and similar anachronisms[1] which run through the whole book and are often closely incorporated with the narrative itself, and on the other hand by the identity of the author of the History with that of Geography, a point on which all doubt is excluded by a number of individual affinities,[2] not to speak of the similarity in geographical terminology. The critical decision as to the authorship of the Geography must settle the question for the History also.
The Geography is a meagre sketch, based mainly on the Chorography of Pappus of Alexandria (in the end of the 4th century), and indirectly on the work of Ptolemy. Only Armenia, the Persian Empire, and the neighbouring regions of the East are independently described from local information, and on these sections the value of the little work depends. Since the first published text[3] contains names like “Russians” and “Crimea,” Saint Martin in his edition[4] denied that it was written by Moses, and assigned its origin to the 10th century. It was shown, however, by L. Indjidjean[5] that these are interpolations, which are not found in better manuscripts. And in fact it is quite evident that a book which gives the division of the Sassanid Empire into four spahbehships in pure old Persian names cannot possibly have been composed at a long interval after the time of the Sassanidae. But of course it is equally clear that such a book cannot be a genuine work of Moses of Khorʽni; for that division of the empire dates from the early part of the reign of King Chosroes I. (531–579).[6] Accordingly K. P. Patkanow,[7] to whom we are indebted for the best text of the Geography, is of opinion that we have in it a writing of the 7th century. If the limits within which the Geography was composed are to be more nearly defined, we may say that, from isolated traces of Arab rule[8] (which in Armenia dates from 651), it must have been written certainly after that year, and perhaps about the year 657.[9]
Another extant work of Moses is a Manual of Rhetoric, in ten books, dedicated to his pupil Theodorus. It is drawn up after Greek models, in the taste of the rhetoric and sophistry of the later imperial period. The examples are taken from Hermogenes, Theon, Aphthonius, and Libanius; although the author is also acquainted with lost writings—e.g. the Peliades of Euripides. On account of the divergence of its style from that of the History of Armenia, Armenian scholars have hesitated to ascribe the Rhetoric to Moses of Khorʽni; but, from what has been said above, this is rather to be regarded as a proof of its authenticity. Smaller works bearing the same honoured name are—the Letter to Sahak Arderuni; the History of the Holy Mother of God and her Image (in the cloister of Hogotsvanch in the district Andzevatsi of the province of Vaspurakan), which is also addressed to Sahak; and the Panegyric on Saint Rhipsime. Of the sacred poems attributed to him, there is only one short prayer, contained in the hymnal of Sharakan, which can really claim him as its author.
Of works passing under the name of Moses of Khorʽni, the following are regarded by the historians of Armenian literature as spurious: a History (distinct from the Panegyric) of the wanderings of Saint Rhipsime and her Companions; a Homily on the Transfiguration of Christ; a Discourse on Wisdom (i.e., the science of grammar); the Commentaries on grammar (an exposition of Dionysius Thrax). In the case of the grammatical writings, it has been suggested that there may have been some confusion between Moses of Khorʽni and a Moses of Siunich, who lived in the 7th century.
Literature.—The date of the History of Moses has been discussed in many monographs. See especially the brochure of A. Carrière, Nouvelles sources de Moïse de Khoren (Vienna, 1893), who sets it in the 8th century. A Russian critic, J. Khalateants, arrives at a similar conclusion in his Armianskie Epos (Moscow, 1896). F. C. Conybeare, in an article on “The date of Moses of Khoren,” in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, vol. x., and in a second in vol. ii, entitled “The Relation of the Paschal Chronicle to Malalas,” challenges Professor Carriere’s arguments, and contends that the History of Moses is a late 5th-century work, much interpolated in the immediately succeeding centuries. (A. v. G.; F. C. C.)
MOSHEIM, JOHANN LORENZ VON (c. 1694–1755), German
Lutheran divine and Church historian, was born at Lübeck on
the 9th of October, 1694 or 1695. After studying at the
gymnasium of his native place, he entered the university of Kiel
(1716), where he took his master’s degree in 1718. In 1719 he
became assessor in the philosophical faculty at Kiel. His first
appearance in the field of literature was in a polemical tract
against John Toland, Vindiciae antiquae christianorum disciplinae
(1720), which was soon followed by a volume of Observationes
sacrae (1721). These works, along with the reputation
he had acquired as a lecturer and preacher, secured for him a
call to Helmstädt as professor ordinarius in 1723. The Institutionum
historiae ecclesiasticae libri IV. appeared in 1726, and
in the same year he was appointed by the duke of Brunswick
abbot of Marienthal, to which dignity and emolument the
abbacy of Michaelstein was added in the following year.
