GREGORY
24
GREGORY
the Greek text of Moses of Khorni; see below). Greg-
ory, after being himself persecuted by King Trdat,
who at first defended the old Armenian religion, event-
ually converted him, and with him spread the Chris-
tian faith throughout the country. Trdat became so
much a Christian that he made Christianity the na-
tional faith; the nobility seem to have followed his
example easily, then the people followed — or were
induced to follow — too. This happened while Diocle-
tian was emperor (2S4-305), so that Armenia has
a right to her claim of being the first Christian State.
The temples were made into churches and the people
baptized in thousands. 80 completely were [he re-
mains of the old heathendom etfaced that we know
practically nothing about the original Armenian reli-
gion (as distinct from Mazdeism), except the names of
some gods whose temples were tlestroyed or converted
(the chief temple at Ashtishat was dedicated to
Vahagn, Anahit and Astlik; Vanatur was worshipped
in the North round Mount Ararat, etc.). Meanwhile
Gregory had gone back to Ca-sarea to be ordained.
Leontius of Ca'sarea matle him Bishop of the Arme-
nians; from this time till the Monophysite schism the
Church of Armenia depended on Ca?sarea, and the
Armenian primates (called Catholicoi, only much later
patriarchs) went there to be ordained. Gregory set
up other bishops throughout the land and fi.xed his
residence at Ashtishat (in the province of Taron),
where the temple had been made into the church
of Chri-st, "mother of all Armenian churches". He
preached in the national language and used it for the
liturgy. This, too, helped to give the Armenian
Church the markedly national character that it still
has, more, perhaps, than any other in Christendom.
Towards the end of his life he retired and was succeed-
ed as Catholicos by his son Aristakes. Aristakes was
present at the First General Council, in 325. Greg-
ory died and was buried at Thortan. A monastery
was buUt near his grave. His relics were afterwards
taken to Constantinople, but apparently brought back
again to Armenia. Part of these relics are said to
have been taken to Naples during the Iconoclast
troubles.
This is what can be said with some certainty about the Apostle of Armenia; but a famous life of him by Agathangelos (.see below) embellishes the narrative with wonderful stories that need not be taken very seriously. According to this life, he was the son of the Parthian Anak who had murdered King Khosrov I. Anak in trying to escape was drowned in the Araxes with all lii.s family except two sons, of whom one went to Persia, the other (the subject of this article) was taken by his Christian nurse to Caesarea and there baptized Gregory, in accordance with what she had been told in vision. Soon after his marriage, Gregory parted from his wife (who became a mm), and came back to Armenia. Here he refused to take part in a great sacrifice to the national gods ordered by King Trdat, and declared himself a Christian. He was then tortured in various horrible ways, all the more when the king discovered that he was the son of his father's murderer. After being subjected to a variety of tor- tures (they scourged him, and put his head in a bag of ashes, poured molten lead over him, etc.) he was thrown into a pit full of dead bodies, poisonous filth, and serpents. He spent fifteen years in this pit, being fed by bread that a pious widow brought him daily. Meanwhile Trdat goes from bad to worse. A holy virgin named Rhipsime, who resists the king's ad- vances and is martyred, here plays a great part in the story. Eventually, as a puntshment forhis wickedness, the king is turned into a boar and possessed by a devil. A vision now reveals to the monarch's sisters that nothing can save him but the prayers of Gregory. At first no one will attend to this revelation, since they all think Gregorj' dead long ago. Eventually they seek and find him in the pit. He comes out, exorcizes the
evil spirit and restores the king, and then begins his
preaching. Here a long discourse is put into the
saint's mouth — so long that it takes up more than half
the life. It is simply a compendium of what the Ar-
menian Church believed at the time that it was written
(fifth century). It begins with an account of Bible
history and goes on to dogmatic theology. Arianism,
Nestorianism and all the other heresies up to Mono-
physite times are refuted. The discourse bears the
stamp of the latter half of the fifth century so plainly
that, even without the fact that earlier writers who
quote .\gathangelos (Moses of Ivliorni, etc.) do not
know it, no one could tloubt that it is the composition
of an Armenian theologian of that time, inserted into
the life that was already full enough of wonders.
Nevertheless this " Confession of Gregory the Illumina-
tor" was accepted as authentic and used as a kind of
official creed by the Armenian Church during all the
centuries that followed. Even now it is only the
more liberal theologians among them who dispute its
genuineness.
The life goes on to tell us of Gregorj^'s fast of seventy days that followed his rescue from the pit, of the king's conversion, and of their journeys throughout the land with the army to put down paganism. The false gods fight against the army like men or devils, l)Ut are al- ways defeated by Trdat 's arms and Gregory's prayers, and are eventually driven into the Caucasus. The story of the saint's ordination and of the establishment of the hierarchy is told with the same adornments. He baptized four million persons in seven days. He ordained and sent out twelve apostolic bishops, all sons of heathen priests. Eventually he ruled a church of four himdred bishops and priests too num- erous to count. He and Trdat hear of Constantine's conversion ; they set out with an army of 70,000 men to congratulate him. Constantine, who had just been baptized at Rome by Pope Silvester, forms an alliance with Trdat ; the pope warmly welcomes Greg- ory (there are a number of forged letters between Sil- vester and Gregory, see below) — and so on. It would not be difficult to find the models for all these stories. Gregory in the pit acts like Daniel in the lion's den, Trdat as a boar is Nabuchodonosor ; the battles of the king's army against the heathen and their gods have obvious precedents in the Old Testament. Gregory is now Elias, now Isaias, now John the Baptist, till his sending out his twelve apostles suggests a still greater model. The writer of the life calls himself Agathan- gelos, chamberlain or .secretary of King Trdat. It was composed from various sources after the year 456 (see Gutschmid, below) in Armenian, though the sources may have been partly Greek or Syriac (cf . La- garde). The life was soon translated into Greek, used by Symeon Mctaphrastes, and further rendered into Latin in the tenth century. During the Middle .Ages this life was the invariable source for the saint's his- tory. The Armenians (Monophysites and Uniates) keep the feast of their apostle on .30 September, when his relics were deposed at Thortan. They have many other feasts to commemorate his birth (.August 5), sufferings (February 4), going into the pit (February 28), coming out of the pit (October 19), etc. (Nilles " KalendarmmManuale", 2nded., Innsbruck 1897, II, 577). The Byzantine Church keeps his feast {Vpr]y6pio! 6 <tiuaT-fip) on .30 September, as do also the Syrians (Xilles, I, 290-292). Pope Gregory XVI, in Septem- ber, 1837, admitted his namesake to the Roman Cal- endar; and appointed 1 October as his feast (among the /esta pro aliquibus locis).
Agathangelos's Life of St. Gregory was published in .Arme- nian bv the Mechitarists at Venice, in 183.5 (reprinted at Tiflis. in 18S2); translated into French and It.ilian (Venice, 1843). The Greek text was edited by Stilting in the Acta SS.._Sept., VIII, 320 sqq.; and again by Lagarde, Agathanoelos in Ab- handl. der Gotlinaer Gesellschaft (1889). See also Gutschmid, Aoatkanfjelos in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgrnland. Geseli- schaft (1S77). I. Moses of Khor.ni (Moyses Chorenensis) in his History of Armenia (III books, VII or VIII cent., ed. by
