Introduction

The translation of the Masaheft Qeddusat or Qeddusat Masaheft (holy scriptures) into the Ge’ez language – generally classified as a member of the southern branch of the family of ancient Semitic languages – was completed in early Christian times around the middle of the fourth century ce. The Ge’ez canon includes the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament), late Second Temple (c. 538 bce–70 ce) Jewish literature (known as Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha) and the Christian New Testament. The Ge’ez language, known among western scholars as Ethiopic, thus became one of the first seven languages of the ancient world to receive the holy scriptures. None of the European languages shares such a high distinction, with the exception of Greek and Latin. The translation of the holy scriptures was of paramount importance in Ethiopian history. It gave rise to an extensive body of ancient Ethiopic literature and the evolution of a distinct Ethiopian culture. Today, Ge’ez/Ethiopic literature represents an invaluable source not only for the understanding of African civilisation, but also for the study of the transmission of the biblical text, as well as the study of several of the major religions of the world: Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the traditional African religions.

Any glance at scholarly publications of the last 500 years will reveal the high position Ge’ez holds among ancient languages as an important repository and nurturer of many ancient literary works. The large body of venerated works, such as hagiographies, chronicles, homilies and calendaric and theological treatises, offers insight into the history of early Christianity. To cite two examples, the Dominican Wansleben in the late seventeenth century discovered the liturgical usage of the language when he came across the ‘Apostolic Church order’ of Hippolytus of Rome (early third century); likewise, in his work on Ethiopian astronomy and calendars, the noted historian of mathematics Otto Neugebauer showed that the Judaeo-Hellenistic calendar that was the basis of the early Christian calendar is preserved only in the Ethiopic work known as Bahra Hasab. Furthermore, the examination of Ethiopic literature may shed light not only on the history of early Christianity but also on the Jewish legacy. There is a wellspring of Ethiopic works connected to early Jewish literature and to the history of Jewish communities in Ethiopia and southern Arabia. In my own study of Maṣhafa Berhan, a fifteenth-century Sabbath homily, I have demonstrated the preservation of certain halachic gleanings in Ethiopic literature (that is, relating to legal parts of the Talmud).