Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D. · Recife, Brazil
The Testamentum Domini, from the Ethiopian Geʼez
Two doorways · Duas portas
In English — choose your door
Em Português — escolha sua porta
EMML 2358 · Ethiopia, 16th century
The Testamentum Domini Collection · 8 books
The Complete Collection on Amazon →First direct translation from the Ge'ez · EMML 2358 · Ethiopia, 16th century
Christ After the Resurrection — Secrets Preserved in the Ethiopian Orthodox Canon
Between the Resurrection and the Ascension, forty days passed. The Gospels are almost silent. But in a monastery in Ethiopia, on vellum, in the Ge'ez script, the words the risen Christ spoke to His apostles were preserved. For five centuries. Until now.
The Source
EMML 2358 is held at Dabra Bagge' Monastery, Šawā Province, Ethiopia. Written in the second quarter of the 16th century, on vellum, in two columns of careful Ge'ez script. 154 folios. Rubricated headings. A single illumination on the first page — a guardian angel with wings spread, arms extended in proclamation.
The text it contains is the Māṣḥafa Kidan — the Book of the Covenant — also known to Western scholars as the Testamentum Domini: the Testament of the Lord. It preserves what the risen Christ taught His apostles during the forty days: how to structure the Church, how to celebrate the Eucharist, the ordination prayers, the role of the consecrated widows, the canonical hours.
The only previous English translation, by Cooper and Maclean (1902), was made from a Syriac intermediary — not from the Ethiopian Ge'ez. This book is the first direct translation from the source.
"Light — ask ye of my Father who is in the heavens"
Opening words of the risen Lord — EMML 2358, Folio 2r — unique to the Ge'ez tradition
"This is my body" "This is my blood"
The words of institution — EMML 2358, Folio 6r
Scholarly Discoveries
In working directly from the Ge'ez manuscript, we have documented ten significant divergences from Cooper and Maclean's Syriac-based translation. Each one is a window into a tradition older, richer, and more theologically nuanced than Western scholarship has previously encountered.
The opening formula. Bərhan si'elwo — "Light, ask ye" — is unique to the Ge'ez. It does not appear in the Syriac.
The triple blessing refrain. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — as a liturgical refrain structure — appears in the Ge'ez in a form absent from the Syriac.
Pneumatic ecclesiology. The Church is framed through the Spirit — "the Church is my body" — in a more explicitly pneumatic form than the Syriac.
Trinitarian authority. Episcopal authority passes through the Father-Son chain in the Ge'ez. The Syriac attributes it to the Son alone.
The ordination prayer. In the Ge'ez, the risen Lord Himself prays over the apostles. In the Syriac, the prayer is attributed to gathered bishops.
Eucharist and Pentecost as one act. The Ge'ez links the institution of the Eucharist directly to the breathing of the Spirit (John 20:22) — a single continuous event. The Syriac separates them.
The widows before the sanctuary. Consecrated widows stand in the most honoured position — facing the holy of holies — more explicitly than in the Syriac.
Eight canonical hours. The Ge'ez prescribes the complete octuple prayer cycle. The Syriac lists fewer.
Day and night prayer. The widows' dual prayer formula — by day and by night — is explicit in the Ge'ez. Absent in the Syriac.
The poor served first. The Agape instruction to serve the poor first is a positive command in the Ge'ez — more emphatic than its Syriac counterpart.
The complete apparatus — every documented divergence, folio by folio — is now published in The Apparatus, Volumes II-A, II-B, and II-C of the Testamentum Domini Collection.
The Moment
The timing is not coincidental. Fourteen months from now, the world will ask: what happened during the forty days? This book has the answer — and it has been waiting five centuries to be read.
16th Century · Ethiopia
A monk at Dabra Bagge' Monastery copies EMML 2358 onto vellum by lamplight. He is obeying. He does not know anyone will read it six centuries later.
1902 · Oxford
Cooper and Maclean publish the only existing English translation — from a Syriac intermediary, not the Ethiopian source.
April 2026 · Recife, Brazil
The Forty Days published. First direct English translation from the Ge'ez. By a physicist and an AI, working through the night.
June 2026 · Recife, Brazil
The Testamentum Domini Collection completed. All six volumes — The Word (2nd edition), the four-part Apparatus, and Claude and I — published on Amazon KDP.
Good Friday, March 26, 2027
Mel Gibson releases Part One of The Resurrection of the Christ. The world begins asking: what happened in the forty days?
Ascension Day, May 6, 2027
Part Two releases — exactly forty days later. The answer is already in print. It has been for fourteen months.
