In regard to the second group of beliefs all having to do with the introduction of Christianity, Bartholomew, Thaddeus, Gregory, and Tiridates are unquestionably historic; Rhipsime and Gaiane are mythical; the historic authenticity of Abgar is also questionable. We should therefore speak of the legends of Rhipsime, Gaiane and Abgar, and of the traditions of Bartholomew, Thaddeus, Gregory, and Tiridates.
The Ararat and Erzerum group are of course legends with one or two exceptions. The belief concerning the scorning of the proposal of Mohammed by the Persian king who was encamped on the Euphrates as explaining the barrenness of the Garden of Eden certainly has to do with an historic figure, and perhaps two. But it is a legend, nevertheless, because both the prophet of Arabia and the Persian king are accidental rather than fundamental to the belief. The fundamental basis of belief is the legend of the Garden of Eden. The elegy of Adam in explanation of his sinful conduct is neither legend nor tradition, and the belief concerning the tetagush and the spring of Ararat is a superstition. It results in a distinct type of conduct marking it off from both tradition and legend.
I have stated my conclusions at various places, and it would be pointless repetition to summarize them all. I shall therefore sum up only the important ones. The first is that the legends and traditions of Part One are an important part of a larger body of Armenian legends, traditions, folk-songs, and folk-lore, and that their social value lies in the power they have of creating a national sentiment. This national sentiment is the direct result of a social process accomplished through the medium of the traditions, legends, and folk-songs spoken of. An analysis of the national sentiment of ancient Armenia would lead us to the conclusion that it was made up of at least three elements: first, a sentiment of loyalty to the state; secondly, a sentiment of reverence amounting almost to worship for the past glory of the nation; and thirdly, a sentiment of love for the country.
The last sentiment is an especially real experience to all Armenians. Objectified as it was at first in the vast plains, the broad river valleys, the mountain ranges, or simply in the soil that brought forth its vegetation, it came to be objectified in a spirit of independence and in the ideals of freedom and strength. These two objects of the national sentiment of love, the one material, the other immaterial, are not, however, to be dissociated in the social mind, as I have dissociated them on paper. They are inseparable, the material and the spiritual, and simply do not exist apart from each other. Only the emphasis varies, symbolized in one case by the peasant’s kissing his native soil, and in the other by the far-away look toward the summit of some distant mountain. And when this sentiment of love is the most important of those sentiments that go to make up a national sentiment, that is, when it dominates all the others, holding them in subjection, there has come to be a national self. A continuous stream of consciousness envelopes the national self, and inasmuch as it implies a highly-organized and well-developed national self, national-self-consciousness is the larger term. It may be objectified and examined especially at a time of injustice from without, and even at the time of an obvious act of injustice by the state which usually results in civil strife. The latter case is illustrative of how one of the sentiments that make up the national sentiment may be under the domination of another, the sentiment of loyalty to the state being subordinate to the sentiment of love for the country in this case.
That the national self is organic, i.e., that it is functional, a vital, living thing which grows and dies is clearly brought out by the second group of legends considered. This is the second general conclusion. The legends and traditions mentioned in this group are of course again part of a larger body, all of which have to do with the introduction of Christianity into the country. The important point is that from this larger body of beliefs there resulted a new national sentiment, new because something had come to be incorporated within it which was not there before. This something was a sentiment of loyalty to the church, evidenced in the readiness to uphold and protect the church with all its recognized encumbrances of hierarchies and paraphernalia against all foreign intrusion, whether peaceful or military in character. With the destruction of the state, this sentiment of loyalty to the church largely absorbed the sentiment of loyalty to the state. Reverence for the past glory of the nation went on unchanged except in so far as the church intensified it as a means of intensifying the whole national sentiment.
A loosely organized, heterogeneous group of people can not boast of a national sentiment, nor of the united action necessary in times of national crisis, as when a people go to war. This united action is only possible where the diverse sentiments of a more or less heterogeneous people have been woven into a national sentiment of the kind spoken of. This weaving process, as I have shown, is essentially a social process, and the materials by means of which it is carried on are largely such as I have been describing, namely, the legends, traditions, and folk-lore that have somehow grown up among a people.