Introduction

“His stature was comely; and his countenance was handsome. He looked like an Israelite person. His face was delightful, and his overall (demeanour) was jovial.” (Getatchew Haile 2013, 166, tr.)

“As the Holy Spirit speaks through the holy prophets, so speaks the devil through the ungodly Jews, the unclean dogs.” (Conti Rossini 1965, 93; my translation)

These contrasting statements—both originating in pre-modern Ethiopian texts—illustrate the ambiguous image of Jews or Israelites in Ethiopian 248 culture.¹ Besides the Beta Israel, one of the groups of Jewish belief in Ethiopia, many groups and individuals are addressed as Ayhud, “Jew”, in Ethiopian sources.² Despite the church’s own strong Hebraic tendencies, many leading clerics and ambitious rulers sought to free the Ethiopian Church from foreign, and allegedly Jewish, elements. What exactly these elements were was, however, subjective, and polemical texts directed at the religious other abound. Political dissidents were just as often degraded and called “Jews”, as were religious opponents. As many monks exerted a considerable amount of influence, and as several rebel-monks are known to have challenged the Ethiopian rulers, we observe a “congruence between religious and political connotations of the word” (Kaufman Shelemay 1989, 22).

Little is known about the literary sources of Christian Ethiopia outside the field of Ethiopian Studies, and even less about the representation of Jews therein. The following article seeks to present an overview of repeating motifs found in Christian sources up to the sixteenth century, and of how Jewish identities were fashioned.

For readers not familiar with Ethiopia, I will provide a very short introduction to the country and its history. It will be followed by a list of terms used to address members of religious groups in Ethiopia, and examples of how these terms are featured in the sources. 249

A word must be said on the matter of sources—besides written sources—which exist (in large numbers) only from the fourteenth century onward; oral history is an integral part when reconstructing the history of Ethiopia. Especially for a group like the Beta Israel, who have not written down their own history, it becomes essential to work with the stories and legends preserved in the collective memory, as stressed by Abbink: “we cannot also but emphasize the role of historical myths as charters” (1990, 400). Since the 1980s, the beginning of the Aliyah of the Beta Israel,³ this memory is dying out and fading away. Therefore, studies which have collected Beta Israel oral traditions before this date are of great value and function as a legitimate historical source to study the group’s history.⁴ However, there are legends and myths in Ethiopia which are so commonly known that it is impossible to pinpoint their origin or source; they are simply part of the intangible heritage of the country. 250

The Kəbrä Nägäśt

Much of Ethiopian self-perception is centred around a historic novel called the Kəbrä Nägäśt (Glory of the Kings).⁵ The most important part of the text elaborates a story found in the biblical books 1 Kings 10:1–13 and 2 Chronicles 9. According to this national epic of Christian Ethiopia, Judaism reached Ethiopia during the time of King Solomon. The legend holds that the Ethiopian Queen of Sheba, called the Queen of Ethiopia or Makədda in this text, travelled to Jerusalem to visit King Solomon to test his wisdom. Not only did he convert her to his faith, but he also fathered a son with her, who was born while she was returning to Ethiopia. This son, by the name of Mənilək (called Bayna Ləhkəm⁶ in the text), ventures out to meet his father in person and travels to Jerusalem, too. He is welcomed by his father and, upon his departure, is given many valuable presents. Solomon moreover decides to send the first-born sons of the city’s nobility to Ethiopia along with Mənilək. These youths, depressed by having to leave their home, decide to steal the Ark of the Covenant and take it to Ethiopia (Bezold 1905). When they arrived in Aksum, the Queen abdicated in Mənilək’s favour and 251 announced that no woman would ever rule the country again.⁷ To this day, the Ark is said to lie in the ancient city of Aksum in northern Ethiopia. One priest guards the Ark and is the only one allowed to enter the little chapel.

Let us leave the world of legends⁸ for what scholars accept as factual. Christianity reached Ethiopia through two Syrian-born Christians by the names Aedesius and Frumentius in the fourth century. They both became influential in raising the young Ethiopian King Ezana and later converted him to Christianity. Frumentius finally travelled to Egypt and was ordained the first Bishop of Ethiopia. Roughly by the 340s AD, the royal court and parts of the population had embraced Christianity (Munro-Hay 2003).

The cities of Aksum and Adulis were in direct contact with the Mediterranean, and were trade hubs for the entire Red Sea area. It must be expected that the cities were home to adherents of all kinds of religions (among them Jews), but evidence is scarce and it is assumed that their numbers were fairly small.⁹

By the sixth century, the strength of the Ethiopian Kingdom as well as its Christian faith was widely known even in Rome, and the Ethiopian King Kaleb was fighting as an ally of the Byzantine Emperor Justin I against the Jewish King of Ḥimyar, Yusuf Asʾar Yathʾar.¹⁰ Upon his return, Kaleb is said to have brought a considerable number of Jewish prisoners back to Aksum (Kaplan 1992, 252 32). Kaleb later abdicated from his rule and led the religious life of a monk.¹¹
The sources do not allow a clear image of Kaleb’s succession (Brakmann 1994, 110). Apparently, Kaleb had appointed his son Betä Ǝsraʾel¹² to rule over the newly subjected regions in Ḥimyar¹³ and his other son Gäbrä Mäsqäl to rule Aksum. Following the Imperial Aksumite practice, the rule would have gone to Kaleb’s first-born son, Betä Ǝsraʾel; however, it seems that Gäbrä Mäsqäl inherited the throne. According to the Kəbrä Nägäśt, his two sons Gäbrä Mäsqäl and Betä Ǝsraʾel met on the “Southern Sea”¹⁴ and fought against each other, with Gäbrä Mäsqäl emerging victorious:

And God will say to Gabra Maskal, “Choose thou between the chariot and Zion”, and He will cause him to take Zion, and he [Gäbrä Mäsqäl] shall reign openly upon the throne of his father. And God will make Israel to choose the chariot, and he shall reign secretly and he shall not be visible, and He 253 will send him to all those who have transgressed the commandment of God. (Budge 1932, 227)¹⁵

While Gäbrä Mäsqäl became an icon for the spreading of Christianity,¹⁶ little is known about his brother.¹⁷ The traditional story interprets the names of the brothers, Gäbrä Mäsqäl “Servant of the Cross” versus Betä Ǝsraʾel “House of Israel”, to indicate that the latter remained an adherent to the old religion (Getatchew Haile 1982a, 320). A legend has it that when Gäbrä Mäsqäl triumphed over Betä Ǝsraʾel and his followers, they took refuge far away from Aksum in the remote highlands of the Semien mountains, an area which later became part of the heartland of the Beta Israel as a group (Getatchew Haile 1982a, 320). This could be an elaboration of the Kəbrä Nägäśt lines “he shall reign secretly and he shall not be visible, and He will send him to all those who have transgressed the commandment of God.”¹⁸ 254

The form of Christianity prevalent in Ethiopia from its beginnings to recent times is moulded by strong biblical-Hebraic influences, sometimes also called Jewish influences (Kaplan 1992, 17–20).¹⁹ It is, however, wrong to see this as a direct influence of Jews on Ethiopian Christianity; rather, it must be understood as a combination of the interpretation of the Bible, the prevalence of certain scriptures, such as the Books of Enoch and Jubilees, and local customs often interpreted to be of Jewish origin.²⁰ The exact understanding of rules, especially from the Old Testament, was not undisputed in Ethiopia. Christological disputes are known to have troubled Ethiopian Christians for centuries. One might count the rivalry of Gäbrä Mäsqäl and his brother Betä Ǝsraʾel as the first great schism of Ethiopia, although not enough sources exist to validate this claim. The interpretation of rules changed centuries later under the influential rulers such as Amdä Ṣəyon I or Zärʾa Yaʿəqob. Recurring topics of doctrinal debates were the observance of the Saturday Sabbath and the veneration of Mary, over which deadly disputes erupted.²¹ From Amdä Ṣəyon’s time onwards, in the 255 fourteenth century, enough written sources were passed down which now allow us to analyse the description of Jews in Ethiopia.

