The Old Amharic Treatise “Kinds of the Creation”: the text

The present publication constitutes the first edition of a previously unknown treatise entitled (in the incipit of the composition itself) “Kinds of the Creation”. The text, which is written in Old Amharic, was detected several years ago in a manuscript kept at that time in a church library located in the south-eastern part of Tigray region (Ethiopia). Later the same treatise was also found in another manuscript with an almost identical provenance. According to its content and literary genre, the “Kinds of the Creation” adjoins, or even constitutes a part of, the catechetical cycle “Beauty of the Creation”, which is widely known among Ethiopianists. With respect to its form, the composition published below is structured as a sequence of questions (posed by an inexperienced pupil) and answers to them (given by a spiritual elder). The goal of the “Kinds of Creation” is to provide a theological commentary to Gen 1. 1-2. 3, that is, to the biblical account of the creation of the world.Our publication contains an introductory part that narrates about the manuscript in which the text was detected for the first time, followed by an edition of the treatise in the original language. The authors plan a sequential publication that will appear next year, encompassing an English translation of the treatise, followed by a detailed analysis of its linguistic peculiarities which set its language apart from today’s literary norm of Amharic.