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wrote his History of Armenia in Greek (before the Armenian alphabet was introduced; the Greek original is quoted by Procopius, Pers. i. 5), probably in first years of King Vram Sapuh, who reigned from 395 to 416 (Gelzer, p. 116). The work is marked by enthusiasm for the clergy, and a certain prejudice against the policy of those who were loyal to the kings, also by chronological errors. Faustus is completely a national Armenian; therein lies his strength and his weakness" (ib. 117). He consulted official documents in the royal archives (ib.) and made use of old songs. It is announced that H. Gelzer and L. Babajan willi issue a translation of Faustus, and Gelzer's name is a guarantee that it will be trustworthy. (b) Agathangelos, who lived about half a century later, contains a work which is our only good source for the reign of Trdat. His work (preserved both in Armenian and in a Greek translation, which mutually check each other) has been dissected by A. von Gutschmid (Kleine Schriften, 3, 395, sqq.). It contains an earlier Life of St. Gregory (perhaps originally composed in Syriac, Gelzer, p. 114) and an Apocalypse of Gregory written between 452 and 456 by a priest of Valaršapat. The latter is valuable as throwing indirect light on the church history of the fifth century, but worthless for the history of Trdat. (c) The conclusion of Carrière (mentioned in vol. i. App. 13) that the date of Moses of Chorene is very late (beginning of eighth century) is accepted by Chalatianz and Gelzer, and seems to be established. (d) The worthlessness of the History of Taron by Zenob of Glak has been shown by the investigation of Chalatianz (op. cit.). Hitherto supposed to have been written in Syriac in the fourth century and translated into Armenian in the seventh, it is now shown to be an apocryphal work of an impostor of the eighth or ninth century. There is a French translation by Langlois, F. H. G. vol. v.

2. Chronology. The student who consults the translation of Langlois (Agathangelos and Faustus; op. cit.) must be warned that the chronological indications in the notes are set down at random and contradict one another. And, if he has read the note in Smith's edition of the Decline and Fall, vol. ii. p. 369, which is taken from St. Martin's edition of Lebeau, and compares it with the chronological list of kings in the same scholar's Mémoires, he will find that the two accounts diverge. (In the Mémoires, p. 412-3, the dates are: death of Trdat, 314; interregnum; accession of Chosroes II., 316; Tiran II., 325; Arsaces, 341; Pap, 370. According to the old view, which appears, though not consistently, in Langlois' collection, and seems to be assumed in Ter Mikelian's op. cit., Trdat reigned from 286 to 342.) The following reconstruction seems most probable :Death of Chosrov I., accession of Trdat, Accession of Chosrov II.,

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261 A.D. 317 " 909326

337 4367

374

to Catholici; the

There are not sufficient data for determining the dates of the statements of Moses will not bear criticism, see Gelzer, p. 121 sqq. The only certainties we have are that Aristakēs, son and successor of Gregory, attended the Council of Nicæa, 325; and that Nerses was poisoned by King Pap before 374. 3. Trdat and Constantine (Gelzer, 165 sqq.). Officially the Armenian kings adopted the style "Arsaces" (just as the Severian Emperors adopted Antoninus), and he appears in Cod. Theod. xi. i. 1 (Constantine and Licinius A.D. 315) as Arsacis regis Armenia. In the previous year, he and Gregory visited Constantine in Illyricum ("the land of the Dalmatians" in the Armenian Agathangelos) in “the royal city of the Romans," probably Serdica. There the alliance mentioned by Faustus (iii. 21; Langlois, p. 232) was concluded, which endured till 363. The authenticity of the account of Agathangelos (doubted by Gutschmid) has been successfully vindicated by Gelzer.

On Trdat's death the Romans intervened to put Chosrov on the throne, and Tiran likewise owed his elevation to Constantine. In 337 he was betrayed to the Persians by his chamberlain, seized by the governor of Atropatene, and blinded. The armed intervention of Constantine and Constantius led to the elevation of

Aršak, the son of Tiran, who declined to resume the sovereignty. Aršak first married Olympias, a Greek lady connected with the Constantinian house; and afterwards a daughter of the Persian king. His policy was to hold the balance between Rome and Persia throughout the wars of Constantius and Julian.

