Michael Papazian
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Berry College

My topic today is the Armenian Christian literature that developed and flourished after the invention of the Armenian alphabet 1600 years ago. The Armenian alphabet had the specific purpose of conveying the Christian faith to the Armenian people in their own language rather than the alien languages of Greek or Syriac, the languages of the neighboring Christian people. The very first work produced using the alphabet was, of course, the Armenian Bible. The Armenian translation of the Old and New Testaments was the first product of Armenian Christian literature, and in many ways, its source and, one may add, its key. The subsequent literary works are filled with allusions and references to the Armenian Bible, and to unlock the full meaning of these texts requires an extensive knowledge and familiarity with the Armenian Bible and its language.

Since I only have a short time and the amount of Christian literature produced is enormous, I can only give you today at best a glimpse of the rich treasures of early Armenian literature in the first few centuries after the creation of the alphabet. I have decided to focus on one representative each of three genres or kinds of writing that are common in Christian literature. But first I would like to make two general points about what I am talking about.

First, I am using the term Christian literature even though this term may be somewhat confusing. Nowadays when one talks about studying literature, one usually means fiction, like novels or plays or poetry. But in our context “literature” has the much broader meaning of any written text, fictional or non-fictional. One also nowadays often considers literature as not having any particular practical function but rather something people read and write for enjoyment or leisure. But the early Christians were a very pragmatic sort of people. They wrote for a particular purpose—to communicate the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people and to defend the Christian faith against its adversaries. As we will see, the authors of the three works we will look at all have these goals as their motivation for writing their books. Their writing is a part of their mission as Christians and as clergymen.

My second general point concerns a very noteworthy fact about Armenian and Armenian literature. The literature of this early period was in essence created out of nothing. There was, as far as we know, no Armenian literary tradition prior to Christianity. To be sure, educated Armenians did read and write but not in Armenian. If they did, there would be no need to create an alphabet in the fifth century. Contrast this situation with the one that we find in Greece at the same time. Well before the development of Greek Christian literature there was a very advanced and diverse Greek literary tradition extending back to Homer in the 8th century B.C. People were writing in the Greek language more than 800 years before the beginnings of Greek Christianity. So when Greek Christians began to write, they already had as a model of good writing a long and complex tradition to look back at. They also didn’t have to worry about translating the Bible, since the New Testament was written in their language to begin with, and the Jews had already translated the Old Testament into Greek for them. So in many ways, the Greek-speaking Christians had it easy. Not so the Armenian Christians who did not have a pre-existing pagan model of literature to refer back to, and did not have a Bible in Armenian already available to them. Seen in this light, the Armenian achievement of translating the scriptures and creating a rich and extensive literature within one century is nothing short of miraculous.

I’ve decided to look at three different genres of Christian literature that one finds in all of the different Christian traditions. These are hagiography, refutation of heresies, and biblical commentaries. I will talk about one Armenian representative of each of these genres.

Let’s start with hagiography—a hagiography is a biography of the life of a saint. Hagiographies were a common and popular feature of early Christian literature. Saints are Christian heroes, men and women who have lived exemplary lives and often suffered death or torture because of their faith. So the faithful read the biographies of the saints’ lives in order to follow their examples and to lead similarly pious lives. A great example of an Armenian hagiography is the History of the Armenians by Agathagelos. This work is the history of the conversion of the Armenians by St. Gregory the Illuminator, the saint who is at the focus of this book and whose life, deeds, and miracles are recorded.

Agathagelos’s hagiography of St. Gregory was very popular even outside of Armenia. We know this because Agatangelos’s book was translated into many different languages. There is a Greek translation that was made some time in the sixth century. From the Greek version, the text was later translated into Arabic, Georgian, Latin, Ethiopian, and Syriac.

About Agathangelos, however, we know very little, and there is much speculation about his identity. His name is Greek, and means “good angel or messenger.” This is what he says of himself:

Now a command came to me, one Agathangelos from the great city of Rome, trained in the arts of the ancients, proficient in Latin and Greek and not unskilled in literary composition. Thus we came to the Arsacid court in the reign of the brave, virtuous, mighty and heroic Trdat, who has surpassed all his ancestors in valor and who has done deeds in battle worthy of champions and giants.

