendous miracles
which God wrought through him, explain this marvel, which has no
equal elsewhere. The list of the principal miracles may be found in
the Bull of canonization. St. Francis Xavier is considered the
greatest missionary since the time of the Apostles, and the zeal he
displayed, the wonderful miracles he performed, and the great
number of souls he brought to the light of true Faith, entitle him
to this distinction. He was canonized with St. Ignatius in 1622,
although on account of the death of Gregory XV, the Bull of
canonization was not published until the following year.
The body of the saint is still enshrined at Goa in the church which
formerly belonged to the Society. In 1614 by order of Claudius
Acquaviva, General of the Society of Jesus, the right arm was
severed at the elbow and conveyed to Rome, where the present altar
was erected to receive it in the church of the Gesu.
theological traditions:
Pedro Páez or Pêro Pais (1564 - May 25, 1622) was a Jesuit
missionary in Ethiopia. He was the first European who saw and
described the source of the Blue Nile. He was born in Olmeda de las
Cebollas (now Olmeda de las Fuentes, near Madrid) sixteen years
before the union of the Spanish and the Portuguese crowns
(1580-1640). He studied at Coimbra. Sent from Goa to Ethiopia as a
missionary in 1589, Páez was held captive in Yemen for seven years,
from 1590 to 1596, where he used his time to learn Arabic. He
finally arrived at Massawa in 1603, and made his way to Fremona,
which was the Jesuit base in that land. Unlike his predecessor,
Andre de Oviedo, Paul Henze describes him as "gentle, learned,
considerate of the feelings of others".
University of Comibra
When summoned to the court of the young negusä nägäst Za Dengel,
his knowledge of Amharic and Ge'ez, as well as his knowledge of
Ethiopian customs impressed the sovereign so much that Za Dengel
decided to convert from the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church to
Catholicism -- although Páez warned him not to announce his
declaration too quickly. However, when Za Dengel proclaimed changes
in the observance of the Sabbath, Páez retired to Fremona, and
waited out the ensuing civil war that ended with the emperor's
death.
This caution benefited Páez when Susenyos assumed the throne in
1607. Sissinios invited him to his court, where the two became
friends. Sissinios made a grant of land to Páez on the peninsula of
Gorgora on the north side of Lake Tana, where he built a new center
for his fellow Jesuits, starting with a stone church. Paez is
believed to be the first European to have discovered the source of
the Blue Nile on april 21.st 1618. (Sir Wallis Budge , A history of
Ethiopia, p. 397.) Eventually Páez also converted Sissinios to
Catholicism shortly before his own death in 1622.
Some of the Catholic churches he designed are still standing, most
importantly at Bahir Dar and Gorgora, and were an influence on
Ethiopian architecture.
Páez was the first European to visit Lake Tana, one of the sources
of the Blue Nile, and to write about tasting coffee. His account of
Ethiopia, História da Ethiópia in 1620, has been printed as Volumes
II and III of Beccari's Rerum
Aethiopicarum Scriptores occidentales Inedtii (Rome, 1905-17). His
work was published in 1945 at Porto in a new edition by Sanceau,
Feio and Teixeira, Pêro Pais: História da Etiópia.
In addition to translating the Roman Catechism into Ge'ez, Paez is
believed to be the author of the treatise De Abyssinorum erroribus.
Páez's writings are one of the few works in Portuguese about
Ethiopia that have not been translated into English.
and Emperor Susenyos of Ethiopia . . .
Andrés de Oviedo was born in Illescas, Spain, about 1517, he
entered the Society in Rome in 1541. After his studies he was
appointed (1545) rector of the Jesuit college at Gandía, and it was
he who led Francisco de Borja through his novitiate and received
his vows on February 1, 1548. In 1550 Oviedo travelled to Rome with
the duke and participated in the discussions on the Constitutions.
He became (1551) rector of the new college in Naples and was later
assigned to the mission in Ethiopia. He was ordained bishop on May
5, 1555, and became Patriarch of Ethiopia on December 20, 1562. In
Ethiopia he lived amid extreme poverty; he died in 1577. The
background to brother Oviedo’s mission to Ethiopia lay in the
divide occurring as Islam moved west, absorbing early Christian
communities along the north coast of Africa into the Caliphate.
