[77] 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. [↑]
[78] 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. [↑]
[79] 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. [↑]
[80] See the Italian translation, p. 153. [↑]
[81] Sozomen, ii. 8. He places the conversion before Constantine, but does not give the exact date. [↑]
[82] “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). [↑]
[83] 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. [↑]
[84] Emin, Recherches sur le paganisme arménien, p. 20, note 1. [↑]