https://www.christiancentury.org/
Martin Luther's fascination with
Ethiopian Christianity
https://www.christiancentury.org/blogpost/guest-post/martin-luthersfascination-ethiopian-christianity
Luther's reforms weren't based solely on the early church.
by David D. Daniels
October 31, 2017
(RNS) — This year marks the
500th anniversary of the launching
of the Protestant Reformation in
Germany. Commemorations will
be held from Memphis to
Mombasa to Mumbai to Munich.
Yet, most events and books on the
Reformation explore it without
any reference to African
Christians.
Baptism of Jesus, church in Axum, Ethiopia.
Some rights reserved by Adam Jones, Ph.D. - Global Photo Archive.
This silence is profound, and I would like to break it by offering possible Ethiopian connections
to Martin Luther and the Protestant movement.
Luther launched the Protestant Reformation in 1517, but he had begun that year fascinated
with Ethiopian Christianity.
That will come as a surprise to many of today’s Christians, even scholars, who are accustomed
to discussing Luther and the Protestant Reformation as solely European subjects.
But Luther esteemed the Church of Ethiopia because he thought Ethiopia was the first nation
in history to convert to Christianity.
Located far beyond the orbit of the Roman Catholic Church, this first Christian kingdom,
according to Luther, served as an older, wiser, black sibling to the white Christian kingdoms
of Europe.
In a sense, the Church of Ethiopia was the “dream” for Luther, a true forerunner of
Protestantism.
David D. Daniels
David D. Daniels is professor of world christianity at McCormick Theological Seminary in
Chicago, and a bishop in the Church of God in Christ.
See All Articles
As an ancient church with direct ties to the Apostles, the Ethiopian Church conferred
legitimacy on Luther’s emerging Protestant vision of a church outside the authority of the
Roman Catholic papacy.
As a forerunner of the Protestant Reformation, the Church of Ethiopia embodied the gospel
message more robustly and faithfully.
Ethiopian Christians practiced elements of the faith absent in Roman Catholicism, elements
Protestants would later adopt: both bread and wine at Communion, vernacular Scriptures and
married clergy.
Absent from Ethiopian Christianity were practices Protestants would dismiss: the primacy of
the Roman pope, indulgences, purgatory, and marriage as a sacrament.
Luther’s theological fascination with the Ethiopian Church was illuminated in 1534 in his face to-face dialogue with an Ethiopian cleric, Michael the Deacon, in which Luther tested out his
theological portrait of the Ethiopian Church.
Recalling the dialogue with Michael the Deacon, Luther later stated: “We have also learned
from him, that the rite which we observe in the use of administration of the Lord’s Supper and
the Mass, agrees with the Eastern Church. … For this reason we ask that good people would
demonstrate Christian love also to this (Ethiopian) visitor.”
For his part, after having Luther’s Articles of the Christian Faith interpreted to him, Deacon
Michael proclaimed: “This is a good creed, that is, faith.”
Luther extended full fellowship to Deacon Michael and the Ethiopian Church, an invitation
Luther withheld from the Bohemian Brethren (the Hussites) and Reformed Churches connected
to Ulrich Zwingli.
From his dialogue with Michael the Deacon, Luther must have been thrilled to learn that what
he had rediscovered in his reading of the Scriptures was already present in the Ethiopian
Church.
His reforms were based on more than the early church of his imagination. For Luther, the
Church of Ethiopia was the historical proof that his reform of the church in Europe had a clear
historical and biblical basis.
The revelation that Ethiopian Christianity possibly had links to Protestant Reformation is a
game-changer for what is generally thought to be an exclusively European phenomenon.
The admission that this cross-cultural global exchange between Africa and Europe shaped
early Protestantism disrupts the narrative that the Reformation was solely the product of
Western civilization.
By recognizing the contribution of Ethiopian Christianity to the Protestant Refo rmation, we
can join Luther in acknowledging Ethiopian Christianity as a forerunner of the Protestant
Reformation.
