Ecclesiastical History.--Supposed Letter of Abgarus, King
of Edessa, to our Savior, and the Answer.--Promulgation
and Establishment of Christianity.--Labors of
Mesrob Maschdots.--Separation of the Armenian Church
from that of Constantinople.--Hierarchy and religious
Establishments.--Superstition of the Lower Classes.--Sacerdotal
Vestments.--The Holy Books.--Romish Branch of the Church.--Labors
of Mechitar.--His Establishment near Venice.--Diffusion of the
Scriptures.
The ruins of Ani to this day attest the magnificence and antiquity
of former dynasties which long since reigned and passed away in the
highlands of Armenia. In the time of Cyrus, according to Moses of
Chorene, the historian of that country in the sixteenth century,
Greek statues of Jupiter, Artemis (Diana), Minerva, Hephæstion,
and Venus, were brought to Ani and placed in the citadel of that
town. Here the treasures and the sepulchres of the ancient kings
were preserved in a fortress deemed by them impregnable. I will not
pause to disentangle the records of Armenia before the time of our
Savior, for even during the life of our Lord the annals of Armenia
become remarkably interesting as connected with his holy faith, and
the rise and progress of Christianity in the countries immediately
adjoining the sacred soil of Palestine. Abgarus, king of Edessa, and
sovereign of great part of Armenia, with the adjoining countries,
is said by Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea, the early historian of the
Church, who flourished in the fourth century, to have written a letter
to our Savior, requesting him to repair to his court and to cure him
of a disease under which he labored. The following is a translation
of the letter which Abgarus is said to have written to our Lord:
"Abgarus, King of Edessa, to Jesus the good Savior, who appeareth at
Jerusalem, greeting:
"I have been informed concerning thee and thy cures, which are
performed without the use of medicines or of herbs.
"For it is reported that thou dost cause the blind to see, the lame
to walk, that thou dost cleanse the lepers, and dost cast out unclean
spirits and devils, and dost restore to health those who have been
long diseased, and also that thou dost raise the dead.
"All which when I heard I was persuaded of one of these two things:
"Either that thou art God himself descended from heaven;
"Or that thou art the Son of God.
"On this account, therefore, I have written unto thee, earnestly
desiring that thou wouldst trouble thyself to take a journey hither,
and that thou wilt also cure me of the disease under which I suffer.
"For I fear that the Jews hold thee in derision, and intend to do
thee harm.
"My city is indeed small, but it is sufficient to contain us both."
In the history of Moses of Chorene, this letter begins with the words
"Abgar, the son of Archam," but the substance of it is the same as the
above, which is taken from the pages of Eusebius, who lived a century
earlier than Moses of Chorene. This author ascribes the answer to
St. Thomas the Apostle, who was deputed to write an answer to the
above in these words:
"Happy art thou, O Abgarus, forasmuch as thou hast believed in me
whom thou hast not seen.
"For it is written concerning me, that those who have seen me have not
believed on me, that those who have not seen me might believe and live.
"As to that part of thine epistle which relates to my visiting thee,
I must inform thee that I must fulfill the ends of my mission in
this land, and after that be received up again unto Him that sent me;
but after my ascension I will send one of my disciples, who will cure
thy disease, and give life unto thee and all that are with thee."
These two letters are generally considered to be forgeries, although
they are mentioned by some of the earliest historians of the Church.
Some years ago I was informed, while at Alexandria, that a papyrus had
been discovered in Upper Egypt, in an ancient tomb; it was inclosed in
a coarse earthenware vase, and it contained the letter from Abgarus to
our Savior, written either in Coptic or uncial Greek characters. The
answer of St. Thomas was said not to be with it. I was told that the
manuscript afterward came into the possession of the King of Holland,
but I have no means at present of ascertaining the truth of the story,
or the antiquity of the papyrus of which it forms the subject.
