CURIOUS ETHIOPIC MANUSCRIPTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 11, 14 January 1936, Page 10

CURIOUS ETHIOPIC MANUSCRIPTS

Dating to 14th. Century

gTAIfING IMO THE DARKNESS ot a steel sale in Fifth Avenue, almond eyes of Ethiopia guard the precious manuscript penned for the royal ancestress of Haile Selassie, the Princess Zir-Ganela—daughter of King Saifa Ar’cd, who reigned from 1314 to 1382. writes Miss Pearl Strachan. Solemn, intense, are the hundred* ot pairs of eyes, nil with the same paint ed stillness, the vivid whites, the centred black pupils, the v shaped brows, that peer from the crude illustrations ot six centuries ago. It is not necessary to understand the square script, ot an uncial type seldom used after the tenth century A.D. No clearly do the miniatures, with their primitive, unsophisticated drawing; their lavish bit harmonious employment of elementary hue, depict the be.-t known incidents of the four Gospels. Remarkably preserved, the midvermilion, green l»h-c and gamboge coloured pictures of this fourteenth century manuscript, designed according to Ethiopian Christian tradition, and showing unmi>fak:tb!e traces nf Egyptian and Semitic inflimm •••>, present the life and works of .1. >us, from the Annunciation to the Ascension. There are 206 leaves of vellum, including nineteen full p g«*> of miniatures illustrating the Saviour's works, ornamental panels introducing each of the Gospels, ami vigoro; . decorative paintings of Matthew, Mark, Luke an J John, with pen and lectern except in the eas • of John, who is shown with a sword instead of a pen. That perspective <•! anatomy were In a general way dLregarded is evident in the manner in wbi- h the fee* are draw n, dangli’g. a< if there only because nf afterthought, and roughly outlined bfip small hoofs, below the hems of the garment-. Xrms receive similarly • asual t rent j. < nt, I.nt ttu eyes have sp. - in! < are ami shine forth in the same shape and ■ inng from man, woman, child, nx. vimej, serpent, sheep, horse, enw, ai<d even sun and moon. When Mr Gregor Aharon purchased the manuscript in Italy in 1927 it had been in an Italian collection since the m. pedition into Abyssinia of JS93. It wn> shortly’ before that time, about IS6S. that British troops carried off as the npoils of war several hundred Ethiopic or Geez writings which are now’ the basis of the collection at the British | Museum. The majority of Ethiopia j manuscripts, however, even those in • the British collection, and in that of I

> the Bibliothcque Nationale at Paris , (the next one of importance outside of • private collections) are works of the • seventeenth, eighteenth or nineteenth • century. Rare indeed is the codex dat : ing, as does Mr Aharon’s, from the » fourteenth century. M. Eugene Tisserand, Curator ot Oriental Manuscripts at the Vatican Library, describes the work as especially valuable for its barbaric minia- • teres and, after careful examination, ’ corroborates the time of writing as that of King David 1, between 1390 and 1410. lie notes only seven leaves missing, the first one which contained the letter to Carpianos, and six in the Gospel of St. Mark, between folios 75 and 76. In a letter to Mr Aharon he states, ‘‘The Ethiopic manuscripts of this time are very rare and few older manuscripts are known. We have only two of the preceding century (four teenth) in the Vatican Library, and none of the Gospels. . . . We have in the Vatican Library’ no manuscript of trie same value from this particular point of view.’' Abbe Grebnnd of Paris, who ha* spent most of Bis life in Ethiopia, testifies that it is “a very beautiful specimen of ancient writing, the Gospei of the Princess Zir-Ganela, daughter of the King Nay fa Afud-Seyon L, one of the greatest kings of Ethiopia. It was written under the order of this princess, in the reign of David I.” The princess, it appears, entered the monastery of the Abbot Aaron Thaumaturgus, and the writing i.s probably the joint production of a number of monks. One of the most unusual illustrations is that of the crucifixation, showing the Master’s cross unoccupied, although the Roman soldiers on each side of it are driving their spears into the space which the body of the Saviour would ordinarily fill. This is in accordance with the Abyssinian creed which rejects the story of a physical execution. The bodies of the two thieves are in the picture, and resting on the horizontal bar of the cross pre the sin and the moon, with the long, black rimmed eyes which are such a pronounced feature of all figures portrayed. It wa* in Ethiopia, this “furthest” land, where, the Homeric legends have it, “the gods go to the banquets,” and “the Sun sets in their country,” that practicing Christianity flourished after i Rome had fallen to the barbarians, and the infidel had entered the gates ■f both Byzantium and Alexandria.