Genres of Ethiopian-Eritrean Christian Literature With A Focus On Hagiography

chapter 10
Genres of Ethiopian-Eritrean Christian Literature

with a Focus on Hagiography
Antonella Brita
1 Contextualizing Origins
In the fourth century the ancient Ethiopian-Eritrean kingdom of Aksum em-

braced Christianity as its state religion.1 The process of Christianization lasted
for some centuries and implied a series of transformations and cultural ad-
aptations that had a significant impact on the individual cultures of the local
communities. The new religion took root in a diversified social substratum
characterized by beliefs and practices that were never completely eradicated,
but rather assimilated, giving birth to a religious culture characterized by a
marked syncretism. Ethiopian-Eritrean Christian literature originated in this
cultural context, in the first instance to provide the newborn church with the
instrumental equipment to perform religious activities. Alongside the con-
struction of places of worship, a body of literature – to be used for liturgical
services, for the education of the local clergy and, in general, for catechetical
and proselytizing purposes – was progressively acquired. A significant activity
of translation of Christian works from Greek into Gǝʿǝz was undertaken and
manuscripts started to be used and to circulate in the country.2 Alongside the
Bible, apocryphal texts, normative texts for church administration, monastic
rules, hagiographic texts, and some other genres common to the late antique
Mediterranean made their way into Gǝʿǝz literature. Our understanding of this
1 The research for the present article has been funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
through the Sonderforschungsbereich 950, Manuskriptkulturen in Asien, Afrika und Europa
(SFB 950), C05, 2nd phase (2015–2019) ‒ “ʻParchment Saintsʼ: The making of Ethiopian
Hagiographic Manuscripts – Matter and Devotion in Manuscript Practices in Medieval and
Pre-modern Ethiopia,” directed by Alessandro Bausi. I would like to express my gratitude to
all contributors of the present volume for the feedback they gave me during our intensive
and wonderful seminar at la Fondation des Treilles and to the members of the Fondation for
their hospitality and support. A special thanks to Samantha Kelly, whose precious advice and
suggestions contributed largely to improving this article.
2 The complexity of the translation, transmission and reception processes of foreign literary
texts into Gǝʿǝz are detailed in Alessandro Bausi’s essay “Ethiopia and the Christian Ecumene:
Cultural Transmission, Translation, and Reception” in the present volume.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004419582_011 Antonella Brita - 9789004419582

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Genres of Ethiopian-Eritrean Christian Literature 253
literary patrimony largely depends on later evidence since ‒ apart from a very
few exceptions ‒ pre-thirteenth-century manuscripts have not survived. The
assimilation of foreign literary works into Gǝʿǝz was never static or passive; on
the contrary Ethiopian and Eritrean intellectuals actively transformed and re-
fined the translated texts in order to adapt them to their local culture (e.g. the
Gǝʿǝz version of the Rule of Pachomius). This vivid intellectual activity brought
about, in the course of time, the creation of an original literature in Gǝʿǝz, in
genres known to other linguistic traditions (history, theology, hagiography)
and in genres specific to Christian Ethiopia-Eritrea (e.g. mälkǝʾ, qǝne).3
Understanding the indigenous Gǝʿǝz literature therefore requires a consid-
eration of its matrix, which is rooted in translated works; the former would not
exist without the latter. The present essay focuses mostly, but not exclusively,
on original Gǝʿǝz literary production. Translated works will also be considered
as far as they contribute to our understanding of the development of local lit-
erary genres or serve as models for the creation of local works.4 The timespan
considered ranges from the late thirteenth to the sixteenth century. After a
brief survey of various literary genres, it offers as a case study a more in-depth
discussion of hagiography, a genre that is attested both in translation and in
original works. Some results of recent research showing innovative outcomes
in Ethiopian-Eritrean Studies will be presented to confirm the significance of
this genre, not only for literary studies but also for anthropological and histori-
cal investigation.
2 Genres of Ethiopian-Eritrean Christian Literature
Liturgical works were transmitted into Gǝʿǝz from other languages (primarily
Greek and, later, Arabic), starting with or soon after the ancient Aksumite king-
dom’s conversion to Christianity. They are an interesting test case in Ethiopian-
Eritrean adaptation of translated literature, given their prominent role in the
performance of religious rituals. That is, the reception of these works was sub-
ject to a certain degree of innovation and creativity (depending on the type of
texts) but, once canonized, they show a rather passive or “quiescent” transmis-
sion, due to their normative value. They can, in the course of time, be modified
but the change always reflects specific dogmatic or normative constraints. Yet,
3 Enrico Cerulli, Storia della letteratura etiopica, 2nd ed. (Milan, 1961).
4 A comprehensive discussion of works translated into Gǝʿǝz is beyond the scope of the pres-
ent contribution; see instead Bausi, “Ethiopia and the Christian Ecumene,” in the present
volume.
Antonella Brita - 9789004419582

254 Brita
as Emmanuel Fritsch and Habtemichael Kidane illustrate in their essay in this

volume, these works were expanded and adapted to respond to the particular
needs of the medieval Ethiopian and Eritrean context. The evolution of the
Divine Office (Dǝggwa) is one example. The composition of various Liturgies
of the Hours, and of anaphoras (including one celebrating the Sänbätä
Krǝsṭiyan, in the context of the controversy over celebration of Saturday as the
“First Sabbath”) is another, and original genres specific to Ethiopia and Eritrea,
such as the mälkǝʾ, developed as well.5
The Miracles of Mary (Täʾämmǝrä Maryam) represents a particularly nota-
ble example in which a genre took as its nucleus a literature in translation, and
then expanded with original Gǝʿǝz composition.6 This collection at first did
not have any apparent liturgical function, but merely a literary one, circulating
as miracle stories throughout the Mediterranean Christian world before being
translated into Gǝʿǝz during the reign of Dawit II (1379/80–1413). In Ethiopia
and Eritrea, it was the King Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob (1434–1468) who gave instructions to
include it in the liturgy, with a view to promoting the veneration of Saint Mary
in the country. Both kings also strongly promoted the composition of Marian
miracles set in Ethiopia and Eritrea, which gave the collection an element of
local distinctiveness. The addition of local miracles increased over time, result-
ing in an enormous expansion of the original corpus, to the point that the Gǝʿǝz
collection today includes upwards of four hundred miracles, and is consid-
ered one of the most characteristic works of Ethiopian and Eritrean Christian
literature. Many of the original stories added to the collection richly reflect
their medieval Ethiopian-Eritrean context and have been regularly mined by
scholars. Some reflect specific historical events, like the episode of the judicial
proceedings against the Ǝsṭifanosites (or Stephanites),7 a monastic movement
denying the Virgin’s cult and for this reason considered heretical by King Zärʾa
Yaʿǝqob. Others shed light on medieval Christian culture in a more general way.
Instructive with regard to scribal practices and the history of art (including
interregional contacts), for instance, is the episode of the translator and illumi-
nator who was ordered by Dawit II to prepare the golden color for illuminating
5 Specific features characterizing the liturgical literature can be found in Emanuel Fritsch and
Habtemichael Kidane’s essay, “The Medieval Ethiopian Orthodox Church and its Liturgy,” in
the present volume.
6 Eva Balicka-Witakowska and Alessandro Bausi, “Täʾammǝrä Maryam,” in EAe 4 (2010), 789–
793, with ample bibliography; Enrico Cerulli, Il libro etiopico dei Miracoli di Maria e le sue
fonti nelle letterature del Medio Evo latino (Rome, 1943). For further details on the collection
of the Miracles of Mary see Bausi, “Ethiopia and the Christian Ecumene,” and Fritsch and
Habtemichael Kidane, “Medieval Ethiopian Orthodox Church,” in this volume.
7 Cerulli, Il libro etiopico, 94–106.

a manuscript of the Miracles of Mary. Lacking the appropriate materials, he

fashioned a color that, instead of gold, turned brown. Royal displeasure was
averted when the man was visited in a dream by a “Roman” (probably meaning
Byzantine) painter or icon-maker (Romawi gäbare śǝʿǝl) who explained how to
use the dust of a white stone to correct the color.8 The Miracles of Mary are still
today mandatory daily reading in some liturgical celebrations.
A genre in which Ethiopian and Eritrean intellectuals were actively en-
gaged is theology. The first attested Gǝʿǝz examples are translations of works
regarding the nature of Christ in line with the decisions taken at the councils
of Nicaea and Ephesus, although in one early source we also find the Canons
of Chalcedon, rejected by the Ethiopian and Eritrean churches.9 In the period
between the twelfth and sixteenth century several theological writings of the
Church Fathers were translated into Gǝʿǝz.10 The first and most illustrious
Ethiopian theologian of the Middle Ages was Giyorgis of Sägla (d. 1425/26),11
author of the ample and detailed Mäṣḥafä mǝsṭir,12 an anti-heretical trea-
tise completed in 1424 that had a deep influence on local religious thought.
Frequently quoted in the theological literature over the centuries, it can be con-
sidered a compendium of the theological positions of the medieval Ethiopian
and Eritrean Orthodox churches. The work comprises thirty homilies to be
read during the liturgical year, each made of both exposition and refutation of
heretical doctrines mostly attributed to heresiarchs of the patristic age (with
the exception of one Ethiopian). The aim of the treatise was to argue against
the theological positions of contemporary opponents of the royal authority.
Giyorgis made use of several sources for the composition of his work, some
quite ancient, which, together with the use of an elaborate rhetoric and diver-
sified narrative style, show his highly intellectual attitude.
Another prolific theological “writer” was King Zärʾä Yaʿǝqob, to whom a
number of works, mostly written in defense of his theological positions, are
8 Ibid., 87–93.
9 Alessandro Bausi, “La collezione aksumita canonico-liturgica,” Adamantius 12 (2006):
43–70.
10 The list of works can be found in Bausi, “Ethiopia and the Christian Ecumene.”
11 Gérard Colin, “Giyorgis of Sägla,” in EAe 2 (2005), 812; Marie-Laure Derat, “La sainteté de
Giyorgis de Sāgla: une initiative royale?” Warszawskie Studia Teologiczne 12/2 (1999): 51–
62; Yaqob Beyene, “La dottrina della Chiesa etiopica e il ‘Libro del mistero,’” RSE 33 (1989):
35–88. For further details on his career and writings see respectively Bausi, “Ethiopia and
the Christian Ecumene,” and Fritsch and Habtemichael Kidane, “Medieval Ethiopian
Orthodox Church.”
12 Yaqob Beyene, ed. and trans., Giyorgis di Saglā. Il libro del mistero (Maṣḥafa mesṭir), 4 vols,
CSCO, 515–516, 532–533, SAe 89–90, 97–98 (Louvain, 1990–1993).

