Gadla Sama'tat

{{Short description|Ge'ez hagiography}}

{{Italic title}}

The Gadla Samāʿtāt (also spelled Gädlä Sämaʿtat, meaning "Spiritual Combat of the Martyrs") is an Ethiopic (Ge'ez) compilation of saints' lives, with the oldest components dating to the 13th century.{{sfn|Bovon|2003|p=309}} Egyptian martyrs are well represented but there are other Eastern saints as well. They are ordered by day of commemoration in the Ethiopian liturgical calendar.{{sfn|Bausi|2002|pp=1–2}} The texts are all translations from Arabic save the life of Wasilides, which was translated from Coptic.{{sfn|Brita|2015|p=6}}{{sfn|Bausi|2002|p=15}} It is an open question whether any of the lives are derived from Greek originals,{{sfn|Bausi|2002|pp=15–18}} but there is evidence favouring it in some cases (e.g, lack of Arabisms).{{sfn|Bausi|2002|pp=25–26}}

The Gadla Samāʿtāt is a body of texts that only gradually came together as a collection.{{sfn|Bausi|2002|p=15}} The earliest attestation of a collection known as Gadla Samāʿt is found in an inventory of Istifanos Monastery from 1292 referring to books donated by Iyasus Mo'a.{{sfn|Bausi|2002|pp=1 n2 and 7}} The translation of many individual lives, however, is attributed to Abuna Salama II ({{reign|1348|1388}}).{{sfn|Bausi|2002|p=10}} The full collection contains at least 142 lives.{{sfn|Bausi|2002|p=2}}

The Gadla Samāʿtāt survives in some form in at least 34 known manuscripts, but a majority of these contain only a fraction of the lives.{{sfn|Bausi|2002|pp=2–3}} There are 24 main manuscripts that contain only the Gadla Samāʿtāt and no other texts, ranging in completeness from two to twelve months.{{sfn|Bausi|2002|pp=3–6}} There are five manuscripts in which lives from the Gadla Samāʿtāt are mixed with lives from the Gadla Qeddusān ("Spiritual Combat of the Saints"), which are mostly monastic lives.{{sfn|Bausi|2002|p=6}} There are another five manuscripts which contain just a single month of lives from the Gadla Samāʿtāt alongside unrelated material.{{sfn|Bausi|2002|pp=6–7}} A majority of manuscripts are from the 15th century or earlier. The Gadla Samāʿtāt was the first calendar of saints of Ethiopia before it was gradually replaced by the Ethiopian Synaxarium.{{sfn|Bausi|2002|p=14}}