The Beta Israel and the Kəbrä Nägäśt

It is important to briefly explain how the Kəbrä Nägäśt was accepted among the Beta Israel themselves. The last chapters of the Kəbrä Nägäśt (95–117) described Jews in a very hostile way as “vanquished people, degraded and eternally subjected” (Abbink 1990, 410). Nevertheless, Beta Israel history understands its people to possibly have originated in the Kəbrä Nägäśt, because, just like the Solomonic dynasty, “by associating themselves with the Solomon-Sheba legend the Beta Israel were claiming to be part of Ethiopia’s cultural elite” (Kaplan 1993, 652).

Some oral traditions have formed which added additional information to the Kəbrä Nägäśt, even forming two different streams of legend. The first claims that the group of first-born sons from Jerusalem’s elite, responsible for stealing the Ark, were the ancestors of the Beta Israel. It is through them that the group inherited its Jewish faith, customs, and literature.²²

In the second oral legend elaborating on the Kəbrä Nägäśt, besides the group of firstborn sons, a group of artisans also accompanied Mənilək back to Ethiopia. They later formed the Beta Israel, who, due to the inflicted landlessness, specialized in handicrafts (Krempel 1973, 24). It is true that 256 there was a moment in time when Beta Israel were sought-after artisans and helped construct the royal castles of Gondär (Pankhurst 1995, 81), yet this legend can be seen as pejorative, as it was used by the Christians to manifest the landless state of the Beta Israel (Krempel 1973, 26–27). Despite the short period in which the Beta Israel were allowed to work as free artisans, they were limited to despised tasks for centuries, such as weaving, pottery, and smithing (Quirin 1992, 40–88; Kaplan 1993, 647; Pankhurst 1995, 92).

Introducing the Terms

Ethiopian sources use a plethora of terms to refer to the religious other, the heretic, the Jew or Muslim. It becomes obvious that Jews often appear in the sources in a negative way. They are featured amongst idolaters, magicians and sorcerers, heretic Christians, Muslims, and pagans. The texts are typically of a highly polemical nature, intentionally using negative terminology to create an image of religious opponents, often using the reference to Jews as a way to discredit the opposing group. Only in rare cases are the actual Jewish groups addressed, more often than not fictitious facts are employed to create an imagined identity. The references are not limited to religious arguments, as will be seen below; certain physical traits are also connected to persons of allegedly “Israelite” background.

There are no direct rules as to which word designates which religious identity (adherent of which belief), but when comparing a large number of sources, patterns become obvious, as will be seen in the following presentation of terms.

• Hebrews/(H)ǝbraist/(H)ǝbrawiyan (ዕብራይስጥ/ዕብራውያን): The term has a positive Biblical connotation, it is used in the sense of Hebrew origin or 257 Hebrew language and usually found in Scriptures²³ rather than indigenous Ethiopian sources

• Israelites/Ǝsraʾelawiyan²⁴ (እስራኤላዌያን): In the understanding of Christians, this term does not designate the Beta Israel, but rather refers to those of Solomonic descent. The positive aspects of this term are not only religious or hypothetical, but are also perceived in relation to physical form; we find in the Acts of Abuna Yoḥannes from Däbrä Zämmädo a description of his good looks: “His stature was comely; and his countenance was handsome. He looked like an Israelite person. His face was delightful, and his overall (demeanour) was jovial.”²⁵

• Jew/Ayhud (አይሁድ): Simply the word for “Jews”, as in the Hebrew Yehudim, but in medieval Ethiopia, it turns into an insult and designates everybody that is viewed somehow heretical. It is often rather used in a political or polemic rhetoric instead of indicating the clear affiliation of an individual to Jewish faith.²⁶ In general, no group would refer to itself by the name Ayhud because of the clearly negative connotation (Kaplan 1993, 653). The Beta Israel never referred to themselves as Jews prior to contact with Jewish missionaries in the nineteenth century (Abbink 1990, 403; Kaplan 1992, 10). 258 Thus, when a chronicle claims that “some parts of the chronicle are old, and to some extent authentic” (Sergew Hable Sellasie 1972b, 114), and at the same time states that Queen Judith²⁷ proclaimed: “I am a Jewess and my husband also is a Jew,”²⁸ it is most probably a modern interpolation.

• Arami (አራሚ): A word for “pagan, non-Christian, infidel.”²⁹ The term is mostly used for non-Christian Oromo,³⁰ and especially for Muslims—just as the term Ayhud became a clear denomination for Christian heretics and Jews, Arami is interchangeable with Muslim.³¹ A non-pejorative term for Muslim would be Tənbalat (also Tənbalatawi, ትንባላት and ትንባላታዊ; Solomon Gebreyes 2016, 37). There are cases where the word Arami refers to Greeks, as well.³² 259

• Ǝlǝw (ዕልው):³³ The term indicates infidels and heretics, but the tendency is again to designate pagans and Muslims, not Jews and Christian heretics.³⁴ Its clear negative connotation becomes obvious when considering the other translations of the term: “crooked, perverse, evil, perfidious, iniquitous, disobedient, rebellious, rebel, apostate, heretic, heretical, copy” (Leslau 1987, 62). It is also found in the statement that Queen Judith was from the “tribe of heretics” (እምነገደ፡ ዕልዋን፡, Perruchon 1893, 370).

Combining the three terms Ayhud, Arami and Ǝlǝw and clearly distinguishing them from one another is demonstrated in this sentence from the Senodos (a canonical-liturgical book on church law):³⁵ “If there is one who is nominated for the office of a priest, who out of the fear of man, of Jews, of infidels and heretics denounces the name of Christ, he shall be expelled.”³⁶

Besides terms composed of a single word, we also find nominal compounds in reference to Jews. We encounter rather specific descriptive terms like “Jews the Crucifiers [of Christ]” (አይሁድ፡ ሰቃልያን፡),³⁷ “Jews the 260 murderers [of our Lord]” (አይሁድ፡ ቀታልያን፡, Bausi 1995, 105, text), and “Enemies of Christ” (ጸሩ፡ ለክርስቶስ፡, Getatchew Haile 1991, 16, text).³⁸

• Käḥadi (ከሓዲ): The term can be translated as “infidel, ungodly or faithless”, and is often used as an epithet for Jews, Muslims, heretics, and pagans, “all who have not converted to the true faith of Christ” (Dillmann 1865, 825, my translation). Often the word is added to emphasize the negative aspect of a certain group. Especially in the writings of Zärʾa Yaʿəqob, the words “Jew” and “ungodly” go hand in hand.³⁹ In contrast to many of the other terms mentioned, it is not immediately clear if it addresses one group in particular; often the term is used as ሕዝበ፡ ከሓድያን፡, “people of infidels” (Solomon Gebreyes 2016, 142, text and 216, translation).