256 Brita
ascribed.13 They include some hymns of the Ǝgziʾabḥer nägśä, and particularly
the hymns related to the Virgin, composed to praise both the “First Sabbath”
(Saturday) and Sunday and to discuss issues about Trinitarian theology.14
Another work attributed to the king is the Book of the Nativity (Mäṣḥafä milad),
a polemical and apologetical collection of homilies to be read on the feast of
the Nativity of Christ, composed in defense of the concept of the Incarnation
and of Trinitarian theology. It is addressed to the king’s opponents who were
accused of supporting a concept of Trinity that did not imply the unity of
the three persons. The same themes are also present in his Book of the Trinity
(Mäṣḥafä śǝllase).15
The connections between translated and original works were, in general, so
deep and various that in some cases the border between them is difficult to as-
certain. An example is the Nobility of Kings (Kǝbrä nägäśt),16 used to legitimize
the rise of the southern dynasty founded by King Yǝkunno Amlak (1270–1285)
after the previous “usurper” era of the Zagwe kings. As far as the composition
13 Kurt Wendt, “Die theologischen Auseinandersezungen in der äthiopischen Kirche zur
Zeit der Reformen des XV. Jahrhunderts,” in Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi
Etiopici (Roma 2–4 aprile 1959), ed. Enrico Cerulli (Rome, 1960), 137–146; idem, “Der Kampf
um den Kanon Heiliger Schriften in der äthiopischen Kirche der Reformen des XV.
Jahrhunderts,” in Ethiopian Studies. Papers Read at the Second International Conference of
Ethiopian Studies (Manchester, July 8–11 1963), ed. Charles Fraser Beckingham and Edward
Ullendorff (Manchester, 1964), 107–113.
14 Getatchew Haile, The Different Collections of Nagś Hymns in Ethiopic Literature and Their
Contributions (Erlangen, 1983).
15 Kurt Wendt, “Das Maṣḥafa Berhān und Maṣḥafa Milad,” Orientalia, n.s., 3 (1934): 1–30,
147–173, 259–293; idem, ed., Das Maṣḥafa Milad (Liber Nativitatis) und Maṣḥafa Śellāssē
(Liber Trinitatis) des Kaisers Zarʾa Yāʿqob, CSCO 221–235, SAe 41–43 (Louvain, 1963).
16 A select bibliography must include the overview by Paolo Marrassini, “Kǝbrä nägäśt,” EAe
3 (2007), 365–368; Carl Bezold, ed. and trans., Kebra Nagast. Die Herrlichkeit der Könige.
Nach den Handschriften in Berlin, London, Oxford und Paris zum ersten Mal im äthiopisch-
en Urtext herausgegeben und mit deutscher Übersetzung versehen (Munich, 1905); Ernest
A. W. Budge, trans., The Queen of Sheba and her only Son Menyelek. Being the History
of the Departure of God & His Ark of the Covenant from Jerusalem to Ethiopia, and the
Establishment of the Religion of the Hebrews & the Solomonic Line of Kings in That Country.
A Complete Translation of the Kebra Nagast with Introduction (London, 1922; repr. 2007);
the most recent French translation is Robert Beylot, trans., La Gloire des Rois, ou l’Histoire
de Salomon et de la reine de Saba (Turnhout, 2008); recent essays on the work have been
published by Pierluigi Piovanelli, “The Apocryphal Legitimation of a ‘Solomonic’ Dynasty
in the Kǝbrä nägäśt – A Reappraisal,” Aethiopica 16 (2013): 7–44 and Alessandro Bausi,
“La leggenda della Regina di Saba nella tradizione etiopica,” in La regina di Saba: un mito
fra Oriente e Occidente. Atti del seminario diretto da Riccardo Contini, Napoli, Università
“L’Orientale,” 19 Novembre 2009–14 gennaio 2010, ed. Fabio Battiato, Dorota Hartman, and
Giuseppe Stabile (Naples, 2016), 91–162, with a complete list of bibliographical references.

of the work is concerned, the interpretation of the colophon has been a mat-
ter of discussion for years, as it seems to proclaim itself as a work of transla-
tion (though the wording is ambiguous) first from Coptic to Arabic, then from
Arabic to Gǝʿǝz. Elements of the Gǝʿǝz text do indeed have antecedents in
other linguistic traditions, but no Vorlage in Coptic or Arabic has been discov-
ered and the connections between the Gǝʿǝz text and related earlier works are
complex and still incompletely understood. Whatever its degree of indebted-
ness to foreign antecedents, in its Gǝʿǝz form it trumpets a decidedly Ethiopian
royal ideology and was echoed in other works produced for the Solomonic dy-
nasty in and after the fourteenth century, to become, perhaps, the literary work
most closely associated with Ethiopia. In the Nobility of Kings the genealogy
of the only legitimate (and explicitly non-Zagwe) ruling lineage is traced back,
through an uninterrupted chain, to King Solomon and his son by the Queen
of Sheba, Mǝnǝlik, who transported the Ark of the Covenant to Aksum, giving
birth to the myth of foundation of the “new Jerusalem.”
The work is presented as a discourse made by Gregory the Illuminator to
the 318 orthodox Fathers during the Council of Nicaea (325 CE). It is divided
into 117 chapters organized in three parts. The first section of the first part de-
scribes the history of humanity and the lineage of the kings from Adam to
Solomon, through the branch of Shem, the first son of Noah; in this section is
also stressed the importance of the Ark of the Covenant in the Creation and
parallels between the Ark, Mary, and Zion. The second section opens with the
words of Domitius, patriarch of Costantinople (366–384 CE), who claims to
have found a book in the cathedral of St. Sophia on the pre-eminence of the
kings of both Rome (Byzantium) and Ethiopia, but mostly on the primacy of
the king of Ethiopia, first son of Solomon. The story of the meeting of Solomon
and the Queen of Sheba (Makǝdda) follows. The third section deals with the
birth of Mǝnilǝk I, who took the throne name David (Dawit), the visit to his
father at the age of twenty-two, his return to Ethiopia with the Israelite no-
tables’ eldest sons and the Ark of the Covenant, the abdication of Makǝdda in
his favor, and his first successful wars. The second part narrates the rest of the
life of King Solomon, especially his passion for non-Christian women and the
spread of idolatry because of their influence, as well as events after his reign. At
the end, the Nicene assembly proclaims the superiority of the king of Ethiopia,
firstborn of Solomon, over the kings of Judah (Solomon’s second son) and
Rome (Solomon’s youngest son), a superiority that is reaffirmed in the third
part of the work together with the statement that the Ark of the Covenant
will remain in Ethiopia until the second coming of Jesus Christ. This last part
also contains an anti-Judaic inclination and it ends with the evocation of the
famous sixth-century massacre of Christians in Naǧrān (Yemen).

258 Brita
The colophon, as noted above, reports that the book was translated (or
worked out) from Coptic into Arabic in 1225 and from Arabic into Gǝʿǝz, most
probably between 1314 and 1322, at the beginning of the reign of ʿAmdä Ṣǝyon
(1314–1344) and during the time of Yaʿǝbikä Ǝgziʾ, ruler of Ǝndärta, who re-
belled against that king. The invocation of Yaʿǝbikä Ǝgziʾ in the colophon has
inspired some scholars to suppose that the Nobility of Kings was initially com-
posed to support the ruling classes of Tǝgray (and maybe particularly the rulers
of Ǝndärta) against the dynastic claims of the southern rulers, and only later
became an ideological instrument in the hands of the so-called “Solomonic”
dynasty.17 The most ancient manuscript known so far and transmitting a pos-
sible textus receptus (the text commonly accepted as ultimate after the pro-
cess of revision and rewriting) has been dated between 1450 and 1500.18 A large
number of different sources were used for the composition of the work, in-
cluding the Bible, rabbinical and midrashic lore, apocryphal texts, and patris-
tic sources. In contrast to the Jewish and Islamic sources reporting the legend
of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the Nobility of Kings does not include
the fabulous and “magical” elements which, in any case, were well known in
the Ethiopian and Eritrean traditions, particularly in the Tǝgre and Tǝgrǝñña
versions of the legends of a dragon in Aksum. The unsolved problem of the
relationship between the Nobility of Kings and its presumed Coptic and Copto-
Arabic sources does still limit our understanding of the circumstances of its
composition.19 The Nobility of Kings is not merely a literary work for Ethiopian-
Eritrean society, but has an authoritative value that goes beyond fiction and
contributed over time to the construction of a national identity.
Royal chronicles, for their part, represent an original genre of Gǝʿǝz litera-
ture. They were most probably inspired by both the Aksumite historiographical
tradition and the Nobility of Kings, and were created to serve as a basis for the
political legitimacy of the Solomonic dynasty and for the ideological construc-
tion of a united and illustrious Christian kingdom, with which all the peoples
of Ethiopia and Eritrea could identify.20 The first phase of the royal chroni-
cles (fourteenth–sixteenth century) was deeply influenced by hagiographic
17 Marrassini, “Kǝbrä nägäśt,” 366.

18 Piovanelli, “The Apocryphal Legitimation,” 9, n. 11.
19 Bausi, “La leggenda della regina di Saba,” 111–113.
20 Servir Chernestov, “Historiography: Ethiopian Historiography,” in EAe 3 (2007), 40–45, at
40–41; Solomon Gebreyes Beyene, “The Tradition and Development of Ethiopic Chronicle
Writing (Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries): Production, Source, and Purpose,” in Tempo e
Storia in Africa / Time and History in Africa, ed. Alessandro Bausi, Alberto Camplani, and
Stephen Emmel (Milan, 2019), 145–160.

models.21 The first royal chronicle dates to the time of the King ʿAmdä Ṣǝyon
(1314–1344) and concerns his military campaigns against the sultanate of the
Ifat in 1332.22 Due to the subject, the chronicle has a strong anti-Muslim tone
but it offers detailed information on the mustering of the army and, in general,
on the administration and territorial extent of the Christian kingdom in the
first half of the fourteenth century, as well as on the role of women in military
campaigns. The chronicles respectively of Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob and Bäʾǝdä Maryam
were published together by Perruchon in 1893.23 The first work randomly re-
ports episodes, events, and campaigns that occurred during the life of the king:
his persecution of idolaters, the administrative organization and reorganiza-
tion of the kingdom, the description of his royal palace in Däbrä Bǝrhan, the
king’s travels and foundation of several religious institutions, and so on. In the
second work the description of the events follows a more structured chrono-
logical order. The chronicle begins with an account of the conflict between
Bäʾǝdä Maryam and his father, then narrates the king’s life, travels, religious
foundations, and campaigns, and ends with a summary of the events described
in the first part. The scholars who have analysed these two chronicles conclude
that they are both made of two distinctive parts that were later combined.24
The chronicle of Gälawdewos (1540–1559)25 was written two years after the
king’s death on the basis of various sources that the author, who was part of
the king’s entourage, had at his disposal. The work depicts the king as a pious
warrior full of Christian virtues through whom God shows his will. Frequent
21 Paolo Marrassini, “Un testo agiografico: la Cronaca Reale,” in Narrare gli eventi. Atti del
convegno degli egittologi e degli orientalisti italiani in margine alla mostra ‘La battaglia
di Qadesh,’ ed. Franca Pecchioli Daddi and Maria Cristina Guidotti (Rome, 2005), 225–
232 [English translation: “A Hagiographic Text: The Royal Chronicle,” in Languages and
Cultures of Eastern Christianity: Ethiopian, ed. Alessandro Bausi (Farnham, 2012), 389–
397]; Solomon Gebreyes Beyene, “The Tradition and Development.”
22 See at least Paolo Marrassini, ed. and trans., Lo scettro e la croce. La campagna di ʿAmda Ṣeyon
I contro l’Ifat (1332) (Naples, 1993); Manfred Kropp, ed. and trans., Der siegreiche Feldzug des
Königs ʿĀmda-Ṣeyon gegen die Muslime in Adal im Jahre 1332 n.Chr., CSCO 538–539, SAe
99–100 (Louvain, 1994). An English translation of the work has been made by George W. B.
Huntingford, The Glorious Victories of ʿĀmda Ṣeyon, King of Ethiopia (Oxford, 1965).
23 Jules Perruchon, ed. and trans., Les chroniques de Zarʾa Yâʿeqôb et de Ba‌ʾeda Mâryâm, rois
d’Éthiopie de 1434 a 1478 (texte éthiopien et traduction) (Paris, 1893).
24 Perruchon, Les chroniques, X–XI; Marie-Laure Dérat, “Censure et réécriture de l’histoire
du roi Zarʾa Yaʿeqob (1434–1468). Analyse des deux versions de la ‘chronique’ d’un sou-
verain éthiopien,” in Les ruses de l’historien: essais d’Afrique et d’ailleurs en homage à Jean
Boulégue, ed. François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar and Bertrand Hirsch (Paris, 2013), 119–135.
25 Critical edition and translation by William E. Conzelman, Chronique de Galāwdēwos
(Claudius), roi d’Éthiopie (Paris, 1895) and more recently by Solomon Gebreyes, Chronicle
of King Gälawdewos (1540–1559), CSCO 667–668, SAe 116–117 (Louvain, 2019).

