Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/635

Rh E T H E T H 613 and Adulis, but it is not improbable that light will be ob tained on the earlier times from the inscriptions of Southern Arabia, which are beginning to receive special attention. The language of the Axum inscriptions is the same as that of the Bible, and contains the Amharic element. The forms of the letters vary, and the older forms are liker the Himyaritic. Vowel signs are irregularly employed, and sometimes omitted, and the numeral notation is peculiar. The work which forms the standard of a classical style is the version of the Bible. According to native tradition it was made from the Arabic, either by the first bishop Frumentius (Abba Salama) or by the &quot;Nine Saints&quot; of the 5th century; but internal evidence goes to piove that it was really derived from the Greek version in use in the Alexandrian church. In the course of centuries it has un dergone numberless alterations at the hands of copyists ; but even its mo*t corrupted condition leaves it clear that it must have been characterized by great fidelity to the Greek text. Among the MSS. of the Old Testament Professor Dillmann distinguishes three classes : the first, which seldom occurs, preserves in the main the original translation ; the second, and most numerous, contains a text revised accord ing to the Greek ; and the third has been improved by com parison with the Hebrew. Besides the ordinary canonical bonks of the English Bible, and the ordinary apocryphal books, with the exception of the Maccabees, the Ethiopian canon includes a number of works of various interest and value, as the Kufale or Book of the Jubilees, the Book of Enoch, and the Ascension of Isaiah, concerning which consult APOCA.LYPTIC LITERATURE, vol. ii. The books of the Maccabees were either never translated or have been lost, but their place has been supplied by spurious productions of the same name. Several apocryphal books are also in corporated with the New Testament, which is usually reckoned to contain 35 altogether. It was printed in 2 vols. at Home, 1548, in the London Polyglot, and in 1830 by the London Bible Society, under the editorship of Th. P. Platt. Dillmann published the Octateuch, Leipsic, 1853, the four books of the Kings, Leipsic, 1861-1871, Enoch, 1851, and the book of the Jubilees, 1859 ; and R. Lawrence published the Ascensio Jesaia 3, 1819, and the Apocalypse of Ezra, 1820, at Oxford. (Of. Dillmann s article on the jElhiopischeBilielubersetiung in Herzog s Rral- Encyclopculit, 2d edition, 1877.) Of the numerous works which rank as ecclesiastical authorities in the Ethiopian church, it is sufficient to mention the Cyrillus, which contains, not only several dogmatie treatises of Cyril of Alexandria, but also similar productions of several others of the fathers ; the Xynodus, which includes, inter al/, the constitutions and statutes of the apostles, the canons of the councils of Ancyra, Neoca^sarea, Sardis, Antioch, and Nica?a, an ex position of the Nicene creed, and an exposition of the Decalogue ; the Mafshafa kiddn za egziena [yarns, or the Testament of our Lord Jesus (usually quoted as the Kidan), which treats of various ecclesiastical, liturgical, and eschatological matters; the Gen-.at or Mafshafa Genzat, and the Mafshafa Kedr, containing respectively the burial service and other sections of the ritual ; the Philexius, a Monastic treatise, probably translated into Ethiopic in the 14th century, and deriving its name from Philoxenus of Manbig. Among the poetic works are a collection of hymns in honour of the saints of the Ethiopian calendar, entitled Erriabkhan itaysa, or &quot; May God reign,&quot; and the Organona Marydm, o. eulogy of the Virgin in rhythmic prose. The MSS. of the Mavuaect or Antiphonary sometimes con tain an interesting musical notation, which, according to native tradition, was introduced by a saint who lived in the Gth or 7th century. Certain works called Savdsev or guides are devoted to the illustration of the Ethiopian language, but they are very poor, and make 110 distinction between grammatical, lexicographical, aiidhistorico-scientific information, standing thus on the same level with such a work as Elyot a Latin Dictionary. The historical works, as for example those concerning Alexander of Macedon, are of little moment; and the real value of the lists of early kings of Ethiopia Ls still a matter of dispute. According to Pnetorius, one of the most recent investigators (Zlschr. (J. JJfut. Morg. Ges., 187U), all the statements made in Ethiopian literature about the earlier history of the country have been in the main derived from Arabic legends not earlier than the 14th century, and then reconstructed with the assistance of the king lists, which alone have some degree of historic credibility. The European libraries which possess the richest collections of Ethiopian MSS. are the British Museum, the Bodleian, the Royal Library at Vienna, and the National Library at Paris. RuppeU a collections are preserved at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, and KrapfFs at Tubingen and Wiirtemberg. The Bodleian catalogue was published by Dillmann, 1858; D Abbadie s Catalogue raisonne de manuscripts ethiopiens appeared in 1859; and a list of the Magdala collection in the British Museum, consisting of upwards of 300 MSS., was contributed to the Ztschr. d. Dent. Morg. Ges., 1870, by William Wright. Ewald gives a list of the Wiirtemberg MSS. in Ztsclir. fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 1843, and of the Tiibingen MSS. in Ztschr. d. Dtut. Morg. Ges., 1847. Dorn had already made known the few works possessed by the St Petersburg library, in the Bull, de I Acad., May and October 1837. The Vienna collection is dealt with by Fr. Miiller in Zt*chr. d. Deut. Mo&amp;gt;g. Ges., 1862. The first scholar who turned his attention to Ethiopian was Potken of Cologne about 1513. A gram mar and dictionary were published by Jacob VVemmers, a Carmelite of Antwerp in 1638 ; and in 1661 appeared the first edition of the great lexicon by Job Ludolf, who, in the 1702 edition, prefixed a Dissertatio deharmonia lingua: (etb. cum. cet. orient., and was also the author of Comment, de Hist. ceth. Modern works connected with the subject are : Hupfeldt, Exer- citaJioncs *fthiopicce, 1825 ; Dorn, De psahfrio cethiopico, 1825 ; Tiich, De ^Ethiop. linguae sonorum proprictalibus quibusdam, 1854, I ctlhiop. Bitch s Hciwkh Enlstchung, 1854 ; D Abbadie, Bermce Pastor Eihiopicf, I860 ; Schrader, De Lingua: ^Ethiapicat indole, 1860 ; Ceriani, Monimiwita sacra ct profana e (odicibus Bibl. Ambrosiance, Milan, 1861; Rodwoll, ^Ethiojnc liturgies and prayers, 1865; Physiologus ccthiopice, 1877. ETHNOGKAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY lefi.nitioit. Ethnography embraces the descriptive details, and ethnology the rational exposition, of the human aggregates and organizations known as hordes, clans, tribes&quot; aiui nations, especially in the earlier, the savage and barbarous, stages of their progress. Both belong to the general science of anthropology or the natural history of mankind, being related to it as parts to u whole. Ethnography and ethnology, indeed, run up into anthropology ns anthropology does into zoology, and zoology into biology. No very sharp line can be drawn between these tw~o sciences themselves, their differences being mainly those between the particular and the general, between the orderly collection of local facts, and the principles according to which they may be grouped and , interpreted. Ethnographies deal with particular tribes, 1 and with particular institutions and particular custom*
 * and Death, linguae son. sibilantium usu, 1854 ; Ewald, Ueber des