4. In Eusebius, H. E. vi. 46, 2, we find this notice: kai roîs Karà 'Apμevíav ὡσαύτως περὶ μετανοίας ἐπιστέλλει ὧν ἐπεσκόπευε Μερουζάνης, Gelzer (p. 171 sqq.) points out that this bishopric of Meruzanes cannot have been in the Roman provinces called Armenia, and therefore was in Great Armenia; and he seeks to show that it may have been in the south-eastern corner, the district of Vaspurakan. The words in Eusebius are from a letter of Dionysios of Alexandria (248265), and the inference seems to be that Christianity was introduced into an outlying district of Armenia in the fifties of the third century. But the formal conversion of Armenia began about 280 under the auspices of King Trdat, through the labours of Gregory the Illuminator. The destruction of the temples of the gods, in spite of strong opposition from the priests, was one of the first parts of the change, and preceded Gregory's journey to Cæsarea (between 285 and 290 according to Gelzer) to be consecrated by Leontius. The Armenian Church was dependent on the see of Cæsarea, and under Greek influence for nearly a century. After the death of the Patriarch Nersēs, it was severed and made autocephalous by King Pap (circa A.D. 373-4. Cp. Ter Mikelian, p. 31). During the fourth century the seat of the Catholicus and the spiritual centre of Armenia, was Aštišat in the southern district of Taron, as has been well brought out by Gelzer. It was afterwards removed to Valaršapat, when no longer dependent on Cæsarea, and then the priests of Valaršapat invented stories to prove the antiquity of their seat and the original independence of the Armenian Church. In the fourth century, the chief feature of the domestic history of Armenia is the struggle between the monarch and the Catholicus, between the spirit of nationality and the subjection to foreign influences. It culminated in the reign of Pap, who solved the question by poison.

În regard to the conversion of Armenia, its progress was partly determined by the feudal condition of the country (Gelzer, 132). The nobles were easily won over by the personal influence of the king; the priests were naturally the most obstinate opponents. The new faith seems to have been slow in taking root among the people, and it is noteworthy that women, even in high rank, clung tenaciously to the old religion (like the wife of Chosrov, Faustus, iii. 3, and the mother of Pap, ib. 44).

I have read with interest the remarkable study of N. Marr, O nachalnoi istorii Armenii Anonima, in Viz. Vremennik, i. 263 sqq. (1894). He discusses the character of the brief History of Armenia, which is prefixed to Sebeos' History of the Emperor Heraclius (Russ. tr. by Patkanian, 1862); and its relation to Moses of Chorene. This document (which appears in the collection of Langlois under the title Pseudo-Agathange) he regards as the earliest extant Armenian history of early Armenia; it was worked up by a later (also anonymous) writer, of whose composition a large extract has been preserved in Moses of Chorene, bk. i. c. 8 (in Langlois, under the title, Mar Apas Catina). Moses also used the original work. Marr points out a number of resemblances between Faustus and the first Anonymous, and hazards the conjecture (295 sqq.) that this history of Armenia may be part of the first two books of Faustus, whose work, as we have it, begins with book iii.

19. CONSTANTINE AND CHRISTIANITY-(C. XX.)

The attitude of Constantine to the Christian religion has been the theme of many discussions, and historians are still far from having reached a general

1 My friend Mr. F. C. Conybeare is inclined to believe that Gregory the Illuminator used an Armenian version of New Testament Scriptures made from a pre-Peshito Syriac text, long before the time of Mesrop. This version may have been due to the Church in Vaspurakan. Apparently the non-existence of Mesrop's alphabet did not prevent literary composition in Armenian.

