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The International Prester John Project: How A Global Legend Was Created Across Six Centuries

Jerónimo Lobo

Jerónimo Lobo (1595-1678) was the last of the group of Jesuits who attempted to convert the Ethiopian king and people to Catholicism in the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries. He was first sent to Goa in 1622 and arrived in Ethiopia in 1625, arriving after the death of Pero Paez.

His A Short Relation of the River Nile shows how the Portuguese had by this point disabused themselves of the association between the king of Ethiopia and the legend of Prester John.

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The Travel of the Jesuits in Ethiopia
Historia Geral de Ethiopia a Alta ou Abassia do Preste Ioam (1660)

Portuguese writer Balthazar Téllez's The Travel of the Jesuits in Ethiopia (1660) is an academic compilation of the journeys reflected in the book's title. A major source for the text was Manuel de Almeida's history of Ethiopia, which was never published in its original Portuguese. Brewer (p. 294) goes so far as to call Téllez's work "an abridgement and revision" of Almeida's that also accounts for the observations of other Portuguese travelers to Africa. Téllez also drew on the account of Jerónimo Lobo.

In the text, Téllez argues that Prester John was an Asian monarch, not an Ethiopian king, and he blames Covilhā for perpetuating the misunderstanding that Prester John was in Africa. This account and rationale influenced Hiob Ludolf's History of Ethiopia (1681) and a dozen later writers.
A Short Relation of the River Nile Portuguese Jesuit missionary Jerónimo Lobo (1595-1678) turned a correspondence with Henry Oldenberg concerning the source of the Nile River into A Short Relation on the River Nile, published in London in 1669.

The full title of the text is A Short Relation of the River Nile, of its source and current; of its overflowing the campagnia of Ægypt, till it runs into the Mediterranean and of other curiosities: written by an eye-witnesse, who lived many years in the chief kingdoms of the Abyssine Empire. Translated by Sir Peter Wyche.

Lobo's near twenty years of experience as a missionary in Ethiopia lent authority to his claim that Prester John bears no association with the Ethiopian negus. Like so many others who made this argument, Lobo's argument is primarily linguistic:
There have not been wanting some late Authors, who upon small grounds, and lesse truth, would maintain this opinion and report, proving by divers Etymologies and interpretations of the word, that the Abyssine Emperour was properly Prester John: But this affirmation being without any appearance of truth; excuseth me from shewing how little it hath; lonely say, that those who have spent some time in Ethiopia know all reported on this subject to be a meer fable; never any Prince of this Empire had that Title, neither is the word known in the whole extent of those Dominions...

Those of an higher Province, in the heart of this great Empire, (where many ages these Princes kept their Court) when according to this ancient and usual Custome, they present their Petitions, cry 'Jan Coy' (i.e.) my King: (Jan signifying King, and Coy my)...

The Abyssines speaking of their King, undouhtedly gave him the most ancient, most usual and most respectfull title of Jan: neither is it less probable, that for the greater reverence of the Royal person, they to ld them their King was a Priest; thence was he concluded Jan by title, and by office a Priest: All know that among us Sacerdote and Presbytero are the same, which the Latines called Presbyter and the French Prester; this word joyned to Jan begets Prester Jan, which with small addition is corrupted into Prester John, intending the same.
(qtd. in Brewer, pp. 245-246)