c. 1699; Tournefort, 1701, who notices the inappropriateness of

the name.

[146] It is given at length by Agathangelus, and may be found in that portion of the treatise to which I shall hereafter allude as "the Acts" (see note on p. 291, infra). There can be little doubt that the legend of the Ripsimians took the place of an old heathen legend, associated with the site at Vagharshapat. There seems to have been a local tradition that the cathedral and the chapels of Ripsime and Gaiane stand upon three rocks, whence in pagan times voices would be heard coming from underlying cavities and returning answers to questions addressed to them.

[147] This is probably an anachronism.

[148] I interpret him in the sense of there and back.

[149] It appears to have been the custom among the Armenians down to comparatively recent times for pious people to place large blocks of stone in front of the entrance to a church by way of offering. Dubois de Montpéreux saw a number of such stones, 6 or 7 feet high, covered with crosses and arabesques, in front of the portal of the cathedral at Edgmiatsin. I do not know what has become of them.

[150] Chardin (ed. Langlès, Paris, 1811, 8vo, vol. ii. p. 175). See also Tavernier (book i. ch. iii.). The Jesuit missionaries, however, later on in the seventeenth century, speak of a structure resembling a mausoleum and having four stone columns and an altar in the centre. There can be little doubt that this is an allusion to the erection of Eleazar.

[151] Chardin, ibid.

[152] History of Architecture, book i. ch. iv. Neo-Byzantine style. His remarks have reference to the shape of the dome and not to the pointed arches of the false arcade, which perhaps argue a much later date.

[153] Dubois de Montpéreux, Voyage autour du Caucase, Paris, 1839-43, vol. iii. pp. 372 seq.

[154] Ibid. Atlas, series iii. plate 7.

[155] See Telfer, The Crimea and Transcaucasia, London, 1876, vol. i. p. 222, and Dubois, op. cit. vol. iii. pp. 382 seq.

[156] Strgygowski, Das Etschmiadzin-Evangeliar, Vienna, 1891. I read the large inscription thus:--Iêsou boêthei pantas tous euchomenous en tê ekklêsia Zibithain (?)--kyrie eleêson ton doulon sou Archian--kai kyrie Eleêson Elpidin (for Elpida or Elpidian, the variation of the accusative of Elpis into -pidin being not unusual)--Daniêl, Tirer, Garikinis. The word Zibithain is taken as a proper name by Brosset (Voyage Archéologique, St. Petersburg, 1849-51, 3me rapp., p. 16), and by Strgygowski, who supposes it to be the same as Zuithai, found in Armenian writers, e.g. in Faustus of Byzantium, who speaks of a Zuithai as priest of the town of Artaxata during the persecution of Shapur (Faustus, iv. 56). Zuithai would be the priest in whose church the memorial had been placed. As for the three proper names at the end, that of Tirer has been found in an inscription of the thirteenth century. Garikinis denotes the proper name Garegin.

