upon to join themselves to the;,communion A Rome*. The
United or Romanised Armenians and those, of the national
church regard each other with as much animosity as did
Lutherans and Papists before the religious . peace» and
this feud and the controversies, which it has occasioned
has been by its results favourable to the preservation of
Armenian literature and of the writings left by early
teachers of their church.* The literature of Armenia and
the period of their authentic history, as preserved in domestic
contemporary annals, begin with the celebrated Miesrob or
Mesrop, who invented an alphabet for his countrymen.
It was during the time of Isaak the Great, tenth patriarch
or Catholicus, who presided over the Armenian church
from the year 390 to 440, that this important acquisition
was made, and it was under the auspices of the? same pre?
late that the Armenians obtained a translation ,of the
Sacred Scriptures into their language from the -Greek.
version of the Seventy. Before the time pf| Mesrop the
Armenian language had been written, according to M.
Neumann, one of the most learned investigators of Armenian
literature, in Greek, Syrian, or Persian letters, but it appears
that even such a mode of- writing was rarely practised^
since the Syrian language, though unintelligible to the
people, was used until that era in all the services ipf the
church. The father and great preserver of historical
literature in Armenia was Moses, commonly termed Moses
Chorenensis, from the village of Choren or Chorene, where
he was born, a disciple and „contemporary of Mesrop and
Isaak. This writer, who lived one hundred and twenty
years, devoted his life to literature and historical researches,
and he embodied in his work on the antiquity of the Armenian
people all that „could be collected from ancient
tradition and from the works of older Armenian authors
who had written on the history of their country, either in
Greek or Syrian, or by means of a foreign alphabet, in their
native Haikanian language. The series of excerpts which
* Versuch einer Geschichte der Armenisehen Literatur nach den Werken
der Mechitaristen frei bearbeitet,von Karl Friedrich Neumann.--Liepzig, 1836.
the earlier part of his work contains are the only undoubted
document! ektant of the history of Armenia before hi$ time;
The history of most nations begins with poetical sagas
or mythical and traditional songs, and the earliest literature
of Armenia was aiiperibs of national poems. The contents
of thès$#empósitiöïts havèdseen preserved5 in part by Moses
of Ohötene;* The Armenian poems celebrate the same
persons whose exploits ;f@rm the subject of' the Bhanameh
or heroic compositions» of the ancient Persians. Not only
the namesnf warriors b.ht.thfeir achievements likewise are
the same ;4n the early Armenian songs mndlin the traditionary
poems of Firdhsi, a fact which affords, as Professor
Neumann has observed, a strong'peesumptive proof of the
affinity Of the Haïkian to the* Pèrsian and Mediän races.
The earliest writer of whom Moses Chorenensis found any
remains, and the first, according to him, who attempted to
collect materials for the history of Armenia, was a Syrian,
Mar Abas c#uCatina,t who lived about one hundred and
fifty years beforfe Christ, under the feudal king Waeharschag,
brother'and tributary to tbe Parthian king Arschag the
SecohdC or the Great; His works are lost ^except thefrag-
* Neumann, ubi supra.
Ihe namS of Mar Abas i’s.rattier su^icious as applied to ah Armeniau^oue
bkn&r^ ln d fifty years befitte Christ. In thV edition 'of Moses of Choffene,
by tbe Whistons^the name was -disguised.f »Pit was printed MaribaS. SL Neu-
mann says, .that Mar Abas or, Mar Ibas is according to tbe reading of the, best,
MSS.—Neumann’s Einleitung, S. 3. •, ,
t This Waeharschag or Vaharsaces is sail by- tbe Armenian historians (Moses
Chorenensis being the principal authority whom,Mi^ael;$hainuGh has copied
in his Armenian history), to have been, appointed feudal king of Armenia by
his brother kschag or Arsaces the Great, who had hispptgt at Nineveh. Hat
who was Arsaces the'Greatl * He was, ddubtleSs/ bne of the Parthian Arsacidse.
The question has been considered and elucidated by Mr/Gonderfiu a learned and
able Essay on the ancient history of Armenia, prefixed to Smith and Dwight’s
Missionary Researches. Mr. Gonder has shown fh a t the Arsaces, termed the
Great by the Armenian writers, must have been Hie fifth o f -the dynasty, and
that he was probably the same Parthian prfiiCe Who is said by Diodorus to
have subdued the Medes, the Elymseans, the Persians and the Bactrians. He
is named by* Diodorus Mithridates. This appears, as Mr. Conder ohser^s, to
be an honorific surname, while Arsaces is a titular appellation. It seems not
improbable that this was the real era of the origin of the Armeniamkingdom,