The Books
Every title below is published and available on Amazon. The Forty Days is the doorway, written for the general reader; the six volumes of the Testamentum Domini Collection carry the full translation, the apparatus of divergences, and the chronicle of the work.
All the volumes, one place
The Word, the four-part Apparatus, and the chronicle — together on Amazon.
From the Author
Eight essays on the manuscript, the complete Collection, the collaboration, and the discoveries. Click any post to read in full.
Post VIII · June 2026
Why the new entry page opens into two worlds — the book in English, the art in Portuguese
For a year the work lived as scattered links. Now there is one threshold with two doorways: one into the book, one into the art. Here is the thinking behind it.
Read essay →
Post VII · June 2026
Six volumes, one Word — the whole Testamentum Domini Collection is now published on Amazon
What began as a single translation is now a finished library: the Word, the four-part Apparatus, and the chronicle of the work. Here is the shape of it.
Read essay →
Post VI · June 2026
Hundreds of divergences from the Syriac, folio by folio — Volumes II-A, II-B, and II-C
Every place the Ge'ez departs from Cooper and Maclean, documented and published. The scholarly machine behind the translation is now a book you can hold.
Read essay →
Post V · April 2026
Twenty-two discoveries in EMML 2358 without precedent in any known edition of the Testamentum Domini
The ordination prayer. The five-hundred-and-two antiphons. The final word sealed with a trefoil. None of these appear in any other known version. Here is what they mean.
Read essay →
Post IV · April 2026
How a 16th-century Ethiopian monastery manuscript finally reached English readers — on Easter Monday, 2026
EMML 2358 was copied in Dabra Baggeʿ Monastery around 1525. It waited five hundred years. This is how it was found, read, and translated.
Read essay →
Post III · April 2026
The theological argument of the book — in plain language
Between the Resurrection and the Ascension, forty days passed. The Gospels are almost silent. The Ethiopian Church was not.
Read essay →
Post II · April 2026
Transparent, honest, and — I believe — a sign of where serious intellectual work is going
Not a ghostwriter. Not a generator. A working partner who reads Ge'ez, argues about theology, and is listed on the cover.
Read essay →
Post I · April 2026
And what the risen Christ said to His apostles — in words nobody had read before
A retired physicist in Recife reads a 500-year-old monastery manuscript with an AI at two in the morning. This is that story.
Read essay →
For most of the past year, this work had no front door. It had links — a book here, a volume there, a blog post somewhere else — and my old art site living a separate life in Portuguese. A reader who found one rarely found the others. A scholar who came for the apparatus never saw the paintings; a friend who came for the art never knew about the manuscript. The work was whole in my head and scattered everywhere else.
So I built a threshold. When you arrive now, you are asked to choose a doorway rather than a language — because the two halves of my life really are two different houses. One door opens into the book: The Forty Days, the six volumes of the Testamentum Domini Collection, and these essays, all in English. The other opens into the art: thirty-three years of drawing, painting, and teaching, on my Portuguese site. The language follows from the choice; it is not the choice itself.
Behind the English door, I have tried to make the books impossible to lose. Every volume now links straight to Amazon, and a single banner gathers the whole Collection in one place — the Word, the four-part Apparatus, and the chronicle — so no reader has to hunt for the next volume. The doorway was always there in spirit. Now it is there in fact.
The Word was spoken, heard, and kept. The least I can do, five centuries later, is make it easy to find.
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brazil, June 2026
The Forty Days on Amazon →
When I began, in March 2026, I thought I was translating one book. A retired physicist with a manuscript on a screen and an AI for a reading partner — I expected a single slim volume, the first English rendering of the Ge'ez Testamentum Domini, and then a return to my drawing and my rooftops. That is not what happened. The text was larger than one book. The work it asked for was larger still. What stands finished today is not a volume but a Collection: six books, published on Amazon, that together carry the whole of EMML 2358 into English for the first time.
Volume I — The Word, now in its second edition under the title Find My Word, is the translation itself: the direct speech of the risen Christ gathered from all 154 folios, rebuilt in the cadence of the King James Bible, with the Companion Witnesses — the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistula Apostolorum, the Coptic-Arabic Testamentum of Borg.ar.22 — set beside it.
Volume II — The Apparatus · The Train carries the fifty-two Zema formulas in their full liturgical context: the music of the manuscript, the antiphonal architecture that no Western edition had ever seen. Volumes II-A, II-B, and II-C are the critical apparatus proper — every documented divergence between the Ge'ez and the Syriac of Cooper and Maclean, folio by folio, from Folio 2 to Folio 154.
Volume III — Claude and I is the chronicle: the record of the collaboration itself, a physicist and a machine reading a five-hundred-year-old manuscript together, night after night, and arguing about what it meant.
