NINE SAINTS. - So called of Rome (= Constantinople), Monophysite monks who, according to legend, arrived in Ethiopia in 454 coming from Syria, whence they had been driven away by the anti-Monophysite persecution that followed in the Byzantine Empire upon the condemnation issued against Eutyches by the Council of Chalcedon (451). Their names are: 1. Za Mikā'el 'Arāgawi; 2. Panālewon; 3. Ishaq Garimā; 4. Afsē; 5. Gubā; 6. Alēf; 7. Yem'ata; 8. Liqānos; 9. Sehma.

They settled in the ancient Kingdom of Axum, where they founded flourishing monasteries. Tradition attributes to them the translation into the ge'ez language (ancient Ethiopic, now used only in ecclesiastical and scholarly contexts) of the Old Testament from the Greek of the Septuagint. This version appears to have been made from the text in use in the Church of Antioch (the text of St. Lucian, or Syro-Western) and not the Alexandrian one. This version marks the beginning of Ethiopian literature.

Bibliography

BIBL.: I. Guidi, La traduzione degli Evangelii in arabo e in etiopico, Rome 1888.

Nicola Turchi

@incollection{ec8_nove_santi, author = {Turchi, Nicola}, title = {Nove Santi}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {1981--1982}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/nove-santi} }

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Nine Saints

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