Utility of the Annotations

However, there is no small amount of reproach for us to admit in the order of these praises, regarding our own sluggishness in accepting the gifts worthily, and for bringing a kind of ingratitude toward the same, partly out of ignorance. For even though from earlier times until our own, this book has been available to all, and the author well-renowned, yet no care was shown by the ancients, and by only a few of the later ones, to bring the obscurity contained within it to a worthy and clear understanding. Because of this, those who pray, remaining without a taste for the meaning of the words, pray with the spirit, but with few thoughts. They testify that this book is a treasury of precious stones, yet they are blind to the shining light of its surface.

While among other nations we see many commentators, both old and new, standing for a single cryptic book, each one racing with the other in a spirit of scholarly rivalry to clarify it, and the later ones hastening to fill, expand, and bring to light what was omitted, neglected, or hidden by the former, so that the book as a whole provides full light, the author's efforts are celebrated, the commentators are praised as equally industrious, and readers walk as if on a path without stumbling—there was need for a much greater effort in the clarification of this Narekian book. In it, we see a veil of obscurity spread across every chapter, stealing the view of its meanings from many, even from the sharp-sighted, to say nothing of the dim-sighted.

But now, even if the ancients did not bequeath to us an early commentary, perhaps hindered by lack of leisure or other reasons, some of the later ones did strive to show various things, and they are found worthy of praise for their willingness, as if volunteering to fulfill the debt owed to the ancestors, for the repayment of a debt is close to the praiseworthy. And indeed, they would have been worthy of even greater praise if, alongside their willingness, the results of the work had been achieved through precise examination and genuine clarification. Yet, finding them incomplete in these respects, they left to those who came after the reason for a new study, to undertake a renewed examination and to provide sufficient explanation, even if not the most perfect one—which is among the things desired in human effort, but not among those easily attained.

But here, before we embark on the book itself,

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