Abba Gärima Gospels

In 1960, Leroy published an influential article in which he posited a number of similarities – as well as differences – between the illumination programs of the Ethiopic gospel manuscripts from Ǝnda Abba Gärima (see here and here) and of the Syriac Rabbula Gospels. This comparison has since been taken up a number of times, including in a recent monograph on the Abba Gärima Gospels by McKenzie and Watson. In order to evaluate potential connections between the Ethiopic Abba Gärima Gospels and the Syriac Rabbula gospels, a comprehensive study of the Abba Gärima gospels is needed that locates their illumination program within their Ethiopic context as well as within their broader Eastern Mediterranean context, including but not limited to the Syriac Rabbula gospels. It is crucial that such a study eschews recourse to influence, which has so far dominated the scholarly conversation, and instead adopts an approach – in line with BeInf more broadly – that interrogates the connected histories of the Abba Gärima Gospels. In particular, BeInf adopts a contextualized approach that foregrounds the physical evidence of the manuscripts themselves and a structural analysis of their illumination programs as well as the historical and cultural dynamics that shaped manuscript illumination and use in Ethiopia. According to this approach, it is crucial that illuminations be integrated in their rightful place within the manuscript as a whole. This includes both physical properties of the manuscript and the text(s) transmitted in the manuscript. Grounding the analysis of illuminations in the context of the manuscript as a whole enables a study of the active and deliberate choices that the Ethiopian artists made in the creation of manuscripts.  This then creates intellectual space for comparisons to be drawn responsibly and effectively. Two sets of comparanda will specifically be explored: early illuminated manuscripts, especially gospels, from across the Eastern Mediterranean and (later) Ethiopian illuminated gospels.