Chapter 22

See Abich,Geologie d. armenischen Hochlandes(Wien, 1882); Bishop,Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan(Lond., 1891); Bliss,Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities(Lond., 1896); Bryce,Transcaucasia and Ararat(4th ed., Lond., 1896); De Coursous,La RÃ©bellion armÃ©nienne(Paris, 1895); Lepsius,Armenia and Europe(Lond., 1897); Murray,Handbook for Asia Minor(Lond., 1895); Parly. Papers,Turkey, I. (1895);Turkey, I., II. (1896); Supan, â€œDie Verbreitung d. Armenier in der asiatischen Turkei, u. in Transkaukasien,â€ in Pet.Mitt. vol. xlii. (1896); Tozer,Turkish Armenia and Eastern Asia Minor(Lond., 1881); Cholet,ArmÃ©nie, Kurdistan, et MÃ©sopotamie(1892); Lynch,Armenia(2 vols., 1901).

(C. W. W.)

1The Armenians and Kurds have lived together from the earliest times. The adoption of Islam by the latter, and by many Armenians, divided the people sharply into Christian and Moslem, and placed the Christian in a position of inferiority. But the relations between the two sects were not unfriendly previously to the Russian campaigns in Persia and Turkey. After 1829 the relations became less friendly; and later, when the Armenians attracted the sympathies of the European powers after the war of 1877-78, they became bitterly hostile.2According to some estimates the number killed was 50,000 or more.

2According to some estimates the number killed was 50,000 or more.

ARMENIAN CHURCH. No trustworthy account exists of the evangelization of Armenia, for the legend of King Abgarâ€™s correspondence with Christ, even if it contained any historical truth, only relates to Edessa and Syriac Christianity. That the Armenians appropriated from the Syrians this, as well as the stories of Bartholomew and Thaddeus (the SyriacAddai), was merely an avowal on their part that Edessa was the centre from which the faith radiated over their land. In the 4th century and later the liturgy was still read in Syriac in parts of Armenia, and the New Testament, the history of Eusebius, the homilies of Aphraates, the works of St Ephraem and many other early books were translated from Syriac, from which tongue most of their ecclesiological terms were derived. The earliest notice of an organized church in Armenia is in Eusebius,H. E. vi. 46, to the effect that Dionysius of Alexandriac. 250 sent a letter to Meruzanes, bishop of the brethren in Armenia. There were many Christians in Melitene at the time of the Decian persecution inA.D.250, and two bishops from Great Armenia were present at the council of Nice in 325. King Tiridates (c.A.D.238-314) had already been baptized some time after 261 by Gregory the Illuminator. The latter was ordained priest and appointedcatholicusor exarch of the church of Great Armenia by Leontius, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. This one fact is certain amidst the fables which soon obscured the history of this great missionary.Thus the church of Great Armenia began as a province of the Cappadocian see. But there was a tradition of a line of bishops earlier than Gregory in Siuniq, a region east of Ararat along the Araxes (Aras), which in early times claimed to be independent of the catholicus. The Adoptianist bishop Archelaus, who opposed the entry of Mani into Armenia under Probusc. 277, was also perhaps a Syriac-speaking bishop of Pers-Armenia. Almost the earliest document revealing anything of the inner organization and condition of the Armenian church in the Nicene age is the epistle of Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, to the Armenian bishop Verthanes, written between 325 and 335 and preserved in Armenian. Its genuineness has been unreasonably suspected. It insists on the erection of fonts; on distinction of grades among the ordained clergy; on not postponing baptism too long; on bishops and priests alone, and not deacons, being allowed to baptize and lay hands on or confirm the baptized; on avoiding communion with Arians; on the use of unleavened bread in the Sacrament, &c. We learn from it that the bishop of Basen and Bagrevand was an Arian at that time. By the year 450 these two districts already had separate bishops of their own. The letter of Macarius, therefore, if a forgery, must be a very early one.1The Armenians must, like the Georgians a little later, have set store by the opinion of the bishop of Jerusalem, or they would not have sent to consult him. It was equally from Jerusalem that they subsequently adopted their lectionary and arrangement of the Christian year; and a 9th-century copy of this lectionary in the Paris library preserves to us precious details of the liturgical usages of Jerusalem in the 4th century. We can trace the presence of Armenian convents on the Mount of Olives as early as the 5th century.

Tradition represents the conversion of Great Armenia under Gregory and Tiridates as a sort of triumphant march, in which the temples of the demons and their records were destroyed wholesale, and their undefended sites instantly converted into Christian churches. The questions arise: how was the transition from old to new effected? and what was the type of teaching dominant in the new church? Armenian tradition, confirmed by nearly contemporary Greek sources, answers the first question. The old order went on, but under new names. The priestly families, we learn, hearing that the God preached by Gregory needed not sacrifice, sent to the king a deputation and asked how they were to live, if they became Christians; for until then the priests and their families had lived off the portions of the animal victims and other offerings reserved to them by pagan custom. Gregory replied that, if they would join the new religion, not only should the sacrifices continue, but they should have larger perquisites then ever. The priestly families then went overen masse. How far the older sacrificial rules resembled the levitical law we do not know, but in the canons of Sahak,c. 430, the priests already receive the levitical portions of the victims; and we find that animals are being sacrificed every Sunday, on the feast days which at first were few, in fulfilment of private vows, in expiation of the sins of the living, and still more of those of the dead. No one might kill his own meat and deprive the priest of his due; but this rule did not apply to the chase. The earliest Armenian rituals contain ample services for the conduct of anagapÄ“(q.v.) or love feast held in the church off sacrificial meat. The victim was slaughtered by the priest in the church porch before the crucifix, after it had been ritually wreathed and given the holy salt, by licking which it appropriated a sacramental purity or efficacy previously conveyed into the salt by exorcisms and consecration. In the canons of Sahak the priest is represented as eating the sins of the people in these repasts.

