The Garima Gospels are three ancient Ethiopic manuscripts containing all four canonical Gospel Books, as well as some supplementary material like lists of Gospel chapters.[1] Garima 2, the earliest, is believed to be the earliest surviving complete illuminated Christian manuscript.[2][3] Monastic tradition holds that the first two were composed close to the year 500,[2] a date supported by recent radiocarbon analysis; samples from Garima 2 proposed a date of c. 390–570, while counterpart dating of samples from Garima 1 proposed a date of c. 530–660.[4] The third manuscript is thought to date to a later period. The artwork in the manuscripts of the Garima Gospels also demonstrates their affinity to Christian artwork in late antique Coptic Egypt, Nubia, and Himyar (Yemen).[5]
Together, the manuscripts provide the major witness to the Ethiopic version of the Gospels and have been applied as proof texts for the creation of critical editions of the Ethiopic Gospels by Rochus Zuurmond (Gospel of Mark, 1989; Gospel of Matthew, 2001) and Michael G. Wechsler (Gospel of John, 2005). As such, they represent amongst the earliest versional witnesses to the early Byzantine text-type of the Gospels, and are the oldest surviving Ethiopian manuscripts of any kind known to modern scholars. Western scholarship had previously believed both gospels to date from c. 1100 or later on the basis of palaeographic analysis.[4][a]
The Gospels are housed in Ethiopia's Abba Garima Monastery. They are not known ever to have left the monastery;[3] although, as the surrounding area was occupied by Muslims from the ninth to the fourteenth centuries, it is possible that they may have remained hidden in a cave for centuries, and then rediscovered.[6] The Gospels were included in the catalog of an American museum exhibition that toured from 1993 to 1996, African Zion: the Sacred Art of Ethiopia, but were never actually lent to the exhibition.[3]
Tradition
Monastic tradition ascribes the gospel books to Saint Abba Garima, said to have arrived in Ethiopia in 494.[3] Abba Garima is one of the Nine Saints traditionally said to have come from Rome, and to have Christianized the rural populations of the ancient Ethiopian kingdom of Axum in the sixth century; and the monks regard the Gospels less as significant antiquities than as sacred relics of Abba Garima.[3] According to tradition, Abba Garima wrote and illustrated the complete Gospels in a single day: God stopped the sun from setting until the Saint completed his work.[2] Definitive radiocarbon tests have indeed supported the dating of Abba Garima 2, the earlier of the two books, to the sixth century,[4] but otherwise recent research tends to contra-indicate many aspects of the traditional account, proposing instead that the text-base for the Garima gospels is Greek, not Syriac, that the iconography and palaeography look to Egyptian not Syrian sources, and that the gospel translation witnessed in the Garima gospels had been completed over a century before the traditional dates for the Nine Saints. Furthermore, the supposed Syrian origin of the Nine Saints is no longer maintained in most recent scholarship.[7]
Manuscripts
Two pages with illuminated Eusebian Canons from Garima 1, likely the later of the two Garima Gospels
There are two manuscripts, Garima 1 and Garima 2, of which Garima 2 is likely to be the earlier. In older reference works, Garima 1 is designated Garima I, while Garima 2 is designated Garima III. Before recent restoration, a third, probably 14th century, gospel book had been bound with Garima 2, and this later gospel was then denoted Garima II.[8] Recent restoration has separated the three books, and repaginated in the original order and volumes; relocating a number of folios and miniatures which over the centuries had been displaced between the three manuscripts.[9]
Garima 1 has 348 surviving pages, opening with eleven illuminated canon tables in arcades, followed by the Gospel texts in Ge'ez; the Ethiopic language of the Kingdom of Axum from the 4th to the 7th centuries, which became and remains the religious language of the Ethiopian Church. Garima 2, also in Ge'ez, is a 322-page folio written by a different scribe. It has seventeen illuminated pages, including four fine Evangelist portraits preceding their respective gospels, and a separate portrait of Eusebius of Caesarea preceding his canon tables.[6] The portraits of Matthew, Luke and John are all presented frontally and scarcely differentiated; but that of Mark presents him in profile on the episcopal throne of Alexandria. A further illuminated page depicts the Temple of Solomon, or perhaps the Fountain of Life, with a staircase of unusual form unique in Christian iconography.[3][10]