Ethiopia was cut off from its Christian community.
The Arms of Gandia, Kingdom of Spain
Communication between Rome and Abyssinia became more difficult, and
from the end of the eleventh to the beginning of the thirteenth
century one could see no bond existing between Abyssinia and the
centre of Catholicism. The Sovereign Pontiffs, nevertheless, have
bestowed a constant solicitude on the Christians of Ethiopia.
The first missionaries sent to their aid were the Dominicans, whose
success, however, roused the fanaticism of the Monophysites against
them, and caused their martyrdom. For more than a hundred years
silence enfolded the ruins of this Church. At a later period, the
fame of the Crusades having spread, pilgrim monks, on their return
from Jerusalem, wakened once more, by what they told in the
Ethiopian court, the wish to be reunited to the Church.
The Acts of the Council of Florence tell of the embassy sent by
the
Emperor Zéra-Jacob with the object of obtaining this result (1452).
The union was brought about; but on their home journey, the
messengers, while passing through Egypt, were given up to the
schismatic Copts, and to the Caliph, and put to death before they
could bring the good news to their native land.
In the rural plateaux of northern Ethiopia, one can still find
scattered ruins of monumental buildings alien to the country's
ancient architectural tradition. This little-known and rarely
studied architectural heritage bears silent witness to a
fascinating if equivocal cultural encounter that took place in the
16th-17th centuries between Orthodox Ethiopians and Catholic
Europeans. The Indigenous and the Foreign explores the enduring
impact of the encounter on the religious, political and artistic
life of Christian Ethiopia, one not readily acknowledged, not least
because the public conversion of the early 17th-century King
Susenyos to Catholicism resulted in a bloody civil war enveloped in
religious intolerance. Included in this tradition are the surviving
architecture of a number of religious and stately buildings of
early 17th-century Ethiopia, a period when a mission of Jesuits
from Goa, in Western India, was most active at the Ethiopian
Christian king's Court. This important heritage, known as
pre-Gondarine, is scarcely known outside of Ethiopia.
The Christian kingdom that controlled the Ethiopian high plateaux
suffered a series of very deep political, economic, military and
religious crises in the period between the late 15th century and
the expulsion of the Jesuit missionaries in 1633. The Somali and
Afari armies led by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim, called the Gragñ (or
“left-handed”) seriously threatened the very existence of the
Christian state from 1529 to 1543, when they were finally defeated
by the Abyssinians with the help of a small Portuguese
expeditionary force sent from Goa, India. Subsequently, parties of
Borana and Barentuma Oromo pastoralists began raiding deeper and
deeper into Abyssinian territory and, by the end of the 16th
century, many had settled in Gojam and Shoa and had become the main
adversaries of royal power in Abyssinia.
The Portuguese military collaboration with the Christian Ethiopians
served their own strategic interests in their regional rivalry with
the Ottoman Turks for control of the trade routes in the Red Sea
and the north-western sector of the Indian Ocean. But the
Portuguese rulers, together with the Pope in Rome and the head of
the Company of Jesus, had the additional intention of establishing
a mission in Ethiopia to encourage the population to switch from
their Orthodox faith to Catholicism – an intention that made sense
in the light of the Counter- Reformation concerns in Southern
Europe.
More than a hundred years later, in 1557, the Jesuit Father Oviedo
penetrated into Ethiopia. Father Andrés de Oviedo and his mission
first entered Ethiopia in 1557, only to find that the conversion
project was too utopian. They began visiting the royal court, where
they participated in a number of theological discussions with the
Orthodox clergy.
They were eventually persecuted and expelled to Tigray where, in
May Gwagwa, they preached and gave support to the Portuguese
community that had stayed in Ethiopia in the wake of the Gragñ
wars. As the years passed and the
Portuguese either dwindled in numbers or converted to Orthodoxy,
the mission became almost extinct.
By the end of the century, when Philip II, King of Spain, inherited
the Portuguese royal crown and the Ethiopian jurisdiction, so he
decided to revive the Jesuit mission in Ethiopia. A new priest,
Father Pedro Páez, was sent from Goa. Once in Ethiopia, he forced
his way into the royal court. Other priests joined him and together
they gradually gained the favour of the new Ethiopian King Susneyos
and, very importantly, converted his brother the Ras Sela Krestos
to Catholicism. Father Paëz, succeeded in converting the Emperor
Socinios himself.