It is easy to underrate the importance in religion of a change of names. The old sacrificial hymns were probably obscene and certainly nonsensical, and the substitution for them of the psalms, and of lections of the prophets and New Testament, was an enormous gain. We do not know precisely how the eucharistic rite was adjusted to these sacrificial meals; but, in the canons of Sahak, 1 Cor. xi. 17-34 is interpreted of these meals, which were known as the Dominical (suppers). The Eucharist was, therefore, long associated with thematalor animal victim, and only in the 8th century do we hear of an interval of time being left between the fleshly and the spiritual sacrifices, as the two rites were then called. The Basilian service of the Eucharist was used in the 5th century, but superseded later on by a Byzantine rite which will be found translated in F.E. Brightmanâ€™sEastern Liturgies. The Eucharist was no doubt the one important sacrifice in the minds of the clergy who had attended the schools of Constantinople and Alexandria; yet the heart of the people remained in their ancient blood-offerings, and as late as the 12th century they were prone to deny that the mass could expiate the sins of the dead unless accompanied by the sacrifice of an animal. Perhaps even to-day the worst fate that can befall a villager after death is to be deprived, not of commemoration in the mass, but of the victim slain for his sins. The keenest spiritual weapon of the Armenian priest was ever a threat not to offer thematalfor a man when he died.

Another survival in the Armenian church was the hereditary priesthood. None but a scion of a priestly family could become a deacon, elder or bishop. Accordingly the primacy remained in the family of Gregory until about 374, when the king Pap or Bab murdered Nerses, who had been ordained by Eusebius of Caesarea (362-370) and was over-zealous in implanting in Armenia the canons about celibacy, marriage, fasting, hospices and monastic life which Basil had established in Cappadocia. It may be remarked that Gregoryâ€™s own family was a cadet branch of the Arsacid kin which had occupied the thrones of Persia, Bactria, Armenia and Georgia. His primacy therefore was in itself a survival of an earlier age when king and priest were one. He was in fact arex sacrificulus, and later on, when the Arsacid dynasty fell in Armeniac.A.D.428, the Armenian catholicus became the symbol of national unity and the rallying-point of patriotism. The line of Gregory was restored in 390 in the person of Isaac or Sahak, son of Nerses, and his patriarchate was the golden age of Armenian literature. But by this time the autonomy of the Armenian church was thoroughly established. On the death of Nerses the right of saying grace at the royal meals, which was the essence of the catholicate, was transferred by the king, in despite of the Greeks, to the priestly family of Albianus, and thenceforth no Armenian catholicus went to Caesarea for ordination. The ties with Greek official Christendom were snapped for ever, and in subsequent ages the doctrinal preferences of the Armenians were usually determined more by antagonism to the Greeks than by reflection. If they accepted the council of Ephesus in 430 and joined in the condemnation of Nestorius, it was rather because the Sassanid kings of Persia, who thirsted for the reconquest of Armenia, favoured Nestorianism, a form of doctrine current in Persia and rejected in Byzantium. But later on, about 480, and throughout the following centuries, the Armenians rejected the decrees of Chalcedon and held that the assertion of two natures in Christ was a relapse into the heresy of Nestor. From the close of the 5th century the Armenians have remained monophysite, like the Copts and Abyssinians, and have only broken the record with occasional short interludes of orthodoxy, as when in 633 the emperor Heraclius forced reunion on them, under a catholicus named Esdras, at a council held in Erzerum. Even then all parties were careful not to mention Chalcedon. The march of Arab conquest kept the Armenians friendly to Byzantium for a few years; but in 718 the catholicus John of Odsun ascended the throne and at the council of Manazkert in 728 repeated and confirmed the anathemas against Chalcedon and the tome of Leo, that had been first pronounced by the catholicus Babken in 491 at a synod held in Valarshapat by the united Armenian, Georgian or Iberian, and Albanian churches.The Armenians marked their complete disruption with the Greeks by starting an era of their own at the synod of Dvin. The era began on the 11th of July 552, and their year is vague, that is to say, it does not intercalate a day in February every fourth year, like the Julian calendar.

The two churches of Iberia and Albania at first depended on the Armenian for ordination of their primates orcatholici, and in large part owed their first constitution to Armenian missionaries sent by Gregory the Illuminator. The Iberians still reverence as saints the Armenian doctors of the 5th century, but as early as 552 they began to resent the dictatorial methods of the Armenians, as well might a proud race of mountaineers who never wholly lost their political independence; and they broke off their allegiance to the Armenian see very soon afterwards, accepted Chalcedon and joined the Byzantine church. The Albanians of the Caucasus were also converted in the age of Gregory, early in the 4th century, and were loyal to the Armenians in the great struggle against Mazdaism in the 5th; but broke away for a time towards 600, and chose a patriarch without sending him to Armenia for ordination. Eventually this interesting church was engulfed by the rising tide of Mahommedan conquest, but not before one of their bishops, named Israel, had converted (677-703) the Huns who lay to the north of the Caspian and had translated the Bible and liturgies into their language. If the Albanian and Hunnish versions could be found, they would be of the greatest linguistic importance.

The mother church of Armenia was established by Gregory at Ashtishat in the province of Taron, on the site of the great temple of Wahagn, whose festival on the seventh of the month Sahmi was reconsecrated to John the Baptist and Athenogenes, an Armenian martyr and Greek hymn writer. The first of Navasard, the Armenian new yearâ€™s day, was the feast of a god Vanatur or Wanadur (who answered toÎ–Îµá½ºÏ‚ Î¾ÎÎ½Î¹Î¿Ï‚) in the holy pilgrim city of Bagawan. His day was reconsecrated to the Baptist, whose relics were brought to Bagawan. The feast of Anahite, the Armenian Venus and spouse of the chief god Aramazd, was in the same way rededicated to the Virgin Mary, who for long was not very clearly distinguished by the Armenians from the virgin mother church. The old cult of sacred stones and trees by an easy transition became cross-worship, but a cross was not sacred until the Christ had been, by priestly prayer and invocation, transferred into it.

