Eleventh Century.
The leading writers were Hovhannes, Krikor, and Aristagues. In this century some of the best commentaries were written on the Bible.
Twelfth Century.
Leading authors: Nerses Shinorhali is the foremost of Armenian poets, and a thoroughly converted and consecrated man of God. His hymns were intensely spiritual, and the Armenians still chant them in their churches. They are worthy to be translated into English. Nerses Lampronatzi, the greatest scholar ever born in Armenia, was a distinguished commentator on the Old Testament, and wrote many other books. Another is Yeremia.
Again I quote from the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia:—“Another nourishing period falls in the twelfth century, during the Rubenian dynasty. Nerses Klagensis and Nerses Lambronensis belong to this period; also Ignatius, whose commentary to the Gospel of St. Luke appeared in Constantinople in 1735 and 1824; Sargis Shnorhali, whose commentary on the Catholic Epistles was published in Constantinople in 1743, and again in 1826; Matthew of Edessa, whose history, comprising the period from 952 to 1132, and continued by Gregory the Priest to 1163, contains many interesting notices concerning the Crusaders; Samuel Aniensis, the chronologist; Michael Syrus, whose history has been edited with a French translation by V. Langlois, Paris, 1864; Mekhitar Kosh, of whom a hundred and ninety fables appeared at Venice, 1780 and 1812. A most powerful impulse the Armenian literature received in the eighteenth century by the foundation of the Mekhitarist monastery in Venice, from whose press the treasures of the Armenian literature were spread over Europe, and new works, explaining and completing the old, were added. The Armenian liturgy was published in 1826, the breviary in 1845, the ritual in 1831.”
Thirteenth Century.
Leading authors:— Krikor Sguevratzi, Kevork Sguevratzi, Mukhitar Anetzi, Vanagan Vartabed, Vartan Vartabed, etc. They wrote histories, commentaries, etc. As the Armenian dynasties ended in the fourteenth century, I will reserve my notes on the later literature till towards the end of the book.
The peculiar value of the Armenian literature is not realized as it should be, by European and American scholars; the language is well worth learning for what it can give the student. Not alone is the original work that comes from the first Christian nation specially valuable for its bearing on primitive Christianity, but the Armenian scholars translated great numbers of works from other languages, and these translations are preserved in Armenian monasteries when the originals have been irretrievably lost in the wars, and burnings, and devastations of other countries. Six hundred volumes of this old literature are known to exist now, two hundred in Europe, and four hundred in different places in Armenia.