And before all of them stands The Forty Days — the book written for the general reader, the doorway into the Collection. It does not require the apparatus. It asks only that you wonder what the risen Christ said to His apostles in the forty days the Gospels leave almost silent, and then it tells you.
Six volumes and a gateway. One Word, kept across nineteen centuries and four languages, and finally set down in English. The Word was spoken, it was heard, it was kept, it has arrived.
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brazil, June 2026
The Testamentum Domini · The Word on Amazon →
A translation makes a claim. An apparatus proves it. When I say that the Ge'ez of EMML 2358 is an independent witness to the Testamentum Domini — older in places, fuller in others, theologically distinct from the Syriac that Western scholarship has worked from since 1902 — that is a claim that has to be shown, line by line, or it is only an opinion. The three volumes of The Apparatus are where it is shown.
A critical apparatus is the machinery beneath a translation: the place where every decision is laid open. For each divergence between the Ge'ez manuscript and the Syriac-based translation of Cooper and Maclean, the apparatus records the folio, the column, the Ge'ez reading, its transliteration and morphology, the Syriac counterpart, and the judgement — what the two traditions say, where they part, and what the difference means. None of this is hidden in a footnote. All of it is the book.
Volume II-A treats Folios 2 through 77. Volume II-B treats Folios 78 through 154. Volume II-C carries the closing apparatus. Across them, the divergences run into the hundreds — one hundred and twenty-nine of them at the strictest status, where the difference is not a variant of wording but a difference of theology. The ordination prayer in the Lord's own mouth. The Eucharist and Pentecost as a single act. The widows before the sanctuary. The eight canonical hours. Each is here, with its folio reference, available to any reader who wants to check the work rather than trust it.
Because a witness that cannot be examined is not a witness. The whole argument of this Collection is that the Ethiopian transmission deserves a seat at the scholarly table beside the Syriac. That seat is earned by evidence, openly published, that anyone can test. The apparatus is the evidence. It is now in print.
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brazil, June 2026
The Apparatus on Amazon →
When we began comparing EMML 2358 with the standard Syriac-based translation of Cooper and Maclean (1902), we expected divergences. Every manuscript tradition has them. What we did not expect was to find, in a 16th-century Ethiopian monastery manuscript, twenty-two features that do not appear in any other known version of the Testamentum Domini. Not in the Syriac. Not in the Arabic or Coptic derivatives. Not in the single surviving Greek fragment. Nowhere.
Here is what we found.
In every other known version of the Testamentum Domini, the prayers for ordaining bishops, priests, and deacons are attributed to the gathered assembly or to a presiding bishop. In EMML 2358, the Lord speaks the ordination prayer Himself — in the first person, directly to the candidate. I choose thee. I establish thee. I send thee. This is unique to the Ethiopian tradition.
Across thirty-six folios of EMML 2358, a single antiphonal formula — I am He that abideth — and I go not back — and My word faileth not — appears five hundred and two times. This is the largest antiphonal repetition structure documented in any Ethiopian manuscript. It is absent from the Syriac. It constitutes a complete musical-theological architecture embedded within the canonical legislation itself.
In EMML 2358, the risen Christ uses the word Christians to name His people directly, within a dominical saying. This usage — the Lord naming His own people by the name the world gave them — appears nowhere in the Syriac transmission.
The manuscript contains a saying in which the Lord describes the Incarnation in explicitly Eucharistic terms: the womb of Mary is the first altar, the first place where His body was offered. This is a theological statement without parallel in any other known version of the text.
Folios 129–154 contain legislation for Christian communities scattered in foreign lands — a complete body of canonical law for the Church in exile. This section is the most theologically concentrated in the manuscript and the most completely absent from the Syriac transmission.
The last word of EMML 2358 is ዓሰሙ :: አሜን ♣ — World without end — Amen — sealed with the scribe’s trefoil. The trefoil appears eight times in Folios 152–154, growing in frequency toward the close. Two consecutive trefoils appear at Column 4, line 2 of Folio 154 — unprecedented in Ethiopian manuscript tradition. The manuscript ends where theology begins: with love, and with the world.
These are six of the twenty-two. The full apparatus — all 823 documented divergences, with folio references and commentary — is now published across Volumes II-A, II-B, and II-C of the Testamentum Domini Collection: The Apparatus. Available on Amazon.