[157] It is a matter of surmise that Nerses I. restored the sacred buildings of Vagharshapat after the destruction of that city by the Persian armies in the fourth century (see Faustus, v. 1); but the first restoration of the cathedral of which I can find any certain mention is that of the great Armenian chief Vahan Mamikonean in or about the year 483 (Lazar Pharpetzi in Langlois' Collection des historiens de l'Arménie, Paris, 1867-69, vol. ii. p. 352. And see Saint-Martin, Mémoires sur l'Arménie, Paris, 1818, vol. i. p. 328). Armenia was at this time struggling to rid herself of the Persian (Sasanian) yoke, having lost her Arsakid dynasty. The katholikos no longer resided at Edgmiatsin, the pontifical seat having been transferred to Dvin in A.D. 452 (Saint-Martin, ibid. vol. i. p. 437); nor does he return until A.D. 1441. In 618 it was again restored by the Katholikos Komitas (Saint-Martin, i. 116, quoting John Katholikos; and cp. Sebeos, Hist. of Heraclius, iii. 25 (in Armenian)), who substituted a dome in stone in place of the earlier wooden one. Certain repairs are attributed to the Katholikos Nerses III., surnamed the builder, A.D. 640-661, I know not upon what authority. After this there ensues a long period, for which we appear to have no records. The katholikos often changes his residence. After the destruction of the Cilician kingdom and in the year 1438 the right arm of St. Gregory, a relic which had become the palladium of the pontifical office, was transferred from Sis, the capital of that kingdom, to Edgmiatsin (Gelzer, article Armenien in Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie, Leipzic, 1896). Saint-Martin places the transfer thither of the seat of the pontificate in the year 1441. In 1442 the Katholikos Kirakos undertook the necessary repairs (Thomas Metsobatzi). We now leap to the reign of Shah Abbas of Persia, who, as is well known, transported a whole colony of Armenians from the valley of the Araxes to the outskirts of his capital, Ispahan. In 1614 this monarch carried off a number of the venerated stones of the church to New Julfa to form the nucleus of a new Edgmiatsin (Arakel of Tauris, ch. xxiv.). The famous monastery fell into woeful neglect. The Katholikos Moses (1629-33) restored it, but added no new feature. His successor Philip renewed the roof (inscriptions, records, etc.). I think I have mentioned subsequent additions. The steps which run round the church were added or extensively restored by the Katholikos Lukas (in 1784). But they have been modified by Makar I. Repairs are ascribed to the pontiffs Astvatsadur, Simeon and Ephraim, the last of whom repaired in 1816 the damages which the Persians had done to the roof by placing a battery upon it. For more detailed information I may refer my reader to a work entitled: Description of the Mother Church of the Armenians, by Vahan Vardapet Bastamean, Edgmiatsin, 1877 (in Armenian and Russian).

[158] See the translation of the De Edificiis by Stewart, annotated by Sir Charles Wilson, London, 1896, pp. 73 seq. (Palestine Pilgrims Text Society).

[159] John Katholikos, c. xii. And see Sebeos, Hist. of Heraclius, iii. 33.

[160] They bear the monograms of Nerses Katholikos and are reproduced by Strgygowski (op. cit.), to whom I refer my reader. I only saw one of them during my stay.

[161] Brosset (Bull. Scient. de l'Acad. de Sc. de St. Pétersbourg, vol. ii. 1837) has transcribed the letters and published a valuable little notice on the subject.

[162] The circumstance appealed to Brosset as a rare example of religious tolerance (Voyage Arch., rapp. 3, p. 19).

[163] Dubois, Voyage autour du Caucase, vol. iii. p. 371. But see Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, p. 287.

[164] I was unable to measure each apse; but I was assured that they were all of the same or nearly the same size. The portal is of course not included in the above measurements.

[165] Telfer (Crimea and Transcaucasia, London, 1876, vol. i. p. 231) seems to refer to this throne, which he ascribes to Pope Innocent XI., a gift to James IV. (1655-80).

[166] See Morier, Second Journey, pp. 323 seq.

[167] See Dubois de Montpéreux, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 213, and Neale's Holy Eastern Church, vol. i. p. 296. The former of these writers informs us that our church of St. Ripsime "a servi de type à une foule d'autres églises," and the latter has improved upon this statement by asserting that it is "the norm of all Armenian ecclesiastical buildings" (Dubois, vol. iii. p. 380, and Neale, vol. i. p. 293). Leaving Georgia out of account, both these statements are incorrect.

[168] Unless we accept Neale's hypothesis that they served as a narthex. But the narthex is not a feature of the churches of Great Armenia.

[169] According to Brosset (Voyage Arch., rapp. 3, p. 82) the diameter of the dome is not less than about 35 feet. The height is given by Neale, op. cit. p. 296, as 104 1/2 feet to the top of the cross.

[170] Sebeos, History of Heraklius (in Armenian), part iii. ch. xxv.

[171] For the theft and recovery of these relics see Smith and Dwight (Missionary Researches, London, 1834, p. 280), and Brosset (Voyage Arch., rapp. 3, p. 83).

[172] Brosset, ibid. p. 82. The date reposes upon the authority of the historian, John Katholikos.

[173] According to Agathangelus the third chapel was built upon the site of the wine-press. Further on we are told that it was situated north of the town, and that in it was buried the unfortunate nun who was left behind owing to sickness.

[174] Brosset (Bull. Scientifique Acad. Sc. St. Pétersbourg, 1840, pp. 46 seq.) quotes a letter from Nahabet to this effect.