The seeds of the Christian faith were sown in Armenia by the
apostles St. Bartholomew and St. Thomas. According to Tertullian
(adv. Judæos, c. 7), a Christian Church flourished there in the
second century. St. Blaise and other bishops suffered martyrdom in
different parts of Armenia during the persecution of Diocletian,
about the year 310.
To St. Gregory, the Illuminator, is due the honor of having established
Christianity in this region, and he is known by the title of the
Apostle of Armenia. Toward the middle of the third century, having
been himself a convert from Paganism, he first preached the doctrines
of our Lord among the mountains of his native land. He had received
his education at Cæsarea in Cappadocia, where he was baptized. The
zeal with which he was animated gave irresistible force to his words,
and the people flocked to him in great multitudes, and were baptized by
his hands. The King Tiridates, a violent persecutor of the Christians,
touched by the piety and virtues of St. Gregory, embraced the Christian
faith, and, with his queen and his sister, received the sacrament
of baptism in the 16th year of his reign, A.D. 274, and became the
first Christian King of Armenia. St. Gregory was consecrated bishop
by St. Leontius, Bishop of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, and continued
his labors in propagating the faith all over Armenia, Georgia,
and the nations living on the borders of the Caspian Sea. From this
circumstance it became the custom for the Primate of Armenia to receive
his consecration from the Archbishop of Cæsarea, which continued to be
the practice for several centuries. St. Gregory died in the year 336,
in a cave to which he had retired, desiring to end his days as an
anchorite, according to a custom much observed in the fourth century.
In those disturbed and unsettled times, the religion of our Savior
alternately rose and prospered, or was oppressed by the persecutions
of various governors under the Emperors of Rome. Numerous heresies
distracted the minds of the priesthood, and confused the doctrines of
the Armenian Church. About the year 390 rose the most celebrated man
in the history of this country: his name was Mesrob Maschdots. This
personage was born in the town of Hatsegatz-Avan, in the province
of Daron: he had been secretary to the Patriarch Narses, and to the
Prince Varastad, who was dethroned by the Romans in the year 382. In
the year 390, in conjunction with the Armenian Patriarch Sahag,
he occupied himself in the extinction of the idolatry which still
prevailed, and was the first person who arranged the forms of the
Armenian liturgy. Before this time the Armenian language had no written
character; the inhabitants of the eastern districts used the Persian
alphabet, while those of the west wrote in the Syriac character. Mesrob
either restored the ancient Armenian letters according to the historian
Moses of Chorene, who gives a long miraculous account of the event, or
he invented an entirely new alphabet--a solitary instance, I believe,
of such an undertaking having been accomplished by one man. The present
Armenian letters were adopted by the commands of Bahram Schahpoor
over the whole of that country in the year 406. The first complete
version of the Bible was now arranged and promulgated by Mesrob,
and written on parchment in his new characters; numerous copies of
it were distributed to the churches and monasteries of Armenia, and
the important circumstance of their being now able to read the Holy
Scriptures in their own language tended to preserve their faith, and to
unite them as a nation during the continual troubles and adversities
which they have suffered ever since. This great benefactor to his
country died in the year 441.
The Armenian hierarchy had till now been a branch of the Greek Church,
but, unable to read their liturgy, troubled with diversities of
opinion, and oppressed first by one neighboring tyrant and then by
another, this helpless nation finally settled down into the heresy
of Eutyches, and, under the guidance of their patriarch, separated
themselves from the Church of Constantinople. They believe that the
body of our Savior was created, or else existed without creation,
a divine and incorruptible substance, not subject to the infirmities
of the flesh. This schism took place about the year 535.
The Armenian era commences in the year 552, from which epoch their
manuscripts and calendar are dated. The custom continues to the
present day. By the council of Tibena in 554, they were confirmed in
their persistence in the Eutychian heresy. The council of Trullo,
692, and the council of Jerusalem, 1143, condemned the errors of
the Armenians. In the fourteenth century, Pope John XXII. sent a
Dominican friar, called Bartholomew the Little, into that distant
region, with several colleagues, to preach the doctrines of the
Church of Rome. Bartholomew was consecrated bishop (of Nakchevan?),
and since that time the archbishop of that province has, with all his
dependencies, continued a member of the Roman Church. The thunders of
the Lateran have often since been directed against the perseverance
of these distant heretics, but they have been of no avail.