What was the earliest doctrine of the churches of Armenia? If we could believe the fathers of the 5th and succeeding centuries Nicene orthodoxy prevailed in their country from the first; and in the 5th century they certainly chose for translation the works of orthodox fathers alone, such as Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory Nazianzen, Cyril of Jerusalem and Cyril of Alexandria, Athanasius, Julius of Rome, Hippolytus, Irenaeus, avoiding Origen and other fathers who were becoming suspect. However, we do hear of versions of Nestorian writers like Diodore of Tarsus being in circulation, and theDisputationof Archelaus proves that the current orthodoxy of eastern Armenia was Adoptianist, if not Ebionite in tone. The Persian Armenians as late as the 6th century had not heard of the faith of Nicaea, and only then received it from the catholicus Babken. They sent a copy of their old creed to Babken, and it closely resembles the Adoptianist creed of Archelaus, the gist of which was that Jesus, until his thirtieth year, was a man mortal like other men; then, because he was righteous above all others, he was promoted to the honour and name of Son of God. He received the title by grace, but was not equal to God the Father. Because the Spirit worked with him, he was able to vanquish Satan and all desires, and because of his righteousness and good works he was made worthy of grace and became a Temple of God the Word, which came down from heaven in Jordan, dwelt in him and through him wrought miracles. From such a standpoint the baptism of Jesus was the moment of the divine incarnation. The man righteous above all others was then reborn of the Spirit, was illuminated, was spiritually anointed, became the Christ and Son of God. In effect the fathers of the Armenian church often fell back into such language, far removed as it is from orthodoxy; and they emphasized the importance of the baptismal feast of the Epiphany on the 6th of January by refusing to accept the feast of the physical birth of the 25th of December. As late as 1165 their patriarch Nerses defends the Armenian custom of keeping Christmas on the 6th of January on the express ground that as he was born after the flesh from the Virgin,so he was born by way of baptism from the Jordan. The custom from the first, he says, had been to feast on one and the same day the two births, much as they differed in sacramental import and in point of time. We see how deep the early Adoptianism had struck its roots, when a primate of the 12th century could still appeal to the baptismal regeneration of Jesus. The same Nerses held that the second Adam, Jesus Christ, received a new body and nature and the sevenfold grace of the Spiritin the Jordan. The Armenian doctors also taught that John by laying hands on Jesus and ordaining him at his baptism sacramentally transferred to him the three graces orcharismataof kingship, prophecy and priesthood which had belonged to ancient Israel. After baptism, if not before, the flesh of Christ was incorruptible. It consisted of ethereal fire, and he was not subject to the ordinary phenomena of digestion, secretions and evacuations.

Monastic institutions were hardly introduced in Armenia before the 5th century, though Christian rest-houses had been erected along the high-roads long before and are mentioned in theDisputationof Archelaus. The Armenians called themwanq, and out of them grew the monasteries. The monks were, strictly speaking, penitents wearing the cowl, and not allowed to take a part in church government. This belonged to the elders. At first there was no separate episcopal ordination, and the one rite of elder or priest (Armen.Qahanay, Heb.cohen) sufficed. There were also deacons, half-deacons and readers. Besides these there was a class ofwardapetsor teachers, answering to thedidascalosof the earliest church, whose province it was to guard the doctrine and for whom no rite of ordination is found in the older rituals.

A few other peculiarities of Armenian church usage or belief deserve notice. In baptism the rubric ordains that the baptized be plunged three times in the font in commemoration of the entombment during three days of the Lord. In the West trine immersion was generally held to be symbolic of the triune name of â€œFather, Son and Holy Ghost.â€ This name the Armenians have used, at least since the year 700; before which date their fathers often speak of baptism into the death of Christ as the one essential. As late as about 1300 a traveller hostile to the Armenians reported to the pope that he had witnessed baptisms without any trinitarian invocation in as many as three hundred parish churches.

The paschal lamb is now eaten on Sunday, but until the 11th century, and even later, it was eaten with the Eucharist at a Lordâ€™s Supper celebrated on the evening of Maundy Thursday after the rite ofpedilaviumor washing of feet. On the morning of the same day the penitents were released from their fast.

The rite of extreme unction was introduced in the crusading epoch, although it was already usual to anoint the bodies of dead priests. The worship of images never seems to have taken root among Armenians; indeed they supplied the Greek world with iconoclast soldiers and emperors. The worship of crosses into which the Spirit or Christ had been inserted by the priest must have satisfied the religious needs of a people who, save in architecture, showed little artistic faculty. In their older rituals we find a rite for blessing a painted church, but no word of statues. Frescoes in their churches are rare, and mostly too high up for veneration to be paid to them.

On certain days the cross was washed, and the water in which it had been washed was a sovereign charm for curing sickness in men and animals and for bringing fertility to the land.

In the older rituals we find a rite ofexhomologesis, for restoring those who had sinned after baptism. It was a medicine of sin that could only be used once and not a second time. In form it is a rehearsal of the first baptismal rite, but with omission of the water. It involved like the first rite open confession and repentance, and absolution by the church. In a later and less rigorous age this rite was abridged and adjusted to constantrepetition, in such wise that a sinner could be restored to grace not once only, but as often as the clergy chose to accept his repentance and confession. Thus the whole development of the penitentiary system is traceable in the MSS.