[175] Brosset, ibid.

[176] Belck, in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Berlin, 1893, Heft ii. p. 77.

[177] Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, p. 295.

[178] Schillinger, Persianische und Ost-Indianische Reise, Nürnberg, 1707. I do not credit the statement of Evliya, who visited Edgmiatsin in A.D. 1647, to the effect that at that time the monastery was inhabited by about 500 monks.

[179] Bryce, Transcaucasia and Ararat, note to 4th edition, London, 1896, p. 314.

[180] It is interesting to place together the two following passages, the first taken from a modern and representative Armenian source, the second from the work of a German scholar. I translate both from the German. Dr. Arshak Ter-Mikelean, professor of theology in the Academy at Edgmiatsin, writes (Die Armenische Kirche in ihren Beziehungen zur byzantinischen, Leipzic, 1892, p. 9): "The mother church of Gregory was not founded by him nor even by the apostles, who are only mortal men; but the everlasting Founder, the only Head of the Church, Himself descends in glory from Heaven and commands him to build a church after His plan and His directions on a prescribed site in the royal city, Vagharshapat. Christ Himself appears to Gregory in a vision and instructs him what he shall do ..."; and Professor Gelzer draws the inference (Die Anfänge der armenischen Kirche, in Berichte über die Verhandlungen der K. S. Gesell. der Wissenschaften zu Leipzic, Phil.-Hist. Classe, 1895, p. 127): "The ancient capital Vagharshapat ... bears at the present day the name Edgmiatsin, 'the Only Begotten descended from Heaven,' in everlasting remembrance that Christ Himself founded the Armenian Church and thereby established her as autokephalous and completely independent of every patriarchate, whether of the East or of the West."

[181] Moses of Khorene mentions St. Bartholomew and St. Simon (ii. 34, in Langlois, Collection des hist. de l'Arménie, Paris, 1867-69, vol. ii. p. 98), and says that the former suffered martyrdom in the town of Arevban, while the other was reputed to have met the same fate in Veriospora. According to Gelzer (article Armenien in Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie, Leipzic, 1896) the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew in Urbanopolis, a town of Great Armenia, was known to Greek writers as early as the fifth century. Urbanopolis, Albanopolis, or Korbanopolis (Armenian, Arevbanos or Arebonos-Kaghak) may perhaps be identified with Arabion castellum, where in fact Vardan (c. 1270) tells us that the saint was murdered. Arabion castellum was a fort on the Stranga, or Great Zab, which Mr. F. C. Conybeare (Key of Truth, Oxford, 1898, p. cii.) connects with the modern Deir, where at the present day the monastery and church of St. Bartholomew stand. I surmise that nothing is known of the site of Veriospora. Moses, following the Edessene tradition, speaks of St. Thaddeus as one of the seventy disciples, relates at length his mission to King Abgar of Edessa (Urfa in Mesopotamia), and speaks of his conversion of King Sanatruk, successor of Abgar, and of his martyrdom in the canton of Chavarchan, called in his day Ardaz, as well-known facts. For St. Jude I rely on Issaverdens (Armenia and the Armenians, Venice, 1878, vol. ii. p. 21), who relates that he was put to death and buried in the city of Urmi in Azerbaijan.

[182] Moses of Khorene, ii. 30-36, in Langlois, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 95 seq.; and Saint-Martin, Mémoires, etc. vol. i. p. 127.

[183] Professor Carrière (La Légende d'Abgar dans l'histoire de Moïse de Khorène, Paris, 1895) shows that Moses used an Armenian version of the legend of Abgar which commenced to form about the middle of the third century but was subsequently remodelled. The same writer in this work relegates the unfortunate Moses of Khorene, or rather the writer who assumes the mask of this name, to a position inter deos minores and to a period not earlier than the eighth century. He had previously been made to step down several places, and was shivering somewhere in the seventh century. See Gutschmid, Kleine Schriften, Leipzic 1892, iii. p. 335.

[184] Faustus of Byzantium, iii. 1, and iv. 3, in Langlois, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 210, 237.

[185] Issaverdens, ii. 20, and Saint-Martin, i. p. 131.