• Falasha/Fälasi (ፈላሲ): The exact origin of the word or when it was used for the first time to designate the Beta Israel is not known with certainty. The translation of the word can be “landless person, an exile, stranger, monk, or ascetic”. A decree of unclear date, but allegedly issued by the fifteenth-century King Yəsḥaq, states: “He who is baptized in the Christian religion may inherit the land of his father, otherwise let him be a Fälasi” (Taddesse Tamrat 1972, 201).⁴⁰ By the sixteenth century, the word was used to designate the Beta Israel in Gǝʿǝz (Old Ethiopic), Arabic, and Hebrew 261 sources (Kaplan 1985, 279; Quirin 1992, 12, 217). The term, especially in its later form Fälaša/Falasha, is derogatory and rarely used by the Beta Israel themselves (Kaplan 2003).

What becomes obvious is the contrasting differentiation in the Christian sources between pagans and Muslims, on the one hand, and Christians and Jews, on the other. The mutual heritage of the latter is clearly understood, whereas the Abrahamic origin of Islam is not considered. One should be very careful in reading the sources and understanding that there is an actual difference between Beta Israel (as a real group of Ethiopia) and Jews (as characters in literary sources).

Jews Featuring in Hagiographies

Hagiographic literature is very popular among Ethiopian Christians.⁴¹ The first collections of Saints’ Vitae were translated as early as Aksumite times.⁴² In the fourteenth century, many more hagiographies enriched Ethiopian literature. The core was translated from Christian Arabic Vorlagen, but the texts themselves can be traced to the broader Mediterranean Christian world.⁴³ In this same period, many hagiographies of local saints and holy 262 men and women were composed in Ethiopia itself, or, alternately, foreign stories were enhanced and adapted.⁴⁴

The most prominent example is the Miracles of Mary (Täʾammǝrä Maryam), which originated in twelfth-century France and gained rapid popularity.⁴⁵ In the fourteenth century, it was translated into Gəʿəz (Old Ethiopic), most probably under the auspices of Emperor Dawit II. Under his son, Zärʾa Yaʿəqob, the Miracles of Mary were ennobled to liturgical status, when he decreed that three miracles should be read during the Sunday liturgy. Also under his patronage, many new miracles were composed and added to the corpus, the Emperor even featuring in some of them.⁴⁶ Being so popular, Miracles of Mary manuscripts are found in nearly every church or monastery in Ethiopia; they can contain anything from a few to several hundred miracles. A full set should contain 366 miracles, one for every day of the year, plus an extra miracle for leap years (Budge 1923, xxviii; Colin 263 2002, 17).⁴⁷ Today around 640 different narratives are known to exist.⁴⁸ Miracles of Mary are read in the daily liturgy, in the Sunday service, and on the 32 Marian feasts each year (Six 1999, 53; Fritsch 2001, 62–64).

The veneration of Mary has the highest importance in Ethiopia even today: “Ethiopian imagination … takes for granted that fiction may turn into reality, because it is established in the Täʾammǝrä Maryam” (Six 1999, 59). Most probably, this tradition originated from Zärʾa Yaʿəqob’s personal preferences.⁴⁹ He was the Emperor who contributed the most to theological discussions, and was a zealous fighter for the cause he deemed correct. The three topics most central to his agenda all affected the image of Jews, as will be seen below: the veneration of Sabbath, the veneration of Mary, and his attempt to purify the Christian faith from all “evil” influences.

In addition to their function to provide religious teachings, these narratives tend to have an entertaining character, which probably adds to their popularity. Mary saves the souls of all kinds of savages, a cannibal eating his wife and children (Budge 1923, 94–97), thieves and murderers, an “evil-living Persian Knight” (Budge 1923, 138–140), adulterers, a drunken monk (Budge 1923, 135–137, 172–176), as well as a few Jews and Muslims (Budge 1923, 287–289).⁵⁰ Despite the huge variety of venerated saints, there are certain topoi which reoccur frequently; among them is the 264 conversion of Jews to the “true faith”, often also through the intercession of Mary.

We read about a Marian icon which “sees” “one who gobbles Jewish meat” and starts to cry (Getatchew Haile 1986, 195). When asked what the reason was, the icon starts to speak and denounces this man as an enemy of herself and her son Jesus, as one who is not a Christian.⁵¹ The Miracle actually describes the faith of one of Zärʾa Yaʿəqob’s opponents, but it also provides information about dietary rules that prevailed in Ethiopia. Christians, Muslims, and Jews each have their own rule for slaughtering animals and are all usually restricted from eating of the other group’s meat (Salamon 1999, 100–103).⁵²

It is unfortunate for scholarly interests that only a very small number out of the many Marian Miracles have been edited;⁵³ the number of text translations is higher, but lack the support of the original text. The following stories are therefore only presented in translation to give an idea of the general way in which Jews feature in Marian Miracles.

A popular story, found in a few slight variations, recounts how a young Jew from Tyre accompanies a few Christian friends to church and offers praise to Mary. When his father hears about his son’s behaviour, he throws the young man into a fiery furnace to burn him. Thanks to the intervention of Mary he is unharmed, and his father is scorched instead. The rest of the family becomes Christian and lives happily ever after (Budge 1923, 156–158).⁵⁴ 265

In a variant of this story, a young Jew is herding cattle with Christian friends. When he wants to sit down with them to share their meal, they deny it to him unless he gets baptized. The Jew agrees and the others sprinkle water over him in Baptism, and the young man accepts his new faith. When he returns home, “one saw a great light on him, and smelled an aroma that was more pleasant than that of any other scent, and it was sweeter than the smell of wine or unguent; and he sat down and the people became drunk through the smell of his perfume” (Budge 1923, 217). The story continues as in the other version, with the boy being thrown into a furnace from which he escapes unharmed due to Mary’s intervention, and with the conversion of the rest of the family.

Not all miracles have such a positive touch to them, as they tend to be more brutal in showing how “evil” Jews can be and in teaching a lesson to anybody who “defiles” the Christian faith, as in the following story: A Jew and a Christian in Constantinople were great friends, but the Jew hated the Christian faith from the bottom of his heart. One day he accompanied his friend to church, where he caught sight of an icon of the Virgin Mary, which appeared in all beauty and splendour in his eyes. He inquired with his Christian friend who this woman was. When he learned that it was Mary, he became furious and went on a rampage in the church. He snatched the icon and threw it into a latrine. Immediately a devil appeared, tore out the Jew’s tongue, and rushed him away into hell. The Christian was terrified by this act and went into the latrine to retrieve the icon. He cleaned and washed it, scented it and put it in a new place. Suddenly pure oil started to run out of the icon and everybody who anointed himself with it was instantly healed from every sickness whatsoever (Budge 1923, 241–242). 266

The genre of Miracles stories is prone to strong anti-Jewish polemics;⁵⁵ Jews are often used as a manner of showing and warning against the “wrong” lifestyle.⁵⁶ Not all Miracle story-cycles are as detailed as the Marian Miracles, however. The Miracles of Jesus (Täʾammǝrä Iyäsus) features stories which portray Jews negatively, but these episodes are usually simply extended versions of the Passion narrative rather than an independent elaboration of “evil Jews.”⁵⁷

Comparable terms are also found in the miracles of St. Zärʾa Buruk; Jews are described as transgressors of faith, evil Jews, and crucifiers of Christ (Ricci 1979, 94). In a praise poem, Saint Zärʾa Buruk is invoked as “born among thousands of righteous […] destroyer of the food for the soul of his enemies (nemesis) the Jews.”⁵⁸

References to Jews in Theological Works

The early fifteenth-century church scholar Giyorgis of Sägla dedicated an entire elaborate work, the Mäṣḥafä Məśṭir (Book of Mystery), to the fight against heretic thoughts which he perceived to have infiltrated the church. The text is divided into thirty homiletic treatises “to be read on the 267 major feasts of the liturgical year,” (Bausi 2007, 942) each treaty exposing one heretical doctrine. Chapter 10 directly confronts one of Giyorgis’ contemporaries, called Bitu, about whom he writes: “Bitu, on the other hand, claims to be a Christian, but in his heart he is not a Christian. In his mind he says, ‘I am baptized’, but in his religious belief he is not baptized.”⁵⁹ The word Jew is never used by Giyorgis, but his polemic creates a clear image of Bitu as one who never truly embraced Christianity, i.e. a Jew.