The confession of a dying man might be taken by any layman present, and written down in order to be shown to the priest when he arrived. It then was the duty of the latter to supplicate for his forgiveness, and administer to him the Eucharist.

The clergy of all grades were originally married. The parish priests, or white clergy, are so still, except some of the Latinizing ones. But since the 12th century, or even earlier, the higher clergy,i.e.patriarchs and bishops, have taken monkish vows and worn the cowl.

There were abortive attempts to unite the Armenian church with the Byzantine in the 9th century under the patriarch Photius, and again late in the 12th under the emperor Manuel Comnenus, when a joint council met at Romkla, near Tarsus, but ended in nothing (A.D.1179). Neither could the Armenians keep on good terms even with the Syriac monophysites. From the age of the crusades on, the Armenians of Cilicia, whose patriarch sat at Sis, improved their acquaintance with Rome; and more than one of their patriarchs adopted the Roman faith, at least in words. Dominican missions went to Armenia, and in 1328 under their auspices was formed a regular order called the United Brethren, the forerunners of the Uniats of the present day, who have convents at Venice and Vienna, a college in Rome and a numerous following in Turkey. They retain their Armenian liturgies and rites, pruned to suit the Vatican standards of orthodoxy, and they recognize the pope as head of the church.

The patriarchs of Great Armenia first resided at Ashtishat, on the Araxes. From 478 to 931 they occupied Dvin in the same neighbourhood, then Aghthamar, an island in the Lake of Van, 931-967, the city of Ani, 992-1054, where are still visible the magnificent ruins of their churches and palaces. Since 1441 the chief catholicus has sat at Echmiadzin, the convent of Valarshapat, now part of Russian Armenia. A rival catholicus, with a small following, still has his cathedral and see at Sis. The catholicus of Valarshapat is nominally chosen by all Armenians. A synod of bishops, monks and doctors meets regularly to transact under his eye the business of the convent and the oecumenical affairs of the church; but its decisions are subject to the veto of a Russian procurator. There are Armenian patriarchs, subject to the spiritual jurisdiction of Echmiadzin, in Constantinople and Jerusalem. In the latter place the Armenians occupy a convent on Mount Sion, and keep up in the churches of the Sepulchre and of Bethlehem their own distinct rites and feasts, the only ones there which at all resemble those of the 4th century.

The following list of councils was compiled by John, catholicus about the year 728, and read at the council of Manazkert, when the dogmatic and disciplinary attitude of the Armenian church was defined once and for all:â€”

1. In twentieth year of catholicate of Gregory and thirty-seventh of Trdat, the king, on return of Aristaces from council of Nice, bringing the Nicene creed and canons.

2. Council held by St Nerses on his return from the council of the 150 fathers at Constantinople against Macedonius.

3. Held by St Sahak and Mesrop on receipt of letters from Proclus and Cyril after the council of Ephesus, when the â€œGlory in the Highestâ€ was adopted. Held against Nestorianism.

4. Held by Joseph, disciple of Mashdotz (Mesrop) and St Sahak, in Shahapiwan in the sixth year of King Yazkert (i.e.Yazdegerd) of Persia, for the regulation of the church. Forty bishops present. (The Massalians were anathematized.)

5. Held by Babken, catholicus, in the City-plain (i.e.Dvin), in the 18th year of King Kavat (i.e.Kavadh), against the heresy of Acacius and Barsuma (Bar-sauma), the friends of Nestorius. The true (Nicene) faith was sent to the Armenians of the farther East (shortly afterwards a slightly different creed was adopted, identical with a pseudo-Athanasian symbol used by Evagrius of Pontus and given in Greek in Patr. Gr. xxvi. Col. 1232).

6. At the beginning of the Armenian era, held by Nerses in Dvin, in the fourth year of his catholicate, in the fourteenth of Chosroesâ€™ reign and in the fourteenth of Justinian Caesar. Held against Chalcedon, uniting the Baptism and Christmas feasts on the 6th of January (Epiphany), declaring for mono-physitism, and adopting in theTrisagionthe words â€œwho wast crucified for us.â€ This settlement lasted for about seventy-four years.

7. After the retaking of Jerusalem and recovery of the Cross from the Persians in the eighteenth year of his reign, Heraclius called a mixed council at Karin (Theodosiopolis) of Greeks and Armenians under Ezr (Esdras), catholicus, at which the preceding council of Dvin was cursed, its reforms repudiated and the confession of Chalcedon adopted. This remained the official attitude of the Armenian church until the catholicate of Elias (703-717). John, catholicus, denies to Ezrâ€™s meeting the name of council, and so makes his own the seventh.

8. Under John, catholicus, in Manazkert, in the one hundred and seventieth year of the Armenian era (=A.D.728) under the presidency of Gregory Asharuni Chorepiscopos (Gregory Asheruni). All the Armenian bishops attended, as also the metropolitan of Urhha (Edessa), Jacobite bishops of Gartman, of Nfrkert, Amasia, by command of the archbishop of Antioch. Chalcedon was repudiated afresh, union with the Jacobites instituted, use of water and leaven in the Eucharist condemned, the five daysâ€™ preliminary fast before Lent restored, Saturday as well as Sunday made a day of feasting and synaxis, any but the orthodox excluded from the Maundy Thursday Communion, the first communion of the new catechumens; union of the Baptismal and Christmas feasts was restored, and the faithful forbidden to fast on Fridays from Easter until Pentecost. In general these rules have been observed in the Armenian church ever since.

For list of authorities on the Armenian church see the works enumerated at the end ofArmenian Language and Literature. For the relations of the Armenian church to the Persian kings seePersia:Ancient History, section viii. Â§Â§ 2 and 3.

(F. C. C.)

