You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
In Envoys of A Human God Andreu Martínez offers a comprehensive study of the religious mission led by the Society of Jesus in Christian Ethiopia. The mission to Ethiopia was one of the most challenging undertakings carried out by the Catholic Church in early modern times. The book examines the period of early Portuguese contacts with the Ethiopian monarchy, the mission’s main developments and its aftermath, with the expulsion of the Jesuit missionaries. The study profits from both an intense reading of the historical record and the fruits of recent archaeological research. Long-held historiographical assumptions are challenged and the importance of cultural and socio-political factors in the attraction and ultimate estrangement between European Catholics and Ethiopian Christians is highlighted.
One of the earliest and most ambitious projects carried out by the Society of Jesus was the mission to the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia, which ran from 1557 to 1632. In about 1621, crucial figures in the Ethiopian Solomonid monarchy, including King Susenyos, were converted to Catholicism and up to 1632 imposing missionary churches, residences, and royal structures were built. This book studies for the first time in a comprehensive manner the missionary architecture built by the joint work of Jesuit padres, Ethiopian and Indian masons, and royal Ethiopian patrons. The work gives ample archaeological, architectonic, and historical descriptions of the ten extant sites known to date and includes hypotheses on hitherto unexplored or lesser known structures.
First full-length history of the Oromo 1300-1700; explains their key part in the medieval Christian kingdom and demonstrates their importance in shaping Ethiopian history.
For over a quarter of a century Siegbert Uhlig has been involved in Ethiopian Studies. As wide as the scope of his interests and contributions to Ethiopian Studies has been, so versatile is the thematic range of the 36 articles in this anthology. The essays in fields such as philology, history, linguistics, anthropology and arts were written by the ethiopisants from Ethiopia, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the USA. The Festschrift also includes an account of Ethiopian Studies in Hamburg, and a selected bibliography of Siegbert Uhlig's publications. An index to the contributions of the collection will be made available on the internet.List of contributors: L. Gerhardt, J. Abbink, H. Amborn, D. Appleyard, B. Zewde, B. Tafla, E. Balicka-Witakowska, A. Bausi, B. Yimam, V. Boll, S. Chernetsov, G. Fiaccadori, G. Haile, G. Gelaye, M. Heldman, O. Kapeliuk, S. Kaplan, M. Kleiner, J. Launhardt, G. Lusini, P. Marrassini, A. Martinez, S. Munro-Hay, D. Nosnitsin, R. Pankhurst, H. Rubinkowska, H. Scholler, S. Bekele, W. Smidt, E. Sokolinskaia, E.J. van Donzel, R. Voigt, E. Wagner, S. Weninger, W. Witakowski, R. Zuurmond, T. Ra
Since the sixteenth century, Ethiopian Orthodox Chris-tianity and the indigenous religions of Ethiopia have been confronted with, and influenced by, numerous Catholic and Protestant missions. This book offers historical, anthropological and personal analyses of these encounters. The discussion ranges from the Jesuit debate on circumcision to Oromo Bible translation, from Pentecostalism in Addis Ababa to conversion processes among the Nuer. Juxtaposing past and present, urban and rural, the book breaks new ground in both religious and African studies. Verena Bll and Evgenia Sokolinskaia are researchers at the department of African and Ethopian Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute, University of Hamburg. Steven Kaplan is professor of African Studies and Comparative Religion at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The Society of Jesus – the Jesuits – is the largest religious order in the Roman Catholic Church. Distinguished by their obedience and their loyalty to the Holy See, they have never, during nearly five hundred years’ history, produced a pope until now: Pope Francis is the first Jesuit Pope. Michael Walsh tells the story of the Society through the stories and exploits of its members over five hundred years, from Ignatius of Loyola to Pope Francis himself. He explores the Jesuits' commitment to humanist philosophy, which over the centuries has set it at odds with the Vatican, as well as the hostility towards the Jesuits both on the part of Protestants and also Roman Catholics - a hostili...
Through its missionary, pedagogical, and scientific accomplishments, the Society of Jesus-known as the Jesuits-became one of the first institutions with a truly "global" reach, in practice and intention. The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits offers a critical assessment of the Order, helping to chart new directions for research at a time when there is renewed interest in Jesuit studies. In particular, the Handbook examines their resilient dynamism and innovative spirit, grounded in Catholic theology and Christian spirituality, but also profoundly rooted in society and cultural institutions. It also explores Jesuit contributions to education, the arts, politics, and theology, among others. The v...
In 1588, the Spanish Jesuit Pedro de Ribadeneyra published a history of the English Reformation, which he continued to revise until his death in 1611. Spencer J. Weinreich’s translation is the first English edition of the History, one fully alive to its metamorphoses over two decades. Weinreich’s introduction explores the text’s many dimensions—propaganda for the Spanish Armada, anti-Protestant polemic, Jesuit hagiography, consolation amid tribulation—and assesses Ribadeneyra as a historian. The extensive annotations anchor Ribadeneyra’s narrative in the historical record and reconstruct his sources, methods, and revisions. The History, long derided as mere propaganda, emerges as remarkable evidence of the centrality of historiography to the intellectual, theological, and political battles of early modern Europe.
This book explores why Ethiopian kings pursued long-distance diplomatic contacts with Latin Europe in the late Middle Ages. It traces the history of more than a dozen embassies dispatched to the Latin West by the kings of Solomonic Ethiopia, a powerful Christian kingdom in the medieval Horn of Africa. Drawing on sources from Europe, Ethiopia, and Egypt, it examines the Ethiopian kings’ motivations for sending out their missions in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries – and argues that a desire to acquire religious treasures and foreign artisans drove this early intercontinental diplomacy. Moreover, the Ethiopian initiation of contacts with the distant Christian sphere of Latin Eur...
This book presents an early modern Jesuit attitude towards Hindu and Ethiopian strains of asceticism. The Jesuits’ descriptions of both the yogis and the Ethiopian renunciates were marked by ambivalence. While critical of these ascetics, the missionaries also pointed out admirable facets of their comportment. In both the Society of Jesus’ positive and negative impressions, there are glaring ethnocentric views that shift the spotlight onto the other’s flaws. Like many historical cases, these perceptions evolved into a sort of inverted mirror image of the self that revealed differences between the European Catholic and the native renunciate.