[186] Eusebius (Hist. eccl. vi. 46, 2), speaking of Dionysius of Alexandria (A.D. 248-265), says, "And in the same manner he writes to those in Armenia over whom Merujan was bishop on the subject of repentance." For the probable connection of this bishop with the Van country see Gelzer (Die Anfänge, etc. pp. 171 seq.).

[187] Mr. F. C. Conybeare (Key of Truth, Oxford, 1898, pp. ci. seq.) discusses the locality of the see of Archelaus. He is called in the Acts of Archelaus bishop of Karkhar (episkopos Karcharôn or Kascharôn), which again is called a city of Mesopotamia, three days' hard riding from castellum Arabion, a fort on the river Stranga, the modern Great Zab. Karkhar was included in the Roman dominions. May it not have been somewhere in the neighbourhood of Sert?

[188] Conybeare, ibid. pp. lviii. and ciii.

[189] Conybeare, ibid. p. cx.

[190] Conybeare, ibid. p. xcvi.

[191] I refer to the long account contained in the Agathangelus treatise (see note infra).

[192] Conybeare, op. cit. pp. cxi. cxii.

[193] Ibid. pp. clx. clxi.

[194] Letter of Lazar Pharpetzi ap. Conybeare, op. cit. p. cviii.; Nerses of Lampron, ibid. p. lxxxv.; Isaac Katholikos, ibid. Appendix vii. p. 171, and pp. lxxvi. lxxvii.

[195] Conybeare (op. cit.) gives the gist of the canon of the Council of Shahapivan (pp. cvii. cviii.) and a translation of the canon of John Katholikos at the Council of Dvin and of portions of his tract (pp. 152 seq. in Appendix iv.).

[196] Conybeare (ibid. Appendices i. to iv. inclusive) details these various persecutions from the original sources; his discussion of the identity of Sembat is a most interesting contribution to the history of Armenia in the Middle Ages (pp. lxi. seq.).

[197] The visit is almost certainly a fable.

[198] For some enquiry into the ethnical affinities and earliest history of the Armenians see Vol. II. of the present work, pp. 67 seq.

[199] Note especially the interesting incident mentioned by Faustus of Byzantium (v. 4). An ally of the Sasanian king of Persia and a sincere imitator of his example thus addresses his army: "When you get to close quarters with the imperial troops I bid you try your best to make prisoners and avoid bloodshed; we must endeavour to carry them off with us as trophies, and we will make them work for us when we get home as artisans and masons for the construction of our cities and palaces."

[200] Dion Cassius (lxxx. 3) adds this last statement. The preceding are based on Agathangelus (ch. i.). The chronology is that of A. von Gutschmid. See his article Persia in Ency. Brit. and Kleine Schriften, iii. pp. 402 seq.

[201] Mommsen (Provinces of the Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 75) tells us, on the authority of Dion Cassius ap. Suidas, that it was the Roman general Priscus who, after destroying Artaxata in A.D. 163, laid out the city which was called kainê tolis, or, in Armenian, Nor-Kaghak. This latter name is used by Armenian writers of the fifth century alongside of that of Vagharshapat (Edgmiatsin).

[202] Herodian (vi. 5, 6) gives us an account of the war waged by Severus, which is not even noticed by the Armenian historian.

[203] Agathangelus, ch. ii. Life of St. Gregory. A. von Gutschmid, who throws doubt upon the statement in the Life that St. Gregory was a son of Anak who was taken to Greece, views with a suspicion, which is quite natural, the words of the historian, "one was taken to Persia, the other to Greece." The territory of the Empire would have been hostile to such protégés of the Persian king. But even if this view be plausible it is surely not necessary to take the words too literally (Kleine Schriften, iii. 380).

[204] Elisoeus Vardapet (ap. Langlois, Collection des hists. de l'Arménie, vol. ii. p. 206) gives the text of a petition despatched by the Armenian nobles to Theodosius II., in which occurs the following passage:-- ... "our king Tiridates, while yet a child, was taken to Greek territory and educated there in order to escape from his cruel and parricidal uncles...." On the other hand, Agathangelus leads us to infer that Ardashir took possession of Armenia after the murder of Chosroes and that it was then that the child Tiridates was taken to Greece. In this statement he comes into conflict with Zonaras, who tells us (xii. 21) that it was only in the time of Gallus (252 or 253) that the Persians were able to possess themselves of Armenia, after the flight of the king, Tiridates. It does not seem open to doubt that it was not Ardashir but his successor Shapur I. who became master of Armenia; and these various sources may perhaps be partially reconciled in the manner suggested by Von Gutschmid (Kleine Schriften, iii. 405) and adopted in my text. Von Gutschmid interprets parricidal in the sense of the uncles having murdered, or helped to murder, not their own father but the father of Tiridates.