1If a forgery, why should this letter have been assigned to Macarius, a comparatively obscure person whose name is not even found in the menaea of the Eastern church? But convincing proof of its authenticity lies in Macariusâ€™ reference to himself as merely archbishop of Jerusalem, and his avowal that he was unwilling to advise the Armenians, â€œbeing oppressed by the weakness of the authority conceded him by the weighty usages of the church.â€ Jerusalem was only allowed to rank as a patriarchate in 451, and the seventh canon of Nice subordinated the see to that of Caesarea in Palestine. To this decree Macarius somewhat bitterly alludes.

ARMENIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.The Armenian language belongs to the group called Indo-European, of which the Iranic and Indic tongues formed one branch, and Greek, Albanian, Italian, Celtic, Germanic and Baltic-Slavonic dialects the other great branch. UnlikeLanguage.most of these, Armenian lost its genders long before the yearA.D.400, when the existing literature begins. Modern Persian similarly has lost gender; and in both cases the liberation must have been due to attrition of other tongues which had a different system of gender or none at all. So the Armenians were ever in contact on the north with the Iberians of the Caucasus who had none, and with the Semitic races on the south and east which had other ways of forming genders than the Indo-European tongues.

From the original Armenian stock can be readily distinguished a mass of Old and Middle Persian loan-words. These are so numerous that for a time Armenian was classed as an Iranian tongue. For more than a thousand years, say untilA.D.640, Armenia was an appanage of the realm of the Persians and Parthians. UntilA.D.428 the Armenian throne was occupied by a younger branch of the Arsacid dynasty that ruled in Persia until the advent of the Sassanids (c.A.D.226), and the internal polity and court administration of Armenia were modelled on the Persian or Parthian. Accordingly over 200 proper and personal names in Armenia were Old Persian, as well as 700 names of things. If we count in the derivative forms of these words we get at least 2000 Old Persian words. Often the same Persian word was borrowed twice over in an earlier and later form at an interval of centuries, just as in English we inherit a word direct or have taken it from Latin, and have also assimilated from French a later form of the same. The Persian influence in Armenian was already strong as early as 400B.C., when Xenophon used a Persian interpreter to converse. In some of the Armenian villages they answered him in Persian. The Persian loan-words already present in Armenian as early asA.D.400 mirror the earlier political and social life of Armenia. Thus many of their kings and nobles had Persian names; Persian also were mostwords used in connexion with horses and the chase, with war and army, with dress, trade and coinage, calendar, weights and measures, with court and political institutions, with music, medicine, school, education, literature and the arts. Many everyday words were of the same origin,e.g.the words for village, desert, building and build, need, rich or liberal, arm (of body), rod or goad, face, opposite, wicked, unfriendly, discontented, difficult, daughter, eulogy, a youth, wary, enjoy, unhappy, volition, voluntary, unwilling, blind, cautious, blood-kin, coquet with, slumber, humble, mad, grace or favour, memory or attention, grandfather, old woman, prepared, duty, necessary, end, endless, superior, confident, mistake, warmth, heat, glory. The language of their old religion was mainly Persian, but in the 4th century they derived numerous ecclesiological words from the Syrians, from whom by way of Edessa and Nisibis Christianity penetrated eastern Armenia. The language of the garden and the names of plants were also Persian. They had their own numerals, but the words for one thousand and for ten thousand are Persian.

Yet more indicative of the extent of the Persian influence is the adoption of the adjectival ending -akanand -zan, added to purely Armenian words; also of the prepositionham, answering toconin â€œconjoin,â€ â€œconspire,â€ added to purely Armenian words, as inhambarnam, I take away, andhamboir, a kiss, a word which, strange to say, the Iberians in turn borrowed from the Armenians. From Persia also the Armenians took their names for surrounding races,e.g.TatshikorTajik, first for Arab and then for Turk,Ariqfor Persians,Kapkohfor Caucasus,Hrazdan,Vaspuragan, &c. The Armenians call themselvesHay, pluralHayq; their countryHayasdan. The Iberians they calledVirqorWirq(whereqmarks the plural), the MedesMarq, the CappadociansGamirq(Cimmerians), the Greeks YÃ»nes or Ionians; Ararat they callMasis, the Euphrates theAradsan, the TigrisTeglath, Erzerum isKarin, EdessaUrhha, NisibisMdsbin, CtesiphonTizbon, &c.

When the Persian and other loan-words are removed, a stock remains of native words and forms governed by other phonetic laws than those which govern the Aryan,i.e.Indian and Iranic, branch of the Indo-European tongues. Armenian appears to be a half-way dialect between the Aryan branch and Slavo-lettic. Much, however, in Armenian philology remains unexplained. For example the plural of nouns, pronouns and the first and second persons plural of verbs are all formed by adding aqork, which has no parallel in any Indo-Germanic tongue. The genitive plural again is formed by adding atzorc, and the same consonant characterizes the composite aorist and the conjunctive. In all three cases it is unexplained. In the verbs the terminationmfor the first singular at once explains itself, and thenof the third plural is the Indo-Germanicnti. But not so the second person singular ending ins,e.g.berem, I bear,beres, thou bearest. This has a superficial likeness to the I.-G.esiinbheresi, â€œthou bearest.â€ Yet we should expect thesbetween vowels to vanish, and give us in ArmenianberÃª. Perhaps, therefore, an old variant ofesi, similar to theá¼ÏƒÏƒÎ¯, lies behind the Armenianes, thou art, and theesinberes, thou bearest. In any case it is clear that many of the oldest forms which Armenian shared with other Indo-Germanic dialects were lost and replaced by forms of which the origin is obscure. Perhaps a closer study of Mingrelian and Georgian will explain some of these peculiarities, for these and their cognate tongues must have had a wider range in the 7th and 8th centuriesB.C.than they had later when clear history begins. The attempts made by S. Bugge to assimilate Old Armenian to Etruscan, and by P. Jensen to explain from it the Hittite inscriptions, appear to be fanciful. There is a large Semitic influence traceable in Armenian due to their early contact with the Syriac-speaking peoples to the south and east of them, and later to the Arab conquest. Much remains to be done in the way of collecting Armenian dialects, for which task there are written materials as far back as the 12th century over and above the work to be done by an intelligent traveller armed with a phonograph. Two main dialects of Armenian are distinguishable to-day, that of Ararat and Tiflis, and that of Stambul and the coast cities of Asia Minor. The latter is much overlaid with Tatar or Turkish words, and the Tatar order of words distinguishes the modern Armenian sentence from the ancient.

