Abstract
Representations of the Virgin Mary are among the most important iconographic themes in Ethiopian painting, and stand as testimony to the fundamental theological, devotional and symbolic role the mother of Jesus has played in the construction of Ethiopian religious beliefs, identity and cultural memory. During early Solomonic times (thirteenth-fifteenth centuries) her role was essentially Christological and salvific, as seen in the paintings in Biet Maryam, Lalibela. Perceptions and representations of Mary changed with the extensive theological reforms implemented by King Zara Yaeqob (reigned 1434–1468). With this royal patronage for her cult, Mary’s role as a maker of miracles became predominant and apocalyptic metaphors and narrative gained importance in pictorial representations, such as those in the Lady Meux A manuscript. Her eschatological role continued to evolve until the eighteenth century, when she was portrayed in an icon as a celestial empress.
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Notes
King Zoskales is reported to have had access to Greek literature-See Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia 1270–1527, Oxford 1972, p. 21.
This is how Sebastian Brock defines the nature of Saint Ephrem’s theology. See Sebastian Brock, The Luminous Eye: the Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem, Kalamazoo, Michigan 1992, p. 15.
From AD 400 onwards, Syriac writers too came under the strong influence of Hellenised Christianity. Ephrem, however, was active before this date, and his works constitute virtually the only evidence we have of a literature that emanates from a truly Semitic form of Christianity. See Brock, op. cit., (note 3) p. 15.
Roger Cowley, The Traditional Interpretation of the Apocalypse of St John in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Cambridge 1983, pp. 37–40.
Roger Cowley has drawn up a valuable diagram of the main sources for Ethiopian religious commentaries. It includes, among others, Ephrem the Syrian, Cyril of Alexandria, John Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia. See Cowley, op. cit., (note 5) p. 39.
Tanios Bou Mansour, La Pensée Symbolique de Saint Ephrem le Syrien, Kaslik, Lebanon 1988, pp. 41–44.
Bou Mansour, op. cit., pp. 45–52.
Tamrat, see note 2 above, p. 59.
Saint Ephrem, Fast 2:4. Quoted in Brock, The Luminous Eye, p. 31.
Sebastian Brock, Introduction to Saint Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on Paradise, Crestwood, New York l990, p. 51.
Saint Ephrem the Syrian, op. cit., p. 99.
Marilyn Heldman, “Maryam Seyon: Mary of Zion”, in: Marilyn Heldman and Stuart C. Munro-Hay (eds.), African Zion, the Sacred Art of Ethiopia, New Haven and London, 1993, p. 71.
Tamrat, see note 2 above, p. 58.
A. Grohmann, Aethiopische Marienhymnen, Leipzig 1919, pp. 96–97, strophe 62. Quoted by Ewa Balicka-Witakowska in relation to a representation of the Annunciation in which the thread is half red and half yellow. See Ewa Balicka-Witakowska, “Observations sur l’iconographie de l’Annonciation dans la peinture Éthiopienne”, Sven Rubenson (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa, Uppsala and East Lansing 1984, p. 150. The manuscript referred to by Balicka-Witakowska is in Addis Ababa, National Library A5, fo. 17v.
Quoted in Brock, see note 3 above, p. 25.
Sebastian Brock, “The Prayers of Isaac the Syrian”, Sobornost, vol. 16, 1994, 1, p. 25.
See facsimile in E. A. Wallis Budge, The Miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Life of Hanna (Saint Anne), and the Magical Prayers of Aheta Mikael, London 1900.
Budge, op. cit., p. 2.
See Enrico Cerulli, 77 Libro Etiopico dei Miracoli di Maria e le sue Fonti nelle Letterature del Medio Evo Latino, Rome, 1943, for the standard critical study of the Miracles of Mary in Ethiopia.
Vasiliki Limberis, Divine Heiress, The Virgin Mary and the Creation of Christian Constantinople, London and New York 1994, p. 25.
Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 4.24; see Limberis, Divine Heiress..., p. 24 and note 97, chapter 1.
Getatchew Haile, “The Cause of the Estifanosites: A Fundamentalist Sect in the Church of Ethiopia”, Paideuma 29 (1983), p. 94.
Haile, op. cit., p. 96.
Haile, op. cit., p. 96.
Haile, op. cit., p. 96.
Haile, op. cit., p. 98.
Marilyn E. Heldman, “The Role of the Devotional Image in Emperor Zara Yaeqob’s Cult of Mary”, Sven Rubenson (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa, Uppsala and East Lansing 1984, pp. 131–132.
Jules Perruchon, Les Chroniques de Zar’a Ya’eqob et de Ba’eda Maryam, rois de l’Ethiopie de 1434 B 1478, Paris 1893, p. 81.
Budge, op. cit., (note 19) p. 36.
Budge, op. cit., (note 19) p. 36.
Heldman, see note 29 above, p. 131.
Heldman, (note 29) p. 132.
See reproductions of Fere Seyon’s work in Heldman and Munro-Hay (eds.), African Zion, p. 182 and Tamrat, see note 2 above.
King Zara Yaeqob, “Agreement of the Eighty-One Canonical Scriptures”, Haile, see note 1 above, pp. 95 and 97.
King Zara Yaeqob, op. cit., pp. 95 and 97.
Quoted in Haile, see note 1 above, p. 17.
“Homily in Honour of Gabriel”. Quoted in Haile, see note 1 above, p. 17.
Balicka-Witakowska, see note 16 above, p. 152.
Cyril of Alexandria is known to have been influential in Ethiopia, and it is not impossible that Zara Yaeqob knew his works on the Theotokos. See Cowley, see note 5 above, pp. 37–39.
Haile, see note 1 above, p. 2.
Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, Chicago and London 1985, vol. 1, pp. 23–24.
Guy Annequin, “L’illustration des Ta’amra Maryam de 1630–1730: quelques remarques sur le premier style de Gondar”, Annales d’Ethiopie, 9 (1912), p. 194
Annequin, L’illustration des Ta’amra Maryam de 1630–1730: quelques remarques sur le premier style de Gondar”, Annales d’Ethiopie, 9 (1912), p. 194 op. cit.
For a study of Saint Luke’s portrait see Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence (A History of the Image Before the Era of Art), Chicago and London, 1994. For a study of this image in Ethiopia see Ugo Monneret de Villard, “La Madonna di S. Maria Maggiore e l’Illustrazione dei Miracoli di Maria in Abissinia”, Annali Lateranensi, vol. 11, 1947, pp. 9–90.
Stanislaw Chojnacki, Major Themes in Ethiopian Painting, Wiesbaden 1983, p. 217.
See Belting, op. cit., (note 47) pp. 47–77, for a study of “unpainted” originals.
Budge, op. cit., (note 19) p. XLVII.
Budge, op. cit., (note 19) p. 47.
Budge, op. cit., (note 19) plate LXXII.
Manuscript of the Miracles of Mary No. EMML 4618, copied during the reign of King Labna Dengel (1508–1540) and presently preserved in the Ethiopian Manuscripts Microfilm Library, Addis Ababa, and the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, Collegeville V, Collegeville (Minnesota); Miracle 103, “Against Those Who Rebelled against Zara Yaeqob”, f. 132r. Quoted in Haile, see note 1 above, p. 155.
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Tribe, T.C. (1999). Memory and Wonder: Our Lady Mary in Ethiopian Painting (15th–18th Centuries). In: Reinink, W., Stumpel, J. (eds) Memory & Oblivion. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4006-5_72
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