The Source · EMML 2358 · Ethiopia, 16th century

The Testamentum Domini

The Geʿez manuscript behind the whole Collection — carried into English for the first time, and read slowly, one word at a time, from the original page.

ዓ ሰ ሙ ፡፡ አ ሜ ን ♣

“World without end · Amen” — the sealing formula of EMML 2358

What it is

The book behind the Collection

The Testamentum Domini is an early Church order — the risen Lord instructing the apostles on prayer, ordination, and the shape of the assembly. For a long time the English came by way of an older translation. This one is copied at an Ethiopian monastery in the sixteenth century and kept in Geʿez, and reading it closely, I kept meeting lines the older English had quietly let go.

So I read it on its own terms — one word at a time, with the photograph of the page open beside every line, and my own eye as the last judge. Where the page said something more, I kept it, rather than smoothing it away.

A demo column

The opening leaf, read

EMML 2358 · Folio 2r

Folio 2r · recovered opening (upper lines faded, read by continuation)

Our Lord and our Saviour, Jesus Christ… Christ the Righteous, Amen — the flock, even unto the fountain thereof — and he was made manifest… and his disciples, and he blessed them… and John with his disciples… his glory, in truth — world without end — and he dwelt upon them, our Lord Jesus Christ — and upon the earth.

The upper lines of this opening leaf have worn away; read by continuation with the clearer lines below, the Lord’s own words come back. The name John, at lines 7–8, marks the apostle the Ethiopian tradition ties this book to.

How each column is read — a specimen, word by word

ወኢይብላዕ

wä-ʾi-yəblāʿ

and let him not eat

√ B L ʿ

ዕለተ

ʿəlätä

day (acc.)

√ ʿ L T

መጠነ

mäṭänä

the measure of

√ M Ṭ N

ዓመት

ʿāmät

year

√ ʿ M T

ፍጹም

fəṣṣum

complete, full

√ F Ṣ M

ወይግበር

wä-yəgbär

and let him do

√ G B R

ኵሎ

kʷəllo

all (acc.)

√ K L ʾ

ስግደት

səgdät

prostration

√ S G D

“…and let him not eat for the measure of a full year, and let him do all the prostration…”

Ge‘ez · sound · sense · root — and the manuscript image, which adjudicates

A few moments

Three places it stopped me

A moment

The Lord speaks, Himself

Here the risen Lord says the ordination prayer in His own voice — not read out on His behalf, but spoken.

A moment

The word “Christians”

The community is named plainly — Christians — the simple word, kept as it stands on the page.

A moment

The table and the Spirit

The table and the coming of the Spirit stand together, inseparable — one movement, not two.

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