On December 11, 1624, the Church of Abyssinia, abjuring the heresy
of Eutyches and the schism of Dioscorus, was reunited to the true
Church, a union which, unfortunately, proved to be only
temporary.
In 1632, the Negus Basilides mounted the throne. Committed as he
was to
polygamy and other practices, he rejected Catholicism and its law.
The Jesuits were handed over to the axe of the executioner, and
Abyssinia remained closed to the missionaries until 1702. In that
year, three Franciscans got as far as Gondar, the capital, where
they converted several princes. The Negus wrote with his own hand
to Clement XI, professing his submission to His Holiness. Once more
the hope proved futile. A palace revolution overthrew the Negus,
and heresy again assumed the reigns of power. From then until the
middle of the nineteenth century, a silence as of death lay on the
Church of Abyssinia.
. . . New York Alpha’s intellectual Brother Oviedo served God and
Susenyos of Ethiopia, below . . .
Susenyos (also Sissinios, as in Greek, Ge'ez ssinys; throne name
Malak Sagad III, Ge'ez, mal'ak sagad, Amh. mel'k seged, "to whom
the angel bows"; 1572 - September 7, 1632) was ngusä nägäst (1606 -
1632) of Ethiopia. His father was Abeto (Prince) Fasilides, a
grandson of Dawit II; as a result, while some authorities list him
as a member of the Solomonic dynasty, others consider him, instead
of his son, as the founder of the Gondar line of the dynasty
(ultimately a subset, however, of the Solomonic dynasty). Manoel de
Almeida, a Jesuit who lived in Ethiopia during Susenyos' reign,
described him as "tall, with the features of a man of quality,
large handsome eyes, pointed nose and an ample and well groomed
beard.
The Lion of Judah
“ . . . He was wearing a tunic of crimson velvet down to the knee,
breeches of the Moorish style, a sash or girdle of many large
pieces of fine gold, and an outer coat of damask of the same
colour, like a capelhar"
As a boy, a group of marauding Oromo captured him and his father,
holding them captive for over a year until they were rescued by the
Dejazmach Assebo. Upon his rescue, he went to live with Queen Admas
Mogasa, the mother of Sarsa Dengel and widow of Emperor
Menas.
In 1590s, Susenyos was perceived as one of potential successors, as
Emperor Sarsa Dengel's sons were very young. At the death of his
one-time ally, Emperor Za Dengel, he was proclaimed his successor,
although the fight against Emperor Yaqob continued.
Susenyos became ruler following the defeat of first Za Sellase,
then Yaqob at the Battle of Gol, located in southern Gojjam, in
1607. However, he delayed being crowned until March 18, 1608, in a
ceremony at Axum described by Joao Gabriel, the captain of the
Portuguese in Ethiopia. Because the body of Yaqob had never been
found after the Battle of Gol, for the first few years of his reign
Susenyos was troubled by revolts from a number of men claiming to
be the dead king.
Susenyos campaigned against the Agaw in the north, the encroaching
Oromo in the south, and is said in his Royal Chronicle to have made
his power felt along his western frontier from Fazogli north to
Suakin.
He was interested in Catholicism, in part due to Pedro Páez'
persuasion, but also hoping for military help from Portugal and
Spain (in union at the time of Susenyo's reign). Some decades
earlier, in 1541, Christopher da Gama (son of the legendary
Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama) had been in charge of a military
expedition to save the Ethiopian emperor Gelawdewos from the
onslaught of Ahmed Gragn, a Muslim Imam who almost destroyed the
existence of the Ethiopian state. Susenyos hoped to receive a new
contingent of well- armed European soldiers, this time against
another enemy, the Oromo who were invading from the south, and to
put down constant internal rebellion. He showed the Jesuit
missionaries his favor by a number of land grants, most importantly
those at Gorgora, located on a peninsula on the northern shore of
Lake Tana.
In 1613, Susenyos sent a mission heading for Madrid and Vatican
City, led by Fr. Antonio Fernandes. The plan was to head south, in
an attempt to reach Malindi, a port on the Indian Ocean in what is
Kenya today, hoping to break through the effective blockade that
the Ottoman conquests had created around the Ethiopian empire by
sailing all the way around the southern tip of Africa. However,
they failed to reach Malindi, due to delays caused by local
Christians hostile to the mission.