Several of the Ethiopian liturgical texts (Anaphoras)⁶⁰ include short negative mentions of Jews or Muslims. In the Anaphora of St. Jacob of Serug is written, “At that time on Friday the evil Jews crucified thee on the tree of the cross in the likeness of the sign of the cross […]” (Marcos Daoud 1954, 223).⁶¹ In the Anaphora of St. Mary it reads, “Now we hear the wicked Jews and the unrighteous Ishmaelites, who, being without understanding, say God is one person and one body, they are of a blind heart” (Marcos Daoud 1954, 111).⁶² The Amharic commentary on this Anaphora features another polemic stating, “[You shall cause] fear in the demons, the heretics and the Jews,”⁶³ again equating Jews with the most negative forms. 268

In a homily in honour of Saturday Sabbath by Zärʾa Yaʿəqob, the author accuses Jews of being friends of heretics: “O you heretic, enemy of the truth, friend of the Jews, why do you deny the personhood of Trinity?”⁶⁴

Mythical References to Jews in Quasi-historical Notes or Mytho-legends

Besides the stories found in the Kəbrä Nägäśt about the Queen of Sheba, Solomon, and their son Mənilək, there is another important legend which centres around Aksum, its religious identity, and around a woman.

Around the year 960, the power of the Aksumite Kingdom came to an end. As is often the case for this period in Ethiopian history, only few sources exist; only three originate in Ethiopia and cannot be dated with certainty. Two streams of legendary material are interwoven to explain the rapid loss of importance of Aksum. Sources from the outside help shed some light on actual historic events.

Three Ethiopian inscriptions report of the victory of Haḍani Danʾel over the last Aksumite ruler and how the former subjugated the latter into vassal status.⁶⁵ Danʾel, who probably originated from regions south of the Askumite Kingdom, ruled the region for some time from his newly found capital Kuʿbar.⁶⁶ The Aksumite Kingdom suffered losses in other areas, as 269 well; for example, the Red Sea trade had been taken over mostly by Muslim merchants living in coastal areas. Through the shift of the capital to Kuʿbar, Aksum city and Adulis lost their role as trade posts, and the minting of coins (Kaplan 1992, 42) had long ended.⁶⁷ The church also suffered from this demise and had to survive without a consecrated Bishop for over fifty years.⁶⁸ At some point, there must have been three contestants to the see, Peṭros, Fiqṭor, and Minas, none of whom was accepted in Aksum or actually officiated the position.⁶⁹ At the same time, and this is when the negative 270 character of Jews resurfaces in legends, the country was suffering from yet another disaster.

Since sources are once again scarce, it is even more interesting to note how the tradition accused a Jew, and above all a Jewess, of being responsible for the decline of the Aksumite kingdom. The legend holds that Ǝsato,⁷⁰ also known as Queen Judith/Gudit, was “a resident of Aksum, perhaps a member of the royal family reduced to prostitution. She was tricked by a local priest, who sought to have sexual relations with her. Disgraced and mutilated, she left Ethiopia. She met a Jewish ruler whom she married and convinced to destroy Aksum in revenge for the indignity she had suffered” (Kaplan 2005, 376).⁷¹ She ruled for about thirty to forty years.⁷²

It is often stated that the Judith legend is a counternarrative to the Queen of Sheba. Where the latter was a pious virgin, Judith was the opposite; some sources even claim that she became a prostitute. The Queen of Sheba venerated the Ark, and Judith wanted to destroy it (Kaplan and Salamon 2002). Finally, Makədda’s verdict that no woman should ever reign over Ethiopia again was contradicted by Judith (Abbink 1990, 421; Levi 1992, 242; Kaplan 2005, 376). A tradition collected by James Bruce even states that Judith killed all the princess from the Solomonic lineage imprisoned at Däbrä Dammo, some 400 in number, thus completely erasing the Solomonic line (Bruce 1791, 167).⁷³ We hence have the confrontation of 271 a good Israelite from the Solomonic line and a violent Jewish campaigner. In the Book of Light, Zärʾa Yaʿəqob stated later that Queen Judith “learned from Satan.”⁷⁴

Despite, or perhaps because of, her bad reputation, the Beta Israel did accept her as one of their ancestors. She might have been an “evil woman,”⁷⁵ but she represented the victory of “Jewish” people over the ruling Solomonic dynasty and was thus idealized by many. Judith was not only perceived as an ancestor; the name also seems to have become the title for later Beta Israel “queens”, or wives of Beta Israel leaders, and appears in many chronicles (Quirin 1992, 75–76, and especially 243, fn. 186; Bruce 1791, 124; Stern 1862, 186).⁷⁶

Jon Abbink calls this episode “First Echoes of History in the Oral Tradition of the Beta Israel” (Abbink 1990, 420), to which one could add “and in the oral tradition of the Christian population, too”. What may be established with a fair degree of certainty is that there was a successful ruler by the name of Haḍani Danʾel who ruled over the Aksumite kingdom, but he was defeated by a female warrior-queen “of the South”, often 272 identified with Banū l-Hamwiyya from the kingdom of Damot to the south-west of the Aksumite Kingdom.⁷⁷ Finally, there are two sources, foreign but contemporary, which confirm the story. The Arab geographer Ibn Hawqal ventured out on several missionary and trading trips between the years 943 and 977, reporting that “the country of the Abyssinians has been ruled by a woman for many years: she has killed the king of the Abyssinians who was titled Haḍani. Until today she rules with complete independence over her own country and the bordering areas of the territory of the Haḍani in the southern part of Abyssinia. It is a vast limitless country, with secluded [areas] and deserts difficult to cross” (Kramers and Wiet 1964, 56).