The Patriarch of Armenia resides at Etchmiazin. He is styled
Catholicos, and holds under his sway forty-seven archbishops, of whom
the greater part are titular, having no jurisdiction or dignity beyond
their titles; many of these reside in the monastery, and form a sort
of court around their spiritual lord the Patriarch. They seem to hold
the same position as the Monsignores of the court of Rome. Above the
titular and actual archbishops are three Patriarchs, whose seats are
at Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Diarbekir. The number of bishops
and episcopal sees is very considerable, but I have not been able
to enumerate them. The monasteries are also very numerous, and are
scattered all over the mountains of Armenia, the islands of Lake Van,
and other places in Persia, Georgia, and Turkey.
The ancient monasteries of their own land are of a peculiar
construction, remarkable for the diminutive proportions of the churches
and the small size of the monastic buildings, as well as their massive
strength and the great squared stones of which they are built. They are
little fortresses, and seem always to have been very poor, though some
are larger and more wealthy, comparatively, than the generality. They
have been erected to resist the incursions of the Saracens, Knights
Templars, Koords, Turks, and Persians, who, from time to time, overran
this abject principality. Their massive strength alone has saved them
from being pulled down and utterly destroyed; the time necessary for
such an operation could not be spared during the inroad of a chappow,
or plundering expedition. Nothing worth stealing remains in the
various monasteries which I have visited. A few dirty and imperfect
church-books, some faded vestments and poor furniture for the altar,
and the cells of three or four peasant-monks, were all the wealth that
they displayed. Very few appear to have contained a library--none that
I have seen. Their manuscripts were written in former days at Edessa,
Etchmiazin (which is a more extensive fabric), Teflis, Ooroomia,
Tabriz, and other cities, and not usually in these outposts among
the mountains. The little monastery of Kuzzul Vank possesses one
ancient manuscript of the Holy Scriptures, written in the year, as
far as I can remember, 422, which, if it refers to the Armenian era,
would be 974; it is written in uncial letters, on vellum, in a small,
thick quarto form.
Ignorance and superstition contend for the mastery among the lower
classes of Armenia, whose religion shows that tendency to sink
into a kind of idolatry which is common among other branches of
the Church of Christ in warmer climates. The following anecdote
will explain my meaning in advancing such a charge. One of my
servants had a bad toothache; he was a Roman Catholic of Smyrna;
he made a vow to present an offering to the shrine of St. George at
Smyrna if his toothache was cured by the mediation of that saint,
but the pain still continued. A friend of his at Erzeroom advised
him to vow a silver mouth to St. George of Erzeroom; "for," he said,
"St. George of Smyrna is a Roman saint, and, of course, he can have
no authority here; but our St. George is an Armenian, and he will
hear your prayer." The advice was taken: a silver mouth was vowed
to St. George of Erzeroom, and the toothache ceased immediately, the
servant firmly believing that he had been cured by this saint, who,
he considered, was another person, and not the same as St. George
of Smyrna, and that his picture here was more powerful in working
miracles than the others. In the same manner, the pictures or images
of Our Lady of Loretto, Guadaloupe, or del Pilar are believed to be
endowed with peculiar powers, and are, in fact, worshiped for their
own merits, and not for what they represent.