260 Brita
parallels are made between Gälawdewos and the kings of Israel, in line with
the scriptural model found in hagiographic works. According to its last editor,
the chronicle of Gälawdewos was composed to commemorate the death of the
king at the hands of Muslims, and therefore as martyr; this might explain the
hagiographic nature of the text. Furthermore, the presence of some excerpts
from the biblical Book of Lamentations might point at the fact that the text was
read on the commemoration day of the king, who was indeed canonized as
a saint-martyr and included in the Gǝʿǝz Synaxarion.26 In the sixteenth cen-
tury, chronicles of previous kings were compiled into larger Histories to create
longer narratives emphasizing the linear continuity of the Solomonic kings.27
Both royal chronicles, and longer royal histories incorporating and revising
earlier accounts, continued to be produced into the Gondärine period and
beyond, such as the “shorter” or “abbreviated” chronicles of the seventeenth–
eighteenth centuries.
The position of translated works at the foundation of Gǝʿǝz literature, regu-
larly supplemented by a continuing activity of translation and often deeply
implicated in the production of original Gǝʿǝz works, has oriented philologi-
cal research towards their study, as Alessandro Bausi sets out in his essay in
this volume. As even the brief overview above illustrates, however, research
into Gǝʿǝz literature has also examined the adaptations of transmitted texts
in their Ethiopian-Eritrean context and the genesis of new genres and specific
literary works, and has examined the literary corpus as a whole from a variety
of analytic viewpoints, including the literary, anthropological, historical, ideo-
logical, and material (that is, in terms of physical characteristics of the sup-
port in which it is transmitted). The genre of hagiography provides a particular
apt case study through which to discuss approaches to Gǝʿǝz literature, for it
includes both texts transmitted from other Christian traditions and original
Gǝʿǝz compositions, and, as one of the largest and most important genres of
the Middle Ages with implications for different fields of study, it has been ap-
proached from multiple and often mutually illuminating analytic perspectives.
26 Solomon Gebreyes Beyene, “The Tradition.”

27 Chernetsov, “Historiography”, 41, suggests the first such History was that of Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl,
incorporating chronicles of his predecessor, and that Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl’s History was in turn
incorporated in another that included accounts of more recent reigns in Śärṣä Dǝngǝl’s
time. Solomon Gebreyes however (“The Tradition”) argues that the History of Śärṣä
Dǝngǝl’s time was the first of such compilation, and involved the composition of the
History of Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl itself, a second chronicle of Gälawdewos, and the chronicle of
Minas.

3 Hagiography: Typologies and Methodologies
A large number of hagiographic works on apostolic and early Christian saints

were translated into Gǝʿǝz, at least until the creation of original hagiographic
works on local saints. Hagiographic texts are transmitted in thousands of man-
uscripts which are still nowadays copied and used in Ethiopia and Eritrea for
liturgical celebrations and other ritual practices. Only a few of these texts have
been investigated with critical criteria, and a systematic organization and ex-
amination of the overall hagiographic patrimony is still a desideratum.28 The
emphasis here will be placed on the adaptation and reception of foreign hagio-
graphic texts in Ethiopia and Eritrea; on the composition of original works on
Ethiopian and Eritrean saints; and on the role of both hagiographic texts and
the manuscripts that transmit them in the study of medieval Christian culture.
The main typologies of hagiographic composition in Gǝʿǝz include: (a) the
gädl (pl. gädlat; lit. “spiritual fight,” here translated as Life), which in general
consists of the story of the deeds that a saint performed in his or her lifetime.
It treats the lives of confessors rather than martyrs and focuses on exemplary
ways of living; (b) the sǝmʿ (lit. “martyrdom,” here translated as Acts), which
in general consists of the story of a saint’s suffering and cruel death for up-
holding his or her faith. The core of the narrative structure of the sǝmʿ usually
concentrates on the last part of the life of the martyr (arrest, torture, and vio-
lent death); unlike the gädl, no detail about his/her childhood, adolescence or
education is given; (c) the dǝrsan (lit. “homily”), similar to the gädl in narrative
structure but usually shorter and with a specific liturgical function; d) the in-
ventio or revelatio, the story of how a new saint or more often a saint’s bodily re-
mains were discovered; (e) the translatio, the story of how a saint’s relics were
28 Useful tools for the identification of Ethiopian and Eritrean saints are: AA. VV., Biblio-
theca Sanctorum Orientalium. Enciclopedia dei Santi. Le Chiese Orientali, 2 vols. (Rome,
1998–1999); Michael Belaynesh, Stanislaw Chojnacki, and Richard Pankhurst, eds., The
Dictionary of Ethiopian Biography. Volume I: From Early Times to the End of the Zagwe Dy-
nasty c. 1270 A.D. (Addis Ababa, 1975); Getatchew Haile, “Ethiopian Saints,” in The Coptic
Encyclopedia 4, ed. Aziz Suryal Atiya (New York, 1991), 1044–1056; Kinefe-Rigb Zelleke,
“Bibliography of the Ethiopic Hagiographical Traditions,” Journal of Ethiopian Studies 13,
2 (1975): 57–102; Paul Peeters, ed., Bibliotheca Hagiographica Orientalis (Bruxelles, 1910);
see also the entries of the individual saints in the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. The main edi-
tions of Ethiopian and Eritrean hagiographic texts can be found in the following journals
and series: Aethiopica. International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies; Analecta
Bollandiana; Annales d’Éthiopie; Memorie and Rendiconti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei;
Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, Scriptores Aethiopici; Egitto e Vicino Ori-
ente; Patrologia Orientalis; Quaderni di semitistica; Rassegna di studi etiopici; Rivista degli
studi orientali.

262 Brita
brought to a church or moved to a new shrine; (f) the ra‌ʾǝy (“vision”), the story
of how a saint appeared to someone in a vision; (g) the täʾammǝr (“miracle”),
the story of how a miracle was performed on the saint’s behalf by God; and
(h) anaphoras and hymns, which include various types of poetic compositions,
like mälkǝʾ, sälam, and qǝne.
A hagiographic composition might well combine many of these narrative
types. Many gädlat, for example, extend their narration well beyond the scene
of the saint’s death to include miracles performed post mortem. Miracles, fur-
thermore, were often combined to form “books of miracles,” which occasion-
ally encompass few dozen items. Mälkǝʾ and sälam often follow the gädl of a
certain saint in the manuscript.
Hagiography, in its twofold acceptation – as literature about saints, and as
the field of study devoted to sainthood – started to be considered a proper
discipline, dealing with a proper literary genre, in Europe in the seventeenth
century, with the work of clerics of the Congregation de Saint-Maur and the
Société des Bollandistes. The Bollandists played an essential role in providing a
critical approach to the study of hagiographic texts. Their approach has deeply
influenced critical thought in the study of the sainthood in Europe, including
the work of the most prominent scholars in Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies
who published the first editions of Gǝʿǝz hagiographic texts in the nineteenth
and twentieth century. Among them we can mention Carlo Conti Rossini and
Ignazio Guidi, editors of a substantial number of hagiographic texts. It must be
noted that the general attitude at that time was to give historical value to the
information provided by hagiographic texts, and this attitude has sometimes
cast a long shadow on subsequent scholarship, as for instance regarding the
supposed Syrian origins of the late antique “Nine Saints.”29
In the course of time hagiographic methodology partly overcame the
Bollandists’ approach, and hagiographic texts were increasingly considered
as a disciplinary crossroads, offering significant observations for the history
29 Antonella Brita, I racconti tradizionali sulla “seconda cristianizzazione” dell’Etiopia. Il ciclo
agiografico dei Nove Santi (Naples, 2010), 25–40. Some recent comments may serve to sum
up the long historiographical itinerary of this notion. In the words of Paolo Marrassini,
“Questa teoria della partecipazione di santi ‘siri’ alla traduzione della Bibblia etiopica, e
quindi dell’origine siriaca dei Nove Santi, è dovuta a una formidabile serie di malintesi
storici e filologici nata con Ignazio Guidi, e ribadita dalla partecipazione attiva di Conti
Rossini […]”: Paolo Marrassini, Storia e leggenda dell’Etiopia tardoantica. Le iscrizioni reali
aksumite. Con un’appendice di Rodolfo Fattovich, La civiltà aksumita: aspetti archeologici.
E una nota editoriale di Alessandro Bausi (Brescia, 2014), 103. The synthesis proposed by
Pierluigi Piovanelli moves the origins of this “historical and philological misunderstand-
ing” further back in time, giving a longer genealogy for the misconception in Pierluigi
Piovanelli, Review of I racconti tradizionali by Antonella Brita, Aethiopica 17 (2014): 243.

of religion, anthropology, social history, and other fields. From a methodologi-

cal point of view, hagiographic texts need to be critically analyzed always tak-
ing into account the complexity of hagiography as genre. Otherwise the risk
is to swing between two extremes: the uncritical acceptance of the informa-
tion provided or its hypercritical rejection. Once peculiar features proper to
the genre have been identified (such as hagiographic tòpoi, scriptural models,
atemporality, expressions of devotional attitude, and the like), the remaining
data can be evaluated in the light of the historical and chronological context
of the texts’ production and reception. Indeed, scholars of hagiography give
attention to the saint as he or she is reflected in the written transmission of the
hagiographic account, but also study the dynamics leading to the creation of
his or her cult, its development over time, and to what extent these processes
mirror the formation or strengthening of political and institutional powers
through the consolidation of a religious identity. They also examine how re-
ligious devotion is perceived and understood by the local communities con-
nected to the veneration of a particular saint and how the exempla transmitted
in hagiographic texts, and interiorized through the participation of the faithful
in devotional and ritual practices, shape that society and contribute to the con-
solidation of collective identities.30
30 Selection of more recent general studies on Ethiopian-Eritrean hagiography: Alessandro

Bausi, “Kings and Saints: Founders of Dynasties, Monasteries and Churches in Christian
Ethiopia,” in Stifter und Mäzene und ihre Rolle in der Religion: Von Königen, Mönchen,
Vordenkern und Laien in Indien, China und anderen Kulturen, ed. Barbara Schuler
(Wiesbaden, 2013), 161–186; Claire Bosc-Tiessé and Marie-Laure Derat, “De la mort à la
fabrique du saint dans l’Éthiopie médiévale et moderne,” Afriques [online journal] 3
(2011), DOI: 10.4000/afriques.1076; Antonella Brita, “Agiografia e liturgia nella tradizione
della Chiesa etiopica,” in Popoli, Religioni e Chiese lungo il corso del Nilo, ed. Luciano
Vaccaro and Cesare Alzati (Vatican City, 2015), 515–539; Servir Chernetsov, “Investigations
in the Domain of Hagiological Sources for the History of Ethiopia After Boris Turayev,”
St. Petersburg Journal of African Studies 5 (1995): 114–124; Bertrand Hirsch and Manfred
Kropp, eds., Saints, Biographies and History in Africa / Saints, biographies et histoire en
Afrique / Heilige, Biographien und Geschichte in Afrika, (Frankfurt am Main, 2003); George
W. B. Huntingford, “The Saints of Medieval Ethiopia,” Abba Salama 10 (1979): 257–341;
Steven Kaplan, “Hagiographies and the History of Medieval Ethiopia,” History in Africa
8 (1981): 107–123; idem, “The Ethiopian Cult of the Saints: A Preliminary Investigation,”
Paideuma 32 (1986): 1–13; Paolo Marrassini, ed. and trans., Gadla Yohannes Mesraqawi.
Vita di Yohannes l’Orientale (Florence, 1981); idem, “L’infanzia del santo nel Cristianesimo
orientale: il caso dell’Etiopia,” in Bambini santi. Rappresentazioni dell’infanzia e mod-
elli agiografici, ed. Anna Benvenuti Papi and Elena Giannarelli (Turin, 1991), 147–181;
idem, “Ethiopian Hagiography: History of Facts and History of Ideas,” paper read at the
International Symposium on History and Ethnography in Ethiopian Studies, November
18–25, 1992; Denis Nosnitsin, ed., Ecclesiastic Landscape of North Ethiopia Proceedings
of the International Workshop Ecclesiastic Landscape of North Ethiopia: History, Change