To this, the History of the Three Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church adds the report that during the reign of Patriarch Philotheus (989–1003), “the King of Abssinia (al-Ḥabash) sent to the king of Nubia (al-Nūba) a youth whose name was George (Girgis), and made known to him how the Lord has chastened him, he and the inhabitants of his land. It was that a woman, a queen of Banū l-Hamwiyya had revolted against him and against his country” (Sergew Hable Sellasie 1972a, 223; cf. Kaplan 1992, 45; Anderson 2000, 34–35).⁷⁸ The letter further underlines the dire position the former powerful Aksumite kingdom was in: “[the lands] are abandoned without a shepherd, and our bishops and our priests are dead, and the churches are ruined…” (Sergew Hable Sellasie 1972a, 224; cf. Taddesse Tamrat 1972, 41). 273

Another analysis of the sources on Judith is given by Knud Tage Andersen. As mentioned earlier, the statement in the Kəbrä Nägäśt, that Makədda declared “no woman should rule over Ethiopia again”, appears to be a later addition to the text. Similar “anti-female” interpolations are also found in this letter of the Ethiopian king, who approached the Egyptian Patriarch Philotheus. The letter features two surprising references to the queen of the Banū l-Hamwiyya, which might not have been part of the original story but later interpolations. “If one were to remove these two passages from the text it would not give the impression that anything is missing at all. On the contrary, the text seems smooth and coherent with a natural integrity” (Andersen 2000, 35).

Andersen claims that the entire Judith story was fashioned by later Amhara⁷⁹ rulers to establish their own legitimacy by proving the illegitimacy of their predecessors, the Zag^we (Andersen 2000, 36). He further speculates that as a member of the Aksumite nobility, and here he is following the Judith legend again, the queen herself might have been part of the succession struggle and killed her unsuitable and corrupt elder brother (or other relative), known from the history of Minas and Peṭros (Andersen 2000, 41). In a predominantly patriarchal society, this claim to the power by a woman might have caused the creation of such an anti-female legend. Having her convert to Judaism just adds to her negative identity.

The entire Judith-episode suffers from several inconsistencies. It is curious to note in the legend that despite her alleged Jewishness, Judith was said to have tried to destroy the Ark of the Covenant (Sergew Hable Sellasie 1972b, 113). The story completely ignores the fact that the Ark would have been of incredible importance to Jews. In accordance with this account, we 274 know from other oral traditions, admittedly from a much later period, that the Beta Israel were proud of the Ark of the Covenant, and some legends even claim that the Beta Israel are actually the only ones with access to it: “the walls [of the sanctuary] magically open if a Jew approaches” (Gobat 1834, 322–323).⁸⁰ Steven Kaplan points out that the “claim that Judith intended to extirpate the Solomonic line is highly questionable in light of contemporary evidence that her primary adversary was the Haḍani, who had already sharply curtailed the Aksumite king’s power” (Kaplan 1992, 46). In addition, should Judith and the queen of the Banū l-Hamwiyya be one and the same person, another problem comes up. The latter name clearly suggests an Arabic, possibly Islamic, background, as also stated by Andersen: “but since the Amharans regarded this queen as cruel and unchristian one cannot but wonder if, at a much later time, they would have thought of her as the queen of an Arabic/Muslim people that more or less successfully had fought for independence and freedom in its relation to the Ethiopian kingdom” (Andersen 2000, 37).

As tempting as it is to believe in Judith’s Jewish faith, it “rather serves to emphasize her unChristian behaviour, in this case both rebellion against the Christian kingdom and denial and destruction of the Christian faith” (Levi 1992, 88).

After Aksum sunk into oblivion, a new, powerful dynasty emerged, the Zag^we, famous for the rock-hewn churches of Lalibäla. The transition of 275 power was described in several king lists, and the following passage from a Kǝbrä nägäśt manuscript underlines the fact that those who came after the Aksumites were usurpers and not of noble Israelite birth:

ወእምድኅሬሁ፡ ተሐይደ፡ መንግሥት፡ ለሕዝብ፡ እለ፡ ኢኮነ፡ እምነገደ፡ ዳዊት፡ ወሕዝበ፡ እስራኤል። በከመ፡ ይቤ፡ እግዚአብሔር፡ አነ፡ ኣቀንዖሙ፡ በዘኢኮነ፡ ሕዝብ፡⁸¹

“After this, the rule was taken away [and given to] people which are not from the lineage of David and people of Israel. As the Lord says: ‘I will move them with jealousy with those that are not a people’⁸²”.

We thus have different explanations for the decline of the Aksumite kingdom. All are said to be non-Israelites or non-Solomonids, with the difference that the Zag^we are undisputed Christians and Judith was allegedly Jewish.⁸³

The Zag^we dynasty lasted only from 1137 to 1270, and their entire rule was affected by violent fights over succession. Yet all their kings and queens came to be depicted as devout Christians, often even called Saintly-Kings.⁸⁴ Within the literature of this period, strife with Jews was not 276 a common topic. Thus, conflict between Christians and Beta Israel or any other group which might have been identified as Jews does not appear to have been a central concern at the time.

The Amhara lord Yəkunno Amlak is said to have overthrown the Zag^we dynasty in 1270 and presented himself as a powerful representative of the old elite, and as having re-established the Solomonic dynasty after the Aksumite demise. His claims to belong to the Solomonic line were weak, however, and others in the northern province of Təgray tried to prove that they had better claims, which probably resulted in the shaping of the Kəbrä Nägäśt. Suddenly the Solomonic origin of the Ethiopian royalty became more important than ever before. Regardless of Yəkunno Amlak’s intentions, Emperor Amdä Ṣəyon (r. 1314–1344) is the one monarch recognized to have founded the Solomonic state (Kaplan 1992, 54).

The entire period from the end of the Aksumite Kingdom to the emergence of Amdä Ṣəyon’s mostly stable state is full of contradictions in the perception of individuals. “Solomonic, or Israelite” elements were highly valued by the Christian elite, but at the same time everything evil which plagued their kingdom was seen as Jewish. Christians, like the Zag^we, who lacked this Israelite background were perceived as equally wicked, as enemies and destroyers of the Aksumite culture.

Up to this point, the images of Jews dealt with here do not actually refer to real Jews present (or rather not present) at the time and place of the origin of the stories. This changes in the fourteenth century. 277

More (or Less) Precise References to Jews From the Fourteenth Century on — First Real Traces of the Beta Israel?

The Beta Israel present a special case in the Ethiopian history. Even though their liturgy and other ritual services were based on written scriptures, nothing has come down to us written by their own hands to tell anything about their history; no historical texts, no legal documents, not even hagiographies of their most revered holy men.⁸⁵ If the opinion of almost all scholars can be trusted, they themselves did not even know how to write, but rather commissioned their manuscripts from their Christian neighbours.⁸⁶ Thus, when reconstructing the history of the Beta Israel, scholars are forced to rely on the written documents of the neighbours of the Beta Israel and the Beta Israel’s own oral traditions.

In ca. 1332, we have “the first clear mention of Judaized groups around Lake Tana in the chronicle of the war of Amdä Ṣeyon” (Kaplan, 1992, 55), when the king sent out troops to fight the rebels “which resemble the crucifiers of Christ, the Jews, which are the inhabitants of Samien, Waggera, Ṣalamt and Wägade.”⁸⁷ “They used to be Christians but now they deny 278 Christ, like his crucifiers, the Jews.”⁸⁸ They are described as “the wicked Jew who sold the Lord.”⁸⁹

For the first time, a “Jewish” group is described living in areas congruent with areas which were evidently inhabited by Beta Israel in later times. Under the rule of Amdä Ṣeyon and his sons, the borders of the kingdom were enlarged and the power of their rule within was strengthened. This expansion was accompanied by the spread and new foundations of churches and monasteries.

