The Mysterious Discovery of the World's First Illustrated Christian Bible

The oldest illustrated Bible, the Garima GospelsWikimedia Commons/Public Domain

When an English artist named Beatrice Payne visited Ethiopia in the 1940s, she toured the Abba Garima monastery in the Tigre region of Ethiopia. The monastery was founded in the 5th to early 6th century by Abba (Abba means father) Garima, who is thought to be a Byzantine prince. 

However, the monastery held a closely guarded secret that had never been disclosed to the outside world. The secret was one of Christianity’s most important relics, the oldest illustrated Bible in the world, the Garima gospels.

The Garima gospels are believed to have been written in the 5th to early 6th century by Abba (father) Garima, who visited Ethiopia around 494 AD. Father Garima belonged to a special group of missionaries called the Nine Saints. The Nine Saints were responsible for the spread of Christianity in Ethiopia in the 5th century. Carbon dating also puts the manuscripts between 330AD to 650AD, meaning the manuscripts are at least 1600 years old.

The Garima monastery’s location has a profound history. It’s only 5 kilometers away from Adwa, the site where Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia fought the battle of Adwa and defeated the armies of the kingdom of Italy on Sunday, 1st 1896. 

The Garima Gospels

The humiliating defeat of the Italians reverberated throughout Europe as Ethiopia became the first African state to defeat a European power in an open battle. So the battle of Adwa became a national trauma that when fascist Italy under Mussolini successfully invaded the Ethiopian Capital in 1936, he decried “Adua è vendicata,” meaning Adwa had been avenged.

Like the British, the Italians plundered thousands of priceless Ethiopian treasures. Over a century later, the descendants of the looters were putting up for sale the priceless relics at auction houses around Europe, so it’s quite logical why the Ethiopian monks hid one of Christianity’s priceless gems for so long.

Nonetheless, women were not allowed to enter the monastery; the monks who have maintained and protected the monastery from Muslim and Christian invaders have, for the first time, decided to show Beatrice Payne the Garima illustrated manuscripts. 

The monks still adhered to their “no woman inside the monastery” policy, but instead, they brought out several artifacts, including the Garima gospels, for her. Beatrice Payne found that the illustrated manuscripts had Syrian-style ornamental headings. She was referencing the Garima Gospels.

Description of the Gospels

The Garima gospels consist of three volumes bound into two books, Garima 1 and the older, Garima 2. The Garima 1 gospel has 348 pages and begins with eleven illuminated pages that also include canon tables set in arcades followed by the gospel script written in the Ancient Ethiopic language of Ge’ez. Written also in Ge’ez is the Garima 2 gospel consists of 322 pages, of which 17 are illuminated pages, with 4 of the pages being portraits of evangelists.

illumination from the Garima Gospels, in a scene depicting Mark the EvangelistWikimedia Commons/Public Domain

Restoration work 

The Gospels were so old and fragile that the edges of the pages would immediately turn to dust whenever they were opened. Some basic restoration was done in the 1960s but were no more than stitching the pages together. However, the climate of Adwa and the monks storing the gospels in an elevated dry room helped preserve the books. 

Still, researchers are hampered by the monks’ suspicions regarding the country’s history, with foreigners looting priceless artifacts and cultural treasures. Nevertheless, the charity Ethiopian Heritage Fund was set up in 2005, and by 2010 a significant restoration of the ancient gospels was carried out on-site under the keen eyes of the monks who never left the manuscripts alone with the bookbinder who was flown from England to Northern Ethiopia.

Civil war threatens precious Christian artifacts

In November 2020, under the leadership of the Nobel peace prize laureate Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia waged war on the Tigray to thwart the country’s ethnic federal system. The war, which is still ongoing, is estimated to have claimed more than half a million people and is even estimated to be worse than Ukraine, according to the Washington Post. Genocide and crimes against humanity, including attacks against women, were reported to have taken place during the ongoing civil war.

Besides the human cost, the civil war destroyed many buildings, including churches and Universities. As a result, Ethiopians worldwide woke up to the news that some of the most sacred and precious artifacts to all of Christendom were listed on eBay. Priceless manuscripts believed to have been looted were going for as much as $754.

The Tigray region is also home to the very first Muslim Mosque in Africa. Unfortunately, like the priceless Christian artifacts, the 7th century Al Nejashi Muslim Mosque has been looted and damaged by shelling.

In Ethiopia, there are more than 200,000 rare and ancient Christian relics that researchers are yet to study. Though all things are possible in a war, let’s hope that the civil war doesn’t rob Christians everywhere of their heritage by damaging Christendom’s most prized relics.