(3) The Ethiopic Version (Eth.).
The Ethiopic translation of the Bible is assigned by Guidi to the end of the fifth, or beginning of the sixth century, the time at which Christianity became the dominant religion in Abyssinia. That religion after a period of decadence began to flourish again in the twelfth century, but in dependence on the Patriarchate of Alexandria. The two principal classes of Ethiopic Biblical MSS. are connected with these periods respectively; the first class being derived from the Greek text before, and the latter after the Alexandrian recension. The corrections, however, vary in different copies, and appear to be the result of desultory rather [pg 155] than of systematic alteration. The MSS. of the Ethiopic N. T. are rarely complete; ordinarily the Gospels, the Epistles of St. Paul, and the Catholic Epistles with the Acts and the Apocalypse constitute separate volumes. The oldest copy of the Gospels would seem to be no. 32 of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, written in the reign of Yekūnō Amlāk; whereas MS. 33 of the same collection represents the later text. Examples of the different recensions are given by Guidi, Atti della R. Academia dei Lincei: Classe di scienze morali &c., iv. 1888, from whom most of the above statements are taken.
Copies of the N. T., especially of the Gospels, are to be found in most collections of Ethiopic MSS.; see especially Wright, Ethiopic MSS. of the British Museum, pp. 23-39, and Zotenberg, Catalogue des MSS. Éthiopiens de la Bibliothèque Nationale (nos. 32-48; in the preface to this latter work a list of other collections are given); also Dillmann, Abessinische Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin (no. 20, the four Gospels; 21, the Gospel of St. John); D'Abbadie, Catalogue Raisonné de MSS. Éthiopiens (Paris, 1859; nos. 2, 47, 82, 95, 112, 173, the four Gospels; no. 119, St. Paul's Epistles; no. 164, Catholic Epp., Apoc., and Acts); Dillmann, Catalogus MSS. Aethiop. in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, nos. 10-15; Fr. Müller, Aethiop. Handschriften der K. K. Hofbibliothek in Wien (Z. D. M. G., xvi. p. 554, no. v, the Gospels; no. vi, St. John's Gospel); “Bulletin Scientifique de S. Pétersbourg,” ii. 302 (account of a MS. of the Gospels in the Asiatic Institute at St. Petersburg), iii. 148 (account of a MS. of the four Gospels, bearing the date 78 = 1426 a.d., in the Public Library at St. Petersburg, and another of St. John's Gospel).
The Ethiopic N. T. was first printed in Rome, 1548, cum epistola Pauli ad Hebraeos tantum, cum concordantiis Evangelistarum Eusebii et numeratione omnium verborum eorundem. Quae omnia curavit Fr. Petrus Ethyops auxilio priorum sedente Paulo iii. Pont. Max. et Claudio illius regni imperatore (edition of Tasfā Sion). The remaining thirteen Epistles of St. Paul were printed in 1549. This edition was reproduced in the London Polyglott. Another was issued by T. P. Platt (for the Bible Society) in 1830, reprinted 1844 and 1874. These editions are based on MSS. containing mixed recensions, and are therefore of no critical value.