Home > Positioning > Subjects > Metaphilosophy > Philosophy in Africa > Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia wrote in Ge’ez, the language of its church, and two of its books speak to the work directly: the Book of the Wise Philosophers (Maṣḥafa falāsfā ṭabibān), put into Ge’ez between 1510 and 1522, and the Hatata of Zera Yacob, from the 1660s, with the book of his pupil Walda Heywat.

The Book of the Wise Philosophers is a collection of sayings, most of them opening “A wise man said”. It reached Ethiopia from late Greek collections through Arabic, and was put into Ge’ez by Abba Mikael, a writer of Egyptian origin, who rendered the Arabic aloud while an Ethiopian wrote it down. Its preface says what the book is for: it “gladdens hearts and gives understanding to the understanding … through the wisdom of the wise and the proclamation of the learned; and it is a light of inquiry and a lamp of insight” (from Cornill’s German), and from it “you learn in one month what you would not learn in all your days from the mouth of wise men”. It is done in company with books: a sage found alone says he is not alone, for “here Galen speaks the truth, and Hippocrates instructs, and Socrates teaches, and Plato speaks, and Aristotle serves as witness … and David teaches, and Paul preaches”.

Zera Yacob’s Hatata, “inquiry”, tells of a man who reasoned his way through the rival faiths of his day. The truth “is immediately revealed” to whoever seeks it: “he who investigates with the pure intelligence set by the creator in the heart of each man and scrutinizes the order and laws of creation, will discover the truth” (ch. V, tr. Sumner). Its point is set by the creator: “The creator himself wills that we adorn our life with science and work; for such an end did he give us reason and power … God does not create us perfect but creates us with such a reason as to know that we are to strive for perfection as long as we live in this world” (ch. VIII).

It is done by reason, against the doctrine of men. Each faith says it is right and the others false, and “who would be the judge for such a kind of argument? No single human being [can judge:] for all men are plaintiffs and defendants between themselves … As my faith appears true to me, so does another one find his own faith true; but truth is one” (ch. IV). “God has indeed given reason to all and everyone so that they may know truth and falsehood … let us seek it with our reason … We cannot, however, reach truth through the doctrine of men, for all men are liars” (ch. VII). His pupil Walda Heywat wrote his own book “in order that all the children of Ethiopia grow in knowledge and be counselled”.

The text’s own words are inquiry, wisdom, intelligence and reason; “philosophy” is its European editor’s title, Philosophi abessini (1904). Its authorship was questioned from 1920; the Ethiopian scholar Getatchew Haile and its 2023 translators accept it as Ethiopian.