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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2011
Dr. Ropes in his encyclopaedic treatment of “The Text of Acts,” in The Beginnings of Christianity, vol. iii, 1926, omitted treatment of the Ethiopic versions for lack of reliable critical material. In the section calling attention to the Ethiopic texts (pp. cxlvi seq.), along with the expression of opinion that an investigation of that field for Acts “would produce interesting and valuable results,” he notes the Ethiopic manuscripts recorded for Acts in Gregory's list, of which “one (Paris, Bibl. Nat., aeth. 26 [Zotenberg 42]) is of the fifteenth century.” Subsequently to the completion of his volume Dr. Ropes was able to secure a photographic copy of that MS. of Acts; and he did the present writer the honor of asking him to make a critical study of what appeared to be the oldest known witness to Acts in that version.
1 Another query, unanswered, was as to the ownership of the photographic copy. It has been returned to Dr. Ropes’ estate, and I suppose that inquiry at the Harvard Divinity School will discover where it may be found.
2 In fact it appears to be the only one of known promise. Gregory in his Textkritik des Neuen Testamentes, 2,559–565, catalogues 101 MSS. (our MS. is his no. 70), of which only 12 contain Acts; these are mostly of the 17th and 18th centuries, except no. 69, ascribed by Gregory to the 16th century, but according to Zotenberg (Catalogue des manuscrits éthiopiens de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 1877, under his no. 41) its text has been accommodated to that of the London Polyglot. Count Carlo Rossini in his article ‘Manoscritti ed opere abissine in Europa,’ in Rendiconti della Reale Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Classe di scienze morale, etc., vol. 8, 1899, 606–637, adds no items of manuscripts containing Acts, in fact records none such. It is Zotenberg's judgment that our us. is of the 15th century — overlooked by Gregory in his statement.
3 Hackspill, L., ‘Die äthiopische Evangelienübersetzung,’ Zts. f. Ass. 11 (1896), 187 ffGoogle Scholar.
4 This convent of Abba Samuel of Gadama-Wali is mentioned in Zot., no. 107, p. 204, and probably is the one whose destruction is recorded in no. 141, p. 213a. Takla-Seyon, monk of the same convent, appears also in Zot., no. 136, p. 204 (where for ‘Wali’ Zot. reads, evidently erroneously, ‘Waldeba’).
5 See Wright, Cat. Eth. Mss. in Brit. Mus., p. x; Hackspill, pp. 127 ff.
6 For this antique characteristic of the Eth. in the Old Testament see Ropes’ summary, p. cxlvi seq.; to which add Dillmann's encomium (in his Eth. Bible, 1, 16) of its simplicitas and perspicuitas. For a recent intensive study see Gehman, ‘Old Eth. Version of I. Kings,’ JBL 1931, 81–114, coming to like result for that book. However conditions vary in different books. In the amplest critical study yet made of an O. T. book, Lüfgren, , Die äthiopische Übersetzung des Propheten Daniel, Paris, 1927Google Scholar, that scholar, p. xlix, comes to the result that for Dan. the oldest form of text exhibits no near relationship with the three great Greek majuscules, and denies the opinion that has been held that Eth. shows close affinity to cod. Alex. In the most recent study of this kind, Mercer, The Eth. Text of the Book of Eccles., London, 1981Google Scholar, ‘the author cites for the Greek only “LXX” and so throws no light on the relations of the text with the Greek witnesses; see review by Gehman, JAOS 1982, 260–268. There may be also noted here the essay by S. Reckendorf, ‘Ueber den Werth der altäth. Pentateuch-übersetzung für die Reconstruction der Septuaginta,’ ZAW 1887, 61–90, which comes to rather indefinite results. His principal deduction reads to this effect: “Das hier zusammengestellte Material beweist, dass gerade die auffallendsten Abweichungen des äthiopischen Textes von dem recipirten Septuagintatexte nicht auf die Nachlässigkeit der äthiopischen Abschreiber, sondern auf die von den Uebersetzern (bezwiehungsweise Umarbeitern) benutzte Vorlage zurückzuführen sind.” But this critical position cannot at all be maintained for Eth. Acts.
7 Pp. 146 ff.
8 Subsequent to Dillmann's critical edition of the Ethiopic Old Testament, 1858–71 (covering only the historical books), and his text of Joel (in Merx, Die Prophetie des Joel, 1879), may be noted Cornill's study of the Eth. of Ezekiel in his Ezechiel, 1886, pp. 36–48; F. O. Kramer, Die äth. Übersetzung des Zacharias, 1898; N. Roupp, ‘Die älteste ath. Handschrift der vier Bücher der Könige, ZA 1902, 296–843 (with critical study of text of Samuel); J. Bachmann, Obadiah, 1892; J. Schäfers, Über die äth. Übersetzung d. Proph. Jeremias, 1912; O. Löfgren, in addition to his text of Dan. already cited, Nahum, Hab., Hag., Sach. u. Mai., aethiopisch, 1930; and the studies by Reckendorf, Gehman and Mercer on the texts of the Pent., 1 Kings and Eccles. noted above. Also the texts of Job, Esther, Amos, Ezra-Neh. have been published by M. E. Pereira in Patrologia Orientalis, 1907 et seq. J. O. Boyd is re-editing the Octateuch, of which Genesis (1909), Exodus and Leviticus (1911) have appeared, in Littmann's Bibliotheca Abessinica, vols. 3, 4.