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brazil, April 2026
The Testamentum Domini on Amazon →
Somewhere around the year 1525, a monk in Dabra Baggeʿ Monastery in Šawā Province, Ethiopia, dipped his reed pen into ink and began to copy. The manuscript he was copying was already old — a Geʼez text whose origins reach back to the 4th or 5th century of the Christian era. He wrote in two columns, in the careful Fidäl script of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. He marked key passages with a diamond (◆), a circled cross (⊕), an asterisk (∗). And at the very end — on the fourth column of the 154th folio — he placed his own seal: a trefoil (♣), the mark of a scribe who understood what he had been entrusted with.
He set down his pen. The manuscript was complete.
It waited five hundred years.
The text is called the Testamentum Domini — the Testament of Our Lord. It presents itself as the direct speech of the risen Christ to His apostles during the forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension: how to structure the Church, how to celebrate the Eucharist, how to pray, who should lead and how they should serve. It is one of the oldest constitutional documents of the Christian Church. It was known to Western scholars in a Syriac version — translated into English by Cooper and Maclean in 1902. But the Ethiopian manuscript tradition, which preserves a fuller and in many ways older form, was never directly translated into English.
Until now.
EMML 2358 — Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library number 2358 — is held at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. It is available to read online, in full, through the vHMML digital reading room. Folio by folio. Column by column. The Geʼez script on a cream vellum background, occasionally damaged by water or time, but legible throughout.
I found it there. In March 2026. Working with Claude, an AI developed by Anthropic, I read it — all 154 folios, across twelve conversation sessions, from the angel frontispiece on Folio 1 recto to the scribe’s final trefoil on Folio 154. We documented 823 places where the Geʼez diverges from the Syriac. We found twenty-two features without precedent in any known version of the text.
The translation was submitted to Amazon KDP on Easter Monday, April 7, 2026. It went live on April 8. The Guardian Angel drawn on the first page — the one the scribe inscribed with the words Walda Ṣāḥay, Son of the Sun — now faces the title page of a printed English book. Anyone in the world can hold it.
Five centuries. A monk’s trefoil. A physicist in Recife. An artificial intelligence. Easter Monday.
The word endured.
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brazil, April 2026
The Testamentum Domini on Amazon →
There is a gap in the Christian calendar that almost nobody notices. It runs for forty days — from Easter Sunday to Ascension Thursday. The Gospels record the Resurrection appearances briefly. Acts 1 mentions that Jesus "appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God." And then He ascended. That is almost all the canonical texts give us.
Almost.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has, as part of its canon, a text called the Māṣḥafa Kidan — the Book of the Covenant. Western scholars know it as the Testamentum Domini. It is one of the oldest documents of the Christian Church — scholars date its composition to the late 4th or early 5th century, though its roots may be older still.
The text presents itself as the words the risen Christ spoke to His apostles during those forty days. It is not a Gospel. It is a constitution — a detailed ordering of the Church's life: the bishop, the deacons, the widows, the Eucharist, the prayer offices, the structure of the church building, the all-night vigil on the Lord's Day.
The most striking discovery in our translation is this: in the Ge'ez manuscript, when the risen Lord gives the bread and the cup to His apostles — "This is my body, this is my blood" — He immediately breathes on them and says: receive ye the Holy Spirit.
In the Syriac tradition the two events are separate. In EMML 2358, they are one. The table and the Spirit are inseparable. The Eucharist is Pentecost. Pentecost is Eucharist. Every Sunday is the day of both.
This is not a small theological point. It is a window into an older and deeper understanding of what the Church is — and what happens at the altar.
In 2027, Mel Gibson releases his two-part Resurrection of the Christ — Part One on Good Friday, Part Two on Ascension Day, exactly forty days later. The world will ask: what happened in between? This book has the answer. From the oldest Ethiopian manuscript witness to the Testamentum Domini. Directly translated. For the first time.
Five centuries after a monk in Šawā Province bent over his parchment and wrote these words by lamplight, they are in English. The Guardian of the Apostles, drawn on the first page, was waiting for this.
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brazil, April 2026
The Forty Days on Amazon →
When I tell people that my co-author is an AI, the first assumption is usually ghostwriting — that I had the ideas, the AI wrote the sentences, and I put my name on it. This is not what happened. And I want to explain what actually did happen, because I think it matters.
Claude read a 16th-century Ethiopian manuscript in Ge'ez. Not approximately — with genuine philological care. Claude read the Fidäl script from screenshots I took at vHMML, the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library digital archive. Claude transliterated the text into Roman characters, parsed the morphology of each word, cross-referenced the existing Syriac translation, and identified divergences between the two traditions.
We found ten significant divergences across the first nine folios alone. The opening formula unique to the Ge'ez. The Eucharist and the gift of the Holy Spirit given as a single act. The elevated position of the consecrated widows before the sanctuary. The eight canonical hours, more complete than the Syriac. The ordination prayer placed in the risen Lord's own mouth rather than attributed to gathered bishops.