264 Brita
In line with the new trends in hagiographic studies in Europe, the first
European scholar to radically innovate the methodological approach in Gǝʿǝz
hagiography was Paolo Marrassini. He largely inaugurated the application of
a modern philological approach to the study of Gǝʿǝz texts (including hagio-
graphic texts), but also to a consideration of the complexity of hagiography as
genre. This is already evident in his first brilliant edition, the Life of Yoḥannǝs
Mǝśraqawi31 a combination of rigorous textual criticism and interpretation
of the literary traditions in light of anthropological and socio-rhetorical ap-
proaches. The application of a meticulous philological analysis of Gǝʿǝz ha-
giography introduced by Paolo Marrassini has been maintained by his pupils
Alessandro Bausi and Gianfrancesco Lusini. The importance of having texts
critically edited goes beyond the philological work. It allows a refinement of
the primary sources so that they can be employed for further research in lit-
erature, linguistics, anthropology, and history. Recent works in hagiography
combining historical and anthropological approaches have been published by
Steven Kaplan32 and Marie-Laure Derat (with the added value of the archeo-
logical perspective).33 A similar approach to hagiography – not as a window
onto the time when the saints are claimed to have existed but as a reflection of
the eras in which the hagiographic texts were written, a process of construc-
tion of the past – is the focus of my own work on the Nine Saints, a group of
monks of Byzantine origin credited with evangelizing Ethiopia and Eritrea be-
tween the fifth and the sixth century.34
Only in the last years has the need for proper critical editions of hagiograph-
ic texts been associated with the study of the material features of the manu-
scripts. This approach has been aided by the development and application of
non-invasive scientific techniques that permit a more rigorous examination of
and Cultural Heritage Hamburg, July 15–16, 2011 (Wiesbaden, 2013); Lanfranco Ricci, “Fonti
orali e agiografia,” in Fonti orali. Antropologia e storia, ed. Bernardo Bernardi, Carlo Poni,
and Alessandro Triulzi (Milano, 1978), 407–416; Taddesse Tamrat, “Hagiographies and the
Reconstruction of Medieval Ethiopian History,” Rural Africana 11 (1970): 12–20.
31 Marrassini, Gadla Yohannes Mesraqawi.
32 Steven Kaplan, The Monastic Holy Man and the Christianization of Early Salomonic
Ethiopia (Wiesbaden, 1984); idem, “The Ethiopian Holy Man as Outsider and Angel,”
Religion 15 (1985): 235–249; idem, “Seen But Not Heard: Children and Childhood in
Medieval Ethiopian Hagiographies,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 30,
3 (1997): 539–553.
33 Marie-Laure Derat, Le domaine des rois éthiopienne (1270–1527): espace, pouvoir et mona-
chisme (Paris, 2003); eadem, L’énigme d’une dynastie sainte et usurpatrice dans le royaume
chrétien d’Ethiopie du XIe au XIIIe siècle (Turnhout, 2018).
34 Brita, I racconti tradizionali.

codicological features.35 It allows us to contextualize and define the circum-

stances of production, reproduction, reception, use, and perception of the
manuscripts36 and to better understand hagiographic manuscripts in their
contexts. In what follows I will employ this approach, as far as it is reflected in
research conducted so far.
4 Hagiography and Canonization in Ethiopia-Eritrea: the Role of

Hagiographic Collections
The first examples of hagiography attested in Ethiopia and Eritrea are two col-
lections of texts about foreign saints circulating in multiple-text manuscripts.
These collections are known in the Ethiopian and Eritrean traditions respec-
tively with the labels Gädlä sämaʿǝtat (GS) (lit. “Lives of the martyrs”) and, less
systematically, Gädlä qǝddusan (GQ) (lit. “Lives of the saints”).37 The texts form-
ing these collections number over one hundred and forty short hagiographies,
mostly of martyrs and confessors of both the universal and Oriental churches,
but not exclusively (see below), arranged in the manuscripts according to the
order of the calendar. The individual texts of the collection were not originally
composed in Gǝʿǝz but progressively translated partly from Greek, during the
Aksumite age (presumably between the fourth and the seventh century), and
partly from Arabic, starting from the thirteenth century at the latest. The lack
of manuscripts before the thirteenth/fourteenth century does not allow us to
understand in which form these corpora of texts, or at least a part of them,
were introduced into Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the lack of critical editions of
35 For a fuller discussion of manuscripts’ material features and production, see Denis
Nosnitsin’s essay, “Christian Manuscript Culture of the Ethiopian-Eritrean Highlands:
Some Analytical Insights,” in the present volume.
36 Particularly important from this point of view has been the work done in the project
“Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies” and in the SFB 950, “Manuscript Cultures in
Asia, Africa and Europe” by the sub-project C05 on Ethiopian hagiographic and canonico-
liturgical manuscripts.
37 The labels of these two collections are often respectively translated as “Acts of the Martyrs”
and “Acts of the Saints.” This is due to the fact that the English word “Acts” in hagiography
is a calque of the Latin word Acta, originally a legal term indicating the official trials’
records of the martyrs of the early church which were used for the composition of the
first Passiones (the label Acta Sanctorum is also used by the Bollandists). Although these
two collections are not made exclusively of hagiographies about martyrs, but also about
confessor saints, the semantic extension of the use of “Acts” is still reasonable, since it is
referred to the earliest monastic hagiographies, in which a strong ascesis replaced violent
death (martyrium sine cruore, “martyrdom without blood”, according to the definition of
Sulpicius Severus).

266 Brita
the whole corpus makes it difficult thus far to propose definitive conclusions
on their complex genesis. On the other hand, studies conducted on some of
the constituent texts and the collections as a whole allow us to highlight some
phenomena that give a little insight into the complexity of their textual trans-
mission. First, the Greek phase represents the most ancient stage of transla-
tion, and a small number of texts can be so far certainly ascribed to a Greek
Vorlage. These are the Acts of St. Mark, Arsenofis, Euphemia, Tewoflos with
Ṗaṭroqya and Dämalis, Ǝmrayǝs, maybe Cyprian and Justa, Peter patriarch of
Alexandria, Phileas bishop of Thmuis, Sophia and her three daughters Ṗistis,
Elpis and Agape.38 Secondly, the Arabic phase appears to be characterized by
at least two different channels of transmission, witnessed by a preliminary sur-
vey conducted by Alessandro Bausi on some texts. One channel was through
Egypt (the Copto-Arabic textual transmission), largely attested for most texts
of the GS and also documented by a certain number of subscriptions which at-
tribute a role in the translation to Abba Sälama “the Translator,” metropolitan
of Ethiopia (1348–88).39 More problematic is the origin of the second channel
of transmission from Arabic. It is attested by a certain number of texts, nota-
bly hagiographies connected with the Massacre of Naǧrān (the Acts of Ḫirut,40
Azqir41 and Athanasius of Clysma, and the Lives of Ṗänṭälewon zäṣomaʿt42 and
Kaleb). These texts are unknown in the Egyptian Arabic literary tradition and
should allegedly be connected to the cultural milieu on the opposite shore of
the Red Sea, in the area between the Sinai Peninsula and South Arabia. Among
other interesting features emerging from the study of the collection are some
that help identify the archaic character of particular texts, whose translation
into Gǝʿǝz is therefore to be assigned to the early, “Greek” phase. These include
a Greek-Coptic form of the name of the month in the commemoration date,
usually placed within the text at the beginning or/and at the end, but also
38 Alessandro Bausi, ed. and trans., La versione etiopica degli Acta Phileae nel Gadla Samāʿtāt
(Naples, 2002), 16; Massimo Villa, “La Passio etiopica di Sofia e delle sue figlie Pistis, Elpis
e Agape: tradizione manoscritta e ipotesi di Vorlage,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 84, 2
(2018): 469–488.
39 Bausi, La versione etiopica, 10–12.
40 Alessandro Bausi and Alessandro Gori, eds. and trans., Tradizioni orientali del “Martirio
di Areta.” La prima recensione araba e la versione etiopica. Edizione critica e traduzione
(Florence, 2006).
41 Alessandro Bausi, ed. and trans., “Il Gadla ʾAzqir,” Adamantius 23 (2017): 341–380.
42 Carlo Conti Rossini, ed. and trans., Acta Yārēd et Ṗanṭalēwon, CSCO 2nd ser., 17 (Paris, 1904;
repr. CSCO 26–27, SAe 9–10 [Louvain, 1961]); Antonella Brita, ed. and trans., “I racconti
tradizionali sulla cristianizzazione dell’Etiopia: il ‘Gadla Liqānos’ e il ‘Gadla Ṗanṭalēwon’”
(Ph.D diss., Università degli studi di Napoli “L’Orientale,” 2008).

in the margins of the manuscript as a reading indication, and a double title,

placed both at the beginning and at the end of the text.43
As even these preliminary observations show, the textual transmission of
the GS and GQ collections must have had a complex history. The structure
of the collections, as it is known today in the manuscripts, must be the re-
sult of a long process of revision, adaptation, and reshaping of both texts and
manuscripts, which in our present state of knowledge can only be partially ex-
plained. Since the most ancient manuscripts known are dated to the thirteenth-
fourteenth century (although evidence of the collections’ circulation can be
attested from at least the thirteenth century), this structuring process can be
chronologically set in an intermediate period between the disappearance of
the late antique Aksumite cultural milieu (particularly the disappearance of
knowledge of Greek) and the absorption of medieval Christian Arabic culture.
Starting from the fourteenth century, the collections were revised from both
a linguistic and a material point of view, and texts translated or/and retrans-
lated from Arabic were grouped with the more ancient texts. This process,
aimed at producing manuscripts adapted to evolving liturgical needs, also in-
volved a physical rearrangement of the texts in the multiple-text manuscripts.
The chronological attestation of the GS manuscripts makes clear the impor-
tance of this collection before the diffusion of the first recension of the Gǝʿǝz
Synaxarion (Sx) at the end of the fourteenth century. As Alessandro Bausi has
observed, the peak of the GS’s circulation (to judge by the chronological dis-
tribution of the surviving manuscripts) fell between the fourteenth and the fif-
teenth century; starting in the later sixteenth, the number of GS manuscripts
progressively decreased. This decline was probably prompted, above all, by the
spread of the second recension of the Sx. When seen in light of their mate-
rial manuscript form and liturgical function, the latter had practical advan-
tages: the short readings in the Sx manuscripts made it possible to gather the
43 In the Ethiopian-Eritrean manuscript culture is common to have a title at the beginning
of the text, whereas its presence at the end of the text is absolutely uncommon. This very
rare feature present in few texts of the GS has not been studied extensively and deserves
to be investigated, not only to better understand the reason of its presence in these texts,
but also because it might lead to a better understanding of the concept of “colophon” in
Gǝʿǝz manuscripts. Furthermore, this feature might be a point to be carefully examined
having in mind what happens in the Coptic tradition, where, as shown by Paola Buzi,
titles at the end of the texts, particularly in scrolls, are attested: see Paola Buzi, Titoli e au-
tori nella tradizione copta. Studio storico e tipologico (Pisa, 2005); eadem, “Titoli e colofoni:
riflessioni sugli elementi paratestuali dei manoscritti copti saidici,” in Colofoni armeni a
confronto. Le sottoscrizioni dei manoscritti in ambito armeno e nelle altre tradizioni scrit-
torie del mondo mediterraneo. Atti del colloquio internazionale, Bologna, 12–13 ottobre 2012,
ed. Anna Sirinian, Paola Buzi, and Gaga Shurgaia (Rome, 2016), 203–217.

