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The three Garima Gospels were produced and are still housed at the Monastery of Abba Garima in Ethiopia's northern highlands. They were produced between the fifth and seventh centuries at the zenith of Ethiopia's ancient Christian civilization. The Abba Garima manuscripts are among the very oldest illustrated Gospels in the world. When it comes to firmly dated parallels, only the Syriac Rabbula Gospels, produced near Antioch in 586, is earlier. Then, as today, Ethiopia lay far, far away from Syria and Ireland. Despite this, the manuscripts show striking similarities to the art of other ancient Christian cultures outside of Africa. Indeed, they are a testament to the deep connections between Ethiopia and the wider late antique world.
The most striking characteristic of the three codices are their brilliant illustrations. These include portraits of the four evangelists, along with one of the fourth-century bishop and biblical scholar Eusebius (all found in Abba Garima III.) In most portraits, the saints stare at the viewer head-on with arresting intensity. St Mark, however, is shown in profile, seated in a pose reminiscent of evangelist portraits in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic manuscripts as well as older Roman mosaics.
In general, the Abba Garima Gospels are relatively poor in what we might call traditional Christian iconography. There is not a single image of Jesus anywhere in the three codices. What they lack in explicitly Biblical imagery, however, they more than make up for in other elements, including canon tables, a distinctive feature of ancient Gospel manuscripts.
The picture shows folio 310v of Abba Garima III with the portrait of St Mark the Evangelist.
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