Such information is found in the Vita of the thirteenth/fourteenth-century Saint Gäbrä Iyäsus, in which a Jew (the leader of a larger group of Jews) by the name of Zena Gabo is mentioned.⁹⁰ According to the text, the Jews had fled the destruction of the Second Temple under Titus (Conti Rossini 1937/39, 446) and now lived in the region of Enfraz. Gäbrä Iyäsus was sent there to proselytize, and subsequently founded the monastery of Däbrä San in the region. Zena Gabo, a Beta Israel dignitary, was the first to turn to the Christian faith. He was followed by his daughter, who was healed by the saint from a “snake in her stomach”, and who was so beautiful that the king fell in love with her and married her. Several of their children are supposed to have become monks or priests in the convent of Däbrä San. In the manuscript of the Vita of St. Gäbrä Iyäsus, which was admittedly only written in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, a curious element is found. Instead of the Christian trinitarian formula “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”, the final paragraph is initiated with the Beta Israel formula “blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel”. This has led to the 279 speculation that a certain Beta Israel influence was still felt in Däbrä San (Conti Rossini 1937/39, 451). Unfortunately, despite the quite lengthy story of Zena Gabo and his conversion, we do not get any precise information about the Jews of the region or their lifestyle.

The language and overall tone towards the Jews is extremely negative in this text.⁹¹ Jews are compared to dogs, their religion is literally said to be “inferior to that of dogs.”⁹² Jews are presented as weak in their original faith and as easily convinced to drop their religion and convert to Christianity.

Interestingly, Gäbrä Iyäsus was himself part of a minority group, the Ǝwosṭateans,⁹³ which suffered from the persecutions of hegemonic Christians since around the year 1300. The group was considered as heretic and “Jewish” by the ruling clerics and for around a century after their emergence, the Ǝwosṭateans presented a serious threat to established doctrines. “Despite the violent opposition of kings, bishops, and other Church leaders, the Ēwosṭatian movement flourished in the frontier areas of the north where they enjoyed local support” (Kaplan 1984, 39). Other dissident groups, like the Stephanites, had a slightly more positive image of Jews, as will be shown below. There is, however, also the account by Gädlä Gäbrä Masiḥ, another member of the Stephanite movement, which describes how a Beta Israel (here called Falasha) saved the life of the Saint.⁹⁴ Gäbrä Masiḥ was close to starving, due to extreme fasting, when 280 the Jew Arämawi found and nourished him for months until he recovered from his exertion (Kaplan 1985). The story is very neutral in its tone, contrary to the Gäbrä Iyäsus account.

Another narrative is frequently featured in the sources which contrasts the Gäbrä Iyäsus story in many ways. It claims that it is a heretic Christian who turned towards the Beta Israel, became a Jew, and introduced monasticism to them or functioned as a writer of their holy scriptures. The phrase “a Jew who was a Christian before”, as well as the topos of a Christian converting to Judaism, is found on several occasions in chronicles, in the texts by Zärʾa Yaʿəqob, in the Vita Yafqərännä Ǝgziʾ, in the Miracles of Mary, in the Beta Israel oral tradition on Abba Sabra and Ṣägga Amlak, and in many more sources.⁹⁵

Chronologically speaking, the first of such figures was Qozmos, about whom we know from the fourteenth-century Vita of the Christian monk Yafqərännä Ǝgziʾ, who lived during the reign of king Dawit II (r. 1388–1412). Qozmas was a Christian monk who fell into disgrace with his community due to his extreme ideas on asceticism and his refusal of all cooked food including the Eucharist. He fled their persecution into deserted areas in which people with Jewish faith, “Haymanote ayhudi”, lived.⁹⁶ Since he was 281 a learned man and knew how to write, he was welcomed with open arms and translated the Orit (Octateuch) for them. He became something of a messianic figure, and later led them against the Christian ruler Dawit II in open rebellion.⁹⁷ The Beta Israel managed to score some victories but were finally defeated by the king’s troops, and Qozmos was killed in battle (Wajnberg 1936, 50–59).

It is noteworthy that scholars have readily adopted the story of Qozmos as a historical indication of the development of the Jewish community, probably because it has been transmitted in written form. In the Beta Israel tradition, he seems to be unknown; when we examine the oral traditions collected in interviews, it turns out that Qozmos is rarely (if at all) featured in them.⁹⁸

Emperor Amdä Ṣəyon was the renovator of the Solomonic dynasty and had engaged in some doctrinal disputes, for example with the Ǝwosṭateans. They struggled around the veneration of the Sabbath, which, however, was not the main goal for Amdä Ṣəyon. His son Dawit II was also less interested in theological debates and cared about religious dissident groups like the Ayhud mostly when they threatened his rule, not his faith. One of the subsequent rulers, Yəshaq, son of Dawit II, on the other hand, was known for his “harsh treatment of religious dissidents” (Kaplan 1992, 57).⁹⁹ However, he tried to include different ethnic (and religious) groups into his feudal system. At some point in time he had appointed the “Jew” 282 Bet Ajer as governor over Semien and other areas. Soon there was a fight, when Bet Ajer punished one of Yəsḥaq’s own nephews and refused to show up before of the king to explain himself. He was hunted down by Yəsḥaq’s soldiers and decapitated. Some Beta Israel groups that remained faithful to the king were rewarded fiefs for their cooperation (Taddesse Tamrat 1972, 200). On the other hand, Yəsḥaq was aware of Beta Israel’s different religious orientation and sought to bring this “chronic problem” to an end by imposing Christianity on the “rebelling infidels” (Tadesse Tamrat 1972, 201). He passed the decree that “he who is baptized in the Christian religion, may inherit the land of his father; otherwise let him be a Falasi.”¹⁰⁰ A marginal note to this passage in the manuscript reads, “Since then, the Beta Israel have been called Falashoch” (Kaplan 1992, 183, fn. 22).

What is probably the largest number of negative mentions of Jews is found in the fifteenth-century writings of Emperor Zärʾa Yaʿəqob. In his chronicle, the king is frequently called “equal to the righteous disciples” as well as “destroyer of the Jews.”¹⁰¹ Zärʾa Yaʿəqob is said to have authored a number of texts himself, and additional texts were composed under his authority in the royal scriptorium.¹⁰² In his Book of the Nativity (Mäṣḥafä Milad) and the Epistle of Humanity (Ṭomarä təsbəʾət), polemics against Jews are found on almost every other page.¹⁰³ Calling Jews “idolaters” or “cursed 283 Jews” are among the milder epithets in his work, in contrast to the following passage in his Book of Light (Maṣḥafä Bərhan): “But you, o Jew, you fetid and rotten mouth, eater of his sons and daughters like Hyenas, and eaters of excrements¹⁰⁴ like a dog […].”¹⁰⁵

Zärʾa Yaʿəqob’s father Dawit II already promoted the cult of Mary, but his son excelled him in his zealous fight for the correct veneration of Mary. Moreover, he was striving to cleanse the Christian Church of Ethiopia from alleged Jewish and heretic influences as well as magic and otherwise unwanted elements.