SEARCH
Search
Divinity School
Martin Luther and Ethiopian Christianity:
Historical Traces
https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/articles/martin-luther-and-ethiopian-christianityhistorical-traces
How might Ethiopian Christianity have influenced the Protestant Reformation? Did Martin
Luther make connections between his reforms and the Orthodox Church in Ethiopia, and could
Ethiopian Christianity, as understood by Luther, be considered a “forerunner” of the
Reformation? These are intriguing questions to ponder this week as we commemorate the
Reformation’s 500th anniversary. If scholars answer these questions in the affirmative, then the
standard narrative of the Reformation as a solely European event will need to be revised
By David D. Daniels NOVEMBER 2, 2017
facebook_share facebook_msg linkedin twitter pinterest google_plusemail
How might Ethiopian
Christianity have influenced the Protestant Reformation? Did Martin Luther make connections
between his reforms and the Orthodox Church in Ethiopia, and could Ethiopian Christianity, as
understood by Luther, be considered a “forerunner” of the Reformation? These are intriguing
questions to ponder this week as we commemorate the Reformation’s 500th anniversary.
If scholars answer these questions in the affirmative, then the standard narrative of the
Reformation as a solely European event will need to be revised. Narratives more open to global
exchanges will need to be crafted. Historians can glean insights into such an alternative narrative
from a small cadre of researchers. The renowned German scholar Martin Brecht, George Posfay,
Tom G. A. Hardt, Mark Ellingsen, and Martin Wittenberg have all acknowledged the presence of
Ethiopian Christianity in Luther’s thought, even if in a limited manner.
European interest in Ethiopian Christianity already existed in Luther’s era. Before and after
1517, Erasmus, Thomas More, Pope Clement VII, and others mentioned the Church in Ethiopia.
Ethiopian expatriate communities existed in Rome, Venice, Cyprus, and Jerusalem. Luther
himself mentions Ethiopia at least 85 times. Among these are references to ancient places and
issues, while at least 15 refer to the then-contemporary empire of Christian Ethiopia. From these
scattered comments, an historical arc and outline of Luther’s understanding of Ethiopian
Christianity can be reconstructed.
A few selected quotes offer a sample of Luther’s perspective on Ethiopian Christians:
“… most of the time when mention is made of the nations that are to be converted to Christ, the
Ethiopians are singled out for mention.” (LW 10:349)
“For the Ethiopians denote those who have the ardent faith.” (LW 10:412)
“… the people of the Ethiopians are said to be the church of the Gentiles …” (LW 10:44)
“And thus Ethiopia denotes the church of the Gentiles …” (LW 10:349)
“But the church is symbolized and called by the name ‘Ethiopia’ …” (LW 10:350)
While these statements all have theological implications, it is Luther’s narrative of Ethiopia and
his purposes in invoking Ethiopia that should most attract the attention of researchers. For Luther
to say that the Christian Church “is symbolized and called by the name ‘Ethiopia’” apparently
reflects his belief that the first gentile to convert to Christianity was the Ethiopian profiled in
Acts 8 whom tradition, advanced by Eusebius and others, credited with converting the Ethiopian
kingdom to Christ, making Ethiopia the first Christian kingdom in history. Though Luther can be
excused, of course, for not knowing modern historians’ dating of the emergence of Christianity
in Ethiopia to the fourth century, scholars should explore how Luther’s historical narrative of
Ethiopia, and the image of Ethiopia as the Church, informed his ecclesiology.
As these few quotes indicate, Luther held the Ethiopian Church in great esteem. Uncorrupted by
the Roman papacy, Ethiopian Christianity, according to Luther, possessed apostolic practices
which were absent in Roman Catholicism and which Protestants would “adopt” through their
own reading of Scripture: communion in both kinds, vernacular Scripture, and married clergy.
Absent, meanwhile, within the Church in Ethiopia were European practices then under critique
by various Protestant reformers: the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, indulgences, purgatory, and
marriage as a sacrament.
By 1534 Luther, well established in Wittenberg, had engaged in dialogue with other Protestant
reformers and Roman Catholic leaders. In that year Luther welcomed a new voice into his
ecumenical dialogue: Michael the Deacon, an Ethiopian cleric. Recalling his dialogue with
Michael, Luther stated: “We have also learned from him, that the rite which we observe in the
use of administration of the Lord’s Supper and the Mass, agrees with the Eastern Church.”
Luther expressed his approval of the Church of Ethiopia along with his embrace of
Deacon Michael in a letter dated July 4, 1534: “For this reason we ask that good people would
demonstrate Christian love also to this [Ethiopian] visitor.” According to Luther, Michael
responded positively to his articles of the Christian faith, proclaiming: “This is a good creed, that
is, faith” (see Martin Luther, Table-Talk, November 17, 1538 [WA, TR 4:152-153, no. 4126]).