268 Brita
commemorations of more saints, for the whole liturgical year, in solely two vol-
umes. This phenomenon, as mentioned, is also noticeable in the number and
circulation of the manuscripts of the two collections: during the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries the first recension of Sx is attested in few manuscripts
(only four), while in the same period the manuscripts of the GS were numer-
ous; on the contrary from the second half of the sixteenth century the num-
ber of GS manuscripts started to decrease, and the manuscripts of the second
recension of the Sx increased and saw a progressive diffusion in later times.44
The shaping and the structuring of the collection was probably guided by
other principles as well. The sacred value given to the manuscripts transmit-
ting hagiographic texts must have contributed to their perception as institu-
tional objects capable of testifying to the sainthood of the figures described
therein. In late antiquity and the Middle Ages there were no centralized in-
stitutional bodies in charge of the canonization of saints. The manuscripts,
with their central role in the liturgy, may therefore have represented the only
mechanism for their official recognition. The Lives of the saints were appar-
ently included in these multiple-text manuscripts as soon as the saint’s ven-
eration in the country was introduced, and may also have been excluded from
the manuscripts when such veneration ceased. This process might also explain
the progressive translation of texts and the continuous reshaping and revision
of the collections. For instance, the advantage of the editorial innovation in-
troduced by the Sx was that it made possible the inclusion of hagiographies
about local saints. Manuscripts transmitting hagiographic collections were
commonly found in the main monasteries and churches (as testified by their
current widespread diffusion) and thus the names of these saints could widely
circulate in the whole country and be fixed, through the reading of their hagio-
graphic texts during the liturgy, in the collective memory. This repetitive read-
ing and listening must have contributed to the diffusion of the saint’s memory
and veneration.
5 The Emergence of Ethiopian-Eritrean Hagiography
5.1 Ethiopian-Eritrean Saints of Foreign Origin and the Construction of

the Kingdom’s Christian Past
The fourteenth century is a very crucial period for hagiographic literature in
Ethiopia and Eritrea since, along with the copying and revision of more an-
cient texts and the translation of new texts, an indigenous literature finally
44 Bausi, La versione etiopica, 12–14.

started to appear, whose protagonists were Aksumite-era saints. This is for in-
stance the case of the Life of Ṗänṭälewon zäṣomaʿt (lit. “of the cell”), the earliest
copy of which is transmitted in the fourteenth-century hagiographic multiple-
text manuscript EMML 7602.45 From the fifteenth century onward his Life is
also transmitted in GS manuscripts. The same manuscript also contains one
recension of the Life of Libanos.46 It is interesting to note that some of the
names of these Aksumite saints already circulated in short homilies transmit-
ted in manuscripts dated to the fourteenth century that contain collections
of homilies. This is the case, for instance, of Gärima, Yǝmʿata, and Guba, men-
tioned in the Homily of Lulǝyanos, bishop of Aksum, on the Holy Fathers47 at-
tested in the codices trigemini EMML 1763 and EMML 8509, BL Or. 8192. In some
instances, the hagiographies represent an extended version of these shorter
homilies circulating in the homiletic collections, and this is the case of the Life
of Libanos in the Homily of Abba Elǝyas, bishop of Aksum on Mäṭaʿ transmit-
ted in EMML 1763 and EMML 8509.48
Written eight centuries after the events they narrate, the hagiographies of
these Aksumite saints provide only a vision of the Aksumite period as screened
through a later medieval cultural filter. In an attempt to (re)construct their
Christian past, the hagiographers made use of oral traditions circulating on
these saints (mainly pertaining to miraculous episodes), written sources con-
cerning historical episodes, and literary models, giving birth to hagiographic
cycles or individual texts that reflected their authors’ idea of the past but also,
in some instances, their desire to exploit the past for current ideological pur-
poses. From a literary and textual point of view, the above-mentioned Life of
Ṗänṭälewon zäṣomaʿt is based, apart from some original sections, on the writ-
ten material transmitted by hagiographic texts connected with the Naǧrān
expedition (the Acts of Ḫirut and the Life of Kaleb). Ṗänṭälewon, who is not
present in the Arabic versions of these texts (from which the Gǝʿǝz ones derive)
45 Details on the manuscript tradition of the Life of Ṗänṭälewon can be found in Brita, “Il
‘Gadla Liqānos’ e il ‘Gadla Ṗanṭalēwon.’”
46 Alessandro Bausi, ed. and trans., La “Vita” e i “Miracoli” di Libānos, CSCO 595–596, SAe
105–106 (Louvain, 2003).
47 Edited and translated by Getatchew Haile, “The Homily of Luleyanos, Bishop of Aksum,
on the Holy Fathers,” Analecta Bollandiana, 103/3–4 (1985): 385–391.
48 Edited and translated by Getatchew Haile, “The Homily of Abba Eleyas Bishop of Aksum,
on Mäṭṭa’,” Analecta Bollandiana, 108 (1990): 29–47; Bausi, La “Vita” e i “Miracoli” di Libānos,
xxiv; Alessandro Bausi, “A Few Remarks on the Hagiographico-Homiletic Collections in
Ethiopic Manuscripts,” in Hagiographico-Homiletic Collections in Greek, Latin and Oriental
Manuscripts – Histories of Books and Text Transmission in a Comparative Perspective, ed.
Caroline Macé and Jost Gippert (forthcoming).

270 Brita
substitutes for the monk Zonaios of the Greek version.49 The Lives of Libanos,
Gärima, and Zämika‌ʾel Arägawi are influenced at different levels by the Life of
Gäbrä Krǝstos,50 i.e. the Byzantine saint Alexis, translated into Gǝʿǝz. The ma-
terial co-presence of the Lives of both Aksumite and foreign saints in the same
manuscript is the reason, or perhaps the consequence, for such an influence.51
Apart from those of the Aksumites, other hagiographies of saints of foreign
origin who operated in Ethiopia and Eritrea are attested in the literary tradi-
tion, including the Life of Gäbrä Mänfäs Qǝddus,52 one of the most venerated
saints at a national level, the Life of Yoḥannǝs Mǝśraqawi (John the Oriental),
and some others.
The co-presence of new texts about Aksumite saints with texts already long
known was most probably aimed at facilitating the circulation and liturgical
use of the former. One result of this operation was the foreign hagiographies’
deep influence on the Ethiopian and Eritrean ones; another was the medieval
adaptation of late antique traditions.
5.2 Hagiographies of Ethiopian-Eritrean-Born Saints

In the fifteenth and sixteenth century the production of hagiographic works
having as their protagonist locally born saints, including kings, monks, priests,
and charismatic figures, increased. This period also saw also the gradual ap-
pearance of hagiographies in single-text manuscripts, transmitting either
longer versions of some texts about foreign saints already circulating in the
multiple-texts manuscripts, or texts about Ethiopian and Eritrean saints.53 The
49 Brita, I racconti tradizionali, 146–174.

50 Enrico Cerulli, ed. and trans., Les Vies éthiopiennes de Saint Alexis l’homme de Dieu, CSCO
298–299, SAe 59–60 (Louvain, 1969).
51 Paolo Marrassini, “The ‘Egyptian Saints’ of the Abyssinian Hagiography,” Aethiopica
8 (2005): 112–129, at 112; Antonella Brita and Jacopo Gnisci, “Hagiography in Gǝʿǝz,”
in Treasures of Ethiopia and Eritrea in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, ed. Jacopo Gnisci
(Oxford, 2019), 59–69.
52 Paolo Marrassini, ed. and trans., “Vita,” “Omelia,” “Miracoli” del santo Gabra Manfas
Qeddus, CSCO 597–598, SAe 107–108 (Louvain, 2003).
53 The manuscript evidence does not provide so far examples of the circulation of single-text
manuscripts before the fifteenth century. The inventory transmitted in the manuscript
EMML 1832 and dated to the end of the thirteenth century includes a few hagiographic
manuscripts that could be identified as single-text manuscripts; however, inventories
pose problems of interpretation that cannot be ignored when discussing the most an-
cient typologies of hagiographic manuscripts circulating in Ethiopia. They consist of lists
of works – basically titles – followed by the number of copies of each found in the mon-
astery. A multiple-text manuscript is easily recognizable when it is listed under the label
which identifies a specific, known collection of Ethiopian-Eritrean manuscript culture.
The same is not true for single-text manuscripts: one cannot be sure whether the title
listed refers to a single-text manuscript or to a multiple-text manuscript of which only

main innovation of the single-text manuscript was the possibility to include

additional kinds of texts, mainly miracles and poetic compositions dedicated
to the saints, usually placed at the end of the Life. One of the interesting as-
pects of these local hagiographic texts is their reflection of the historical time
in which they were written. In some cases, the Life was composed shortly after
the death of the saint, by an author who knew him/her or who was able to
draw on eyewitness accounts and was familiar with the general context. In
other cases, the Life was written in a later ‒ but still medieval ‒ period, aspects
of whose historical circumstances can be perceived through analysis of the
text. And indeed historians have very regularly mined hagiographic texts for
historical insights, and have done so effectively when the important proviso
that such texts reflect their time of composition is observed.54 A good exam-
ple of a text reflecting the saint’s lifetime is the Life of Märḥa Krǝstos, ninth
abbot of Däbra Libanos (1462–1496).55 It was composed at the beginning of the
sixteenth century and depicts this saint as someone very close to the royal
court and a counselor of the king. He was, indeed, apparently elected by King
Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob in person to head Däbrä Libanos, a symbolic act indicating that
the king opted for an alliance with the monastery. This implied economic pros-
perity for the monastic community but also strict royal control over it, which
limited the freedom of expression of their ideals.56 The Life of Filǝṗṗos,57 third
abbot of Däbrä Libanos, was composed in the same monastic environment
between 1424 and 1426. This work became part of a broader hagiographic
cycle made of Lives of seven different monks who were in conflict with King
ʿAmdä Ṣǝyon and his successor Säyfä Arʿad, revealing conflictual relationships
between the monks and the kings.58 The cycle includes, besides Filǝṗṗos,
one text is quoted while other texts are not mentioned (for instance for reasons of space).
A comparison between contemporary inventories and actual collections of manuscripts
in Ethiopian-Eritrean churches and monasteries reveals this practice: multiple-text man-
uscripts that lack a specific “label” are listed under the first text of the collection. This
means that although the work appears in the inventory as the unique text of a manuscript
in fact it is not.
54 Some of the major historical accounts on medieval Ethiopia which have exploited hagio-
graphic texts to a considerable degree are Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia,
1270–1527 (Oxford, 1972) and Derat, Le domaine des rois.
55 Stanislas [Stanisław] Kur, ed. and trans., Actes de Marḥa Krestos, CSCO 330–331, SAe 62–63
(Louvain, 1972).
56 Derat, “Modéles de sainteté,” 137–140.
57 Boris Turaiev, ed. and trans., Vitae sanctorum indigenarum. III, Gadla Aron seu Acta S.
Aaronis; IV, Gadla Filpos seu Acta S. Philippi, 2 vols. (Paris, 1905; repr. as CSCO 30–31, SAe
13–14 [Louvain, 1955]).
58 On these conflicts see Gianfrancesco Lusini’s essay, “The Ancient and Medieval History of
Eritrean and Ethiopian Monasticism: An Outline,” in the present volume.