A curious episode in the history of Armenia took place in the time
of Shah Abbas the Great, who established a colony of the natives
of that province at Julfa, a village near Isfahaun. He gave them
many privileges and immunities, which a remnant of their descendants
enjoy still. The forms and ceremonies of their worship resemble those
of the Greek Church, from which they are derived. Their vestments
are the same, or nearly so: and here I will remark that the sacred
vestures of the Christian Church are the same, with very insignificant
modifications, among every denomination of Christians in the world;
that they have always been the same, and never were otherwise in any
country, from the remotest times when we have any written accounts
of them, or any mosaics, sculptures, or pictures to explain their
forms. They are no more a Popish invention, or have any thing more
to do with the Roman Church, than any other usage which is common
to all denominations of Christians. They are, and always have been,
of general and universal--that is, of catholic--use; they have never
been used for many centuries for ornament or dress by the laity, having
been considered as set apart to be used only by priests in the church
during the celebration of the worship of Almighty God. These ancient
vestures have been worn by the bishops, priests, and deacons of that,
in common with the hierarchy of every other Church. In England they
have fallen into disuse by neglect; King Charles I. presented some
vestments to the Cathedral of Durham long after the Reformation,
and they continued in use there almost in the memory of man.
The parish priests of the Armenian religion are, I believe, permitted,
if not obliged, to marry, as is the case in the Greek and Russian
Churches; but they can not, so long as their wife survives, be
promoted to any of the higher orders of the hierarchy. Bishops,
archbishops, and patriarchs are elected out of the monastic bodies
who take the vows of celibacy; their fasts are long and rigorous,
their food simple, and their style of life severe; their time is
almost entirely taken up with the services of religion, and, as a
general rule, their ignorance is extreme.
In their doctrine of the Holy Trinity, they believe that the Holy
Spirit proceeds from the Father alone; that Christ descended into hell,
from whence he reprieved the souls of sinners till the day of judgment;
that the souls of the righteous will not be admitted to the beatific
vision till after the resurrection, notwithstanding which they invoke
them in their prayers. They make use of pictures in their churches,
but not of images; they use confession to the priests, and administer
the Eucharist in both kinds.
In baptism they plunge the child three times in water, apply the
chrism with consecrated oil prepared only by the Patriarch. They
also touch the child's lips with the Eucharist, which consists of
unleavened bread sopped in wine.
The Holy Scriptures contain more books than those of the Western
Churches. In the Old Testament, after the Book of Genesis, occurs
The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Sons of Jacob; then The
History of Joseph and of his wife Asenath; The Book of Jesus the Son
of Sirach. After these the order of the scriptural books succeeds
as with us. In the New Testament, after St. Paul's Second Epistle to
the Corinthians, we find the Epistle of the Corinthians to St. Paul,
which is followed by St. Paul's Third Epistle to the Corinthians. The
remainder of the New Testament is the same as ours.
The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Book of Jesus the
Son of Sirach, are well known; but I am not aware that the Book of
Asenath has been printed in any European language. This curious book
was translated into Italian, from an ancient Armenian manuscript of
the Bible in my possession, by an Armenian friend, and translated
from the Italian into English by myself: this I presume to be the
only copy of the Book of Asenath in the English language. It is a
work of considerable length, and is interesting, not only from the
place it holds in the estimation of a numerous body of Christians,
but also from the picture it presents of the manners and customs of
Egypt, at some remote period when it was written. Several passages in
it indicate that it must have been composed when what may be called
the classic style of life was still in use. Whether it was included
among the number of the sacred books collected by Mesrob I do not
know: in that case it would date as far back as the fourth century
after Christ, a period prolific in apocryphal books, several of which
were forged about that time to support the authority of the various
heresiarchs who promulgated their opinions in many countries of the
East, and who, being unable to produce texts from the accepted books of
the Sacred Scriptures which would prove the truth of their doctrines,
invented others more suitable to their own purposes, and written more
in accordance with their views.
The Epistle from the Corinthians to St. Paul, and the answer from the
great apostle, is of a higher class, and bears much resemblance to his
other Epistles. It has been published among Lord Byron's works. He
took a few lessons in Armenian from Father Pasquale Aucher, a monk
of the monastery of St. Lazarus, at Venice, a man of extraordinary
learning, who speaks most of the European languages, as well as
Turkish, Armenian, and other Oriental tongues. He translated these
Epistles into English, with the assistance of Lord Byron.
