The Treatise On the One Judge (CAe 6260) in the Aksumite Collection (CAe 1047)

The treatise On the One Judge (CAe 6260) is one of the most interesting texts preserved in the Aksumite Collection. The Aksumite Collection (CAe 1047) is a multiple-text codex unicus that attests to the earliest set of canon law and liturgical Ethiopic (Gǝʿǝz) texts, presumably dating back to Aksumite times. It apparently consists without exception of translations from Greek texts. The treatise On the One Judge is the longest text of the collection. It is the only one of initiatory character and stresses the central function assigned to God Father as «the One Judge». The treatise is marked by a linguistic feature that distinguishes it from all the other texts of the collection, even though this peculiarity does not necessarily justify the hypothesis that it is an Ethiopic original. Albeit apparently completely dismissed in the later manuscript tradition, the treatise was known to Giyorgis of Saglā (d. c. 1425/1426), who explicitly quoted the title of the treatise in his Maṣḥafa mǝsṭir (Book of the mystery, CAe 1952, accomplished in 1424). The treatise shares theological positions with the Constitutiones Apostolicae as well as with the Epistula Clementis ad Corinthios, and the absence of any ecclesiological reference points to a very early date of composition and use. The resurfacing of this dismissed text sheds completely new light on the late antique Aksumite and medieval Ethiopian civilization and Ethiopian Christianity as a whole. Tackling an extremely difficult and at times puzzling text, this contribution aims to make the treatise On the One Judge accessible through an editio princeps and a translation provided with an essential commentary.