Ethiopian Church history in this period becomes very complex, as there was a good number of groups which refused to accept the innovations of the emperor and some groups split from official church doctrine. Severe punishment and persecution of these groups were the result, and the alleged “Jews” were among those who suffered most from the emperor. In his text Ṭomarä təsbəʾət (Epistle of Humanity), which is fully dedicated to the fight against heretics, a Jew is always associated with a magician and an idolater (Getatchew 1980, 212). Furthermore, in the Ṭomarä təsbəʾət, Zärʾa Yaʿəqob describes the punishment for idolaters and wrong-doers: “And when you die, your lot will be in the fire of hell. If you are a priest, your priesthood will be nullified, and although you are a Christian, you will be called a Jew and an idolater.”¹⁰⁶ 284

For the emperor, Jews, magicians, and sorcerers presented the same level of wickedness and are usually equated in his texts. Despite this, he distinguishes between magicians, who cast spells and predict the future, and Jews, who refuse to prostrate in front of Mary. Among these are counted the Stephanites, the followers of their spiritual leader Ǝsṭifanos. In his Book of Light, the emperor writes: “Those children of Ǝsṭifa [Stephan] truly are Jews, they refuse to prostrate to Mary the twofold Virgin, and to the cross of the only begotten Son.”¹⁰⁷

This rhetorical association between the Stephanites, whom Zärʾa Yaʿəqob considered to be heretical, and Jews is also reflected in the writings of the Stephanites themselves. In a text by an anonymous follower of Ǝsṭifanos, it becomes obvious that for the Stephanites themselves, it was clear that they were neither Jews nor heretics, but rather defenders of the true orthodox faith: “He [the king] smote down our father St. Ǝsṭifanos and tortured him very much and imprisoned him until he finished (his combat), just because he taught the Orthodox Faith […]. He [the king] severely tortured his [Ǝsṭifanos’] followers too, after him, and called them enemies of Mary, likening them, for the public, with the Jews, because of their refusal to prostrate themselves before the king, and so he executed them” (Getatchew 1980, 227).¹⁰⁸

In the beautiful, poetic canticle in honour of Mary, Maḫlete Ṣege (Canticle of the Flower), further reference to the equation of Jews and Stephanites 285 is found. In stanza 38 it reads: “The Christian who says [to Mary]”I love you“, but doesn’t love your Miracles, is not a true Christian; he is a Jew and an enemy of your Son the Saviour.” A look into the apparatus of the critical edition by Adolf Grohmann from 1919 reveals that a number of manuscripts have the variant “...is a Jew and offspring of Ǝsṭifanos the Liar.”¹⁰⁹

In the Vita of Abba Ezra—Abba Ezra was a member of the Stephanite movement as well—we find notes on the image the court officials had about the “heretic” Stephanites. The blame for leading the Stephanites astray was indirectly put on the Jews: “there are Falashas concealed among the disciples of Abba Yonas; which do not bow down in front of Mary or the cross of the ‘Special One.’”¹¹⁰ And it is further remarked: “There arrived here monks that are neither Jews nor heathens, but who do not believe in the Trinity, who do not bow in front of Mary or the cross, who do not have a tabot (Altar), who do not celebrate the Eucharist, and when they pray they neither say the Lord’s Prayer nor the Creed.”¹¹¹

The author of the Vita was well aware that Jews did not perform these rituals, but in his understanding, there was no reason that the mere rejection of these rituals automatically equated the Stephanites with Jews. However, to the clerics defending the prevailing doctrine, and to mutual enemies of the Stephanites and the Beta Israel, every act that deviated from the norm posed a potential threat. Thus, using polemic language was the easiest way to discredit the Stephanites. The imagined identity of 286 Jews was so negative that referring to someone as a “Jew” caused outright rejection.

In the time of Zärʾa Yaʿəqob, there lived two men whose memory is preserved in Beta Israel written sources. Besides possible references to them in the writings of Zärʾa Yaʿəqob, their names feature frequently in prayers and commemorative notes by Beta Israel.¹¹² Playing a similar role to that of Qozmos, and held in the highest esteem among the Beta Israel, are Abba Sabra, who introduced monasticism to the Beta Israel, and his disciple Ṣägga Amlak.¹¹³ The latter is said to have been one of the sons of Zärʾa Yaʿəqob, formerly called Asqal (Quirin 1988, 97), who rebelled against his father and became a Jew (Perruchon 1893a, 96–97; Quirin 1988, 94).¹¹⁴ For the first time, this indicates a clear overlap of persons being called Ayhud by Christian authors and simultaneously being identified as members of their own group by Beta Israel. 287

Zärʾa Yaʿəqob’s ambitious battle against the Jews is especially felt in his fight over the correct observance of the Sabbath. The question of the veneration of the Christian Sabbath in the Ethiopian Church has long been debated,¹¹⁵ but in 1450, Zärʾa Yaʿəqob summoned a church council to settle the issue, after which the view prevailed that both days—Saturday, called "Sabbath of the Jews", and Sunday—should be observed, though the Sunday Sabbath requires greater strictness.¹¹⁶

With the arrival of the Jesuits in the sixteenth century, doctrinal debates, including who was a Jew or what their appropriate status should be, were no longer an inner-Ethiopian issue.¹¹⁷ Ethiopian rulers and clerics were confronted with other, new challenges, which is why the analysis of the identity and images of the Beta Israel ends here.

Conclusion

Over the centuries, there have been many Christians rulers who have mistreated Jews in their country. An entire polemic rhetoric was created over the course of time which underscored Jews’ role in the crucifixion of Jesus, marked them as political rebels, and linked them with demons, Muslims, sinners, and heretics of all kinds. The positive or negative value assigned to Jewishness in Christian Ethiopian texts depended on the agenda of a given author. 288

Another issue in understanding the ways in which Jewish identity is represented in pre-modern Ethiopian sources is the question of Solomonic descent. The adverse associations with non-Solomonic origins cast the Zag^we, who were just as non-Solomonic as the Beta Israel (at least in the eyes of those who considered themselves part of this “elite” lineage), in a prejudicial light—which was one of the reasons for the shaping of the Kəbrä Nägäśt. For the Zag^we, their non-Solomonic origin was equated with an illegitimate claim to the throne by members of the Solomonic dynasty (Kaplan 1992, 48). The Hebraic elements, such as the Saturday Sabbath— within the doctrine of the Church, however—where cherished, or defeated when necessary.

Polemic nomenclature was used to fabricate a Jewish identity where there was none by a ruling group to taint a minority. “From these vague traditions in which truth and fiction are inextricably jumbled together, the inquirer does not gain much trustworthy information on the history of Ethiopia, and the settlement of the Jews in that country” (Stern 1862, 185). The place of the Beta Israel, as found in the sources, is that of one of the heretic groups of pre-modern Ethiopia, struggling against doctrinal changes imposed on them by fanatic Christian rulers.

Heretic groups, deemed “evil” by the ruling elite, were associated with Judaism, although they themselves would never have identified with Jewish belief. Also, even though Abba Sabra and Ṣägga Amlak are holy to the Beta Israel and can be recognized in some of Zärʾa Yaʿəqob’s references to “Ayhud”, this does not imply that the Beta Israel thought of themselves as Jews. Unfortunately, no written documents which would reveal the perspective of the Beta Israel in the past have been uncovered as of yet. Since the eighteenth century, we possess accounts of Western travellers who already clearly called the Beta Israel “Jews”, but as late as the early twentieth century, this was not a term used by the Beta Israel themselves. 289

From a scholarly point of view, the Jewishness of the Beta Israel is repeatedly debated, too. It is often stated that Beta Israel’s literary corpus consists only of the Books of the Bible and de-Christianized, non-canonical writings (such as Ardə’ət, the Testaments of the Three Patriarchs, etc., Brakmann 1994, 47). This claim may be true; however, it is also true that the Beta Israel erased all Christian traces from these texts in a deliberate act.¹¹⁸ Moreover, they draw clear lines between their Christian and Muslim neighbours, keeping their own strict purity laws in order not to commit any sin or defile their beliefs.