The miniatures are in a broadly Byzantine style, and are stylistically consistent with a sixth-century date. While the text was certainly written in Ethiopia, some scholars such as Marilyn Heldman, had maintained that the illuminated pages might have been imported ready-made from ancient Syria or Egypt; whereas Jacques Mercier now argues that both text and illuminations were produced within Ethiopia.[4]
The texts of the two manuscripts differ such that Garima 1 does not appear to descend directly from Garima 2, implying that the common translation from which they derive is likely to be substantially earlier still; and that consequently the Ethiopian Gospel translation may be older than previously believed.[10]
Neither manuscript has a colophon. However, in Garima II (the 14th century gospel book formerly bound with Garima 2) there is a historical note on two intruded leaves at the end of the Gospel of Luke, referring to the repair of churches undertaken by a King Armeho. Armeho may be identified with the King Armah of Axum, who issued coins between 600 and 640.[8] Getatchew Haile, in translating the notes of the manuscripts, leaves open the possibility that this note may be attributed to the period of the king's reign.[4]
The two front covers are also very old; that of Garima 1 possibly contemporary with the manuscript, which would probably make it the oldest book cover still attached to its book in the world (the 7th century St Cuthbert Gospel is the oldest European one). It is in gilt-copper with a wooden backing boards and its decoration centres on a large cross. Holes that may have been settings for gems are now empty. The cover for Garima 2 is silver and from the 10th to 12th centuries.[3]
A 19th-century church for female pilgrims at the edge of the monastery is being renovated to house the precious manuscripts. It has small windows, which will help prevent fading. Steel bars are being inserted and the building will be protected by armed guards.[3]
Expert opinion
The Garima Gospels first became known outside Ethiopia in 1950, when Beatrice Playne, a British art historian visited the monastery. Since women are not allowed inside the monastery, the monks courteously carried several manuscripts outside for her to view. She wrote that, "there were several illuminated manuscripts whose ornamental headings struck me as Syrian in style."[11] In the 1960s Frenchman Jules Leroy examined the manuscripts and proposed that they dated from c. 1100.[3] Until recently, few other outside scholars had seen the manuscripts.[3]
The two Garima Gospels became known to biblical scholars through microfilm photographs collected by Donald M Davies who realised that they represented a much earlier text than that of any other surviving Ethiopian manuscript. He dated all three Garima gospel books (including Garima III then bound with Garima 2) to the 8th-10th centuries.[8] Following Davies, and using his photographs, the Garima Gospels formed the base text used by Rochus Zuurmond in his preparation of a critical text for the Ethiopic Gospels; choosing Garima 1 as his primary proof text. Garima 1 and Garima 2 form together Zuurmond's class 'Aa' text or Versio Antiqua, which he states as being "a type which might be more or less the original", in that no later Ethiopic manuscript could be envisaged as conveying substantial information about the original translation except in those passages where neither Garima text survives or is readable. Zuurmond dated all three Garima gospel books later than Davies had done "In my opinion they cannot be safely dated later than the 13th century, but are probably one or two centuries earlier". In categorising the text witnessed in Garima 1 and Garima 2, Zuurmond states that it has the characteristics of a "free translation" retaining idiomatic Ge'ez syntax and grammar; while often betraying a limited expertise in Greek grammar, vocabulary and orthography. Later Ethiopic manuscripts (and following them, all previous printed Ethiopic editions) commonly descend from an extensive revision undertaken in the 13th century, by which the Gospel texts were corrected to convey more literal and accurate renderings of Greek word order and terminology, and also to conform more closely to Egyptian Arabic versions. Stripping away these later changes, Zuurmond classifies the Garima texts as "early Byzantine"; while emphasising that, especially in the Gospel of John, its readings often appear to witness a version of the Byzantine Text that differs from the later Majority Text; "In about half my sample cases [in John] Eth goes against the Ethiopic equivalent of the Greek Majority Text".[12]
