"The slightest acquaintance with ecclesiastical history may convince one, that before the commencement of the fourth century, Christianity had extensively degenerated from its original purity as a religion of the heart, into a mere profession of theoretical dogmas, and the observance of external rites. Such, it is natural to suspect, was the form of it to which the Armenians were at that period converted; and the circumstances of the event, if national tradition has correctly preserved them, confirm the suspicion, that they have from the beginning known extremely little of true conversion. We are told that immediately upon King Durtád's embracing the faith, the nation followed his example in a body, and were baptized. To say nothing of the doubtfulness of all national conversions, the very hastiness of this proceeding, by allowing no time for competent instruction, shows that the Armenians could not have been enlightened converts; the fact that the Scriptures were not translated into their language until a century afterward, is an additional indication of the scantiness of their religious knowledge; and the confessed backsliding of many of the nobility into the most scandalous immoralities and the blackest crimes, even during the lifetime of Durtád, proves how superficial was their conversion.
"Thus the Armenian Church was a soil well adapted to the rapid growth of all the corruptions, which from that time sprang up, in such speedy succession, in different parts of the Christian world. Even those which then existed were, it would seem, not sparingly introduced by St. Gregory. For, by the immediate consecration of four hundred bishops, and a countless number of priests, he betrayed a disposition to multiply an idle and unqualified priesthood; and by the construction of convents and nunneries, and spending the last of his days in a solitary cave, he showed that he was ready to foster the monastic spirit of his age. So deeply, indeed, was the taste for monkhood implanted, that his fifth successor is said to have built two thousand convents.
"Of the rites and dogmas subsequently adopted by other bodies of Christians, there was a free importation for the two centuries that the Armenians formed a regular branch of the General Church. A special messenger was sent to Jerusalem for the ceremonies observed in that church, and brought thence eight canons regulating the sacraments and other rites. For a similar object, a correspondence was carried on with the Bishop of Nisibis. One Catholicos, who had been educated at Constantinople in the influence of all the secular ideas and regulations introduced into the Church under the patronage of Constantine and his successors, brought from thence 'various observances, which, like precious stones, he inlaid into the old.' And several who followed him distinguished themselves by their improvements in the services and laws of the Church. So that when, by rejecting the Council of Chalcedon, A. D. 491, the Armenians cut themselves off from the communion of the great body of Christians, they were doubtless in possession of all the legendary dogmas and observances which had then been adopted by the Christian world."1
1 Researches in Armenia, Amer. Edition, vol. ii. pp. 290-292.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ARMENIANS.
1827-1835.
Mr. King's "Farewell Letter to his Friends in Syria and Palestine" was translated into the Armenian language by Bishop Dionysius, and a manuscript copy was sent by him, in the year 1827, to some of the more influential Armenians in Constantinople. Its effect was extraordinary. A meeting was called in the Armenian patriarchal church, at which the letter was read, and the marginal references to Scripture were verified. It was then agreed, by common consent, that the Church needed reform. The famous school of Peshtimaljian grew out of this meeting, at which it was decided, that no person should be ordained in the capital to the priest's office, who had not completed a regular course of study at this school. In the year 1833, the missionaries were invited to be present at the ordination of fifteen Armenian priests in the patriarchal church; and they were then informed, that no one had received ordination in the metropolis since the adoption of the rule above stated, and that only such as had received a regular education at that school were regarded as eligible for ordination. As the result of this, nearly all the candidates were comparatively well-educated men, and one of them, hereafter to be more specially noted, had a high reputation for learning.
Peshtimaljian, the head of the school, was an uncommon man. His inquisitive mind was ever gaining knowledge, and what he acquired his memory retained. He was a critical and accurate scholar in the language and literature of his nation, and made himself familiar with the theology and history of the Eastern and Romish Churches, and with the general history of the Church from the earliest ages. He was able to quote from the Scriptures with wonderful facility and accuracy. His confidence in the Bible, as the true Word of God and the only standard of faith, had indeed been shaken for a while by his disgust with the superstitions of his Church, and by the low character of many of its clergy, but he had recovered from this. Though timid and cautious to a fault, like Erasmus, and sometimes open to the charge of time-serving, he gradually led his pupils into new paths of inquiry, until they came to believe that the Church not only may err, but that it had actually erred in many of its teachings.
Peshtimaljian became convinced at length, that his pupils were consistently carrying out the principles they had learned from him, and he strongly, though still privately, encouraged them in their labors for the spiritual good of their countrymen. Until his death, which occurred in 1837, he was the friend of the missionaries, and had much intercourse with them; though he never acquired the courage distinctly to avow himself an evangelical man. Up to that time, however, there had been no open persecution of the followers of Christ, and consequently no formal separation of the evangelical brethren from the Armenian community. All the first converts in Constantinople, and many of the later ones, were from his school.