George Posfay concludes: “Both Luther and Melanchthon were anxious to talk to this man
[Deacon Michael] to get information about the doctrines which were held as Christian truths in
his home Church.” Luther, as Tom Hardt notes, extended full communion to Deacon Michael
and the Ethiopian Church, an invitation that Luther notably withheld from the Bohemian
Brethren (Hussites) and Reformed Churches connected to Huldrych Zwingli. Luther
acknowledged theological “equivalency” with Ethiopian Christianity, and in his 1534 dialogue
with Michael, Luther finally had the opportunity to find out whether his attractive theological
portrait of Ethiopian Christianity was historically credible.
For Luther, the Church of Ethiopia had more fidelity to the Christian tradition, and the practices
mentioned above were marks of this fidelity. Thus, the Church in Europe needed to be reformed
in the direction of the Church of Ethiopia. Possibly for Luther the Church of Ethiopia was proof
that his reform of the Church in Europe had both a biblical and a historical basis.
What seems clear is that Ethiopian Christianity played an important role within Luther’s
writings. I also believe that the dialogue between Luther and Michael the Deacon is historically
significant. In historical terms, it might be on par with the colloquy between Luther and Zwingli.
This ecumenical dialogue between Christian Africa and Europe challenges narratives that cast
the Reformation as totally the product of “western” civilization. It also counters other narratives
that place Europeans in Africa during this era, without studying African Christians in sixteenthcentury Europe.
From this discussion, it appears that Luther did make connections between his Protestant reforms
and the Orthodox Church in Ethiopia. For scholars widening their views on Luther’s horizon,
they can experiment with narratives that incorporate Luther’s Ethiopia into the story of the
Reformation, with Ethiopian Christianity as its forerunner.
Resources
- Brecht, Martin. Martin Luther, Volume 3: The Preservation of the Church, 15321546 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993): 59.
- Daniels, David D. “Will African Christians Become A Subject in Reformation Studies?”
In Subject to None, Servant of All: Essays in Christian Scholarship in Honor of Kurt Karl
Hendel, ed. Peter Vethanayagamony and Kenneth Sawyer (Minneapolis: Lutheran University
Press, 2016).
- Ellingsen, Mark. Reclaiming Our Roots: An Inclusive Introduction to Church History, Volume
2: From Martin Luther to Martin Luther King, Jr. (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International,
1999): 46, 110.
- Hardt, Tom G. A. “The Confessional Principle: Church Fellowship in the Ancient and in the
Lutheran Church,” Logia: A Journal of Lutheran Theology, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1999): 27.
- Luther, Martin. D. Martin Luthers Werke (WA) [121 volumes] (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau,
1883-2009).
- —. Luther’s Works (LW) [55 volumes] (Fortress Press and Concordia Publishing House, 19571986).
- Posfay, George. “The Whole Christian Church on Earth—Luther’s Conception of the
Universality of the Church,” Lutheran Theological Seminary (Gettysburg) Bulletin, Vol. 72
(1992): 20-43.
- Salvadore, Matteo. The African Prester John and the Birth of Ethiopian-European Relations,
1402-1555 (New York: Routledge, 2017).
- Webber, David Jay. “‘A Person’s Informal Confession of Faith Must Also Be Considered’:
Reflections on the Use of Pastoral Discretion in the Administration of Holy Communion, with
Special Reference to the Practice of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod.” Redeemer Lutheran
Church. Accessed October 30, 2017.
- —. “Quotable Quotes (on the Scriptures, Confessions, and the Lutheran Church).” Redeemer
Lutheran Church. Accessed October 30, 2017.
- Wittenberg, Martin. “Church Fellowship and the Altar Fellowship in the Light of Church
History,” trans. John Bruss, Logia: A Journal of Lutheran Theology, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1961; reprint
ed., 1992): 32.
Image: Ethiopian Orthodox Church | Photo Credit: Rod Waddington/Flickr (cc)
Author, David D. Daniels III, is Henry Winters Luce Professor of World Christianity at
McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.
SIGHTINGS is edited by Brett Colasacco (AB’07, MDiv’10), a PhD candidate in Religion,
Literature, and Visual Culture at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Sign up here to
receive SIGHTINGS via email. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
David D. Daniels