AMSALU TEFERA, THE ETHIOPIAN HOMILY ON THE ARK OF THE COVENANT; CRITICAL EDITION AND ANNOTATED TRANSLATION OF DƏRSANÄ ṢƏYON.

Восток / Oriens, 2018
Amsalu Tefera made an edition that will serve not only to those interested in the Ethiopian studies.
SZ belongs to the Church of Zion, “the Mother of the Churches.” Therefore, the text is valuable to the
whole Christian world, especially the Christian East.
I consider this text to be translated from Syriac, and its lost Syriac original, in turn, to be translated
from a Greek Vorlage. The homily is dedicated to the Zion basilica after its rebuilding under Patriarch
Modestus (between 614 and 630). Most probably, this is the homily delivered by Modestus himself on the
feast of the dedication (encaenia) of the newly reconstructed basilica. The history of the Ark/Zion
preserved when Jerusalem was conquered by the “Chaldeans” is repeated now, in the eyes of Modestus’s
audience, after the second fall of Jerusalem to the Persians. Most probably, it was on this occasion that the
Zion basilica became a centre of the Marian cult.

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