Over against this large interest in the Eth. text of the Old Testament, the scholarship of the New Testament is indeed lacking in that field. Subsequent to the immediate interest provoked by the appearance of the first Eth. print of the New Testament (to be treated below), there are to be named several volumes of Bode in the middle of the 18th century (to be noticed below), while for recent years the only substantial critical treatment to be recorded is that by Hackspill for Matt, i-x published 1896.
9 See Dillmann, Ethiopic Grammar, p. 4.
10 For a summary of older literature see Hackspill, ZA 1896, 117 S.; n.b. especially Guidi, Le traduzioni degli evangelii in arabo e in ethiopico, Rome, 1888Google Scholar. For more recent discussions see Gregory, Textkritik, 2, BBS ff.; Littmann, Gesch. d. christl. Litteraturen des Orients, ed. Brockelmann, 1907, 223 ff.; Prätorius in RE 3 ‘Äth. Bibelübersetzungen’; Rossini, Storia d'Etiopia, 1928, 1, c. 6.
11 For the Ethiopic Liturgy, see Prof. S. A. B. Mercer's book with that title, Milwaukee and London, 1915.
12 That Library contains the largest collection of Ethiopica in this country, and Dr. Black's Catalogue is a mine of bibliographical information. I acknowledge the particular courtesy of Dr. Joshua Bloch, chief of the Jewish Division of the Library, in affording me the facility of using this rare volume and other books which I could not find elsewhere.
A comprehensive bibliography of Ethiopic Bible prints is to be found in the Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society, by T. H. Darlow and H. T. Moule, 4 pts. (2 vols.), 1903 seq. See also the Appendix on Literature in Prätorius, Grammatica aethiopica.
13 For notices of this famous convent and its library see Budge, A History of Ethiopia, 288, 560, etc.
14 For the above facts see Ludolf, Historia aethiopica, lib. iii, ch. iv, §§ 7–14; his Commentarius attached to the same work, p. 297; his Lexicon aethiopico-latinum, the Corollarium in the preface, fol. 8a; I. Guidi, La prima stampa del Nuovo Testamento in etiopico, fatta in Roma nel 1548–1549 (in Archivio della R. Società Romana di Storia Patria, ix, 1886, 274–278), containing some hitherto unpublished correspondence of the editors and other fresh data; Prätorius, RE3 3, 37; Gregory, Textkritik, 2, 557. Mariano Vittorio's grammar bears the title Chaldeae seu aethiopicae linguae institutiones, of date Rome 1552; a copy of the reprint made in 1630 is in the New York Public Library.
15 Walton also published in the Polyglot the Ethiopic text of Psalms and Canticles for which he gives acknowledgment to the works of Potkin the first editor of Ethiopic prints (Canticles, Rome, 1513; Psalter, Cologne, 1518; see Prätorius, Gramm. aeth., App. p. 24), and to Pococke for a correct manuscript of the Psalter; see his Biblicus Apparatus, 416a. The Appendix to the Polyglot, vol. 6, contains ‘Variae lectiones’ and ‘Annotationes’ on these Ethiopic texts by Castell.
16 Preface to the Polyglot, p. 10.
17 zayebazeḥ; for the idiom cf. Dillmann, Lex., 582.
18 One scholar alone has devoted himself to the translation and critical study of this printed text of the New Testament, C. A. Bode, in the middle of the 18th century (for bliobigraphy see Prätorius, op. cit. 25); his work includes a Latin translation of the Ethiopic New Testament from the Polyglot text, 1752, 1755; a critical study of the same in comparison with the Greek, 1753; also a critical and philological study on the Ethiopic Gospel of Matthew, 1749 — a copy of which is in the Andover-Harvard Library. I regret I have not access to this scholar's critical study of Acts.
19 See Hyvernat, ‘Arabes (Versions)’ in Vigouroux's DB.
20 Dillmann, Lex., Praef. col. v seq.; C. C. Rossini, ‘Sulle versioni et sulle revisioni della sacra scrittura in etiopico,’ ZA 1895, 236–239; Hackspill, ZA 1896, 159 ff.; Löfgren, Äth. Übersetzungen des Proph. Daniel, p. xlv seq. (with bibliography); also Littmann and Rossini, cited in note 10 above.