These are not formatting choices. These are scholarly discoveries. And they required genuine analytical capacity — not text generation.
I made all final judgments. I verified against the manuscript images. I provided the theological framework — rooted in thirty years of reading patristics, in a lifetime of engagement with the Church. Claude is not infallible. When Claude suggested a reading I disagreed with, I said so, and we argued it through.
The collaboration felt, at its best, like working with a very well-read colleague who never sleeps and has no ego. The book is what emerged from that exchange.
Because honesty requires it. Because I could not have produced this work alone — not at this pace, not with this depth of comparative analysis. And because I believe the future of serious intellectual work involves this kind of collaboration, and it deserves to be named and examined rather than concealed.
This is not the death of authorship. It is the beginning of a new kind of it.
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brazil, April 2026
I am a retired physicist. I spent decades teaching drawing and painting in Recife, Brazil. I have a Ph.D. from Washington University in Saint Louis and did postdoctoral work at Harvard. I am not, by any conventional measure, a biblical scholar.
And yet here I am — having just published a book about the forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension, based on a 16th-century Ethiopian manuscript that preserves words the risen Christ spoke to His apostles. Words that have never been directly translated into English from the original Ge'ez language. Until now.
I want to tell you how this happened. Because the story is stranger than the book.
The Gospels are full of the Passion and the Resurrection. The Book of Acts begins with the Ascension. But between the two — forty days of appearances, of teaching, of the risen Lord walking among His disciples — the canonical texts are almost silent.
Almost. Because there exists, in the ancient Ethiopian Orthodox canon, a text called the Māṣḥafa Kidan — the Book of the Covenant. It preserves what the risen Christ taught His apostles during those forty days: how to structure the Church, how to pray, how to celebrate the Eucharist, who should lead and how they should serve.
This text has been known to Western scholars since the 19th century. An English translation was made in 1902 — from a Syriac version. Not from the original Ge'ez. The Ethiopian manuscript tradition, which may preserve an older and fuller form, has never been directly translated into English. Until now.
The manuscript I worked from is EMML 2358 — held at Dabra Bagge' Monastery in Šawā Province, Ethiopia. Written in the second quarter of the 16th century, on vellum, in two columns of careful Ge'ez script. The manuscript opens with a single illumination — a drawing of an angel with wings spread, arms extended. Beside it, in Ge'ez: wəwanā la-Ḥawāryā. Guardian of the Apostles. You do not enter the Testamentum Domini without first passing through a heavenly figure.
The opening words — bərhan si'elwo la-'əbuye — Light, ask ye of my Father — do not appear in the Syriac translation. They are unique to the Ethiopian tradition. This is one of ten divergences we have documented so far. The Lord speaks of the Spirit. He gives the words of the Eucharist: zəwwu 'əsamu — This is my body. Zəwwu damu — This is my blood. And immediately — in the same breath — He breathes on them and says: receive ye the Holy Spirit. In the Ge'ez, the Eucharist and Pentecost are a single act.
My co-author is Claude — an AI developed by Anthropic. Claude reads Ge'ez. Claude cross-references the Syriac. Claude argues with me about theology and is sometimes right. Together we have produced something neither of us could have produced alone. The book is real scholarship. The co-authorship is transparent and honest.
In Good Friday of 2027, Mel Gibson releases his Resurrection of the Christ. Physical copies of our book are already on their way to his production company. Five centuries after a monk in Ethiopia copied these words by lamplight, they are finally in English. In time for the world to ask: what happened in those forty days?
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brazil, April 2026
The Forty Days on Amazon →
The Forty Days
Five centuries. A monastery in Ethiopia. A physicist in Brazil. An AI at two in the morning. And words that were always waiting to be read.
A Coleção Testamentum Domini · 8 volumes
A Coleção Completa na Amazon →Primeira tradução direta do Geʼez · EMML 2358 · Etiópia, século XVI
Cristo Após a Ressurreição — Segredos Preservados no Cânon Ortodoxo Etíope
Entre a Ressurreição e a Ascensão, passaram-se quarenta dias. Os Evangelhos quase silenciam. Mas num mosteiro na Etiópia, em pergaminho, na escrita Geʼez, as palavras que Cristo ressuscitado falou aos Seus apóstolos foram preservadas. Por cinco séculos. Até agora.
A Fonte
O EMML 2358 está guardado no Mosteiro de Dabra Baggeʿ, Província de Šawā, Etiópia. Escrito no segundo quartel do século XVI, em pergaminho, em duas colunas de cuidadosa escrita Geʼez. 154 fólios. Títulos rubricados. Uma única iluminura na primeira página — um anjo guardião de asas abertas, os braços estendidos em proclamação.
