A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Vol. II.

by Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener

(2) The Armenian Version.

The existing Armenian version is a recension made shortly after the Council of Ephesus of a still earlier version, which was based in part upon a Syriac, in part upon a Greek original. This latest recension was made according to “accurate and reliable copies” of the Greek Bible, which, along with the Canons of the Council of Ephesus, were brought from Constantinople about the year 433. One would naturally wish for more details than the above brief statement contains; yet it is all that one can definitely infer from the history of the version as related by three nearly contemporary writers, whose accounts we now subjoin, namely, Koriun, Lazar of Pharpi, and Moses Khorenatzi.

Koriun[123] in his life of St. Mesrop (written between 441 and 452 a.d.) relates as follows:—

In the fifth year of the reign of Vramshapho [i.e. about 397 a.d.], St. Mesrop was first in Edessa, then in Amid, lastly in Samosata, busy all the time about his discovery of the Armenian characters[124]. In Samosata, where he was received with great respect by the clergy and bishop, Mesrop met with a Greek scribe, Hrofanos (? Rufinus), in conjunction with whom, and [pg 149] with the help of two pupils named John and Joseph, he undertook a translation of the Bible. They began—and this is noteworthy—with the book of the Proverbs of Solomon; Hrofanos or Rufinus writing down the translation with his own hand. Mesrop next visited the Bishop of the Syrians, who congratulated him on his work. He then returned to Nor Chalach, or new city, as Valarshapat was called by the Romans, in the sixth year of Vramshapho's reign, a.d. 398. At a later time, Koriun, the writer, was himself sent with Eznik to Constantinople, apparently in quest of books to translate; for they returned with a sure copy of the Scriptures, with works of the Fathers, and with the canons of the Councils of Nice and Ephesus. “Now St. Sahak had long before translated the collection of Church books from Greek into Armenian, as well as much true wisdom of the holy Patriarchs. But he now resumed, and taking with the help of Eznik the former translations made hurriedly and offhand, he confirmed them by the help of the true copies now brought, and they translated much commentary on the books.” The above is the gist of what Koriun has to tell us, though he mentions that scholars were sent to Edessa to translate and bring back the works of the Fathers. Why Mesrop began with the Book of Proverbs, whether he translated more than that, and from which language, we do not learn from Koriun. Lazar of Pharpi[125], who wrote in the last half of the sixth century, is our next authority. He states that up to the last decade of the fourth century, the offices of religion were still read in Greater Armenia in Syriac, a language which the people did not understand. The edicts of the kings of Armenia were also written out in Syriac or Greek characters. But as soon as the Armenian alphabet was discovered, St. Sahak—who was patriarch 390-428 a.d. and an expert in Greek—set himself, in response to the patriotic exhortations of St. Mesrop, of Vramshapho the king, and of the clergy and nobles, to translate the Holy Scriptures. He states that St. Sahak's version comprised the whole of the Old and New Testaments, and was made from Greek.

Moses of Chorene, bk. iii. ch. 36 ff., copies, confuses, and adds to Koriun's account. A little before 370 a.d. the Persians [pg 150] overran Armenia, and Meroujah, their leader, burned all the books he could find in the country, proscribed the study of the Greek language, and enacted penalties against any who should speak it or translate from it. At that time, adds Moses, the offices of the church were performed in Greek, because the Armenian alphabet did not yet exist. On the death of Theodosius (Jan. 395 a.d.) there was a partition of Armenia between his successor Arcadius and the king of Persia, by which the latter took undisputed possession of the eastern provinces, including the basin of Ararat, in which lay the new religious centre Valarshapat or Edschmiadzin, the νέα πόλις of the Romans. The new Mesropic alphabet was at first used only in Persian Armenia; for, says Moses, in the parts dependent on the Greeks, all writing had to be in Greek characters, Syriac being forbidden. As soon as Mesrop had elaborated his alphabet with the aid of Hrophanos, he betook himself to the work of translation; and with the aid of his pupils John and Joseph, translated the entire twenty-two authentic books along with the New Testament, taking care to begin with the Book of Proverbs. About the year 406 he returned to Armenia, and found St. Sahak engaged in translating the Syriac Bible. He hints that Sahak would have preferred a Greek original, if Meroujah had not burned all the Greek books nearly thirty years before. This perhaps implies that the version, on which Mesrop had been engaged in Samosata, was made from Greek. Nor is that unlikely; for Rufinus, who helped him, was a Greek, and we learn from Koriun that there were Armenians in Edessa studying both Greek and Syriac. We read in bk. iii. ch. 60 of the History of Moses, about missions sent to Edessa and Byzantium in order to the translation of the works of the Fathers, but we hear nothing more expressly touching the Version of the Bible, save this, that after the Council of Ephesus, Sahak and Mesrop, then in Ashtishat in Taron, received from Byzantium, as aforesaid, the canons of the council recently held, along with accurate copies of the Greek Bible. On receipt of these, Sahak and Mesrop translated afresh what had already been translated, and were zealous in recasting the text. But they were not, it seems, after all, satisfied with their work, and sent Moses to Alexandria to learn the “beautiful tongue” (i.e. Greek), with a view to a more accurate articulation and division (of the Armenian scriptures).