Despite the many decades of research, there are still several elements of Beta Israel culture which deserve deeper study, such as their monastic movement (see Krebs and Kribus in this volume), their settlements in the Semien mountains, and their manuscript tradition and literary corpus, both written and oral. Such comprehensive research would provide the basis on which to elaborate a proper methodology, apply theories of otherness, and engage in socio-linguistic studies in the Ethiopian context. 290

Annex 1

The fifteenth-century monk Ǝsṭifanos started a monastic movement, the Stephanites, which suffered from great tribulations of the normative church under king Zärʾa Yaʿəqob. The king “demanded from the faithful that they prostrate themselves to the ground whenever three names are mentioned: Jesus, Mary, and Zärʾa Yaʿəqob” (Getatchew Haile 1992, 2), which the Stephanites refused to do (Getatchew Haile 1983c, 96).¹¹⁹ Ǝsṭifanos was summoned on several occasions; during one of these, the following dialog is supposed to have occured. The discussion centres around the word “Israelite”; the implication of Ǝsṭifanos is that an Ethiopian could not refer to himself as an Israelite, and that, moreover, this designation is inferior to that of being a Christian:

ወይቤሎ፡ ዝኩ፡ ሰኃጢ፡ አንተሰኬ፡ ንጉሥኒ፡ ኢታአምር። ወይቤ፡ ቅዱስ፡ አአምር፡ ንጉሠ፡ ክርስቲያን፡ ክርስቲያናዌ፡ በጽድቅ፡ ይዕቀብ፡ እግዚአብሔር፡ መንግሥቶ። ወይቤ፡ ዝኩ፡ ኀሣሤ፡ ምክንያት፡ አንሰ፡ እብሎ፡ እስራኤል። ወይቤ፡ ቅዱስ፡ ወአንሰ፡ እብሎ፡ ክርስቲያናዊ። ወተስእሎ፡ ቅዱስ፡ ለዝክቱ፡ ብእሲ፡ ወይቤሎ፡ ንግረኒ፡ እስኩ፡ ሶበ፡ እብል፡ ክርስቲያናዊ፡ ዘትብል፡ እስራኤላዊ፡ ስመ፡ እስራኤልኑ፡ የዐቢ፡ ወሚመ፡ ስመ፡ ክርስቲና። ወይቤ፡ ዝኩ፡ ስሑት፡ ስመ፡ እስራኤል፡ የዐቢ። ወአውሥአ፡ ቅዱስ፡ ወይቤ፡ አልቦ፡ ስመ፡ ክርስቲና፡ የዐቢ። ወእስራኤልሰ፡ ተወሊዶሙ፡ በሥጋ፡ ይሰመዩ፡ እስራኤል። ወስመ፡ ክርስቲናሰ፡ ተወሊዶሙ፡ በልደት፡ ሰማያዊት፡ በመንፈስ፡ ቅዱስ፡ ይሰመዩ፡ ክርስቲያነ። ወበእንተዝ፡ ትትሌዐል፡ ስመ፡ ቅድስት፡ ቤተ፡ ክርስቲያን፡ እንተ፡ ላዕለ፡ ኵሉ፡ ጉባኤ፡ ዘሐዋርያት። (Getatchew Haile 2006, 34–35)

That deceiver [the saint’s prosecutor] said to him, “But you do not recognize even the king.” The saint said, “I do recognize the king of the 291 Christians; he is a Christian in truth. May God preserve his kingdom.” That seeker of a pretext [his prosecutor] said, “I call him Israel.” The saint said, “I call him Christian”. The saint asked that man, saying, “Now, tell me, seeing that you say ‘Israelite,’ when I say ‘Christian,’ is the name of Israel or the name of Christianity greater?” That misguided one said, “The name of Israel is greater.” The saint answered, saying, “No, the name of Christianity is greater. Israelites are called Israel being born of flesh. As for the name of Christianity, they are called Christians being born by a heavenly birth by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the name of the holy catholic apostolic Church is greater.” (Getatchew Haile 2006, 30)¹²⁰

Annex 2

The Miracles of Mary are to be read during the daily services, on every Sunday, and in addition on each of her thirty-two yearly feast days.¹²¹ On some occasions, the readings may be preceded by “The Address which is to be read by the Reader of the Miracles of the blessed Virgin Mary to the Congregation in Church”. This text starts with blessings and praise of Mary, in the middle section it curses and “warns” Jews, and it ends again with praising and venerating lines towards Mary. This is the middle section:

አይሁድ፡ ምዝቡራን፡ ስመ፡ መሪራን፡ ለኃዲር፡ ይረዱ፡ ታሕተ፡ ዕመቀ፡ ደይን፡ አሜን። 292

አይሁድ፡ እኩያን፡ ሰመ፡ ዚአኪ፡ እለ፡ ኢይፈቅዱ። ድንግልናኪ፡ እለ፡ ይክህዱ። በሰይፈ፡ ሚካኤል፡ ይትዓዐዱ። በሥቃየ፡ እሳት፡ ይንድዱ። ታሕተ፡ ዕመቀ፡ ደይን፡ ለኀዲር፡ ይረዱ። አሜን።

አይሁድ፡ ሐሳውያን፡ ድንግናኪ፡ እለ፡ ያሰቈርሩ። በሰናስለ፡ እሳት፡ ይትዓሠሩ፡ ታሕተ፡ ደይን፡ ወፃዕ፡ ይንበሩ። አሜን።

አይሁድ፡ ዓማፅያን፡ ድንግልናኪ፡ እለ፡ ይረግሙ። በሰይፈ፡ ሚካኤል፡ ይትግዞሙ፡ በሥቃየ፡ እሳት፡ ይሕምሙ። ታሕተ፡ ደይን፡ ዘአልቦ፡ ሙፃዕ፡ ይትሐተሙ። አሜን።

አይሁድ፡ ዝልጉሳን፡ ወጽዩዓን፡ ድንግልናኪ፡ እለ፡ ይፀርፉ። በእደ፡ ሚካኤል፡ ይትቀሰፉ፡ ገሀነመ፡ እሳት፡ ይትዓፀፉ። ታሕተ፡ ደይን፡ ይትወ ረዉ፡ ወይፅደፉ። አሜን። (Budge 1900, 6)

"May the Jews, who are doomed to perdition, whose name stirrth up wrath, go down and have their habitation in the lowest depths of the place of judgment. Amen!

May the wicked Jews who will [hear] thy name and who deny thy virginity be mown down by the sword of Michael, may they be burnt in the torment of fire, and may they go down and have their habitation in the lowest depths of the place of judgment. Amen!

May the lying Jews who hold thy virginity in abhorrence be fettered and bound in chains of fire; and may they dwell [in the lowermost depths] of the place of judgment and destruction! Amen.

May the evil-doing Jews who curse thy virginity be cut down by the sword of Michael, may they suffer pains in the torture of the fire, and may they be shut in down in the depths of the place of judgment whence there is no escape. Amen. 293

May the leprous and filthy Jews who blaspheme thy virginity be punished by the hand of Michael, may they become involved deeper and deeper in the Gehenna of fire, and may they be hurled down headlong and cast into the depths of the place of judgement! Amen. (Budge 1923, lv–lvi)

Annex 3

Acknowledgement

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement n° 647467 — JewsEast).

Reference List