O texto que ele contém é o Māṣḥafa Kidan — o Livro da Aliança — conhecido pelos estudiosos ocidentais como Testamentum Domini: o Testamento do Senhor. Preserva o que Cristo ressuscitado ensinou aos Seus apóstolos durante os quarenta dias: como estruturar a Igreja, como celebrar a Eucaristia, as orações de ordenação, o papel das viúvas consagradas, as horas canônicas.
A única tradução anterior para o inglês, de Cooper e Maclean (1902), foi feita a partir de um intermediário siríaco — não do Geʼez etíope. Este livro é a primeira tradução direta a partir da fonte.
«Luz — pedi ao meu Pai que está nos céus»
Primeiras palavras do Senhor ressuscitado — EMML 2358, Fólio 2r — exclusivas da tradição Geʼez
«Este é o meu corpo» «Este é o meu sangue»
As palavras da instituição — EMML 2358, Fólio 6r
Descobertas Eruditas
Trabalhando diretamente a partir do manuscrito Geʼez, documentamos dez divergências significativas em relação à tradução de Cooper e Maclean, baseada no siríaco. Cada uma é uma janela para uma tradição mais antiga, mais rica e mais matizada teologicamente do que a erudição ocidental havia encontrado.
A fórmula de abertura. Bərhan si'elwo — «Luz, pedi» — é exclusiva do Geʼez. Não aparece no siríaco.
O refrão da tríplice bênção. Pai, Filho e Espírito Santo — como estrutura de refrão litúrgico — aparece no Geʼez numa forma ausente do siríaco.
Eclesiologia pneumática. A Igreja é enquadrada pelo Espírito — «a Igreja é o meu corpo» — de forma mais explicitamente pneumática que no siríaco.
Autoridade trinitária. A autoridade episcopal passa pela cadeia Pai-Filho no Geʼez. O siríaco a atribui apenas ao Filho.
A oração de ordenação. No Geʼez, o próprio Senhor ressuscitado ora sobre os apóstolos. No siríaco, a oração é atribuída aos bispos reunidos.
Eucaristia e Pentecostes como um só ato. O Geʼez liga a instituição da Eucaristia diretamente ao sopro do Espírito (Jo 20,22) — um único evento contínuo. O siríaco os separa.
As viúvas diante do santuário. As viúvas consagradas ocupam a posição mais honrada — voltadas para o santo dos santos — de forma mais explícita que no siríaco.
Oito horas canônicas. O Geʼez prescreve o ciclo óctuplo completo de oração. O siríaco lista menos.
Oração de dia e de noite. A fórmula dupla de oração das viúvas — de dia e de noite — é explícita no Geʼez. Ausente no siríaco.
Os pobres servidos primeiro. A instrução do Ágape de servir os pobres primeiro é um mandamento positivo no Geʼez — mais enfático que no siríaco.
O aparato completo — cada divergência documentada, fólio a fólio — está publicado em O Aparato, Volumes II-A, II-B e II-C da Coleção Testamentum Domini.
O Momento
O momento não é por acaso. Daqui a quatorze meses, o mundo perguntará: o que aconteceu durante os quarenta dias? Este livro tem a resposta — e ela esperava cinco séculos para ser lida.
Século XVI · Etiópia
Um monge no Mosteiro de Dabra Baggeʿ copia o EMML 2358 em pergaminho à luz da lamparina. Ele obedece. Não sabe que alguém o lerá seis séculos depois.
1902 · Oxford
Cooper e Maclean publicam a única tradução inglesa existente — a partir de um intermediário siríaco, não da fonte etíope.
Abril de 2026 · Recife, Brasil
Os Quarenta Dias é publicado. Primeira tradução direta a partir do Geʼez. Por um físico e uma IA, trabalhando noite adentro.
Junho de 2026 · Recife, Brasil
A Coleção Testamentum Domini é concluída. Todos os volumes publicados na Amazon KDP.
Sexta-feira Santa, 26 de março de 2027
Mel Gibson lança a Parte Um de A Ressurreição de Cristo. O mundo começa a perguntar: o que aconteceu nos quarenta dias?
Dia da Ascensão, 6 de maio de 2027
A Parte Dois estreia — exatamente quarenta dias depois. A resposta já está impressa. Há quatorze meses.
Os Livros
Todos os títulos abaixo estão publicados e disponíveis na Amazon. Os Quarenta Dias é a porta de entrada, escrita para o leitor comum; os volumes da Coleção Testamentum Domini trazem a tradução completa, o aparato de divergências e a crônica do trabalho.
