Abgar, in his zeal for the faith he had just embraced, wrote to the Emperor Tiberius in favor of Christ, informing him how the Jews unjustly crucified him, exhorting him at the same time to believe and command others to adore the Saviour. Many letters passed between the two monarchs on the subject of his divine mission. He also wrote to Ardashes, king of Persia, and to his son Nerseh, the young king of Assyria, exhorting them to become believers in Christ. However, before he received replies to these, he died, in the third year of his conversion to Christianity.
His death seemed at first to have undone all his work. His son Anane apostatized and tried to make his people do the same; he reopened the heathen temples, resumed the public worship of the idols, and ordered the sacred handkerchief removed from the city gate. Adde the bishop walled up the latter. The king ordered the bishop to make a diadem for him as he had for his father; the bishop refused to make one for a head that would not bow to Christ, and the king had the bishop’s feet cut off while he was preaching, causing his death,—the first Christian martyr on record. By a just retribution, the savage king met his own death by a marble pillar in his palace falling on him and breaking his legs.
Meantime Abgar’s nephew, Sanadrug, had set up his standard in Shavarshan or Ardaz, proclaiming himself king of Armenia,—one of the countless chieftains who took advantage of Armenian anarchy to carve out principalities for themselves. On the death of Anane he marched to Edessa, claiming it as his own inheritance. The people admitted him on his oath not to harm them; but once inside he massacred all the males of the house of Abgar. He spared his aunt, Queen Helena, Abgar’s widow, who became widely famed as a Christian philanthropist, and was buried with great pomp before one of the gates of Jerusalem, where a splendid mausoleum was erected over her remains. He himself had apostatized, and ordered all his people to do likewise; but most of them refused to obey, and Thaddeus, hearing of it at Caesarea, in Cappadocia, started for Edessa to reconvert him. On his way he fell in with a Roman embassy to Sanadrug, composed of five patricians headed by one Chrysos; he converted and baptized them all, conferred priest’s orders on Chrysos, and they gave up all their property and became preachers of Christ. They were known as followers of Chrysos, and all eventually obtained the crown of martyrdom.
On the news of these conversions, Sanadrug invited Thaddeus to Shavarshan; on his arrival he put him to death, and with him his own daughter, Santukht, who would not give up her faith in Christ. At her death various miracles were wrought, which caused many conversions to Christianity; among them a notable chief, who was baptized with all his family, was renamed Samuel, and was put to death by the king’s order.
A princess named Zarmantukht also became a convert, with all her household, two hundred people in all; the whole of them suffered martyrdom in consequence.
Dr. Philip Schaff says: “It is now impossible to decide how much truth there may be in the somewhat mythical stories of correspondence between Christ and Abgarus, and the missionary activity and martyrdom of Thaddeus, Bartholomew, Simon of Cana, and Judas Lebbeus. But it is certain that Christianity was introduced very early in Armenia.” I, however, consider what I have told to be true.
After this time, Christianity spread in Armenia as it did in other parts of the Greek Empire; rapidly in the cities, where intelligence was quick, and new ideas were welcomed; slowly in the country districts, where people did not readily change. Its first result everywhere was not so much to make people believe in it as to make them disbelieve in Paganism; for every person who actually came to believe in Christ, there were fifty who ceased to believe in Jupiter, or Bel, or Thoth, Venus or Astarte. There would be a flourishing Christian church in a great city when most of the people did not have any faith in any religion. But everybody who had a family came gradually to think very well of a religion that gave them the power to teach children righteousness, and enforce it by the command of God; and the respectable classes became more and more Christian. But the fact that till two or three centuries after Christ there was no general attempt on the part of the pagan governments to put down the Christians by persecution, shows that not till then did they become so numerous as to frighten the governments for fear they would before long have a majority; persecution means fear. The governments let the Christians pretty much alone, except for little fits of anger now and then, till they were afraid the growth of the sect would overthrow themselves or bring on civil war. The Christians had become well established in Armenia within a century or so after the death of Christ; but it was over a century and a half before they seemed an imminent menace to the ruling class. Then a furious persecution began, about the same time as that of Diocletian in the Roman Empire, and indeed, part of the same movement. Diocletian had set the persecuting King Tiridates on his throne, and Tiridates had passed his life from boyhood almost to old age in the Roman service, and had the same ideas as the pagan Roman upper classes. Yet in the providence of God this same Tiridates made Christianity supreme in Armenia, fifteen years before Constantine made it supreme in the Roman Empire, thus making Armenia the first Christian nation.
Gregory the Illuminator and King Dertad.
In the continual struggle between Rome and Parthia for the control of Armenia, the Parthian kings had one great advantage; they were Arsacids, and could put their sons or brothers on the Armenian throne with the good-will of the people, thus strengthening their dynastic position without much cost in military force. Often, too, the Armenian kingship was obtained by Parthian princes, who fled after a family quarrel, or after deposition or other misfortune. One of these Armenian kings was Chosroes, who reigned in the time of Ardashir, the first king of Persia, before spoken of. It is not certain just who he was; some say a brother of Ardvan, the last king of Parthia; some say the son of Ardvan, who fled after his father’s death. Anyway, he was a mortal enemy of Ardashir, and was at first supported by the Romans. Ardashir invaded Armenia, but was beaten later. Chosroes quarreled with the Romans, who withdrew their support, and assailed him, but he defeated them; and when Ardashir again invaded the country, Chosroes again drove him back. The old days of Tigranes seemed to have returned, and Armenia to be on the road again to unity and independence; and Chosroes was called the Great. Ardashir was furious at being baffled, and is said to have offered his daughter’s hand and a share in the kingdom to any one of his leading nobles who would assassinate Chosroes. An Arsacid named Anag accepted the offer, though he had a wife already, and went with his family to Armenia, pretending to be in flight from Persian troops. Chosroes gave him a military escort into the province of Ardaz, where he lived for a time in the very place St. Thaddeus’ bones were deposited. Later on, Anag removed to Vagharshabad (the present city of Etchmiazin, where the Armenian Catholicos resides), Chosroes’ royal city. Here Anag seizing his opportunity, stabbed Chosroes to the heart. In his flight he was drowned in trying to cross the Aras, and his family were massacred by the soldiery.
Ardashir had gotten rid of his unconquerable enemy, and without having to pay the stipulated price. He at once entered Armenia and put to death every member of Chosroes’ family save a boy and a girl, Tiridates and Chosrovitukht, who were somehow smuggled away, and the old game of Perso-Roman foot-ball over Armenia went on as before. Tiridates entered the Roman army, when grown up, and became distinguished there, evidently inheriting his father’s military ability; and remained in the Roman service certainly to the age of over 45, and perhaps till over 50. That the Romans waited all this time before using him as a candidate for the Armenian throne seems strange; but the reason probably is that the early years of his manhood fell in a time when Rome was weak and Persia strong. The great Shahpur, Ardashir’s son, reigned in Persia till about 272; the imbecile Gallienus of Rome reigned from 260 till 268, and was succeeded by a crowd of emperors able indeed, but too short-lived to carry out any steady policy, or drive the Persians out of their strong places. The first emperor who found himself in a position to restore the Roman power in the East was Diocletian, who came to the Roman throne in 284, and it is significant that he made Tiridates king of Armenia only two years later. As Diocletian was a soldier of fortune, probably he had known and respected Tiridates long before. Anyway, in 286 Rome once more had her turn in Armenian affairs, and with one short interval, kept absolute control of the country for over half a century.