It remains to say that classical Armenian resembles rather the modern idiom of Van than of western Armenia. It was a plastic and noble language, capable of rendering faithfully, yet not servilely, the Greek Bible and Greek fathers. Often the Armenian translators, and especially after the 5th century, rendered word for word, preserving the order of the Greek. This literalness, though unpleasing from a literary standpoint, gives to many of their ancient versions the value almost of a Greek codex of the age in which the version was made. The same literalness also characterizes their translations from Syriac.

The Armenians had a temple literature of their own, which was destroyed in the 4th and 5th centuries by the Christian clergy, so thoroughly that barely twenty lines of it survive in the history of Moses of Khoren (Chorene).Literature.Their Christian literature begins about 400 with the invention of the Armenian alphabet by Mesrop. This was probably an older alphabet to which Mesrop merely added vowels; but, in order to pacify the Greek ecclesiastics and the emperor Theodosius the Less, the Armenians concocted a story that it had been divinely revealed. Once their alphabet perfected, the catholicus Sahak formed a school of translators who were sent to Edessa, Athens, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea in Cappadocia, and elsewhere, to procure codices both in Syriac and Greek and translate them. From Syriac were made the first version of the New Testament, the version of Eusebiusâ€™ History and his Life of Constantine (unless this be from the original Greek), the homilies of Aphraates, the Acts of Gurias and Samuna, the works of Ephrem Syrus (partly published in four volumes by the Mechitharists of Venice). They include the commentaries on theDiatessaronand the Paulines, Laboubna and History of Addai, the Syriac canons of the Apostles.

From the original Greek were rendered in the 5th century the following authors and works. An asterisk is prefixed to those which have been printed:â€”*Eusebiusâ€™Chronicon; *Philoâ€™s lost commentaries on Genesis and Exodus, and his lost treatises on Providence and Animals, as well as a great number of his works still preserved in Greek; *the entire Bible (the New Testament is a recension after Antiochene Greek texts of an older version made from the oldest Syriac text); *the Alexander romance of the pseudo-Callisthenes; *EpistlesandActsof Ignatius of Antioch; *many homilies of Gregory Thaumaturgus; *Athanasius (a large number of works, many of them wrongly attributed); Irenaeus,Adversus HaeresesandAd Marcianum(recently found); *Hippolytusâ€™ commentaries on the Song of Songs and Daniel, and many fragments; *Timotheusâ€™ life of Athanasius; Theophilus of Alexandria, various homilies; *Eusebius of Gabala or Severianus, fifteen Homilies; *Cyril of Jerusalem,Catechesesand Letter to Constantine; *Wisdom of Ahikar; *theApologyof Aristides; Gregory of Nazianzus, thirty-four Homilies; *Nonnusâ€™ work on Gregory (perhaps a version of 6th century); Basil of Caesarea, *HexaÃ«meron, fifteen Homilies on faith, epistle to Terentius, ascetic writings and canons, on the Holy Spirit, to Cledonius, &c. Helladius of Caesareaâ€™s life of Basil; Gregory of Nyssaâ€™s treatise on the Beatitudes, and many other homilies, Commentaries on Song of Songs, *On Human Nature (Nemesius), panegyrics on sundry Martyrs, and other works (but some of these versions belong to the beginning of the 8th century); Epiphanius of Salamis, Commentary on the Gospels, *On weights and measures, *Physiologus, canons and many homilies; Evagrius of Pontus, Homilies and Ascetic works, Letters to Melania, &c.; John Chrysostom, *Homilies and Prayers, in very beautiful language; *Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople, many homilies; *Nilus the Ascete,On the Eight Spirits of Evil; *Josephus,On the Jewish War; Dionysius of Alexandria, *Against Paul of Samosataand other fragments; Acacius, bishop of Melitene, *Lettersto Sahak; Julius of Rome (fragments); Zenobius, Homilies (? from Syriac); theHistoryof Julius Africanus was perhaps also translated in this century, but it is lost. To the 5th century belong the versions of theNicene canons, of which the Armenian text as preserved is barely intelligible, of the eucharistic rites called of *Basil, *Chrysostom, *Ignatius and others; also the *Hours or Breviary, the *Rites of Ordination, Baptism, of the making and release of Penitents, of Epiphany, and perhaps the many rites of animal sacrifice, for these are partly originals, partly versions of lost Greek texts. A mass of martyrsâ€™ acts were also rendered in this century, including parts of the lost collection made by Eusebius. Among these the *Acts and Apologyof Apollonius restore a lost 2nd-century text. The *Canonsof Sahak also purport to be translated from a Greek original about the year 330.

The Armenians were so busy in this century translating Greek and Syriac fathers that they have left little that is original. Still a number of historical works survive: *Faustus of Byzantium relates the events of the periodA.D.344-392 in a work instinct with life and racy of the soil. It was perhaps first composed in Greek, but it gives a faithful picture of the court of the petty sovereigns of Armenia, of the political organization, of the blood feuds of the clans, of the planting of Christianity. Procopius preserves some fragments of the Greek.

