Three Books on Abyssinian Affairs and on the Ethiopian Patriarchs João Nunes Barreto and Andrés de Oviedo

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Original title: De Abassinorum rebus, deque Aethiopiae patriarchis Ioanne Nonio Barreto et Andrea Oviedo, libri tres A three-book Neo-Latin treatise of ecclesiastical history and controversial theology by the Portuguese Jesuit Nicolau Godinho, printed at Lyon at the expense of the bookseller Horace Cardon and dedicated to Fernão Martins de Mascarenhas. Framed as an apologetic rather than a strictly historical work, it answers an unnamed 'new author' (conventionally identified as the Dominican Luis de Urreta) who claimed that the Abyssinians had never been separated from the Roman church. Book I refutes the adversary's account of Ethiopia — its supposed capital Zambra (mocked as 'Nusquamia', Nowhere-land), its twice-born emperor, Dominican inquisitors, Latin senate, Antonine knights and library on Mount Amara — and argues that Ethiopia has stood in schism since Dioscorus, condemned at Chalcedon, brought his Christology south; it catalogues some forty Ethiopian doctrinal errors drawn from António Fernandes together with persisting Mosaic observances (circumcision, sabbath, purity rules) and describes the Ethiopian church's dependence on an Abuna sent by the patriarch of Alexandria. Books II and III supply documentary biographies of the first two Jesuit patriarchs of Ethiopia, João Nunes Barreto (his refusal of the office, years of waiting at Goa, death there in 1562) and Andrés de Oviedo (Louvain formation, consecration for Hierapolis, journey to Ethiopia, imperial refusals of Roman obedience, the Ottoman seizure of Massawa and Arkiko, a papal precept ordering him to Japan and China, his years at Fremona and death in 1577). Throughout, the author states a rule of evidence admitting only sworn witnesses or the letters and narratives of men whom it would be sinful to disbelieve, and incorporates papal briefs, Jesuit correspondence from Goa and Fremona, depositions from an inquiry commissioned by Archbishop Aleixo de Menezes, and a Portuguese letter of Barreto rendered into Latin. 👉 Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here 📜 View the original source file This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.

• Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here
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