agreement. Burckhardt, in his attractive monograph, developed the view that Constantine was "ganz wesentlich unreligiós," constitutionally indifferent to religion, because he was a genialer Mensch," dominated by ambition; and that in his later years he exhibited personal inclinations rather towards paganism than towards Christianity. H. Richter has some remarkable pages on Constantine's system of parity between the two religions; and Brieger, in an excellent article in his Zeitschrift f. Kirchengesch. (iv., 1881, p. 163 sqq.), agrees with Gibbon that Constantine's Christianity was due entirely to political considerations. Many of the data admit of different interpretations. Those who ascribe to him a policy of parity, or the idea of a state religion which might combine elements common to enlightened paganism and Christianity (so Schiller), appeal to the fact that the sacerdotales and flamines in Africa were granted privileges; but it is replied that they had ceased to carry on the ritual and simply, as a matter of equity, had the old rights secured to them, while they no longer performed the old duties. If the "cult" of Tyche at Constantinople is alleged, it is urged that she had no templeservice. The temples of Constantinople are explained away; and the "aedes Flaviae nostrae gentis" of the remarkable inscription of Hispellum (date between 326 and 337; Orelli, 5580) is asserted not to have been intended for the worship of the Emperors, but simply as a fine hall for public spectacles. (See V. Schultze, in Brieger's Zeitschrift, vii. 352 sqq.) The indulgence to paganism was simply the toleration of a statesman who could not discreetly go too fast in the accomplishment of such a great reformation. And certainly on the hypothesis that Constantine had before his eyes, as the thing to be achieved, the ultimate establishment of Christianity as the exclusive state religion, his attitude to paganism would be, in general, the attitude we should expect from a really great statesman. Ranke's remark hits the point (Weltgesch. iii. 1, 532): "Er konnte unmöglich zugeben dass an die Stelle der Unordnungen der Verfolgung die vielleicht noch grösseren einer gewaltsamen Reaction traten ".

It seems to me that Seeck, in holding that Constantine had really broken with the old religion and was frankly a Christian, is nearer the mark than Gibbon or Schiller. From the evidence which we have, I believe that Constantine adopted the Christian religion and intended that Christianity should be the State religion. As to a great many details, there may be uncertainty in regard to the facts themselves or their interpretation, but I would invite attention to the following general considerations.

(1) The theory that the motives of Constantine's Christian policy were purely political, and that he was religiously indifferent, seems perilously like an anachronism, ascribing to him modern ideas. There is no reason to suppose that he was above the superstitiousness of his age. (2) The theory that he was a Deist, that he desired to put Paganism and Christianity on an equality, emphasizing some common features, and that circumstances led him to incline the balance towards Christianity in his later years, is not the view naturally suggested by the (a) Christian education he gave his children, and (b) the hostility of the pagan Emperor Julian to his memory. (3) The fact that he countenanced Paganism and did not completely abolish the customs of the old State religion proves nothing; the remark of Ranke quoted above is a sufficient answer. In fact, those who have dealt with the question have sometimes failed to distinguish between two different things. It is one thing to say that Constantine's motives for establishing Christianity were purely secular. It is quite another to say that he was guided by secular considerations in the methods which he adopted to establish Christianity. The second thesis is true-Constantine would have been a bad statesman if he had not been so guided;—but its truth is quite consistent with the falsity of the first.

Schiller (iii. 301 sqq.) has conveniently summarized the chief facts, and his results may be arranged as follows:

(1) COINS. In Constantine's western mints coins appeared with Mars, with

1 Compare the words: ne aedis nostro nomini dedicata cuiusquam contagiosae superstitionis fraudibus polluatur, insisted on by Seeck, Untergang der antiken Welt, p. 439.

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genius pop. Rom., and with Sol, but certainly not in the two first cases, perhaps not in the last case, after 315 A.D. Further, Constantinian coins with Juppiter were not struck in the west, but in the mints of Licinius. Thus we may say that between 315 and 323 pagan emblems were disappearing from Constantine's coinage, and indifferent legends took their place, such as Beata tranquillitas.

We also find coins with, as a sign of the mint; and at the end of Constantine's reign a series of copper coins was issued in which two soldiers were repre

sented on the reverse holding the labarum, that is a flag with the monogram P.

We see then two stages in Constantine's policy. At first he removes from his coins symbols which might offend his Christian soldiers and subjects whom he wished to propitiate (this is Schiller's interpretation); and finally he allows to appear on his money symbols which did not indeed commit him to Christianity, but was susceptible of a Christian meaning.

(2) LAWS. After the great Edict of Milan, 312-3 A.D. (which, according to Seeck, was never issued), the following measures were taken by Constantine to put Christianity on a level with the old religion. (1) 313 A.D., the Catholic clergy were freed from all state burdens. (2) 313 (or 315), the Church was freed from annona and tributum. (3) 316 (321), Manumissions in the Church were made valid. (4) 319, (1) was extended to the whole empire. (5) 320, exception to the laws against celibacy made in favour of the clergy, allowing them to inherit. (6) 321, wills in favour of the Catholic Church permitted. (7) 323, forcing of Christians to take part in pagan celebrations forbidden. On the other hand, a law of 321 (Cod. Theod. xvi. 10, 1) forbids private consultation of haruspices, but allows it in public. [Cp. further Seuffert, Constantins Gesetze und das Christenthum, 1891.]

(3) EUSEBIUS describes in his Ecclesiastical History (bk. x. 1 sqq.) a number of acts of Constantine after his victory over Maxentius, which attest not only toleration but decided favour towards the Christians. He entertains Christian priests, heaps presents on the Church, takes an interest in ecclesiastical questions. There is no reason to doubt these statements; but Schiller urges us to remember (1) that Eusebius does not mention what favour Constantine bestowed on the pagans, and (2) that, when the final struggle with Licinius came and that Emperor resorted to persecution, policy clearly dictated to Constantine the expediency of specially favouring Christianity. In general, according to Schiller, from 313 to 323 Constantine not only maintained impartial toleration, but bestowed positive benefits on both the old and the new religion. The account of Eusebius is a misrepresentation through omission of the other side.

One or two points may be added. Eusebius states that after the victory over Maxentius Constantine erected a statue of himself with a cross in his right hand at Rome. This statement occurs in Hist. E. ix. c. 10, 11; Paneg. ix. 18; Vit. C. i. 40. Is this to be accepted as a fact? A statement in H. E. is more trustworthy than any statement in the Vit. C.; and Brieger thought that in this case the passage in H. E. is an interpolation from that in the Vit. C. (Ztsch. f. Kirchengesch, 1880, p. 45). But Schultze (ib. vii. 1885, 343 sqq.) has shown that Eusebius mentioned the statue in question, in his speech at Tyre in 314 A.D., from H. E. x. 4, 16. This adds considerable weight to the evidence.

In regard to the monogram, Rapp in his paper. Das Labarum und der Sonnenkultus (Jahrb. des Vereins von Altertumsfreunden im Rheinlande, 1866, p. 116 sqq.), showed that it appears on Greco-Bactrian coins of 2nd and 1st centuries B.C. It appears still earlier on Tarentine coins of the first half of the 3rd century. It is not clear that Constantine used it as an ambiguous symbol; nor yet is there a well-attested instance of its use as a Christian symbol before A.D. 323 (cp. Brieger in his Ztschr. iv. 1881, p. 201).

Several examples of the Labarum as described by Eusebius are preserved; I may refer especially to one on a Roman sarcophagus in the Lateran Museum. For "Christian emblems on the coins of Constantine the Great, his family and his successors see Madden in the Numismatic Chronicle, 1877-8.

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For the Tyche, to whom Constantine dedicated his new city, the most recent and instructive study is the brief paper of Strzygovski, in Analecta Græciensia (Graz, 1893).