The *History of Taron, by Zenobius of Glak, is a somewhat legendary account of Gregory the Illuminator, and may have been written in Syriac in the 5th, though it was only Armenized in a later century.

*Elisaeus Wardapet wrote a history of Wardan (Vardan), and of the war waged for their faith by the Armenians against the Sassanids. He was an eye-witness of this struggle, and gives a good account of the contemporary Mazdaism which the Persians tried to force on the Armenians. *Lazar of Pharp wrote a history embracing the events of the 5th century up to the year 485, as a continuation of the work of Faustus.

*A history of St Gregory and of the conversion of Armenia by Agathangelus is preserved in Greek, Armenian and Arabic. The Arabic edited by Professor Marr of St Petersburg seems to be the oldest form of text. The Greek is a rendering of the Armenian. It is a compilation, and the second part which contains theActsof Gregory and of St Rhipsima seems wholly legendary. The Greek and Armenian texts were edited together by Lagarde.

*TheHistory of Armeniaby Moses of Khoren (Chorene) relates events up to about the year 450. It is a compilation, devoid of historical method, value or veracity, from all sorts of previous authors, mostly from those which already existed in an Armenian dress. Some critics put down the date of composition as low as about 700, and it was certainly retouched in the late 6th century.

*A long volume of rhetorical exercises, based on Aphthonius, is also ascribed to Moses of Khoren, and appears to be of the 5th century. The *geography which passes under his name may belong to the 7th century. Various homilies of Moses survive, as also of Elisaeus.

Gorium wrote in this century a *Life of Mesrop, and Eznik a *Refutation of the Sects, based largely on antecedent Greek works. The sects in question are Paganism, Mazdaism, Greek Philosophy and Manicheism. A volume of *homilies under the name of Gregory the Illuminator, but not his, also belongs to this century, and a series of ascetic discourses attributed to John Mandakuni, who was patriarch 478-500.

Of the 6th and 7th centuries few works survive except anonymous versions of the *Acts of Thomas(perhaps from the Syriac), of the *Acts of Peter and Paul, *of John (pseudo-Prochorus), *of Bartholomew, and of other apostles; also of *the Acts of Paul and Thekla, *of Titus, *of the Protevangel, *of the Testaments of the patriarchs, of the *Gospel of Nicodemus, orActs of Pilate, of the *Book of Adam, of the *Deaths of the Prophets, of the *History of Baruch, of the *Apocalypses of Paul and of the Virgin Mary, of the *Acts of Sylvester, and of an enormous number of other similar apocryphs. Some of these may be of the 5th century. Two volumes of these apocryphs of the Old and New Testaments have recently been published at Venice. To these centuries belong also the versions of the Acts of the council of Ephesus, of Gangra, Laodicea and of other councils. To the late 7th century belong the *calendarial works of Ananiah of Shirak, who also has left a *chroniconcompiled from Eusebius, Andreas of Crete, Hippolytus and other sources. In the *Letter-book of the Patriarchs, lately printed at Tiflis, are to be found a number of controversial monophysite tracts of these and the succeeding three centuries, important for church history. It includes a mass of documents relative to the churches of Iberia and Albania. The chief literary monument of the 7th century is the history of the wars of Heraclius and of the early Mahommedan conquests in Asia Minor, by the bishop Sebeos, who was an eye-witness. The *history of the Albanians of the Caucasus, by Moses Kalankatuatzi, also belongs to the end of this century. To the middle of the 7th century also belong the translations of Aristotleâ€™s treatises *On the Categories, and *On Interpretation, and of *Porphyryâ€™sIsagogÄ“, as well as of voluminous Greek commentaries on these books; the version of the *Grammar of Dionysius Thrax and an incomplete Euclid. The translator was one David called the Invincible, who also wrote monophysite tracts. At the end of this 7th century one Philo of Tirak is supposed to have made the version of the *History of Socrates, unless indeed it was made earlier. To this century also seems to belong the Armenian version of a *history of the Iberians, by Djuansher, a work full of valuable information.

The early 8th century was a time of great literary activity. Gregory Asheruni wrote an important *commentary on the Jerusalem Lectionary, and his friend *John the catholicus (717-728) commentaries on the other liturgical works of his church; he also collected all existing canon law, Greek or Armenian, respected in his church, wrote *against the Paulicians and Docetae, and composed many beautiful hymns. *Leoncius the priest has left a history of the first caliphs, and Stephanus, bishop of Siunik, translated the *controversial works of Cyril of Alexandria (whoseGlaphyraand commentaries, however, seem to have been translated at an earlier period). He also translated the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, commented on the Armenian breviary and wrote hymns.

In the 9th century Zachariah, catholicus, the correspondent of Photius, wrote many eloquent homilies for the various church feasts. Shapuh Bagratuni wrote a history of his age, now lost. Mashtotz, catholicus, collected in one volume the Armenian rituals.

In the 10th century (c.925) the catholicus John VI. issued his *history of Armenia, and Thomas Artsruni a *history of his clan carried up to the year 936. Ananias of Mok (943-965) wrote a great work against the Paulicians, unfortunately lost. Chosroes wrote a *commentary on the eucharistic rites and breviary, *Mesrop a history of Nerses the Great; *Stephen of Asolik wrote a history of the world, and a commentary on Jeremiah; *Gregory of Narek his famous meditations and hymns; Samuel Kamrdjtsoretzi a commentary on the Lectionary based on Gregory Asheruni.

In the 11th century the catholicus Gregory translated many Acts of Martyrs, and John Kozerhn wrote a history, now lost, as well as a work on the Armenian calendar; Stephen Asolik a *history of Armenia up to the year 1004; *Aristaces of Lastiverd a valuable history of the conquest of Armenia by the Seljuk caliphs. We may also mention a *monophysite work against the Greek doctor Theopistus by Paul of Taron; *letters and poems of Gregory Magistros, who also was the translator of the *Laws, Timaeusand other dialogues of Plato.

