Jeronimo Lobo, a Portuguese missionary, born in Lisbon about 1595, died there, Jan. 29, 1678. He entered as a novice the order of Jesuits in 1609, and in 1(521 was made a professor in the Jesuit college at Coimbra. In 1622 he was sent as a missionary to India. He remained at Goa till 1624, when he sailed for the African coast, with the intention of penetrating into Abyssinia. His first attempt failed, but in 1625 he disembarked at a port of the Red sea, entered Abyssinia, and took up his abode there as superintendent of Catholic missions. During the lifetime of the sovereign then reigning he enjoyed protection, but the next Abyssinian monarch persecuted the missionaries, who were compelled to leave the country in 1634. The exiles fell into the hands of the Turks at Massowah, and Lobo had to return to India in order to procure funds to effect their ransom. Having accomplished this object, he embarked for Portugal to submit their case to the Portuguese government, and endeavor to rouse it to undertake a crusade against Abyssinia. After undergoing shipwreck and captivity he arrived at Lisbon; but finding that he could not induce either Portugal or the other Catholic powers to assent to his views, he reembarked for India in 1640, and was subsequently rector and provincial of the Jesuits at Goa. In 1656 he sailed once more for Lisbon, and there passed the rest of his life chiefly in literary pursuits.

He published an account of Abyssinia, and of the Catholic missions there, under the title of Historia de Ethiopia (Coimbra, 1659). An English translation by Dr. Johnson, from the French, was published in London in 1735.