ETHIOPIC VERSION This subject wiU be
treated under the following heads : —
i. T)ie Ethiopic Canonical Booln. U. The Manu^cripto. 111. Printed Edilions. iv. Source of tlie Text.
V. Critical Value. Ti. Date,
1. The Ethiopic Canonical Books.— (A) Old Testament. — The Eth. OT embraces all the books included in the LXX (except the Books of the Mac- cabees), together with several others, such as the Book of Enoch, Jubilees, 4 Ezra, Rest of the Words of IJaruch, etc. Tlie Maccabees were either never translated or else were early lost. Since, however, tlie Eth. scliolars found the titles of these books in their Sin6d6s and Fctha Nagast, they proceeded to supply them from their own imagination. In this way these books came into circulation (l)illmann). In later times, indeed, the Latin version of these books was translated into Ethiopic. (See Wright, Vat. Eth. MSS lirit. Mm. p. 14.) No distinction whatever appears to have been made between the canonical and the uncanonical books of OT. The number of books in OT is set down unanimously at 46, but hardlj' two lists of these books agree. As a rule, the apocryplial and pseudepigraphal books which appear in one list are replaced in another by quite different works of the same class of literature. (See Walton's Poh/fjlut i., Proleg. p. 100 ; Dillmann in Ewald's Jahrhiicher d. bihl. Wissenschaft , v. 1853, pp. 144-151 ; Fell, Canones Apostulorum ./Ethiopire, p. 46.)
(B) New Testament. — 35 books are reckoned in NT. This number is arrived at by including a book of Canon Law with the usual 27 books of NT. As this work, called the SinCdCs, is counted as 8 books, we thus get 35 in all. (See Zotenberg, Cat. d»s MSS Etninpirns de la BHiliothi^ipie NatiuniJe, p. 141 fl. ; Ludolf, Historiri JEtldopica, III. iv. 27 ; Vansleb, Histoire de I'Eglise (TAlex- andria, 23'Jff.)
The Western divi.sion of the Bible into chapters made its way into Abyssinia tlirough the contact in later times of the latter with Western Christen- dom. The old-jr MSS exhibit quite a ditl'erent division of the books.
ii. The MSS of the Ethiopic Version.— The chief MSS of OT, the Apocrypha and I'siudepi- prapha, and of NT will be found in tlie following catalogues : — Wright, Ethiopic MSS of the Briti.ih MiLirum, OT and Apocr. pp. 1-2-J, >«Jpp. 23-29, 1878 ; Zotenberg, Cntnlmpie di-~i MSS Etfiiopiens de la Bihliuthique Natiimale, OT and Apocr. Nos. 1-31,49-51, NT Nos. 32-48; D'Abbadie, Catalogue
Raisonn( de MSS &thiopiens, Paris, 1859, OT and Aiiocr. Nos. 16, 21, 22, 30, 35, 55, 99, 105, 117, 137, 141, 149, 19.5, 197, 203, 204, 205. Some of these MSS contain only single books. MSS of Enoch are found in 16, 30, 99, 197 ; Gospels, Nos. 2, 9, 47, 82, 95, 112, 173; Pauline Epp. 9, 119, 164; Cath. Epp., Apoc. and Acts, 9, 119, 164. Dillmann, Cataloqus MSS /Ethiop. in Bibliotheea Bodleiana, 1848, OT and Apocr. 1-9, NT 10-15. There are small collections of MSS also in Berlin. See Dill- mann, Abcssini.'sche Handsehriften der Koniglirhen Bihliothck zu Berlin ; OT and Apocr. Nos. 1-6, of the Psalms 7-19 ; NT 20, 21. Of these, No. 1 is a MS of Enoch. For the MSS in Vienna, see ZDMG xvi. p. 554 ; in St. Petersburg, see Bulletin scientijiqrie puhlii par VAcadhnie iin- pi'rinlc drs Sciences, ii. 302, iii. 14511'. ; in Tubingen, see XDMG v. 164 II'. There are also a few MSS in Frankfort of some value, and in private libraries in England.*
iii. Printed Editions.— We shall mention only a few of these. For further information the reader may consult Le Long, Biblivtheca Sacra, 1878, ii. 140-157 ; Fell, Literarische Rundschau fiir das Kathol. Dcut.^rhland, Feb. 1, 1896.
(A) Old Testament. — Of OT Dillmann has edited vol. i. Gn-Ruth, 1853 (some of the best MSS were inaccessible when this volume was edited); vol. ii. Samuel and Kings, 1861-1871; Joel (in Merx, Die Prophefie des Joels). The Psalms were edited liy Ludolf in 1701, and in the various Polyglots and by the Bible Society. Bach- niann published texts of Isaiah, Lamentations, and M.alacfii. The text of the last two books neither adecjuately nor accurately represents the best Ethiopic SiSS in Europe.
(B) Apocrijpha. — The honour of publishing the fir.st Apocrvjihal texts belongs to Oxford. Thus Laurence edited the Ascension of Isaiah in 1819, the Apocaly|)se of Ezra in 1820, and the Book of Enoch in 1838. These are valuable now only from an historical point of view. Dillmann has given us a splendid edition of the Apocryphal books, Baruch, Epistola Jeremite, Tobit, Judith, Kcclesiasticus, S;i|)ientia, Esdroe Apocalypsis, F.sdras Gra?cus (1894). He edited texts also of Enoch (1851), Jubilees (18.59), and the Ascension of Isaiah (1877). In 1893 Charles published an edition of Enoch, in which there is a continuous correc- tion of Dillmann's text from 10 hitherto uncoUated MSS, and in 1894 the Ethiopic text of Jubilees from 4 MSS.
(C) New Testament. — The NT was first printed at Rome in 1548-49 by the Abyssini.an Tasfft-Sion, with the omission, however, of the 13 Pauline Epistles. As the translator possessed only a fragmentary MS of the Acts, he sujiplied an Eth. version of the missinfj chapters from tlie Greek and Latin. This edition, which is disHgured by countless errors, was reprinted in Walton's Poly- glot. Another edition, Nov. Te^tnmentum . . Aitldopice, ad eodicum nuinuscriptoruin fdctn, was issued by T. P. Piatt for the Brit, and For. Bible Society, 1826-1830. A reprint of this edition appeared at B.isle in 1874. These editions are of no critical value.