The 12th century saw many remarkable writers, mostly in Cilician Armenia, viz. Nerses the Graceful (d. 1165), author of an *Elegyon the taking of Edessa, of *voluminous hymns, of long *Pastoral Letters and Synodal orations of value for the historian of eastern churches. *Samuel of Ani composed a chronicle up to 1179. Nerses of Lambron, archbishop of Tarsus, left a *Synodal oration, a *Commentary on the liturgy, &c., and his contemporary Gregory of Tlay an *Elegyon the capture of Jerusalem, and various *dogmatic works. In this century the *history of Michael the Syrian was translated; Ignatius and Sargis composed *commentaries on Luke and *the catholic epistles, and *Matthew of Edessa a valuable history of the years 952-1136,continued up to 1176 by Gregory the priest. Mechithar (Mekhitar) Kosh (d. 1207) wrote an elegant *Book of Fables, and compiled a *corpus of civil and canon law (partly from Byzantine codes).

In the 13th century the following works or authors are to be noticed:â€”*history of Kiriakos of Ganzak, which contains much about the Mongols, Georgians and Albanians; *Malakia the monkâ€™s history of the Tatars up to 1272; *Chronicle of Mechithar of Ani (fragmentary); *Vahramâ€™s rhymed chronicle of the kings of Lesser Armenia; *history of the world, by Vartan, up to 1269. In this century mostly falls the redaction of a large fable literature, recently edited in three volumes by Professor Marr of St Petersburg.

14th century: *history of Siunik, by Stephen Orbelian, archbishop of that province 1287-1304; *Sempatâ€™s chronicle of Lesser Armenia (952-1274), carried on by a continuator to 1331; *Mechithar of Airivanq, a chronography; *Hethoumâ€™s account of the Tatars, and chronography of the years 1076-1307. John of Orotn (d. 1388) compiled commentaries on Johnâ€™s gospel and the Paulines, and wrote homilies and monophysite works; his disciple Gregory of Dathev (b. 1340) compiled a *Summa theologiaecalled theBook of Questions, in the style of theSummaof Aquinas, which had been translated into Armenian c. 1330, as were a little later the *Summaof Albertus and works of other schoolmen.

15th century: *History of Tamerlane, by Thomas of Medsoph, carried up to 1447.

17th century, Araqel of Tabriz wrote a *history of the Persian invasions of Armenia in the years 1602-1661.

In the above list are not included a number of medical, astrological, calendarial and philological or lexicographic works, mostly written during or since the Cilician or crusading epoch. The hymns used in Armenian worship rarely go back to the 5th century; and they were still few in number and brief in length when Nerses the Graceful and his contemporaries more than doubled their number and bulk in the 12th century. Most Armenian poems embody acrostics, and their poets began to rhyme in the 8th century or thereabouts. Since the 15th century a certain number of profane poets have arisen, whose work is less jejune on the whole than that of the hymn and canticle writers of an earlier age. Gregory Magistros (d. 1058) abridged the whole of the Old and New Testaments in a *rhyming poem, and set a fashion to later writers. Such works as *Barlaam and Josaphat. the *History of the Seven Sages, the *Wisdom of Ahikar, the *Tale of the City of Bronze, were freely turned into verse in the 13th and following centuries.

It will be realized from the above enumeration of works written in each century that Armenian literature was purely monkish. There was no epic or romance literature; although this was not lacking in the contiguous country of Georgia, where there seem to have always been knights and ladies willing to read and keep alive a literature of poetry and narrative, not altogether suitable for monks, and more akin to Persian literature.

Other forms of faith than the orthodox had a hold in Armenia, particularly the Nestorian and the Manichean. Sundry works of Mani were translated in the year 588, but are lost. Perhaps certain works of Diodore of Tarsus survive, but the orthodox monks were so vigilant that there is little chance of finding any other monuments than those of the stereotyped orthodoxy.

The 16th century saw the first books printed in Armenian. A press was set up at Venice in 1565, and the psalms and breviary were printed. In 1584 the Roman propaganda began its issue of Armenian books with a Gregorian calendar. In the 17th century presses were working at Lembourg, Milan, Paris, Isfahan (where in 1640 a large folio of theLives of the Fathers of the Desertappeared), in Leghorn, Amsterdam (where in 1664 the first edition of the Hymn-book, in 1666 the first Bible, and in 1667 the first Ritual were printed), Marseilles, Constantinople, Leipzig and Padua.

The press which has done most in printing Armenian authors is that of the Mechitharists of Venice. Here in 1836 was issued a magnificent thesaurus of the Armenian language, with the Latin and Greek equivalents of each word. At that time there was no dictionary of any language and literature to be compared with this for exhaustiveness and accuracy. There are now Armenian presses all over the world, reprinting old books or issuing new works, often translations of modern writers, English, French, Russian and German.

The chief collections of old Armenian MSS. are: at the convent of *Echmiadzin at Valarshapat; at Stambul in the library of the fathers of St Anthony; at Venice in the Mechitharist convent of San Lazaro; at the *Mechitharist convent in Vienna; in the *Royal library at Vienna; in the *Paris BibliothÃ¨que Nationale; in the Vatican library; in the British Museum; in the *Bodleian; in the Rylands library; in the *Berlin and *Munich libraries; *in TÃ¼bingen; in St Petersburg, and in the *Lazarev institute at Moscow; at New Joulfa, the Armenian suburb of Isfahan. Private collections have been made by Mr Rendel Harris in Birmingham (presented to the university of Leiden); at Parham and elsewhere. A printed catalogue exists of those marked with an asterisk.

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