[205] The campaign of Odaenathus against Shapur is placed in 265 by Robertson Smith (article Palmyra in Ency. Brit.) and in 264 by Mommsen (Provinces of Roman Empire, ii. 104). We learn from Vopiscus (Aurel. 27) that an Armenian contingent was enrolled under the banner of Zenobia against the Emperor Aurelian in 271. What was the attitude of Tiridates during the war?

[206] Tiridates was no doubt influenced by the persecutions of the emperors Decius (249-251) and Valerian (253-260). The latter persecution took place during the last three and a half years of the reign of Valerian.

[207] Agathangelus is our earliest authority for the reign of Tiridates and for the events connected with the conversion of the Armenians as a nation to Christianity. But the scholars who examined this precious treatise were impressed with the scale and frequency of the interpolations to which the original text appeared to have been subjected; and partly for this reason, partly owing to the former ascendency of Moses of Khorene, full use was not made of the work. In 1877 there appeared in the pages of a German periodical one of those masterpieces of the higher criticism of which German writers now appear to have a monopoly. It is entitled Agathangelos, by Alfred von Gutschmid, and it has been incorporated in the collected edition of Von Gutschmid's minor works (Kleine Schriften von A. von Gutschmid, Leipzic, 1892, vol. iii. pp. 339 seq.). The author laboured under the disadvantage of not being an Armenian scholar; but he has nevertheless succeeded in discriminating between the various sources from which the treatise, as it has come down to us, has been built up. They are--1. An earliest source which we may call the Life of St. Gregory, and which also contains an account, running parallel, of the reigns of Chosroes and Tiridates down to the conversion of the latter. Von Gutschmid thinks that this writing was composed in Armenian during the pontificate of Sahak, or Isaac, the Great (A.D. 391-442). It seems more probable, however, that it was originally written in Greek or Syriac and subsequently translated into Armenian. 2. A later piece which we may distinguish as the Acts of St. Gregory and of St. Ripsime and her Companions. It is a hagiograph, which Von Gutschmid supposes to have been written about the year 450. It seems to me, however, that a certain passage in Faustus of Byzantium (iii. 13, in Langlois' translation, "jusqu'à changer même l'image de l'homme en une figure de bête") points to that author having been acquainted with the Acts; at all events he is familiar with the legend of the Ripsimians. Faustus appears to have written 395-416. To the Acts portion of the Agathangelus treatise belongs a long and possibly independent piece which contains the teaching of St. Gregory; but neither the Greek version nor the extant translations include it, and I am not aware that any consecutive account of its contents has yet appeared. In the Armenian text this last piece takes up over one-half of the treatise as a whole. And finally--3. The Vision or Apocalypse of St. Gregory, in which the saint receives the Divine mandate to build the church at Edgmiatsin. This piece, together with the prologue and epilogue to the whole work, was probably added by a priest of Vagharshapat (Edgmiatsin), who edited the treatise and gave it its present form, publishing it under the pseudonym of Agathangelus. Von Gutschmid thinks that the work as a whole may be assigned to the period of Persian persecution (A.D. 452-456). The fact that Lazar Pharpetzi displays an intimate acquaintance with it under the name of Agathangelus shows that it cannot be placed later than about the close of the fifth century. I do not know, however, that Lazar shows a knowledge of the Apocalypse, or that the statement contained in a Paris MS. can be conclusively disproved, that the Armenian text which has come down to us is a translation made in the seventh century, at the time of the discovery under Komitas of the relics of St. Ripsime, from a Greek original. Von Gutschmid, however, argues against this view (pp. 354 seq.). Ter-Mikelean (Die armenische Kirche, p. 5) supports the view that the work was translated at the close of the fourth century by Koriun from a Greek original (see Langlois, vol. ii. Introduction to Koriun, p. 4); but Von Gutschmid has shown that certain passages have been borrowed from Koriun, and until the Armenian text has been subjected to a searching philological criticism we are not safe in saying more than this. The student will find the various pieces enumerated above distinguished one from another, passage by passage, in the table given by Von Gutschmid (pp. 375 seq.). The latest edition of our present Greek text, which is a translation from the Armenian, is that of De Lagarde (Göttingen, 1887), but the references given in my notes are to that of Langlois. The best translation is that of the Mekhitarists in Italian (Venice, 1843). The French translation in Langlois omits some of the most important passages. As regards the historical importance of the pieces, Von Gutschmid concludes that the Life may be regarded as a source of absolute reliability for the conversion of the king and for the events in Armenia which succeeded the conversion. As regards what took place before that event, it is in the main reliable, although interwoven with legend. The Acts, on the other hand, and the Apocalypse are as good as useless as historical material.

