[95] Agathangelus, Life of St Gregory, sec. 158. [↑]
[97] Faustus, v. 31. “The obsequies of the dead were conducted amid loud lamentations, accompanied by trumpets, guitars and harps. Monstrous dances took place, men and women, with bangles on their arms and painted faces, giving themselves up to every kind of abomination.” The picture is coloured by malice, but is vivid. [↑]
[98] Agathangelus, Life of St. Gregory, sec. 169. [↑]
[100] Faustus, iv. 14. It seems plain from this chapter that these domains had been bestowed upon the family of Gregory by Tiridates and his successors. [↑]
[101] Faustus, iii. 15 and 19. The profane delinquents were named Pap and Athenogenes, and the makeshift office-bearers Daniel the Syrian, Pharen and Shahak. The two last-named were formally invested with the office and sent to Cæsarea to be consecrated. [↑]
[102] Note especially the election of Nerses I., a descendant of St. Gregory who was loth to accept the office. “The numerous troops of all Armenia demanded and proclaimed Nerses as katholikos ... the entire assembly commenced to cry with a loud voice, ‘It is Nerses who must be our pastor.’ Nerses refused to accept the mandate, of which he professed himself unworthy. Nevertheless the assembly persisted in their resolution and continued to cry before the king, ‘No one except Nerses shall be our pastor; nobody but he shall occupy the holy chair!’” The whole chapter (Faustus, iv. 3) is well worth reading, and contains some very vivid portraiture. Nerses was a layman and was raised to the pontificate in one day. He was then sent to Cæsarea to be formally consecrated. [↑]
[103] Professor Gelzer pertinently observes (Die Anfänge, etc., p. 148) that the Armenian kings in pagan times had been in the practice of placing their own near relatives in priestly offices, and quotes Strabo to the effect that in the neighbouring provinces of Cappadocia and Pontus the high priest was δεύτερος κατὰ τίμην μετὰ βασιλέα, or second in rank after the king. On the other hand, traces of Jewish custom are to be found in the existence of a second priestly House in Armenia during the early period of Christianity, who in a sense were rivals of the House of the Illuminator. I allude to the House of Albianus. It must not be forgotten that there were extensive settlements of Jews in Armenia at this period, brought thither by the Armenian king Tigranes (Faustus, iv. 55). [↑]
[104] Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. ix. 8. For the date see Von Gutschmid (Kleine Schriften, iii. p. 412). [↑]