Despite several letters from Susenyos to the King of Spain (and
Portugal), Philip III, asking for military help, no Spanish or
Portuguese soldiers ever arrived. Even so, Susenyos at last
converted to Catholicism in 1622 in a public ceremony, and
separated himself from all of his wives and concubines except for
his first wife. However, the tolerant and sensitive Pedro Paez died
soon afterwards, and his replacement Alfonso Mendez, who arrived at
Massawa on January 24, 1624, proved to be haughty and less tolerant
of traditional practices. Strife and rebellions over the enforced
changes began within days of Mendez' public ceremony in 1626, where
he proclaimed the primacy of Rome and condemned local practices,
suppressing even the use of the Ethiopian calendar.
In 1630, the Viceroy of Begemder, Sarsa Krestos, proclaimed
Susenyos's son Fasilides emperor; Sarsa Krestos was promptly
captured and hanged. Two years later, Susenyos's brother Malta
Krestos revolted in Lasta, which was put down at the cost of 8,000
lives. This purposeless loss of life depressed Susenyos, and on
returning to his palace at Dankaz, he granted his subjects freedom
of worship, in effect restoring the traditional Ethiopian
Church.
In 1621, Susneyos publicly announced his adherence to the Latin
faith, a strategy to reinforce his political power and his
independence from the influential Orthodox clergy. A consequence of
the public conversion of the king was the arrival of a growing
number of Jesuit priests intent on rapidly introducing
Catholic
reforms into Ethiopia. In 1626, the Catholic Patriarch Afonso
Mendes imposed a number of changes on the ancestral religious
practices of the Ethiopians. Social unrest and civil war followed
and Susneyos was forced to resign. His son Fasiladas, who succeeded
him, rejected Catholicism upon his accession to the throne and, in
1633, expelled or killed all Jesuit missionaries. He ended his
reign by abdicating in favor of his son, Fasilides. He was buried
at the church of Genneta Iyasus.
The Emperor ran afoul of Zara Yacob, a seventeenth century
Ethiopian philosopher and religious thinker, whose treatise, in the
original Ge'ez language known as the Hatata (1667), has often been
compared to Descartes' Discours de la methode (1637). In the
period, when African philosophical literature was significantly
oral in character, Yacob's inquiry, transmitted by writing, was one
of the few exceptions.
"Behold, I have begun an inquiry such as has not been attempted
before. You can complete what I have begun so that the people of
our country will become wise with the help of God and arrive at the
science of truth, lest they believe in falsehood, trust in
depravity, go from vanity to vanity, that they know the truth and
love their brother, lest they quarrel about their empty faith as
they have been doing till now."
From The Treatise of Zara Yacob.
Zara Yacob (spelled also Zar'a Ya'aqob or Zar'a Ya'eqob) was born
into a farmer's family near Aksum, the capital of the ancient
Greek-influenced kingdom in northern Ethiopia. Yacob's name means
"The Seed of Jacob"; "Zara" is the Aramaic word for "seed." "By
Christian baptism I was named Zara Yacob, but people called me
Warqye," he wrote later in the Treatise. Although his father was
poor, he supported Yacob's education. Yacob attended the
traditional schools and became acquainted with the Psalms of David,
which deeply influence his thought. After having returned to his
native Aksum, Yacob taught there for four years.
Yacob was educated in the Coptic Christian faith, but he was also
familiar with other Christian sects, Islam, Judaism, and Indian
religion. A truth seeker, who decided to rely on his own inner
voice, Yacob was denounced before King Negus Susenoys (r.
1607-1632), who had turned to the Roman Catholic faith and ordered
his subjects to follow his own example. Attempts to change the
age-old rituals were met with resistance and tens of thousands were
martyred.
Yacob fled into exile with some gold and the Book of Psalms. On his
way to Shoa in the south he found at the foot of the Takkaze River
a cave. Yacob lived there alone for two years, praying and
developing his philosophy, which he presented in the Hatata. In
this book Yacob later said, that "I have learnt more
while living alone in a cave than when I was living with scholars.
What I wrote in this book is very little; but