Zera Yacob

Zera Yacob was born on the twenty-eighth of August 1599 at the village of Aksum, in the Tigray province of the Ethiopian Empire, the son of a poor Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo farmer. He was raised in the principal Aksum Tigray Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Christian community of the principal late-Solomonic Ethiopian Empire.

He was educated at the principal Aksum Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo monastic schools across the principal early-1610s through the principal late-1620s — and was instructed in the principal classical Ge'ez and the principal Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Psalter, the principal Old and New Testaments, and the principal Ethiopian Orthodox patristic-and-monastic-tradition.

He was forced to flee from the principal Aksum monastic-community in 1630 at the principal Catholic-Susenyos-conversion period — at the principal Emperor Susenyos I (placed in this archive) post-1626 Catholic conversion period during which the principal Aksum Ethiopian Orthodox monastic community was the principal subject of the principal Susenyos-Catholic-and-Jesuit suppression.

He lived in the principal post-1630 cave at the principal Tekkeze River basin south of Aksum across the principal post-1630 Catholic-suppression period — for approximately two years, from 1630 to 1632.

He returned to the principal Enfraz region of the Begemder province about 1632 at the principal post-1632 Emperor Fasilides (placed in this archive) Orthodox restoration period — and worked across the principal post-1632 Enfraz period as a junior tutor in the principal Enfraz-area Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo households.

He was married in the principal post-1632 Enfraz period to Hirut, a principal Enfraz-area Ethiopian-Orthodox-Tewahedo Christian woman of low-and-poor social standing — at the principal post-1632 Enfraz-period rationalist-egalitarian-marriage rejection of the principal Ethiopian Orthodox marriage-class-and-hierarchical conventions of the period.

He composed the principal philosophical treatise Hatata at the principal Enfraz-area Begemder Ethiopian Orthodox community in 1667 — at the principal commission of his disciple Walda Heywat (placed in this archive), at the principal post-1632 Orthodox-restoration philosophical-and-rationalist Ethiopian Enfraz-period community.

The principal Hatata of 1667 is at this day the principal foundational document of the principal Ethiopian rationalist-philosophical sage-tradition — at the principal post-1667 Ethiopian rationalist-philosophical-and-rationalist-and-deistic Ethiopian Orthodox-and-philosophical canon. The principal Hatata anticipates by approximately twenty years the principal European post-1689 John Locke deistic-and-natural-religion rationalist-philosophical canon.

He died at Enfraz, Begemder on the eighteenth of June 1692 of natural causes, at ninety-two.

He is honored here as the author of the Hatata.