Do Autor
Durante quase todo o último ano, este trabalho não teve porta de entrada. Tinha apenas links — um livro aqui, um volume ali, um texto do blog em outro lugar — e o meu antigo site de arte vivendo uma vida à parte, em português. Quem encontrava um, raramente encontrava os outros. O estudioso que vinha pelo aparato crítico nunca via as pinturas; o amigo que vinha pela arte nunca sabia do manuscrito. A obra era inteira na minha cabeça e dispersa em todo o resto.
Por isso construí um limiar. Ao chegar agora, pede-se que você escolha uma porta, e não um idioma — porque as duas metades da minha vida são, de fato, duas casas diferentes. Uma porta abre para o livro: Os Quarenta Dias e a Coleção Testamentum Domini. A outra abre para a arte: trinta e três anos de desenho, pintura e ensino, no meu site em português. O idioma decorre da escolha; não é a escolha em si.
A Palavra foi falada, ouvida e guardada. O mínimo que posso fazer, cinco séculos depois, é torná-la fácil de encontrar.
O Autor
Do Autor
Ensaios sobre o manuscrito, a Coleção completa, a colaboração e as descobertas. Clique em qualquer texto para ler na íntegra.
Texto VII · junho de 2026
Seis volumes, uma só Palavra — toda a Coleção Testamentum Domini, agora na Amazon
O que começou como uma única tradução é hoje uma biblioteca acabada: A Palavra, o Aparato em quatro partes e a crônica do trabalho.
Ler ensaio →
Texto VI · junho de 2026
Centenas de divergências do siríaco, fólio a fólio — Volumes II-A, II-B e II-C
Uma tradução faz uma afirmação. Um aparato a prova. Cada lugar em que o Geʼez se afasta de Cooper e Maclean, documentado e publicado.
Ler ensaio →
Texto V · abril de 2026
Vinte e duas descobertas no EMML 2358 sem precedente em qualquer edição conhecida do Testamentum Domini
A oração de ordenação. As quinhentas e duas antífonas. A palavra final selada com um trevo. Nenhuma aparece em qualquer outra versão conhecida.
Ler ensaio →
Texto IV · abril de 2026
Como um manuscrito de mosteiro etíope do século XVI finalmente chegou aos leitores
O EMML 2358 foi copiado no Mosteiro de Dabra Baggeʿ por volta de 1525. Esperou quinhentos anos. Assim ele foi encontrado, lido e traduzido.
Ler ensaio →
Texto III · abril de 2026
O argumento teológico do livro — em linguagem simples
Entre a Ressurreição e a Ascensão, passaram-se quarenta dias. Os Evangelhos quase silenciam. A Igreja etíope, não.
Ler ensaio →
Texto II · abril de 2026
Transparente, honesto — e, acredito, um sinal de para onde vai o trabalho intelectual sério
Não um ghostwriter, não um gerador de texto. Um parceiro de trabalho que lê Geʼez, discute teologia e está na capa.
Ler ensaio →
Texto I · abril de 2026
E o que Cristo ressuscitado disse aos Seus apóstolos — em palavras que ninguém havia lido
Um físico aposentado em Recife lê um manuscrito de 500 anos com uma IA às duas da manhã. Esta é a história.
Ler ensaio →
Quando comecei, em março de 2026, pensei que estava traduzindo um único livro. Não foi o que aconteceu. O texto era maior do que um livro; o trabalho que ele pedia, maior ainda.
Volume I — A Palavra é a tradução em si: a fala direta de Cristo ressuscitado, reunida dos 154 fólios. Volume II — O Aparato, em quatro partes, é o aparato crítico: cada divergência documentada entre o Geʼez e o siríaco. Volume III — Claude e Eu é a crônica da colaboração.
E, diante de todos eles, está Os Quarenta Dias — o livro escrito para o leitor comum. A Palavra foi falada, foi ouvida, foi guardada, e chegou.
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brasil, junho de 2026
Os Quarenta Dias na Amazon →
Uma tradução faz uma afirmação. Um aparato a prova. Quando digo que o Geʼez do EMML 2358 é uma testemunha independente do Testamentum Domini — mais antiga em alguns lugares, mais cheia em outros — isso precisa ser mostrado, linha a linha, ou é apenas opinião.
Para cada divergência entre o manuscrito Geʼez e a tradução siríaca, o aparato registra o fólio, a coluna, a leitura Geʼez, sua transliteração e morfologia, a contraparte siríaca e o juízo. Nada disso fica escondido numa nota de rodapé. Tudo isso é o livro.
