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Title: Une version éthiopienne des Actes apocryphes du protomartyr Étienne
Subtitle: Édition, traduction et commentaire du manuscrit BnF d'Abbadie 110 (f.81r-88r)
Author(s): LABADIE, Damien
Journal: Le Muséon
Volume: 128    Issue: 3-4   Date: 2015   
Pages: 415-472
DOI: 10.2143/MUS.128.3.3122600

Abstract :
The Gadla Samā'tāt ('Contendings of the martyrs') is a Ge'ez collection of saints’ Lives and encomia, probably translated from Arabic into Ethiopic at the end of the thirteenth century. It is preserved in thirty-four Ge'ez manuscripts dating from the thirteenth to the twentieth century. Among the stories contained in the Gadla Samā'tāt, the unedited Gadla 'Esṭifānos or 'Acts of Stephen' is an apocryphal story narrating the Life and Passion of saint Stephen, who figures prominently in the sixth and seventh chapters of the biblical Acts of the Apostles. At times following the canonical narrative of Acts, at times adding previously unknown episodes, like Stephen’s combat against two pagan magicians, the Gadla 'Esṭifānos bears striking similarities with other Greek and Arabic apocryphal stories about the protomartyr Stephen. The Ge'ez translation is very close to the Arabic text and the Gadla 'Esṭifānos is especially noteworthy for its numerous Arabic loanwords and calques. This article offers an edition on the basis of a seventeenth-century codex, the BnF d’Abbadie 110, in front of an annotated French translation.

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