Scriptorium Press is a new publisher, and offers a growing series of English translations of hagiographical texts. Most of these are from the Greek. All of them seem intended for use by the educated general reader with an interest in the lives of the saints.
An interesting volume is their Saints of Ethiopia (140 pages, C$16). ISBN 9798300901172. This is an anthology of texts which throw light upon the origins of the Ethiopian church. This is a welcome attempt to make this little-known area of orthodox life more accessible.
Not everything in it is newly translated. The editors do not seem to know Ge`ez, and so they have done their best with whatever they could translate.
The volume contains translations of the following texts, which are translated from the following sources.
- On the Captivity of Frumentius (from Rufinus, Church History, book 1, c. 9; PL 21: 478-480)
- The Life of Saint Moses the Ethiopian (from Palladius, The Lausiac History, c. 22; PG34:1063-70)
- The Sayings of Abba Moses (from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers/Apophthegmata Patrum – Alphabetical Collection; PG 65:281-9)
- The Life of Saint Pantaleon the Recluse (CSCO 26, Scriptores Aethiopici 17, 39-56)
- The Martyrdom of Saint Arethas (in 9 chapters; BHG 166-166b; Anecdota Graeca 5 , Paris (1883), p.1-62.)
- The Life of Saint Jared the Melodist (CSCO 26, 3-21).
- The Cannibal of Kemer.
The first of these tells the story of how Christianity came to Ethiopia, and is therefore an excellent introduction to the rest. The next two, about Moses the Black, relate to life in Egypt, but are probably an inevitable inclusion.
The remaining texts will be less familiar. The Life of Saint Pantaleon is a 15th century Ge`ez text, for which a reader must otherwise consult the modern Latin translation of Rossini.
The Martyrdom of Saint Arethas and his companions – the martyrs of Najran, ca. 523 AD – is a Greek text. It records the war of the Christian Ethiopians against the Jewish Himiyarite king responsible. It makes use of earlier texts extant in Syriac, and makes a very welcome addition to the literature for this period.
The Life of Saint Jared (or Yared) the Melodist is a Ge`ez text of unknown date – the saint is 6th century -, but considerable length. It is a very useful thing to have. The editors have perforce abbreviated it, and they have included E. Wallis Budge’s translation of the corresponding portion of the Ethiopian Synaxarion. This interesting figure seems to have begun the musical tradition of the Ethiopian church, and created a system of musical notation.
The Cannibal of Kemer is an extract from the Book of the Miracles of Our Lady Mary. This is an Ethiopian translation of an 11th century Coptic text. The version given here is that of Budge, somewhat modernised, rather than a new translation.
The translation style is perfectly good and clear. It is sometimes a little stiff – “Jared sojourned in Aksum” is perhaps not a phrase found in current use – but probably from following the text particularly closely. Anybody who has had to work with dictionaries will know that the need for an exact equivalent often has this effect, where an older English had a word, but modern English does not. It’s probably right to stick with the older word.
For some of the texts, the footnotes are extensive, and very useful to the general reader. Few of us will be familiar with any of the context, after all. These are admirably done, identifying unfamiliar people and places, and referring to other texts. For others the notes are fewer – the Life of Pantaleon is much more annotated than the Life of Jared, for instance. But I do not think this will trouble the reader.
Something that is missing in the book is running titles. This is consistent with the style of the series, but in an anthology, it makes it harder to find particular texts. I suspect that copies of the book will get corners folded down, or sprout postits, at the start of each text.
The 23 page introduction assumes no knowledge of the origins of the Ethiopian church, and therefore stands as a useful primer for newcomers. The statements made are all carefully referenced, and so, in a short space, it gives a vast amount of useful information.
As in other volumes, the short bibliography is at the back. At the front there are two nice and very necessary maps of the region, and of the location of important Ethiopian monasteries.
All in all this volume is a success. It gives us texts in English that we did not have before. It collects useful material. May it sell well and bring knowledge of Ethiopia to many.