The Roman Catholic branch of the Armenian Church has done much more
for literature and civilization than the original body. Few Catholics
are found in Armenia itself, excepting at Erzeroom and other cities,
where a remnant remain, while at Constantinople a great number
of the higher and wealthier Armenians give their adherence to that
creed. Their minds are more enlarged, they are less Oriental in their
ideas, being usually considered as half Franks by their more Eastern
brethren. Their churches bear a great resemblance to those of other
Catholics, but they retain their own language in their ritual, with
many of the forms and ceremonies of the Oriental Church. The Armenian
Patriarch, with his long beard, and crown instead of a mitre, is one of
the picturesque figures to whom attention is drawn in the ceremonies of
the Holy Week at Rome, where there is a college for the education of
priests of their nation. They have another college at Constantinople,
and several handsome churches; but the most important establishment
of this branch of their religion is that of the convent or monastery
on the island of St. Lazarus, near Venice.
This society, as they themselves call it, was founded by Mechitar,
an Armenian, who was born at Sebaste, in lesser Armenia, in 1676. He
received holy orders from the Bishop Ananias, superior of the convent
of the Holy Cross, near Sebaste. He afterward studied in the convent of
Passen, near Erzeroom, and at another on the island on Lake Van. His
wish was to remain in the great monastery of Etchmiazin, to which
place he traveled, but, finding no opportunities of study at the seat
of the Patriarch, he proceeded to Constantinople, where he afterward
founded a small society, of a monastic kind, at Pera, in the year 1700.
In the year 1708 he established a church and monastic society at Modon
in the Morea, then under the government of Venice; but the Turks having
taken that place, his companions were made prisoners and sold for
slaves. He, with some others, escaped to Venice, where he received a
grant, in the year 1717, from the Signory, of a small deserted island
in the Lagunes, originally the property of the Benedictine order,
who established a hospital for lepers there in 1180. In this island
he set up a printing-press about the year 1730, for the production
of Armenian religious books; and he had the satisfaction of seeing
his convent increase in comfort, wealth, and respectability before
his death, which took place on the 27th of April, 1749.
So high was the character of this establishment for usefulness and
good conduct, that in 1810, when other monastic establishments were
suppressed at Venice, the abbot of St. Lazaro received a peculiar
decree, granting him and his community all the privileges of their
former independence. So high also has been the character of this
society since that time, that it has been usual for the Pope to
confer upon each new abbot the title and dignity of Archbishop,
although he has no province or bishops under him. The service they have
rendered to their countrymen is very great: they have at present five
printing-presses, from whence every year proceed numerous volumes
of religious and historical character, as well as school-books,
and a newspaper in the Armenian language. These are mostly sold at
Constantinople, and among the scattered societies of their nation. The
funds produced from this source enable them to establish a considerable
school or college at Venice, and to send literary missionaries, as they
may be called, to collect manuscripts and historical notices among the
barren mountains of Armenia. Of these they make good use, compiling,
from imperfect and mutilated fragments, authentic histories of their
country; printing the almost hitherto lost and unknown works of ancient
Armenian authors, and distributing copies of the Holy Scriptures
among their brethren in the wasted and benighted land of their fathers.
They printed the Armenian Bible in the year 1805; and, entirely by
their energy, the small spark which alone glimmered in the darkness
of Armenian ignorance in the East has gradually increased its light
into a feeble ray, which now, seen faintly through the mist, draws
every now and then the attention of some one endowed by nature
with more intelligence than the rest, and incites him to inquire
into those truths the rumors of whose existence had only reached
him hitherto. Slowly enough, but we trust surely, the good work
prospers: when curiosity and interest are awakened, the mind turns
naturally to the sources from which information may be gained. The
Holy Gospels, the New Testament, and, in some places, the whole
Bible, may now be procured at a comparatively trifling expense; the
leaven, once introduced, sooner or later will leaven the whole mass;
truth and common sense will dissipate the clouds which ignorance and
superstition have gathered over the face of the land, and the light
of true religion will arise to set no more.