This book offers a historical analysis, translation, and transcription of a fifteenth-century Trinitarian treatise from Ethiopia that is composed of stories elaborating upon biblical narratives and rules for certain religious and cultural observances. It shows how this treatise reflects at once canonically held beliefs within the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and a particularly localized sensibility, offering a window into one of the oldest Christian churches in the world and in Africa. In particular, the strict adherence to the worship of God alone, among other elements, suggest that the original authors of this homily were from a unique tradition within the canonical Orthodox faith, the once-exiled and now-reconciled Monastic Order of Daqiqa Estifanos (the Disciples of Abba Estifanos).

Steffan A. Spencer is Assistant Professor of Africana and Women’s Studies and History at Clark Atlanta University, USA. He holds a PhD and an MA in African and Public History from Howard University, USA. His research interests include the interaction of the Ge’ez verbal-literary tradition with ancient African and medieval Ethiopian history. His most recent article, “Matrifocal Retentions in Ethiopian Orthodox Traditions: The Madonna as Ark & Queen Makeda as Prefiguration of Mary; with Egyptian Queen Tiye & Pharaoh Hatshepsut as reference,” is available open access from African Identities.