ABSTRACT
Although the main thing that Friar Luis de Urreta intends in his Historia Ethiopica is to show that the emperors of Ethiopia and their vassals are not and never have been schismatic <Christians>, but instead are very obedient to the holy Roman Church, and to confirm it he sometimes reports that they always did Father Patriarch Dom Andre de Oviedo many honours and held him in great veneration, one could argue against it that, if it had been so, Pope Pius V would not have commanded the father patriarch in the brief that we mentioned above to leave Ethiopia and to go and preach in China and Japan, since (according to the information that he had) his doctrine was so badly received in Ethiopia and his work so fruitless on account of the Ethiopians’ obstinacy in wanting to preserve their old errors. He responds to this objection in book 3, pages 613 and 614, as follows:
