it is greater and more splendid even than the martyrs' glory. So Gregory built a church where he had seen the vision, on the model of the mystic temple he had seen, and the name Valarshapat was changed to Etshmiadzin, meaning "the Only-begotten has descended."[1] The whole of this story in particular can be proved to be apocryphal. It is a late invention, after the schism with Cæsarea (p. 409), to glorify the office of Katholikos, to represent the national Church as founded by an independent commission of our Lord, and to exalt the later centre Etshmiadzin.[2] We shall see that in the first period the centre of Armenian Christendom was not there but at Ashtishat (p. 403).
After this Gregory went back to Cæsarea with a splendid retinue, and Leontius, the Metropolitan of Cæsarea, ordained him bishop for Armenia (302 ?). He was married and had two sons, Vrthanes (Bardanes) and Aristakes or Rhestakes.[3] When he came back as bishop the Armenian writers of his life tell us more wonders. He travels about the country with the king and his army, putting down heathenry. The false gods fight against this army in person, but are defeated by Trdat's valour and Gregory's prayers. He is said to have baptized four million persons in seven days; to have ordained twelve bishops, all sons of heathen priests, whom he sent to preach the gospel throughout Armenia; to have at last ruled a Church of four hundred bishops and priests too numerous to count. He died, perhaps between 315 and 326,[4] and was buried at Thortan on the Euphrates, where later a monastery and church were built. The Armenian lives of the saint abound in these and greater marvels. When he came out of the pit he fasted, eating no food for seventy days. When he comes before the king a long speech is put into his mouth, which takes up half his life in Agathangelos.[5] It is simply a compendium of what the
- ↑ Agathangelos, 102 (Langlois, i. 156-160).
- ↑ See Gelzer: op. cit. 126-131; Gutschmid: Kl. Schr. iii. 382, 395. The vision of St. Gregory is not part of the original Life in Agathangelos.
- ↑ There is no difficulty about a married bishop in the 3rd and 4th centuries. The father of St. Gregory of Nazianzos (330-390) was a bishop and married. Nearly all the early Armenian bishops were married (p. 402).
- ↑ Tournebize: op. cit. 59.
- ↑ Omitted in Langlois (i. 153).