The above summary exhausts the evidence of Moses of Khorene[126]. It would appear therefrom that the Bible was translated twice into Armenian before the end of the fourth century; by Mesrop from Greek, and by Sahak from Syriac. The circumstance that Mesrop in Samosata began with the Proverbs of Solomon raises a suspicion that the earlier books had already been rendered, when and by whom is unknown. Certainly the reasons given by Koriun and by Moses for Mesrop beginning with Proverbs are insufficient. Moses again in stating that Sahak rendered the entire Bible from Syriac contradicts both Koriun and Lazar. Are we to infer that Sahak and Mesrop after 430 a.d. retranslated according to the Constantinople Bibles what they had already translated from Syriac, and also it would seem from a presumably less perfect Greek text? Anyhow it is unlikely that they would wholly sacrifice their own work, and we should therefore expect to find in the Armenian version a mixture of texts, namely of some old Syriac text, which must have been in vogue as late as 380, of some older Greek text supplied in Edessa or Samosata, and of the Constantinopolitan texts; which last may well have been among the fifty splendid copies which had been prepared under the order of Constantine by Eusebius a century before. If, and how far, these different elements enter into the Version can only be determined by a careful analysis of its readings. It may be that in some MSS. there lurks more of the unrevised text than in others[127]. The entire history is an apt illustration of that political see-saw between the Roman and the Persian powers which went on in Armenia during the fourth and fifth centuries, and out of which the patriotic vigour and devotion of St. Mesrop and St. Sahak carved at last a truly national Armenian Church, with an independent life and literature of its own.

The Armenian Version was collated for Robert Holmes' edition of the Septuagint, though not with desirable accuracy nor from the oldest MSS. For example, the Codex Arm. 3 of the Pentateuch, which Holmes declares, teste Adlero, to be of the year 1063, [pg 152] is but an eighteenth century codex. The collation of the New Testament in the eighth edition of Tischendorf's N. T. is accurate so far as it goes, but is far from being exhaustive or based on a consensus of the oldest MSS. Old codices of the Armenian Gospels are very common, and the present writer knows of as many as eight, none of them later than the year a.d. 1000; of four of these he has complete collations. The rest of the N. T. is only found in codices of the whole Bible, which are rare and always written in minuscules, never in uncials as are the Gospels. He knows of no copies of the whole Bible older than the twelfth century.

Two further questions call for brief answer:—1. Have we the Armenian version as it left the hands of the fifth century translators 2. Did the fifth century version comprise the whole of the Old and New Testament?

In regard to the first question, it must be admitted as probable that changes were subsequently made, at least in the New Testament, in the way both of omission and addition; e.g. in St. Luke xxii. 44, out of four very early uncial codices collated by the writer, the words: ἐγένετο δὲ ὁ ἱδρῶς αὐτοῦ ὡσεὶ θρόμβοι αἵματος καταβαίνοντες ἐπι τὴν γῆν, are found only in one, and that one the earliest, being dated 902 a.d. The words which precede ὤφθη δ—ὲπροσηύχετο are omitted in all four of them. We may infer that ver. 44 was in the original version, and was omitted from the three codices for doctrinal reasons. The additions made to the text after the fifth century are easier to detect; because they only come in some MSS. and not in others, and also because there is so much discrepancy of readings between those codices which add them, that they are at once seen to be lacunas supplied by different hands. This is the case, for example, with the end of St. Mark's Gospel, which only comes in one of the four codices mentioned, namely in the oldest Edschmiadzin Codex, under the heading “of the Elder Ariston,” which may refer to Aristion, teacher of Papias, or to Ariston of Pella. The case is the same with the episode of the woman taken in adultery. For the settlement of such points there is wanted a careful collation of the oldest codices.

