The Armenian literature of the pre-Christian era has not survived, excepting a few fragmentary songs, which lingered until the time of Moses of Khorene, in whose history of Armenia they are preserved; and the inscriptions of Van, which some claim as “the oldest specimens of the Asiatic branch of the Indo-Germanic family.”
Christianity brought with it into Armenia a great love for learning. After the conversion of the nation, Armenian youths flocked into the schools of Alexandria, Constantinople and Athens. Most of them engaged in translating valuable works from the Greek and other languages into the Armenian. A writer speaks of these translators in this manner: “Some of them attained celebrity in this chosen pursuit. To this tendency we owe the preservation, in Armenian, of many works that have perished in their original languages.” “Hundreds of other translations from Syriac and Greek writers soon followed (the translations of the Bible), some of which are extant only in Armenian.”
The original works consist of theological and expository discourses, commentaries, histories, sacred songs, devotional works, etc. “The existing literature of the Armenians dates from the fourth century and is essentially and exclusively Christian.” This “literature is rich and continuous, uninterrupted through all the middle ages. It has furnished the philosophers, historians, theologians, and poets.” The catalogue of the works in the library of Etchmiadsin contains about 5000 titles.
“They (the Armenians) are a people of fine physical development, often of high stature and powerful frame, industrious and peaceable, yet more jealous of their rights and liberties than any other Oriental race. They passionately cherish the memory of their fathers, and preserve the use of their national language, which belongs to the Indo-European family, and possess a literature of considerable importance.”[78]
“These Armenians are a superb race of men ...; their physiognomy is intelligent. They are the Swiss of the East. Industrious, peaceable, regular in their habits, they resemble them also in calculation and love of gain. The women are lovely; their features are pure and delicate, and their serene expression recalls the beauty of the women of the British Islands or the peasants of Switzerland.”[79]
“By nature the Armenians are deeply religious, as their whole literature and history show. It has been a religion of the heart, not of the head. Its evidence is not to be found in metaphysical discussions and hair-splitting theology, as in the case of the Greek, but in a brave and simple record written with the tears of saints and illuminated with the blood of martyrs.”[80]
There is no nation in the world which has suffered as much persecution, oppression, injustice and martyrdom as the Armenians, yet there is not a nation, even with less advantages, that can compare with them in education. They are like the Jews also in this respect that wherever there is a sufficient number, they have a church and close by is a school. There is less illiteracy among the Armenians than among some Roman Catholic countries.
Since the coming of the Catholic and Protestant missionaries a new impetus has been imparted to the Armenians in the line of education. Mukhetar of Sebaste, an Armenian monk, established an order of the Catholic monks at the convent of St. Lazarus in Venice (1717), which became a great center of learning. The monks of this order and monastery have rendered great service for the education of the Armenians in general, and the Catholic Armenians in particular. “These fathers have won the interest and admiration of European scholars by their publication of Armenian classics, together with many learned original contributions.”[81]
The Armenian youths also, like in the olden times, flocked into other centers of learning both in Europe and America. Roberts’ College, in Constantinople, had the largest number of Armenian students from its beginning (1860). The native schools, in every town and city in the provinces, were also very much improved; moreover, the Protestant mission schools of all grades were also freely patronized by many.[82] The Christian civilization and education brought out the metal and character of the Armenians, and also created in the hearts of the Mohammedan rulers the rankest kind of hatred against the former. So they have decided to destroy both the Christian and Christianity in their native home. Mohammedanism is a moral and religious photophobia; it dreads the light of civilization and Christianity. So the ministers, priests and teachers are slaughtered; the churches and schools are burnt down by the followers of the false prophet.
A few samples of Armenian poems also might have been given but my determination not to write a large book restrains me. The following is a poem—one of many—written by Father Leo Alishan, a monk of the Mukhetarist order of the convent at Venice, translated by Alice Stone Blackwell: