The Life of Mashtots

...to write the biography of saintly personalities? To solve
this theological problem, he exhibits his skill in the God-given
Scriptures and his eloquence. He proves that it is possible. These
sections I. 2—10 can be considered as an independent discourse, written
with rhetorical art and a floral style. From I. 11, it is felt that he
added this part to the work after writing the biography.

Mashtots, from the village of Hatsekats in Taron, was the son of Vardan. Instructed in Hellenistic education, he enters military service under Aravan, the Persian hazarapet of Armenia. In the year 392/3, he resigns from the military, is baptized, and dedicates himself to the clerical calling. He lives a life of strict abstinence. (St. Sahak ordains him as a chorepiskopos = vardapet teacher). Having gathered soul-filled colleagues around him, he departs with them to the province of Goghtn for apostolic preaching (404). Upon his preaching field, he feels the difficulties of making Christian doctrine accessible to the illiterate people. He conceives the idea of creating a proprietary literature for the Armenian language.

He returns to the New City (Vagharshapat) to consult about this with Bishop-in-Chief Sahak; the issue is also brought before King Vramshapuh. The King mentions an Armenian alphabet that is found with the Syrian Bishop Daniel. The letters are brought. But the trial shows that they are incapable of expressing the Armenian sounds accurately. It is entrusted to Mashtots to go down to Mesopotamia and, by consulting with the wise, to form a suitable alphabet (406/7). Mashtots departs, having taken with him a number of youths, whom he places in Amida and Edessa to study the Greek and Syriac languages, while he himself pursues his goal. He succeeds in forming 36 letters for Armenian sounds on the basis of the Greek alphabet, which he places before the calligrapher Rufinus (Hrophanos) of Samosata, to give them an aesthetic form and appearance. At this place, the first attempt is made to translate the books of Solomon from the Greek source text into Armenian with these letters. Mashtots returns to Armenia (407/8). On the banks of the Rah (Yeraskh) river, King Vramshapuh and Katoghikos Sahak welcome him. Here, Koriwn compares Mashtots's entry into the New City with Moses descending from Mount Sinai with the tablets of the Ten Commandments, in a wonderful image.

By the King's order, schools are opened, youths are gathered, and Mashtots himself teaches them literacy for two years (408/9—410/11). He and his colleagues translate the Old and New Testaments. Koriwn describes in enthusiastic lines the excitement that the literary movement had created.

Mashtots, in consultation with Sahak, decides that Sahak should be the leader of the literary movement in the Middle Land, while he himself will spread the literature to Goghtn, Syunik, the land of Aghuank, and Georgia (410—415). Everywhere he finds an enthusiastic reception. The King of Aghuank, Arsvaghen, and the Bishop, Yeremia, take upon themselves the Armenian literature, because...