Jacques Mercier a French expert in Ethiopian art, examined the manuscripts at the monastery; and, because the manuscripts were deteriorating to the point where they crumbled every time they were examined, he was permitted in 2000 to take two small detached fragments of parchment to the Oxford University Research Laboratory for Archaeology. One sample from an evangelist page in Garima 2 was dated to 330–540; and the other, from a different canon table page but not definitely a different manuscript, to 430–650.[13] Based on stylistic aspects of the work, Mercier then estimated that the two gospels dated from c. 600.[13] This accords with the date proposed by Marilyn Heldman in the catalog to the 1993 Exhibition African Zion: the Sacred Art of Ethiopia. Marilyn Heldman had previously contributed notes on the illuminated pages of Garima 1 and Garima 2 to Donald Davies's study of dating Ethiopic manuscripts, in which she had argued that the correct depiction of classical architectural forms in the Garima canon tables precluded a date later than the sixth century; while the nearest parallels to the evangelist portraits (especially the forms of furniture depicted in the portrait of Mark) were also of that century.[8]
Mercier's proposal of a much earlier date for the Garima Gospels was taken into account in the revision of Zuurmond's work undertaken by Curt Niccum in 2013. Niccum accepts Mercier's carbon-dating of the Garima Gospels to the sixth century, noting that this is consistent with the observation by Michael Knibb that the text of surviving 'Kaleb' Ge'ez Gospel inscriptions dating from around 525 conform with the form of text in the Garima Gospels, rather than with that found in later Ethiopic manuscripts and editions.[14] He concludes that "more and more evidence points to a considerably earlier period of translation"; arguing that most of the work of translating the New Testament into Ge'ez must have been completed in Axum before the end of the fourth century. In particular. Niccum noted the recent identification in surviving manuscripts of an 'Aksumite Collection' of church canons and patristic extracts, whose translation into Ge'ez can be confidently dated to the fifth century; and which presupposes the Gospels in a Ge'ez version.[7]
In November 2013, a two-day conference was held at the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies at Oxford, sponsored by the Ethiopian Heritage Fund, with the title "Ethiopia and the Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity: The Garima Gospels in Context".[4] During restoration work further sample fragments had been collected under controlled conditions from text and illustrated pages of both manuscripts; as a result, Jacques Mercier was able to report definitive radio-carbon datings of the two Garima Gospels; 390 to 570 for Garima 2, and 530 to 660 for Garima 1.[6] These dating ranges would suggest that the Garima 2 manuscript is highly likely to be earlier than the Syriac illustrated Rabbula Gospels now in the collection of the Laurentian Library in Florence, Italy and explicitly dated to 586.[4] Mercier proposed the Cotton Genesis, Vienna Genesis and Rossano Gospels as comparable (though undated) illuminated manuscripts.[6] Otherwise papers presented at the conference included the first full published translation by Getatchew Haile of the various historical notes found in the two gospel books; together with various iconographic and palaeographic studies, including a paper from Jacques Mercier arguing that the common grid of scored lines underlying both illustrations and text demonstrates that both were executed in Ethiopia, and that consequently a school of painting and a workshop for the production of manuscripts must have been active in the Kingdom of Axum in Late Antiquity.[6] Alessandro Bausi presented a paper comparing the Ge'ez language and palaeography of the Garima gospels with those found in a recently identified manuscript witness to the 'Aksumite Collection' or 'Synod of Qefrya'; an edited compendium of selected Greek synodical texts, which is believed to have been translated into Ge'ez in the later fifth century.[4]
Translations
In 2016, a translation of most of the donation notes in the manuscripts was published.[15]
The Discourse on the Harmony of the Gospels by Pseudo-Ammonius of Alexandria, preserved in both manuscripts Abba Garima B and in Abba Garima C was translated by Francis Watson in appendix 2 of the 2016 book The Garima Gospels.[16]
Another text contained in these manuscripts, the Letter to Carpentius by Eusebius was translated in the same volume.[17]
A few improvements in the translations of the aforementioned texts was suggested by Sergey Kim in 2022.[1]
Geʽez is an ancient South Semitic language. The language originates from what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea.