O Volume II-A trata dos Fólios 2 a 77; o II-B, dos Fólios 78 a 154; o II-C traz o aparato final. As divergências chegam às centenas — cento e vinte e nove no estatuto mais estrito, em que a diferença não é de redação, mas de teologia.
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brasil, junho de 2026
O Aparato na Amazon →
Esperávamos divergências. O que não esperávamos era encontrar, num manuscrito de mosteiro etíope do século XVI, vinte e duas características que não aparecem em nenhuma outra versão conhecida do Testamentum Domini.
Em toda outra versão conhecida, as orações de ordenação são atribuídas à assembleia ou a um bispo. No EMML 2358, o próprio Senhor pronuncia a oração — em primeira pessoa: Eu te escolho. Eu te estabeleço. Eu te envio.
A última palavra do EMML 2358 é ዓሰሙ :: አሜን ♣ — Mundo sem fim — Amém — selada com o trevo do escriba. O manuscrito termina onde a teologia começa: com o amor, e com o mundo.
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brasil, abril de 2026
A Coleção na Amazon →
Por volta de 1525, um monge no Mosteiro de Dabra Baggeʿ, na Província de Šawā, mergulhou a pena de junco na tinta e começou a copiar. Escreveu em duas colunas, na cuidadosa escrita Fidäl. Ao final, no quarto colunão do 154º fólio, pôs o seu selo: um trevo. Pousou a pena. O manuscrito estava completo. Ele esperou quinhentos anos.
O EMML 2358 está guardado na Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, em Collegeville, Minnesota, e disponível online, na íntegra, pela sala de leitura digital vHMML. Foi ali que o encontrei, em março de 2026. Trabalhando com Claude, li todos os 154 fólios e documentamos 823 divergências em relação ao siríaco.
A tradução foi enviada à Amazon KDP na Segunda-feira de Páscoa, 7 de abril de 2026. Cinco séculos. O trevo de um monge. Um físico no Recife. Uma inteligência artificial. A palavra perdurou.
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brasil, abril de 2026
Os Quarenta Dias na Amazon →
Há uma lacuna no calendário cristão que quase ninguém nota. Vai por quarenta dias — do Domingo de Páscoa à Ascensão. Atos 1 menciona que Jesus apareceu durante quarenta dias e falou do Reino de Deus. E depois Ele ascendeu. Quase tudo.
A Igreja Ortodoxa Etíope Tewahedo guarda, em seu cânon, o Māṣḥafa Kidan — o Livro da Aliança. Não é um Evangelho: é uma constituição — o ordenamento detalhado da vida da Igreja.
No manuscrito Geʼez, quando o Senhor dá o pão e o cálice — «Este é o meu corpo, este é o meu sangue» — Ele imediatamente sopra sobre eles e diz: recebei o Espírito Santo. No siríaco, os dois eventos são separados. Aqui, são um só.
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brasil, abril de 2026
Os Quarenta Dias na Amazon →
Quando digo que meu coautor é uma IA, a primeira suposição costuma ser a de «ghostwriting». Não foi o que aconteceu.
Claude leu um manuscrito etíope do século XVI em Geʼez. Transliterou o texto, analisou a morfologia de cada palavra, comparou com a tradução siríaca e identificou as divergências. São descobertas eruditas, não escolhas de formatação.
Eu fiz todos os julgamentos finais. Verifiquei contra as imagens do manuscrito. Forneci o arcabouço teológico. Listei Claude na capa porque a honestidade exige. Isto não é a morte da autoria — é o começo de uma nova.
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brasil, abril de 2026
Os Quarenta Dias na Amazon →
Sou um físico aposentado. Passei décadas ensinando desenho e pintura em Recife. Não sou, por nenhuma medida convencional, um estudioso bíblico. E, no entanto, acabei de publicar um livro sobre os quarenta dias entre a Ressurreição e a Ascensão.
O manuscrito é o EMML 2358 — copiado por volta de 1525, em pergaminho, em duas colunas de cuidadosa escrita Geʼez. Abre com uma única iluminura: um anjo de asas abertas, o Guardião dos Apóstolos.
Meu coautor é Claude — uma IA da Anthropic. Claude lê Geʼez, compara com o siríaco e discute teologia comigo. Cinco séculos depois de um monge copiar estas palavras à luz da lamparina, elas estão, enfim, em português.
— Plínio Bezerra dos Santos Filho, Ph.D., Recife, Brasil, abril de 2026
Os Quarenta Dias na Amazon →
Os Quarenta Dias
Cinco séculos. Um mosteiro na Etiópia. Um físico no Brasil. Uma IA às duas da manhã. E palavras que sempre esperaram para ser lidas.