THE CONFLICT OF SEVERUS

PATRIARCH OF ANTIOCH

BY ATHANASIUS

ETHIOPIC TEXT EDITED AND TRANSLATED

BY

Edgar J. GOODSPEED

assistant professor

in the University of Chicago

WITH THE REMAINS OF THE COPTIC VERSIONS

BY

W. E. CRUM

TO MY FATHER

THOMAS WAKEFIELD GOODSPEED

INTRODUCTION

The Life of Severus of Antioch by Athanasius is preserved in an Ethiopic version, in two British Museum manuscripts, Oriental 773 and 771', and in part in one manuscript, numbered 31, in the D'Abbadie collection. 771 is a copy of 773 made for king Bakāffā and thus belongs to his reign, A. D. 1721-30. In the present edition, the first of this Life of Severus, 773 has therefore been made the basis of the text. It belongs to the reign of 'Īyāsū I, A. D. 1682-1706, and is thus little older than 771. Abbadianus 31 is a finely written parchment codex of the eighteenth century, with three columns, of thirty lines each, to the page. Unfortunately, it preserves little more than half the work (fol. 165174). In the following pages it is designated by A, while 773 is designated by B.

Manuscript B is a parchment codex of 219 leaves measuring 26 by 24cm and is written in double columns, of twenty lines each. It contains: I. Twelve homilies of Severus bishop of Eshmunen on Christian doctrine. Fol. 2 a.

II. Concerning the Prayer of Longinus. Fol. 148 a.

III. The Life of Bar-Sauma the Syrian, of Dabra-Basmūl. Fol. 150 b. IV. Homily of Cyril of Jerusalem, on S. Simeon receiving our Lord, Fol. 164 a.

V. The Life of Severus of Antioch, by Athanasius. Foll. 167 a 219 a.

While the historical presumption points to a Greek original lying back of this Ethiopic form of the Life of Severus, and this presumption finds corroboration in a number of points in the Ethiopic, as in the presence of Greek words, Greek endings, and plays upon Greek words, it is clear that the immediate parent of the Ethiopic was an Arabic version. For this there is the explicit testimony of the colo

1. Nos. cccxxxvII and cccxxxvIII in W. Wright's Catalogue of Ethiopic Manuscripts in the British Museum.