Öffentlicher Vortrag im Rahmen der Summer School „Working in Manuscript Studies: Traditional and New Approaches, with a focus on the Ethiopian and Eritrean tradition “ vom 04. bis 15.09.2023

There is a long-standing debate in the field of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies about so-called Syriac influences on Ethiopic Christianity. I. Guidi and especially C. Conti Rossini argued that Syriac Christians exerted a great deal of influence on Ethiopic Christianity during Late Antiquity as foreign missionaries who fled the Chalcedonian Empire for Aksum, where, among other things, they introduced monasticism, translated the Bible into Ethiopic, and more broadly brought about a “second-christianisation” of Aksum. Subsequent scholarship, including especially that of H. J. Polotsky, P. Marrassini, and more recently A. Brita, has challenged this thesis – and rightfully so, in my view. In this lecture, I want to reorient the conversation to a later period, traditionally called the Solomonic period, which commenced in 1270. In particular, I focus in this lecture on the Ethiopic reception of Syriac literature. A sizeable body of Ethiopic literature is attributed to Syriac authors and/or ultimately goes back to Syriac originals, including texts associated with Aphrahaṭ (fl. 336–345), Ephrem (d. 373), Jacob of Serugh (d. 521), Philoxenos of Mabbug (d. 523), Isaac of Nineveh (seventh century), Dadishoʿ Qaṭraya (seventh century), John of Dalyatha (eighth century), Theodore bar Koni (eighth century), and Ishoʿdad of Merv (ninth century), not to mention a number of anonymous texts. As a rule, Arabic served as the bridge by which Syriac texts reached Ethiopic. The Ethiopic reception of Syriac literature nicely illustrates the complexities of the connected histories of Ethiopic and Syriac Christianity.

Please let us know if you would like to attend by sending us an email to aethiopistik(at)uni-hamburg.de with your name and affiliation before September 1, 2023.

We shall be hopefully be able to offer an online stream via Zoom; please specify if you are not able to come in person but would like to receive the Zoom link.

Thursday, 7 September 2023
17:00 CEST
Universität Hamburg
Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, Western Wing, Room 221
20146 Hamburg
(also on Zoom)