The scholarly study of Von Gutschmid rendered possible Professor Gelzer's profound and brilliant essay, Die Anfänge der armenischen Kirche, to which I have already alluded (p. 277, note 1) and in which he reviews the work of the Armenian writer known to us under the name of Faustus of Byzantium.

[208] See p. 145 of the Italian translation of Agathangelus. Von Gutschmid (Kleine Schriften, iii. 358) is careful to point out the discrepancy in the two sources. While the Acts speak of possession by devils as the malady with which the people of Vagharshapat were afflicted and which caused them to be transformed into animals, the Life only mentions "possession" as one of the diseases which are enumerated.

[209] See the Italian translation, p. 153.

[210] Sozomen, ii. 8. He places the conversion before Constantine, but does not give the exact date.

[211] "With Gallienus (260) there begins for the Christians a long period of peace, lasting about forty years" (Moeller, History of the Christian Church, A.D. 1-600, London, 1892, p. 196).

[212] It seems impossible to precise the date of the conversion of Tiridates. The author of the Life in Agathangelus allows thirteen years for the captivity of Gregory, who was imprisoned in the first year of the restoration. But I am not aware that we are able to fix this latter date. The conversion probably occurred about the year 280.

[213] Emin, Recherches sur le paganisme arménien, p. 20, note 1.

[214] The Pontic regions.

[215] The king himself preached (Agathangelus, Life of St. Gregory, in p. 253 of the Italian translation).

[216] I insert the word "years" in deference to Professor Gelzer, who argues (Die Anfänge, etc., p. 166) that if the conversion took place about the year 280, the journey to Cæsarea could scarcely have been undertaken before 285-290. He is wishing to show that the statements contained in a portion of the Agathangelus treatise ascribed by Von Gutschmid to the less reliable source, viz. the Acts, to the effect that St. Gregory was ordained by Leontius, archbishop of Cæsarea, may quite well be true. We know that Leontius subscribed the Council of Nice (325); and his pontificate must have covered a period of forty-five years if St. Gregory was ordained by him in or about the year 280. The Life mentions the visit of Gregory to Cæsarea but not the name of Leontius; and Von Gutschmid, while he regards the visit as historical, views with suspicion the connection with that particular prelate (Kleine Schriften, iii. pp. 415 and 418). That seems to me the sensible view. We learn from an independent source (Gelas. Cyzic. ii. 36, ap. Mansi, ii. p. 929) that in the year 325 and during the lifetime of Saint Gregory and Leontius, Great Armenia was in ecclesiastical subordination to Cæsarea; and the link with the capital of Cappadocia was maintained until the death of the Katholikos Nerses I. about the year 374 (cp. Faustus, v. 29). The later story, to the effect that Tiridates received Christianity from the bishop of Rome (so in the petition of the Armenians in the year 450 to Theodosius, ap. Elisoeus in Langlois, ii. 206), is plainly a story with a purpose and must therefore be viewed with suspicion.

[217] The car with the white mules is mentioned in the Life, and the escort of sixteen princes in the Acts.

[218] A bishop of Sivas with this name was martyred under Diocletian; but this saint will not suit our chronology. Certain features in connection with the cult of the saint--a hind is offered up to him on his name day--have suggested to Von Gutschmid (Kleine Schriften,