Abba Abraham (alias Abu Rumi)

Life and ministry

Abba Abraham was born around 1749/50 and died in 1818, probably in Cairo. He is better known by his Arabic name Abu Rumi, which might be translated as “East Roman [= Orthodox] Father”.

(1) Jowett’s report (* Asselin de Cherville)

Most details about Abba Abraham’s life come from letters sent by Jean-Louis Asselin de Cherville, the French Vice-Consul in Cairo at the time, to the CMS representative Rev. William Jowett. In his book Christian Researches (1822), Jowett recounts:

“At the age of twenty-two, Abu Rumi interpreted for Mr. Bruce in Gondar [in 1771]. At twenty-eight, as near as M. Asselin could calculate from his statements, he left Abyssinia—visited Caïro and Jerusalem —traded in Syria—and proceeded, through Armenia and Persia, to India. Here Sir William Jones was instructed by him; and he resided in Sir William’s house [in Kolkata; Jones lived in India from 1783 to 1794.] From India, he went to Mocha; and thence returned to Abyssinia. After a while, according to the custom of travelling Merchants, he became restless to quit Abyssinia, and again went to Caïro. Here, in a fit of sickness, M. Asselin found him out. He would have died from mere poverty and neglect. M. Asselin having been the means of his recovery, he vowed never to quit him, and called him his Father. He was now about fifty or fifty-five years of age. After having finished his work [of translating the Bible], he went to Jerusalem; and, returning to Caïro, died there, of the Plague, about four years since [i.e., around 1818].” (Researches, p. 201).

Abba Abraham translated the full Bible into Amharic from ca. 1807 to 1817. Mr Asselin de Cherville reports:

“I read with my Abyssinian, slowly, and with the utmost attention, every verse of the Sacred Volume, in the Arabic Version which we were about to translate. All those words which were either abstruse, difficult, or foreign to the Arabic, I explained to him, by the help of the Hebrew Original, the Syriac Version, or the Septuagint [i.e. the Greek Old Testament]; as well as a few Glossaries and Commentaries, which I had gathered about me: but he also often found the key to them in the Ethiopic, or Gheez.” (Researches, p. 200).

  • Which was the Arabic source used by Abba Abraham and Asselin de Cherville, who once wanted to become a Catholic cleric? Was it the most widely used Catholic Bible at the time (published in Rome in 1671 under the direction of Sergius Risi and Vincenzo Candido)? 
    Or did they translate from the London Polyglot Bible (published under the direction of Brian Walton in the 1650s)? This would have been a practical option, as the Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, Greek and Ge’ez versions mentioned by Asselin de Cherville were all on the same page.

“It was the wish of M. Asselin to have two copies of the work taken; one in folio, and one in large quarto. All, however, that he obtained to be copied was the following in large quarto—Genesis (sent, by Colonel Misset, to the Prince Regent [George IV])—Exodus (sent to the Rev. Mr. [George Cecil] Renouard, and the receipt acknowledged)—Leviticus and Numbers (to the Pope [Pius VII])—Deuteronomy (to the French Institute [i.e. _ _ _?])—Joshua and Judges (to the French King [Louis XVIII]): and, in small quarto, only the book of Genesis, entrusted to the Author for the British and Foreign Bible Society” (Christian Researches, p. 202).

In April 1820, Jewett bought all folios of Abba Abraham’s manuscript for the British and Foreign Bible Society (Christian Researches, p. 202f). After several partial publications (the four Gospels in 1824, etc.), the entire Bible was published in 1840. However, Abba Abraham’s Amharic translation was not printed as it stood, but was changed by Thomas Pell Platt and his advisors where they recognised significant deviations from the Hebrew resp. Greek Bible text.

  • The Pentateuch was printed unchanged until 1840. It was not until the second edition in 1844 that a revision was made according to the perceived Hebrew original.

Abba Abraham’s translation was the basis for almost all Amharic Bibles printed until the 1960s.

(2) Considering Isenberg’s report (* däbtära Matewos)

Abba Abraham’s Bible translation also served as a source for Isenberg’s Amharic dictionary. In the preface, Isenberg mentions that “Dabtera Matteos” knew the translator’s name as “Abi Ruhh” (p. iii). However, this is not Amharic but Tigrinya (the language into which Matewos had translated the Four Gospels for Isenberg) and thus not Abba Abraham’s authentic name.

According to Smidt’s article in the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, debtera Matewos was born in Adwa around 1800. It is therefore likely that Matewos’s statements about Abba Abraham are based on hearsay and not personal knowledge.

Isenberg mentions that ‘Abu Rumi’ was a native of Gojjam and a monk. The designations Abu resp. Abba (‘father’) indicate that Abba Abraham not only received an ecclesiastical education, but also later served as a revered and influential religious person.

We might even speculate that Abraham’s good knowledge of Arabic, which qualified him as an interpreter for James Bruce in Gondar in 1771, is due to a stay at the Virgin Mary monastery on Mount Qosqam in Upper Egypt. Its sand was considered holy since people believed that Jesus walked on it when he stayed in Egypt as a young child. The clerical establishment Ǝtege Məntəwwab built near Gondar (Däbrä Ṣ́äḥay Qʷəsqʷam) in the 1740s tried to embrace some of the holiness of this most ‘ancient’ church.

In Jowett’s account, it is surprising that Abba Abraham spent much of his life as a merchant—as far away from his home country as northeast India. (Did he intend to import silk from China?) Most ofen, trade was a profession practised by Muslims and regarded as a dubious occupation by committed Christians.

However, there were also some Däbtäras who earned their living as merchants.

It seems more likely that Abraham served as a däbtära rather than a priest or monk when he met Bruce in 1771.

Further reading

» Abba Abraham, bibliography (with links)

» Bible texts in Amharic (with links)