272 Brita
the Lives of Bäṣalotä Mika‌ʾel59 and Anorewos60 from Däbrä Sǝgaǧǧä, also
written in the fifteenth century, as well as those of Aron61 from Däbrä Daret,
Qawǝsṭos62 from Mahaggǝl, Tadewos63 of Däbrä Maryam, and Ǝndrǝyas, most
probably composed after the sixteenth century.64 The theme of antagonism
to the royal power also characterizes the hagiographic cycles of the two most
prominent Ethiopian and Eritrean monastic movements: the Ewosṭateans65 ‒
at least from ʿAmdä Ṣǝyon to Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob, during whose reign the agreement
made at the council of Däbrä Mǝṭmaq (1450) put an end to the disputes ‒ and
the Ǝsṭifanosites or Stephanites, mostly during the reign of Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob.66
59 Carlo Conti Rossini, ed. and trans., Vitae sanctorum indigenarum. I: Gadla Baṣālota Mikāʾēl
seu Acta S. Baṣalota Mikāʾēl; II: Gadla S. Anorēwos seu Acta Sancti Honorii (Rome, 1905;
repr. as CSCO 28–29, SAe 11–12 [Louvain, 1955]).
60 Conti Rossini, Vitae sanctorum indigenarum. I: Gadla Baṣālota Mikāʾēl.
61 Turaiev, Vitae sanctorum indigenarum. II: Gadla Aron.
62 Osvaldo Raineri, ed. and trans., Gli atti di Qawesṭos martire etiopico (Sec. XIV ) (Vatican
City, 2004).
63 Veronika Six, ed. and trans., Die Vita des Abuna Tādēwos von Dabra Māryām im Ṭānāsee
(Wiesbaden, 1975).
64 Marie-Laure Derat, “Modéles de sainteté et idéologie monastique à Dabra Libanos
(XVe–XVIe siècles),” in Hirsch and Kropp, Saints, Biographies and History in Africa,
127–147.
65 Editions and/or translations of Ewosṭateans’ hagiographies include at least: Carlo Conti
Rossini, ed., “Il Gadla Filpos e il Gadla Yoḥannes di Dabra Bizen,” Memorie della Reale
Accademia dei Lincei. Classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filologiche, 5th ser., 8 (1901): 61–
170; idem, “Gli Atti di Abbā Yonās,” Rendiconti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei, 5th ser., 12
(1903): 177–201 and 239–262; idem, ed. and trans., Vitae sanctorum indigenarum. I. Gadla
Maqorēwos, seu Acta S. Mercurii, CSCO 2nd ser., 22 (Paris, 1904) (repr. as CSCO 33–34, SAe
16–17 [Louvain, 1955]); idem, ed., “Un santo eritreo: Buruk Amlāk,” Rendiconti della Reale
Accademia dei Lincei. Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, 6th ser., 14 (1938): 3–50;
idem, ed., “Note di agiografia etiopica (ʿAbiya-Egziʾ, ʿArkalēdes e Gäbrä-Iyasus),” RSO 17
(1938): 409–452; Gianfrancesco Lusini, ed. and trans., “Il Gadla Anānyā,” Egitto e Vicino
Oriente 13 (1990): 149–191; idem, ed. and trans., Il ‘Gadla Absadi’ (Dabra Māryām, Sarāʾ),
CSCO 557–558, SAe 103–104 (Louvain, 1996); Paolo Marrassini, ed., “Il Gadla Matyas,” Egitto
e Vicino Oriente 6 (1983): 247–307; Osvaldo Raineri, trans., “Atti di Anania, santo monaco
etiopico del XVI secolo,” Ephemerides Liturgicae 104 (1990): 65–91; Tedros Abraha, ed. and
trans., Il Gädl di Abuna Demyanos santo eritreo (XIV–XV sec.). Edizione del testo etiopico
e traduzione italiana (Turnhout, 2007); idem, ed. and trans., I Gädl di Abunä Täwäldä
Mädehn e di Abunä Vittore. Edizione del testo etiopico e traduzione italiana (Turnhout,
2009); idem, ed. and trans., Gädlä Abunä Yonas Zä-Bur: Eritrean Saint of the 15th century
(Turnhout, 2015); Boris Turaiev, trans., Vitae sanctorum indigenarum. I. Acta S. Eustathii,
CSCO 2nd ser., 21 (Rome, 1906) (repr. as CSCO 32, SAe 15 (Louvain, 1955)].
66 Editions and/or translations of Ǝsṭifanosites’ hagiographies include at least: André
Caquot, ed. and trans., “Les Actes d’Ezrā de Gunda Gundē,” Annales d’Éthiopie 4 (1961):
69–121; Carlo Conti Rossini, ed. and trans., Vitae sanctorum indigenarum. I. Acta sancti
Abakerazun. II. Acta sancti Takla Ḥawāryāt, CSCO 2nd ser., 24 (Rome, 1910) (repr. as

Although to various degrees, these works also mirror events related to theo-
logical controversies.67 Monks’ involvement in opposing the royal power for
feudal interests led, perhaps, to the composition of the hagiographies of two
of the Nine Saints: the Life of Gärima,68 founder of the monastery of Däbrä
Mädära, written in the fifteenth century and attested in at least two recensions,
and the Life of Zämika‌ʾel Arägawi,69 to whom is ascribed the foundation of
the famous monastery of Däbrä Dammo, composed in the sixteenth century,
a period in which Däbrä Dammo started to flourish (before the sixteenth cen-
tury there is no evidence connecting Zämika‌ʾel Arägawi to the foundation of
Däbrä Dammo).
One of the most representative works of this period is the Life of Täklä
Haymanot (d. 1313), founder of the powerful monastery of Däbrä Libanos (orig-
inally called Däbrä ʿAsbo) in the region of Šäwa and one of the most vener-
ated national saints. His Life is found in dozens of manuscripts (which confirm
the pervasive fame of the saint) in at least three different recensions.70 The
so-called Waldǝbba recension71 was written most probably in the first half of
the fifteenth century and related to the monastic milieu of the northern re-
gion of Waldǝbba, which in that period was connected with Däbrä Libanos.
CSCO 56–57, SAe 25–26 [Louvain, 1910]); Aleksander Ferenc, ed. and trans., “Les Actes
d’Isaïe de Gunda-Gundē,” Annales d’Éthiopie 10 (1976): 243–294. The Life of the move-
ment’s founder, Ǝsṭifanos, has been published with an Amharic translation in Ethiopia:
ገድለ፡ አቡነ፡ እስጢፋ ኖስ፡ ዘጉንዳጉንዶ (Gädlä abunä Ǝsṭifanos zäGundagundo, “The Life of Our
Father Ǝsṭifanos of Gunda Gunde”) (Addis Ababa, 1996 EC [2003/2004 CE]).
67 The theological controversies are discussed in the essays of Lusini and of Fritsch and
Habtemichael Kidane in the present volume.
68 Carlo Conti Rossini, ed., “L’Omilia di Yoḥannes, vescovo di Aksum, in onore di Garimā,” in
Actes du XI Congrès des Orientalistes. Section Sémitique, Paris: Ernest Leroux 1897, 139–177.
69 Edition: Ignazio Guidi, ed., “Il Gadla ʾAragâwi,” Memorie della Reale Accademia dei Lincei.
Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, 5th ser., 2 (1894): 54–96; translation: Marc-
Antoine Van den Oudenrijn, trans., La vie de saint Mikāʾēl Aragāwi, traduite de l’éthiopien,
avec introduction et notes (Friburg, 1939).
70 Marie-Laure Derat, “Une nouvelle étape de l’élaboration de la légende hagiographique
de Takla Haymanot (ca. 1214–1313),” Cahiers du Centre de Recherches Africaines 9 (1998):
71–90; eadem, “Les Vies du saint éthiopien Takla Haymanot,” in Histoire d’Afrique: les en-
jeux de mémoire, ed. Jean-Pierre Chrétien and Jean-Louis Triaud (Paris, 1999), 33–47.
71 Carlo Conti Rossini, ed. and trans., “Il Gadla Takla Hāymānot secondo la redazione
waldebbana,” Memorie della Reale Accademia dei Lincei, 5th ser., 2 (1896): 97–143;
English translation in Ernest A. W. Budge, The Life of Tâklâ Hâymânôt in the Version of
Dabra Libanos … to Which is Added and English Translation of the Waldebban Version,
2 vols. (London, 1906).

274 Brita
The Ḥayq recension72 was produced in the first half of the fifteenth century73
in Däbrä Libanos. The Däbrä Libanos recension,74 also written in the monas-
tery founded by the saint, represents the most widespread, longest, and most
complex version of the Life and is attested in at least two different versions,
the first written in 1515, the second in the seventeenth or eighteenth century.75
The Däbrä Libanos recension was also translated in Arabic during the reign
of King Gälawdewos (1540–1559) and sent to the Coptic patriarch Gabriel VII,
which helped spread the fame of Täklä Haymanot in the Coptic Church.76 We
also know of two works that were meant to be read on the commemoration
days of the translatio reliquiae of Täklä Haymanot (12 Gǝnbot) and of his suc-
cessor Filǝṗṗos (ca. 1274–1348) (23 Mäggabit), a quite rare type of text in Gǝʿǝz
hagiographic literature.77 Most redactions of Täklä Haymanot’s Life where thus
accomplished between the fifteenth and the sixteenth century, well after the life
of the saint, but in a period in which his principal foundation, Däbrä Libanos,
was becoming one of the most important monastic centers in the kingdom.
These redactions indeed show a relationship with the Life of the founder of the
preeminent monastic house of Däbrä Ḥayq Ǝsṭifanos, Iyäsus Moʾa (1214–1293).
The Life of Iyäsus Moʾa78 is attested in at least two recensions and has been a
focus of scientific interest for many scholars.79 The composition of the first
72 Still unpublished. An imprecise translation was published in Jean Duchesne-Fournet,

