The Life of Mashtots

The assumptions that Alishan makes here regarding a "longer" text, as well as the "undeniable" existence of "other historical writings," seem to me to have no firm basis. The ancient sources do not allow for such assumptions. The quotations in Stepannos Roshka have no connection with either Koriwn or the literature of the 5th century in general. Both Koriwn and Agathangelos and Pavstos Faustus of Byzantium remained inaccessible to that same author. The "Complete History of St. Mesrop" alluded to by Kirakos Gandzaketsi is the work of Koriwn known to us without doubt, which he also calls "perfect History" in the History of St. Sahak (Sop'erk B. 37).

The theory of N. Adontz46 is quite strange: he distinguishes between an original text and an edited text. The first was written in a "simple and unadorned style." The second was turned into a higher style by a second hand after the mid-5th century, with various additions and omissions. But "the thoughts expressed," the critic adds, "are still theoretical constructions based on certain observations, to smooth out certain difficulties. They are not definitive verdicts." Adontz developed this theory further47; he succeeds in verifying the time of the editor himself as 460—468.

A slight understanding of the characteristic nature of classical Armenian would have been enough to restrain the galloping course of his mind. One language and one style rule in Koriwn’s work, in every respect that elegant Armenian which is peculiar to the literature of the first half of the 5th century.

11. Koriwn and Agathangelos and Pavstos: The sound-alike passages that existed in Koriwn, Agathangelos, and Pavstos had already been noticed long ago. The only problem requiring a solution was who depends on whom. H. M. Chamchian (A. 669) judged in favor of Agathangelos: "Koriwn... takes from there (from Agathangelos) passages in many places according to the arrangement. And having adapted them to his own history, he places them in the life of St. Mesrop because of the similarity of some deeds that happened at that time... It is not possible to think that these words were introduced into other books by Koriwn, taken from Agathangelos, or into the books of Agathangelos, taken from Koriwn... through which it is undoubtedly confirmed that Koriwn had read the books of Agathangelos and had approved of them as a factual record... And it is even possible to say that Koriwn himself may have translated the books of Agathangelos from Armenian into Greek, or from Greek into Armenian" (cf. also p. 12). Somalian48 leans toward this theory when he writes about Koriwn: "The author follows in the footsteps of the best national historians who preceded him, not only in the circumstances of the facts he narrates,

46 Hand. Ams. 1927, pp. 400—402. cf. Fntglean's observations on this, ibid., pp. 527—541.
47 Hand. Ams. 1928, pp. 88—94.
48 Somal, Quadro della storia letteraria di Aemenia, Venezzia 1829, p. 23.