Mosheim was much consulted by the authorities when the
new university of Göttingen was being formed; especially
in the framing of the statutes of the theological faculty,
and the provisions for making the theologians independent of
the ecclesiastical courts. In 1747 he was made chancellor of
the university. He died at Göttingen on the 9th of September.
Among his other works were De rebus christianorum ante
Constantinum commentarii (1753), Ketzer-Geschichte (2nd ed.
1748), and Sittenlehre der heiligen Schrift (1735-53). His exegetical
writings, characterized by learning and good sense, include
Cogitationes in N. T. loc. select. (1726), and expositions of 1 Cor.
(1741) and the two Epistles to Timothy (1755). In his sermons
(Heilige Reden) considerable eloquence is shown, and a mastery
of style which justifies the position he held as president of the
German Society.
There are two English versions of the Institutes, that of Archibald Maclaine, published in 1764, and that of James Murdock (1832), which is the more correct. Murdock’s translation was revised and re-edited by James Seaton Reid in 1848, and by H. L. Hastings in 1892 (Boston). An English translation of the De rebus christianorum was published by Murdock in 1851.
MOSLER, HENRY (1841–), American artist, was born
at New York, on the 6th of June 1841, the family removing to
Cincinnati when he was about ten years old. Studying drawing
by himself, he became a draughtsman for a comic paper, the
Omnibus (Cincinnati), in 1855; in 1859–1861 he studied under
James H. Beard, and in 1862–63, during the Civil War, was an
art correspondent of Harper’s Weekly. In 1863 he went to
Düsseldorf, where for almost three years he was at the Royal
Academy schools; he subsequently went to Paris, where he
studied for a short time under Ernest Hébert. His “Le Retour,”
- ↑ Instances of these may be found in i. 14, where the arrangement of Armenian provinces, I., II., III., IV., introduced in the year 536, is carried back to Aram, an older contemporary of Ninus; and in the passage iii. 18, according to which Shapur II. penetrated to Bithynia, although the Persians did not reach that till 608.
- ↑ See the confusion, common to both books, between Cappadocia I. and Armenia I., in consequence of which Mazaca and Mt Argaeus are transferred to the latter locality (Hist. i. 14; Geogr. Saint Martin’s ed., ii. 354); also the passages which treat of China and Dchenbakur (Hist. ii. 81; Geogr. ii. 376), &c.
- ↑ Edition with translation by Whiston (London, 1736, 4to).
- ↑ In the Memoires historiques et géographiques sur l’Armenie (Paris, 1819, 8vo), ii. 310 seq.
- ↑ Antiquities of Armenia (Arm.), iii. 303 seq.
- ↑ See Nöldeke’s Tabari, p. 155; seq.
- ↑ Armjanskaja geographija vii. wäka por. Ch. (pripisiw awschajasja Moiseju Chorenskomu) (St Petersburg, 1877, 8vo). Before him Kiepert (in the Monatsb. d. Berliner Akad. (1873, p. 599 seq.) had substantially arrived at the right conclusion when he assigned the portions of the Geography referring to Armenia to the time between Justinian and Maurice. (See also Abhandlungen der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, philol. hist. Klasse, Neue Folge, Band iii. Nro. 2, 1901) (in which Dr J. Marquart edits with commentary under the title Erānšahr the sections of the geography relating to Persia).
- ↑ The passage about the trade of Basra, which was founded in 635, is decisive on this point (Saint Martin’s edition, ii. 368).
- ↑ The peculiar interest which the author (Saint Martin, 11. 340) takes in the origin of the Slavs in Thrace is best explained by the war against them which called the emperor Constans II. away from the East in the year 657. In other respects the writer displays the most complete indifference, and even ignorance, with regard to the state of affairs in the West.