The Book of Jubilees is an ancient Jewish apocryphal text of 50 chapters, considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, as well as by Beta Israel. Jubilees is considered one of the pseudepigrapha by the Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches. Apart from the Beta Israel community, the book is not considered canonical within any of the denominations of Judaism.
Frumentius was a Phoenician Christian missionary and the first bishop of Axum who brought Christianity to the Kingdom of Aksum. He is sometimes known by other names, such as Abuna and Aba Salama.
The Kebra Nagast, var. Kebra Negast, or The Glory of the Kings, is a 14th-century national epic of Ethiopia, written in Geʽez by the nebure id Ishaq of Aksum. In its existing form, the text is at least 700 years old and purports to trace the origins of the Solomonic dynasty, a line of Ethiopian Orthodox Christian monarchs who ruled the country until 1974, to the biblical king, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Modern scholarship considers it not to have any historical basis and that its stories were created to legitimize the dynasty's seizure of power in Ethiopia in the 13th century. Nevertheless, many Ethiopian Christians continue to believe it is a historically reliable work.
The Nine Saints were a group of missionaries who were important in the initial growth of Christianity in what is now Ethiopia during the late 5th century. The names of the Nine Saints are:
Abba Aftse
Abba Alef
Abba Aragawi
Abba Garima
Abba Guba
Abba Liqanos
Abba Pantelewon
Abba Tsahma
Abba Yem'ata
The Zagwe dynasty was a medieval Agaw monarchy that ruled the northern parts of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Agaw are a Cushitic ethnic group native to the northern highlands of Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea. It ruled large parts of the territory from approximately 1137 to 1270 AD, when the last Zagwe King Za-Ilmaknun was killed in battle by the forces of the Amhara King Yekuno Amlak. The Zagwe are most famous for their king Gebre Meskel Lalibela, who is credited with having ordered the construction of the rock-hewn monolithic churches of Lalibela.
The Epistle of the Apostles is a work of New Testament apocrypha. Despite its name, it is more a gospel or an apocalypse than an epistle. The work takes the form of an open letter purportedly from the remaining eleven apostles describing key events of the life of Jesus, followed by a dialogue between the resurrected Jesus and the apostles where Jesus reveals apocalyptic secrets of reality and the future. It is 51 chapters long. The epistle was likely written in the 2nd century CE in Koine Greek, but was lost for many centuries. A partial Coptic language manuscript was discovered in 1895, a more complete Ethiopic language manuscript was published in 1913, and a full Coptic-Ethiopic-German edition was published in 1919.
The Ascension of Isaiah is a pseudepigraphical Judeo-Christian text. Scholarly estimates regarding the date of the Ascension of Isaiah range from 70 AD to 175 AD. Many scholars believe it to be a compilation of several texts completed by an unknown Christian scribe who claimed to be the Prophet Isaiah, while an increasing number of scholars in recent years have argued that the work is a unity by a single author that may have utilized multiple sources.
Geʽez is a script used as an abugida (alphasyllabary) for several Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea. It originated as an abjad and was first used to write the Geʽez language, now the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Eritrean Catholic Church, the Ethiopian Catholic Church, and Haymanot Judaism of the Beta Israel Jewish community in Ethiopia. In the languages Amharic and Tigrinya, the script is often called fidäl (ፊደል), meaning "script" or "letter". Under the Unicode Standard and ISO 15924, it is defined as Ethiopic text.
The Book of Axum is the name accepted since the time of James Bruce in the latter part of the 18th century CE for a collection of documents from Saint Mary's Cathedral of Axum providing information on History of Ethiopia. The earliest parts of the collection date to the mid-15th century during the reign of Zar'a Ya`qob.