Mission en Ethiopie, 1901–1903, vol 1: Histoire du voyage (Paris, 1909), 340–431.
73 Between 1525 and 1526, according to Derat, “Une nouvelle étape,” 77; eadem, “Les Vies du
saint,” 38.
74 Edited and translated by Ernest A. W. Budge, The Life of Tâklâ Hâymânôt.
75 On the existence of more than one version of Däbrä Libanos recensions see Derat, “Les
Vies du saint;” Denis Nosnitzyn [Nosnitsin], “Zur Literaturgeschichte der Vita des hei-
ligen Täklä Haymanot: die arabische Fassung,” Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 62 (2000):
93–112 and Denis Nosnitsin, “Mäṣḥafä fǝlsätu lä-abunä Täklä Haymanot: A Short Study,”
Aethiopica 6 (2003): 137–167, at 145, n. 30.
76 Nosnitzyn, “Zur Literaturgeschichte”.
77 The two works have been studied by Denis Nosnitsin, “Mäṣḥafä fǝlsätu.”
78 Stanislas [Stanisław] Kur, ed. and trans., Actes de Iyasus Moʾa abbé du couvent de St.-
Etienne de Hayq, CSCO 259–260, SAe 49–50 (Louvain, 1965).
79 Derat, Le domaine des rois, 88–96; Bertrand Hirsch, “L’hagiographie et l’histoire. Lectures
d’un passage des Actes de Iyasus Moʾa,” in Hirsch and Kropp, Saints, Biographies and
History in Africa, 162–174; Steven Kaplan, “Iyasus Moʾa and Takla Haymanot: A Note on a
Hagiographical Controversy,” Journal of Semitic Studies 31 (1986): 161–174; Manfred Kropp,
“… der Welt gestorben: Ein Vertrag zwischen dem äthiopischen Heiligen Iyyäsus-Moʾa
und König Yǝkunno-Amlak über Memoriae im Kloster Ḥayq,” Analecta Bollandiana 116
(1998): 303–330; idem, “Die dritte Würde ode rein Drittel des Reiches? Die verschiedenen
Versionen der Biographie des Hl. Iyäsus Moʾa als Ausdruck sich wandelnder Funktionen
des Texts,” in Hirsch and Kropp, Saints, Biographies and History in Africa, 191–205;
Kur, Actes de Iyasus Mo’a; Paolo Marrassini, “A proposito di Iyasus Moʾa,” Egitto e Vicino

recension was dated to the second half of fifteenth century by Enrico Cerulli,
although his hypothesis is not shared by other scholars who slightly postpone
it. The second recension is much later, probably between the seventeenth and
the eighteenth century. Marie-Laure Derat proposes to take into consideration
the function of the Life of Iyäsus Moʾa in the general background of Amharan
monasticism in the fifteenth century and the rivalry between two important
monastic institutions, those of Däbrä Ḥayq Ǝsṭifanos and Däbrä Libanos, for
gaining the favor of the royal power. The composition of the Life of Iyäsus Moʾa
aimed therefore at demonstrating that Iyäsus Moʾa was the spiritual father of
Täklä Haymanot and that the latter received the monastic garment from the
former (the reverse is stated in the Life of Täklä Haymanot); at presenting Ḥayq
as the holiest and most ancient monastery of the region; and at demonstrat-
ing that the first and decisive support to the Solomonic dynasty was offered by
Iyäsus Moʾa (in facilitating the ascent to the throne of Yǝkunno Amlak).80
The Life of the hermit Samuʾel, founder of the Waldǝbba monastery in the
homonymous region of Tǝgray, one of the most inhospitable places, offers an
interesting description of the ascetic life. To the sixteenth century is also dated
the composition of the Life of Yared,81 musician from the fifth-sixth century
and one of the most venerated saints, considered the inventor of Ethiopian-
Eritrean liturgical chant.
A certain number of Lives of local saints who lived in the Middle Ages were
composed much later or are attested only in later manuscripts, but the lack of
proper critical study does not allow us to better contextualize their production
at this time.82
Significantly, when local hagiography began to spread, the perception of
foreign saints seems to have altered. The foreign saints were progressively
Oriente 9 (1986): 175–197; Denis Nosnitsin, “Wäwähabo qobʿa wäʾaskema. Reflections on

an episode from the history of the Ethiopian monastic movement,” Scrinium 1 (= Varia
Aethiopica: in Memory of Servir B. Chernestov [1943–2005], ed. Denis Nosnitsin) (2005):
197–247.
80 Derat, Le domaine des rois, 88–96; see also Bertrand Hirsch, “L’hagiographie et l’his-
toire,” 171.
81 Conti Rossini, Acta Yārēd et Ṗanṭalēwon.
82 Among them we can mention at least the Life of Mädḫaninä Ǝgziʾ, disciple of Täklä
Haymanot and founder of the monastery of Däbrä Bänkwǝl in Tǝgray (Gérard Colin, ed.
and trans., Vie et Miracles de Madhanina Egziʾ [Turnout, 2010]), and the Life of Krǝstos
Śämra (Enrico Cerulli, ed. and trans., Atti di Krestos Samrā, CSCO 163–164, SAe 33–34
[Louvain, 1956]), a work displaying a very interesting example of mystical sainthood,
cf. Antonella Brita, “L’immagine trascendentale del santo come strumento di potere
nell’agiografia etiopica,” in Persona, trascendenza e poteri in Africa / Person, transcendence
and powers in Africa, ed. Pierluigi Valsecchi (Milan, 2019), 83–110.

276 Brita
“Ethiopianized” and “personalized” by local models. Their hagiographies were

taken out from the collections (which impose a rigid material structure) and
copied into single-text manuscripts, where additional sections were added to
their Lives. This is the opposite, we may note, of the dynamic characterizing the
first original Gǝʿǝz hagiographic compositions, where Ethiopian and Eritrean
saints (foreign born, but active in and associated as saints with Ethiopia and
Eritrea) were instead modelled on and associated with foreign ones.
6 National and Local Hagiography
Hagiographic production reflects the veneration practices spread in the coun-

try. Not all saints venerated in Ethiopia and Eritrea are officially recognized
as “national” saints and not all, therefore, are included in the “canonical”
Synaxarion. A certain number of saints are known and venerated only at a local
level, sometimes in small districts or villages. This implies the existence, on
the one hand, of a confined hagiographic production and, on the other hand,
of local versions of the Synaxarion containing readings about local saints, in
addition to the readings about officially recognized saints. Some hagiogra-
phies on local saints known in this period are the Lives of Täklä Alfa,83 abbot
of the monastery of Dima Giyorgis, Filmona,84 Samuʾel from Däbrä Wägäg,85
Tadewos of Däbrä Bartarwa,86 and Zena Marqos.87 The Lives of the following
saints are related to Lake Ṭana area: Bäträ Maryam,88 from the monastery of
Zäge; Yafqǝrännä Ǝgziʾ89 from the monastery of Gwǝgwǝben; Zäyoḥannǝs,90
83 Enrico Cerulli, ed. and trans., “Gli Atti di Takla Alfa,” Annali dell’Istituto Universitario
Orientale di Napoli 2 (1943): 1–87.
84 Maurice Allotte de la Fuÿe, ed. and trans., Actes de Filmona, CSCO 181–182, SAe 35–36
(Louvain, 1958).
85 Stanislas [Stanisław] Kur, ed. and trans., Actes de Samuel de Dabra Wagag, CSCO 287–288,
SAe 57–58 (Louvain, 1968).
86 Riccardo de Santis, ed. and trans., “Il Gadla Tādēwos di Dabra Bārtāwa,” Annali Lateranensi
6 (1942): 9–116.
87 Enrico Cerulli, trans., “Gli atti di Zēnā Mārqos, monaco etiope del sec. XIV,” in Collectanea
Vaticana in honorem Anselmi M. Card. Albareda (Vatican City, 1962), 1: 191–212.
88 Translation by Enrico Cerulli, “Gli atti di Batra Maryam,” RSE 4 (1944–1945): 133–144, con-
tinued in vol. 5 (1946): 42–66.
89 Isaac Wajnberg, ed. and trans., Das Leben des Hl. Jāfqerena ʾEgzīʾ (Weimar, 1917; 2nd ed. as
Orientalia Christiana Analecta 106 [Rome 1936]).
90 Madeleine Schneider, ed. and trans., Acts de Za-Yoḥannǝs de Kebrān, CSCO 333–334, SAe
65–66 (Louvain, 1972).

founder of the monastery of Kǝbran; and Zena Maryam,91 founder of the mon-
astery of Ǝnfraz.
More in general, the circulation of single-text manuscripts containing hagi-
ographies about local saints must have been rather limited, so that the fame of
these saints remained confined within the borders of districts or villages. This
is not surprising. The fame that confers sainthood is based on the (direct or
indirect) memory of a saint preserved among the members of a community.
It thus originates in circumscribed areas, where it is believed the saint worked
wonders, and is hardly ever characterized by a sudden diffusion. Only later,
usually after the saint’s death, does the local favor that the holy person enjoyed
in communal memory take the shape of actual veneration which, through re-
iterated and long-lasting liturgical and ritual practices, keeps his/her memory
alive. These local forms of veneration tend to have distinctive peculiarities, de-
pending on the culture, the geography, and the traditions in the area where
they arise, but they also display shared features handed down both in oral and
written form. Frequent are, for instance, episodes of miracles worked by the
saint in definite places of the interested areas, where tangible signs are claimed
to be still visible in the shape of rocks, holy springs, or caves or are echoed in
place-names. All these places are themselves objects of veneration and back-
drops to celebrative ceremonies. These may be called folk forms of veneration,
aimed at strengthening the relationship between the saint and the members
of the local community but also at anchoring the memory of this relationship
to the places where it was born in order to shape a sort of territorial identity.
Veneration becomes legitimized when the Life and the miracles worked by the
saint are written down, usually at the initiative of the monastic community
founded (or claimed to have been founded) by the saint. This process takes
place at a local level and it is hardly possible that these saints are venerated in
a wider territory if their Lives are not included in larger collections of hagio-
graphic texts circulating in the whole country.
7 Hagiographic Manuscripts in Veneration Practices
A peculiar and fundamental narrative section present in the Gǝʿǝz Lives of

saints (but not exclusively) is the kidan (lit. “pact”), a promise given by God to
the saint to fulfill all the prayers and requests made by the faithful in his name
but also to grant eternal life to anyone who commissions the construction of a
91 Enrico Cerulli, trans., “Gli atti di Zēnā Māryām: monaca etiopica del secolo XIV,” RSO 21
(1946): 122–156.

278 Brita
church in his name, or commissions a copy of, translates, or even simply reads
his Life, or (especially) who observes his täzkar (commemoration), yearly and
monthly.92 The presence of the kidan in a Life represents the necessary ele-
ment for distinguishing between a mere literary work and a devotional one.
In terms of liturgical practices, saints in Ethiopia and Eritrea are celebrated
on their dies natalis, which is the main celebration and occurs once a year. They
are also celebrated each month on the same day of the annual celebration. If
for instance the main celebration of a saint falls on the fifth of Mäskäräm, the
monthly celebration takes place on the fifth of each month.
Reading indications, in the form of paracontent, provide us significant infor-
mation about the use of hagiographic manuscripts in liturgical celebrations. In
multiple-text manuscripts, and particularly in the GS, the indication readings
correspond to the date of the death of the saint (dies natalis) and, at the same
time, to the date of his commemoration. In the practical use of the manu-
script, the reading indication points to the date when the text has to be read
in the liturgical office. This marker can be written in different places on the
page but always in correspondence with the beginning of the texts to which it
is referred. It is not known when exactly, during the liturgical celebrations, the
GS was read in the medieval period. There is evidence of its use today, but this
does not necessarily reflect the use of the GS in the past.
Single-text manuscripts are also read on the day of the annual commemo-
ration of the saint. Some manuscripts show, alongside specific sections of the
text, reading indications in which the names of the months of the year are writ-
ten. These marks indicate when a certain passage of the text should be read
on the occasion of the monthly celebration. It is not clear when the monthly
celebration of the saints was introduced in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Indication
readings for the monthly celebrations are present in manuscripts dated at the
earliest to the sixteenth century.
8 Some Models of Sainthood in Gǝʿǝz Hagiography
A considerable number of Ethiopian-Eritrean kings are venerated as saints and

therefore included in the Synaxarion, and for some of them the circulation
92 Stanisław Kur, “Le pacte du Christ avec le Saint dans l’hagiographie ethiopienne,” in
Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of Ethiopian Studies: University of
Lund, 26–29 April 1982, ed. Sven Rubenson (Lund, 1984), 125–129; Bosc-Tiessé and Derat,
“De la mort à la fabrique.”