As to the connexion of Constantine with the Donatist controversy, attention may be drawn to the article of O. Seeck in Brieger's Zeitsch. f. Kirchengeschichte, x. 505-568 (Quellen und Urkunden über die Anfange des Donatismus). He fixes the date of the Council of Arles to A.D. 316 (cp. Euseb., V. C. i. 44-45). The general result of his discussion is to discredit the authority of Optatus, whom he regards as a liar, drawing from a lying source. The only value of the work of Optatus is to be found, he concludes, in the parts which rest on the protocols of the Synods of Cirta and Rome, and the lost parts of the Acta of the process of Felix (viz., I., 13, 14, 23, 24, 27, and perhaps the story of the choice of Cæcilian, 16-18).

For Constantine in mediæval legend see the Incerti Auctoris de C. Magno eiusque matre Helena, edited by Heydenreich (1879); Extracts from a popular Chronicle (Greek) given by A. Kirpitschnikow, Byz. Ztsch. i. p. 308 sqq. (1892); Heydenreich, C. der Grosse in den Sagen des Mittelalters, Deutsche Ztsch. f. Geschichts-wissenschaft, 9, 1 sqq. (1893). and Griechische Berichte über die Jugend C. des G., in Gr. Stud. H. Lipsius zum Geburtstag dargebracht, p. 88 sqq. (1894). For his father Constantius in medieval legend see Li contes dou roi Constant l'Emperor, ed. in the Bibl. Elzevir, by MM. Moland and d'Hericault, 1856. An English translation by Mr. Wm. Morris has appeared 1896.

20. ECCLESIASTICAL GEOGRAPHY-(P. 315)

The ecclesiastical divisions of the empire, referred to incidentally by Gibbon, are not closely enough connected with the subject to require an editorial note. But, as they sometimes throw light on the political boundaries, and as they have been recently much investigated, some bibliographical indications of literature on the eastern bishoprics may be useful.

Parthey: Notitiæ Græcæ Episcopatuum (along with Hierocles).

H. Gelzer: Die Zeitbestimmung der griech. Not. Episc., Jahrb. f. protest. Theologie, xii. 556 sqq.; Zeitsch. f. wiss. Theologie, xxxv. 419 sqq.; Byz. Ztsch., i. 245 (on eastern Patriarchates); ii. 22. Also edition of Basil's Notitia (early in ninth century) in "Georgius Cyprius" (edition Teubner, 1890).

W. Ramsay: Articles in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1884, 1887; Historical Geography of Asia Minor, 1890, passim.

De Boor: Ztsch. f. Kirchengeschichte, xii. 303 sqq., 519 sqq. (1890); xiv. 573 sqq. (1893).

Duchesne: Byz. Ztsch., i. 531 sqq. (eccl. geogr. of Illyricum).

21. LEGEND OF THE FINDING OF THE TRUE CROSS—(P. 456)

The legend of the discovery of the Cross by Judas for St. Helena has come down in Syriac, Greek and Latin versions. See E. Nestle, Byz. Zeitschrift, iv. p. 319-345, who makes it probable that the original Helena legend was in Syriac, and prints the oldest Greek version extant from a Sinai Ms. of the eighth century copied by Mr. Rendel Harris. (The Greek from later Mss. (1) in J. Gretser's huge treatise, De Cruce Christi (1000), ii. 530 sqq., and Holder, Inventio verae crucis, 1889; (2) in Gretser, op. cit., ii. 543 sqq.; (3) Wotke, Wiener Studien, 1891, p. 300 sqq.; the Latin (1) in the Sanctuarium (a rather rare book; c. 1479) of Mombritius, and in Acta Sanct., May 4, I., 445 sqq.; (2) in Holder, op. cit.; (3) in Mombritius, op. cit.; the Syriac (1) from seventh century Ms., in Nestle's De sancta Cruce, 1889; (2) ib.; (3) in Bedjan's Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum, 1890, p. 326 sqq.)

22. ST. GEORGE-(P. 472)

The article on St. George by Zöckler in Herzog and Plitt's Encyclopædia has

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