Abuna Aregawi was a sixth-century Syrian monk and canonized by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, as well as by the Ethiopian Catholic Church, as well as the Eritrean Orthodox Church. He is one of the Nine Saints, who came from the Roman Empire to Ethiopia, and are credited for founding many monasteries and churches and was the main force behind installing monasticism in Ethiopia.
Abba Garima Monastery is an Ethiopian Orthodox church, located around five kilometres east of Adwa, in the Mehakelegnaw Zone of the northern Tigray Region in Ethiopia. It was established in the sixth century by one of the Nine Saints, Abba Garima, and built by King Gabra Masqal. The monastery became known for its early manuscript copy of the gospels and its treasury.
Getatchew Haile was an Ethiopian-American philologist widely considered the foremost scholar of the Ge'ez language and one of its most prolific. He was acknowledged for his contributions to the field with a MacArthur Fellows Program "genius" award and the Edward Ullendorff Medal from the Council of the British Academy. He was the first Ethiopian and the first African to win the award.
Ethiopian art is the manifestation in art of the Ethiopian civilization. Primarily African Christian civilization, Ethiopian art traditions have developed for millennia along side Christian Art the world over, and since the 7th century, the Islamic artistic traditions as well. The main artistic expressions have been architecture, painting, goldsmithing, and manuscript illuminations. There is also a range of traditions in textiles, many with woven geometric decoration, along side many more plain styles.
Ethiopian literature dates from Ancient Ethiopian literature up until modern Ethiopian literature. Ancient Ethiopian literature starts with Axumite texts written in the Geʽez language using the Geʽez script, indigenous to both Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Ethiopian manuscript collections are found in many parts of the world, the monasteries and modern institutions in Ethiopia maintaining extensive collections with some monasteries still centres of manuscript production.
Giyorgis of Segla, also known as Giyorgis of Gasicha or Abba Giyorgis, was an Ethiopian Oriental Orthodox monk, saint, and author of religious books.
Judith Sheila McKenzie was an Australian archaeologist whose work primarily focused on the architecture of the ancient Middle East. At the time of her death, McKenzie was Associate Professor of Late Antique Egypt and the Holy Land at the University of Oxford and Director of the Manar al-Athar project, an open-access image archive of the Middle East. McKenzie was known in particular for her work on the architecture of Petra and Alexandria, having published lengthy monographs on each.
Bible translations into Geʽez, an ancient South Semitic language of the Ethiopian branch, date back to the 6th century at least, making them one of the world's oldest Bible translations.
Early translations of the New Testament – translations of the New Testament created in the 1st millennium. Among them, the ancient translations are highly regarded. They play a crucial role in modern criticism of New Testament's text. These translations reached the hands of scholars in copies and also underwent changes, but the subsequent history of their text was independent of the Greek text-type and are therefore helpful in reconstructing it. Three of them – Syriac, Latin, Coptic – date from the late 2nd century and are older than the surviving full Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. They were written before the first revisions of the Greek New Testament and are therefore the most highly regarded. They are obligatorily cited in all critical editions of the Greek text-type. Translations produced after 300 are already dependent on the reviews, but are nevertheless important and are generally cited in the critical apparatus. The Gothic and Slavic translations are rarely cited in critical editions. Omitted are those of the translations of the first millennium that were not translated directly from the Greek original, but based on another translation.
1 2 Rochus Zuurmond and Curt Niccum, "The Ethiopic Version of the New Testament", in "The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research" 2nd edn, Bart D Ehrman and Michael W Holmes eds, Brill, 2013, pp 231-252
1 2 Jacques Mercier,Archived 2013-06-19 at the Wayback Machine , Flyer for the Oxford Conference, Ethiopian Heritage Fund, November 2013.
↑ Beatrice Playne, St. George for Ethiopia (London: Constable, 1954), p. 103. In a footnote, Playne adds that the ornamental headings "closely resembled the canonical headings in the Gospels of Rabula (Laurentian Library, Florence)."
↑ Rochus Zuurmond, "The Ethiopic Version of the New Testament", in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research, Bart D Ehrman and Michael W Holmes eds (Eerdmans, 1995), pp.142-156
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