of hagiographic works is also known. The already-mentioned Life of Kaleb

(Ǝlla Aṣbǝḥa) mainly describes the sixth-century historical expedition of this
Aksumite king to Naǧrān, in Yemen, to avenge a massacre of Christians or-
dered by the Jewish king Yūsuf ʾAsʾar Yaṯʾar (Ḏu Nuwās in Arabic, Finḥas in
Gǝʿǝz) and his decision to become a monk after his return to Ethiopia. The
content of the work is shared (with some additional details) by other Gǝʿǝz
hagiographies related to Naǧrān events, mainly the Acts of Ḫirut (Arethas)
and the Life of Ṗänṭälewon. A homily of King Kaleb is also known.93 The ha-
giographic cycle of the Zagwe94 kings comprises five works composed in the
Solomonic period. They were created, as proposed by Marie-Laure Derat, to
restore the honor of these kings, depicted in the historiography as “usurp-
ers,” by downgrading them from kings to saints.95 The Lives of Lalibala96 and
Yǝmrǝḥannä Krǝstos97 written respectively at the beginning and at the end
of the fifteenth century, were the first composed.98 These texts are pure ha-
giographic compositions: no echo of the historiographical aspects character-
izing royal chronicles is found here. Once again, Marie-Laure Derat gives an
interesting reading: these works attest to the use of hagiography for rewriting
history, a weapon in the hands of the Solomonids to affirm their right to reign
by presenting an image of holy regality.99 The Lives of Na‌ʾakwǝto Läʾab100 and
Mäsqäl Kǝbra (wife of Lalibala) were written after the sixteenth century, the
Life of Ḥarbay in the eighteenth century. Their compilation is largely based
on the text of the earliest two Lives, so they lack any original features. For in-
stance, the Life of Mäsqäl Kǝbra is assembled by reusing the episodes from the
93 Getatchew Haile, ed. and trans., “An anonymous homily in honour of King Ella Aṣbeḥa of
Aksum. EMML 1763 ff. 34v–35v,” Northeast African Studies 3, 2 (1981): 25–37.
94 On the use of the term “Zagwe” to designate the dynasty see Derat, L’énigme d’une dynas-
tie, 202.
95 Ibid., 25, 214, 220 and passim.
96 Jules Perruchon, ed., Vie de Lalibala, roi d’Éthiopie. Texte éthiopien publié d’après un manu-
script du musée britannique (Paris, 1892); Marie-Laure Derat, “The Acts of King Lalibäla:
Structure, Literary Models and Dating Elements,” in Proceedings of the 15th International
Conference of Ethiopian Studies, ed. Siegbert Uhlig (Wiesbaden, 2006), 561–568; Derat,
“Autour de l’homelie en l’honneur du saint-roi Lālibalā: écritures hagiographiques, copies
et milieu de production,” Oriens Christianus 99 (2017): 99–128. An updated critical edition
with English translation is in preparation, authored by Nafisa Valieva.
97 Critical edition by Paolo Marrassini, ed. and trans., Il Gadla Yemreḥanna Krestos.
Introduzione, testo critico, traduzione (Naples, 1995).
98 Derat, L’énigme d’une dynastie, 215–238.
99 Ibid., 232.
100 Carlo Conti Rossini, ed. and trans., “Gli atti di Re Na‌ʾakuĕto La-ʾAb,” Annali dell’Istituto
Superiore Orientale di Napoli, n.s., 2 (1943): 105–232.

280 Brita
Lives of Lalibala and Na‌ʾakwǝto Läʾab in which she appears.101 A much later
composition (nineteenth-twentieth century) is the Life of the Aksumite kings
Abrǝha and Aṣbǝḥa,102 considered as two co-regent brothers. In point of fact,
they are the King Ǝlla Aṣbǝḥa (Kaleb) and Abrǝha, a military leader serving as
his lieutenant in South Arabia after the Naǧrān events and the return of Kaleb
to Ethiopia. The idea of the two co-regent brothers is a late conception reflect-
ing the late character of the text.
Purposes of legitimization and the wielding of power encouraged the com-
position of hagiographies about figures other than king-saints as well. The
composition of the above mentioned Däbrä Libanos recension of the Life of
Täklä Haymanot is an example of this operation. This recension was written
in the same period as the Life of Märḥa Krǝstos, which already clearly marks a
change in royal political thought towards monastic power. Täklä Haymanot is
here presented as the patron of the Solomonic dynasty to which he has been
bound by the insertion of a shared Davidic descent, elements both absent in
the previous recensions. Marie-Laure Derat proposes to consider the meaning
of the Däbrä Libanos recension as a reflection of a sea change in the relation-
ship between the monastic and royal powers.103
A number of hagiographies about Aksumite saints were written in a very
late period (nineteenth-twentieth century), as for instance the above-men-
tioned Life of Abrǝha and Aṣbǝḥa, but also the Lives of some of the Ṣadǝqan or
“Righteous Ones”104 and some of the Nine Saints (Alef,105 Liqanos,106 Ṣäḥma,107
Yǝmʿata,108 and at least the second recension of the Life of Afṣe).109 They rep-
resent, at different levels, good examples of the construction of sainthood,
of conscious political strategies on the part of kings and rulers (often with
the complicity of monastic communities) to revitalize ancient traditions for
101 Derat, L’énigme d’une dynastie, 236.

102 Paolo Marrassini, “Il Gadla Abreha waAṣbeḥa. Indicazioni preliminari,” Warszawkie Studia
Teologiczne 12, 2 (1999): 159–179.
103 Derat, “Modéles de sainteté,” 140–144.
105 Brita, “Il Gadla Alǝf,” in Æethiopica et Orientalia. Studi in onore di Yaqob Beyene, ed.
Alessandro Bausi et al., 2 vols. (Naples, 2012), 1: 69–87.
106 Critical edition and translation in my Ph.D dissertation: Brita, “Il ‘Gadla Liqānos’ e il
‘Gadla Ṗanṭalēwon.’”
107 Antonella Brita, “Ṣǝḥma,” in EAe 4 (2010), 596–597.
108 Hagos Abrha, ed. and trans., Textual Analysis of Gädlä Yǝmʿata (PhD diss., Addis Ababa,
2009); idem, “Philological Analysis of the Manuscripts of the Gadla Yǝmʿata,” Ityopis 1
(2011): 61–75.
109 Roger Schneider, “Les Acted d’Abba Afṣē de Yeḥa,” Annales d’Éthiopie 13 (1985): 105–118.

urposes of political and monastic legitimization. These works of course re-

p
flect the mentality and the culture of the time in which they were created,
rather than the eras of the saints they describe.110 They are interesting for un-
derstanding how ancient traditions were perceived in later periods, a subject
which is however well beyond the scope of this volume.
The need to establish an ideological link with the past to legitimize power
or to claim feudal rights is, as extensively shown in the previous pages, a con-
stant in the political thought of the Solomonic dynasty and is clearly reflected
in the literary production of the Solomonic era. It is matter of identity and
universal acknowledgment of that identity, but also of recognition of a value
genetically transmitted and not dependent on personal abilities (which are
the consequence, not the cause, of the lineage’s grandeur).111 The value placed
on a link to the past was deeply rooted in the mentality of the time and ex-
tended to the religious milieu as well. An example is provided, for instance,
in the Life of Arägawi, where the saint receives his monastic garment directly
from the hands of Saint Pachomius, in Egypt. The topic is present also in some
other later hagiographies of the cycle. The fact that some of these Aksumite
monks are claimed to have received the monastic garment from the hands of
Pachomius, Anthony or Shenoute reflects the need to establish a direct monas-
tic linkage between them and the Desert Fathers. It represents an anachronis-
tic attempt to create an ideological connection with Egyptian monasticism in
order to validate the authority of Ethiopian-Eritrean monasticism as its direct
descendant.112 In this perspective should probably also be evaluated the mo-
nastic genealogy in the Life of Täklä Haymanot.
110 For further details on the Life of Abrǝḥa wä-Aṣbǝḥa see Susanne Hummel, “The disput-
ed Life of the saintly Ethiopian kings ʾAbrǝhā and ʾAṣbǝḥa,” Scrinium 12, 1 (2016): 35–72
and Habtamu Mengistie Tegegne, “Dispute over precedence and protocol: Hagiography
and forgery in 19th-century Ethiopia,” Afriques [online journal] 7 (2016), DOI: 10.4000/
afriques.1909; on the Life of Liqānos see Brita, I racconti tradizionali, 97–130.
111 In any case this idea is deeply rooted in a more general context related to the great value
assigned to the lineage in the primitive societies and not exclusively in Ethiopia and
Eritrea or in Africa (if one thinks about the importance of genealogies learned by heart by
Cushitic or other populations) but also in the Near East (reflected in the religious culture
as well, in the genealogy of the Prophet, in the Bible or in the apostolicity of the Church,
etc.) and Europe.


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chapter 10

Genres of Ethiopian-Eritrean Christian Literature

In the fourth century the ancient Ethiopian-Eritrean kingdom of Aksum em-

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004419582_011 Antonella Brita - 9789004419582

2 Genres of Ethiopian-Eritrean Christian Literature

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as Emmanuel Fritsch and Habtemichael Kidane illustrate in their essay in this

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a manuscript of the Miracles of Mary. Lacking the appropriate materials, he

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17 Marrassini, “Kǝbrä nägäśt,” 366.

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26 Solomon Gebreyes Beyene, “The Tradition.”

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3 Hagiography: Typologies and Methodologies

A large number of hagiographic works on apostolic and early Christian saints

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of religion, anthropology, social history, and other fields. From a methodologi-

30 Selection of more recent general studies on Ethiopian-Eritrean hagiography: Alessandro

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codicological features.35 It allows us to contextualize and define the circum-

4 Hagiography and Canonization in Ethiopia-Eritrea: the Role of

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in the margins of the manuscript as a reading indication, and a double title,

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5 The Emergence of Ethiopian-Eritrean Hagiography

5.1 Ethiopian-Eritrean Saints of Foreign Origin and the Construction of

44 Bausi, La versione etiopica, 12–14.

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5.2 Hagiographies of Ethiopian-Eritrean-Born Saints

49 Brita, I racconti tradizionali, 146–174.

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main innovation of the single-text manuscript was the possibility to include

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72 Still unpublished. An imprecise translation was published in Jean Duchesne-Fournet,

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Oriente 9 (1986): 175–197; Denis Nosnitsin, “Wäwähabo qobʿa wäʾaskema. Reflections on

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“Ethiopianized” and “personalized” by local models. Their hagiographies were

6 National and Local Hagiography

Hagiographic production reflects the veneration practices spread in the coun-

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7 Hagiographic Manuscripts in Veneration Practices

A peculiar and fundamental narrative section present in the Gǝʿǝz Lives of

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8 Some Models of Sainthood in Gǝʿǝz Hagiography

A considerable number of Ethiopian-Eritrean kings are venerated as saints and

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of hagiographic works is also known. The already-mentioned Life of Kaleb

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101 Derat, L’énigme d’une dynastie, 236.

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­ urposes of political and monastic legitimization. These works of course re-

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17 Marrassini, “Kǝbrä nägäśt,” 366.

26 Solomon Gebreyes Beyene, “The Tradition.”

30 Selection of more recent general studies on Ethiopian-Eritrean hagiography: Alessandro

44 Bausi, La versione etiopica, 12–14.

49 Brita, I racconti tradizionali, 146–174.

72 Still unpublished. An imprecise translation was published in Jean Duchesne-Fournet,

101 Derat, L’énigme d’une dynastie, 236.

urposes of political and monastic legitimization. These works of course re-