WEMMERS, JAKOBUS. - Carmelite, missionary, and bishop, born in Antwerp on 21 October 1598, died in Naples on 21 August 1645. In 1617, he professed among the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance.
Having earned a degree in theology, he went to Rome, where he established contact with the priests of the Abyssinian hospice of St Stephen, systematically studying the Ethiopian language. In 1638, his major work, *Lexicon Aethiopicum* (4°, 319 pp.), was published by the press of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, followed by a grammar of the same language with an index of Latin cross-references to the dictionary (100 pp.), the first scientific study of the Ethiopian language, still considered a masterpiece. For the reputation he had gained through these studies, in 1640 the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith appointed him prefect of the Ethiopian mission, where he worked with great success, thanks to his linguistic expertise as well as his apostolic zeal. Returning to Rome in 1645, he was elected Bishop of Memphis (Cairo) and Apostolic Vicar for the Ethiopian mission.
Consecrated on 5 June 1645 in Rome, he set out for his field of work, but in Naples, while awaiting departure, he was struck by death.