Trdat IV the Great (or Tiridates, which is the Greek form of the name) was the Arsacid king of Armenia from 299 to 330, the first Christian king. Now there are all sorts of problems if we accept what Agathangelos says of himself. The most obvious is that Agathangelos could not have been writing in Armenian if he lived and wrote during the reign of Trdat. But also Agathangelos makes references to books that were written much later. This has led a number of scholars to argue that Agathangelos is really a later 5th century author who presented himself as a contemporary of Trdat and Gregory.

Neverthless, Agathangelos’s history is the source of much of our knowledge of the conversion of Armenia by St. Gregory. He gives vivid descriptions of the tortures Trdat has inflicted on Gregory and the king’s order that the saint be thrown into the deep dungeon (khor virap). We find here also the famous account of the martyrdom of the nuns from Rome, Hripsime, Gayane, and their companions. Agathangelos then relates the subsequent illness of Trdat that rendered him in the form of a wild boar, and his healing and conversion to Christianity by Gregory after Gregory’s release from the pit. The work contains a long cathechism based on the instructions in Christianity that Gregory gave to the royal family. It ends with a description of the missionary activities to Christianize Armenia and the neighboring countries.

Scholars of Christian literature and history are perhaps even more fascinated by what authors do not say than by what they do write. A striking feature of Agathagelos’s account is the absence of any reference to the existence of Christians or a church in Armenia prior to Gregory. Agathangelos makes no reference to the presence of the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew in Armenia. This notable absence is interesting and perhaps understandable given Agathangelos’s purpose of glorifying Trdat’s role in the conversion of Armenia. A more balanced account would recognize the existence of Christian communities in Armenia that can trace themselves back to the apostolic age, but, as he tells us at the beginning of his book, Agathangelos is not interested in balance but in preserving the memory of the achievements of Trdat, and most of all, St. Gregory.

Having looked at an example of hagiography, let us turn now to the second genre of Armenian Christian literature—refutation of heresy. Christianity has always faced opposing religious movements that reject one or more of its teachings. “Heresy” is the name that has been given to movements that may accept some of the teachings of orthodox Christianity but reject others. The word heresy literally means “choice” in Greek. Given the threat that heresies posed to the early Armenian Christians, it is not surprising that one of the earliest surviving works of Armenian literature is in part a refutation of various heretical and pagan movements. Its author is Eznik, one of Mesrop Mashtots’s disciples. Eznik’s book, which scholars have given both the title Refutation of the Sects and On God, is a defense of the orthodox Christian understanding of God in response to various pagan and heretical teachings.

After his travels in Edessa and Constantinople, Eznik was appointed bishop of Bagrevand, a region north of Lake Van and west of Mount Ararat. It is not known when in his career Eznik wrote the Refutation, but the Armenian Church held a council at Artashat in 449 directed against the Zoroastrianism that Persia was attempting to impose on Armenia. Since we know that Eznik attended this council and the records of the council contain arguments similar to those in Eznik’s book, it may be that Eznik wrote the book in preparation for the council.

Eznik’s book has survived in only one manuscript, which was produced at the end of the 13th century. We should be thankful that this one copy survived, since the book is an excellent window on the Armenian theology and also folklore of the fifth century.

Eznik presents arguments against a variety of religious movements and philosophies that had a following in his time. He contrasts these sects with Christianity. The sects share the characteristic of having a dualistic worldview. Dualism is the belief that the world consists of two distinct beings or substances that are often in conflict with one another. Zoroastrianism is an example of a dualistic religion since it holds that Ahura Mazda and Ahriman are at war with one another and neither created the other. Eznik contrasts this dualistic religion with orthodox Christianity, which affirms that God is the creator of all things, and that therefore even Satan is a creature of God, though God created Satan with the ability to do good:

[Satan] was established by God as a power capable of good. Yet because of the enmity he harbored toward man he willfully became the slanderer. Having abandoned submission to God, he began to disobey, and to teach man to oppose God’s commands, and subsequently he became like a rebel, and he turned away from God.