In answer to the other question we may state, without entering into the proof of it, that the fifth century version included all the books of the Old and New Testament save the third book [pg 153] of Ezra, Esther, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, and perhaps the Maccabees. For as we read in Elisaeus that Vartan Mamikonean in the middle of the fifth century inspired his troops to deeds of valour against the Persians by reading to them the Book of Maccabees, we may fairly infer that that also was already then rendered. It may be added that the Psalms were rendered for church use prior to the rest of the Bible, and were translated afresh by Mesrop and his disciples; also that the Book of Revelations was translated twice. The double translation of both these books is a fact which can be traced in various MSS.

One other point must be noticed. From the history of Moses of Chorene, it is not clear what were the imperfections of the Armenian version, to remedy which Moses was sent to Alexandria. We cannot suppose that Mesrop and Sahak and Eznik, and the other doctors who had already translated the Greek codices brought from Byzantium, were incompetent Greek scholars. The object therefore of Moses' voyage to Alexandria was probably that he might add to the Armenian text the Sections of Ammonius, and also the asterisks and obeli of Origen's Hexaplaric copy[128]. The Ammonian Sections are found in all Armenian New Testaments, and in some copies of the Bible the Origenian marks as well; for instance, in Codex 3270 of the Bibliotheca Vindobonensis. There is no evidence that the Armenians ever used a version of Tatian's Diatessaron.

The following is a list—not exhaustive—of the oldest known codices of the Armenian Gospels, or “Avetaran”:—

1. In the Library of the Lazareffski Institute in Moscow, written in large uncials on parchment, dated in the year 336 of the Armenian era = a.d. 887. Size, 37.75 × 28 cent.; 229 folios.

2. In the Library of the Mechitarists in the island of San Lazaro, in Venice, an uncial codex, on parchment, written in the year 351 of the Armenian era = a.d. 902.

3. In the same Library, on parchment, in large uncials, dated 1006.

4. In the same Library, in large uncials, on parchment, undated, but evidently older than No. 2.

5. In the Patriarchal Library of Edschmiadzin in Russian Armenia, No. 222 of the printed catalogue of Jacob Kareneantz (Tiflis, 1863). [pg 154] This book is bound in ivory covers, carved, as it would seem, in the Ravennese style in the fifth or sixth century. In large uncials, on parchment, written a.d. 989.

6. In the same Library is No. 223, an uncially written parchment codex. The earliest of the colophons dates from a.d. 1260 and is in majuscule, but the codex itself seems to be at least two centuries and a half earlier.

7. In the same Library, No. 229, written in miniscule, on parchment, a.d. 1035.

8, 9. In the same Library, Nos. 224, 225, in large uncials, on parchment, presumably as old as the eleventh century, but undated.

10. In Tiflis, in an Armenian church. In large uncials, on parchment. Undated, but certainly prior to a.d. 1000.

11. In the Library of the British Museum, in large uncials, on parchment, undated. Probably of the ninth century, but not after the tenth, according to Dr. Baronean, author of the British Museum Catalogue.

12. In Karin or Erzeroum, in large uncials, on parchment. Dated a.d. 986.

13. In the Library of the Fathers of St. Anthony, in Constantinople. Dated a.d. 960.

14. In the island monastery of Sevan, on the lake of that name in Russian Armenia. In large uncials, on parchment. Written during primacy of Vahan, circa a.d. 966.

15. In uncials, on parchment; written in Macedonia, under the Emperor Basil, a.d. 1011. (Carékin, Catalogue des Traductions, omits to specify in what library.)

16. Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Codex Armenus VII contains the Four Gospels. Codex Bombyc, litteris uncialibus scriptus.

17. In the same Library, Cod. Arm. VIII. Membranaceus, litteris uncialibus scriptus.