Eznik views Christianity as superior to dualistic religions such as Zoroastrianism, which lead their adherents to despair since the good and evil forces are evenly matched. By contrast, in Christianity the devil is always subject to God’s forbearance.

But this raises the question of why God allows the existence of evil at all. The Christian God is almighty. He can end all the evil and suffering in the world. But since He does not do this, how can we say that He is good? Don’t good parents put an end to the suffering of their children if they are able to? So Christianity is faced with a challenge that has been a major concern of theologians and philosophers: the problem of evil. Eznik’s response to the challenge is a version of the traditional Christian response. God did not create evil but gave both the angels and humans free will that allows them to choose to do either good or evil:

…God made free will and freedom for the first man, and as an inheritance for his heirs. And accordingly, having accepted that free will, he serves whom he wills…

In noting the great gift of freedom that God has given us, a gift that can be abused to turn away from God and do evil, Eznik presents an argument in defense of the Christian faith that is found in the writings of numerous Christian theologians, perhaps most famously in the writings of Eznik’s contemporary, St. Augustine.

Let us turn now to the third and final genre of Christian literature, the biblical commentary. This genre is found also in all of the various Christian traditions. I’ve already mentioned that the first product of Armenian literature was the translation of the Bible. The Bible can be a difficult book and its readers will often need a guide or interpreter to help them get a better understanding of the text. From the earliest centuries Christian theologians have written commentaries attempting to shed light on the meaning of various biblical texts. One of the most gifted biblical commentators in the Armenian tradition is a bishop named Stepanos Siwnetsi. Stepanos was born toward the end of the 680s. He was recognized at an early age as a gifted student who had an extensive knowledge of the Bible. After receiving an extensive education in Constantinople and Athens, Stepanos returned to Armenia and was consecrated bishop of Siwnik, where, we are told, he set out to purify his diocese of debauchery and to preach a life of holiness.

Stepanos’s calls for repentance led ultimately to his death. According to one ancient account of his death Stepanos had repeatedly admonished an adulterous woman in the village of Moz to repent. But the woman responded by behaving even more shamelessly. She persuaded her lover to kill Stepanos while the bishop was passing through their village. When the man approached armed with a sword, he became frightened and was unable to carry out the violent deed. The woman then took the sword and thrust it into Stepanos’s throat. According to our account, when Stepanos was struck, the earth cried out like a man and said “Woe!” (vay!). Thus the region is called to this day “the valley of woes” (Vayots dzor). Stepanos’s body was taken to the monastery at Tanahat, where he was buried at the entrance of the church. His grave became a place of pilgrimage with reports that many pilgrims were healed by his relics.

I cannot get into the details of Stepanos’s methods of interpretation here, but can give you one example to give an idea of how he approached the reading of the Bible. Often the Bible must be read symbolically and metaphorically rather than simply literally in order to get the full meaning. Stepanos is heavily influenced by the allegorical approach to biblical interpretation associated with the Alexandrian school of interpretation. One example is at Matthew 6:6 where Jesus tells us that when we pray, we should go into our room, close the door, and pray to the Father in secret. In his commentary on the Gospels, Stepanos cautions us not to read this verse too literally:

Jesus is not speaking about a room and door in visible buildings. For there are people who do not have such rooms. He commands us…to withdraw from the distractions of this world. Closing the door means closing the physical senses, seeing and hearing, so that we do not desire the physical vices through our eyes.

According to Stepanos, Jesus is not telling us to pray only in a literal room with the door shut. Rather, the room and the door are symbols indicating that in praying we are to withdraw from the cares and troubles of the world.

I hope that my discussion of these three authors and their works has given you a better idea of the wealth of the Armenian Christian tradition. Several of these works have been translated and so are available to a wider public. Unfortunately the amount of translated Armenian Christian literature is much less in comparison to the much better studied Greek and Latin traditions. Even the Syriac tradition is more accessible to the modern English reader. There is an urgent need for us to make our literature more widely available and known especially to Christians in other traditions who are eager to learn more about the Armenian tradition and its contributions to Christianity. Perhaps the best tribute to the anniversary of the Armenian alphabet and the beginnings of Armenian Christian literature would be just such an endeavor to reveal our literary treasures to the world.