Book of Prayers

or of Nerses Lambronatsi? For their selection of words, their caution in speech, and their native style are appropriate for a cosmopolitan in all their books. In Sargis’s work, one does not see the use of strange words. And as for Lambronatsi, even if he happens to mention such words in his liturgy commentary or his letters, it is only by necessity. For in their time, it was not yet customary in doctrinal books to use Persian or foreign language indiscriminately. But we see this habit in the later Cilicians, as in the writings of Vardan, in the commentary on Mark, and others. Therefore, my opinion inclines toward the idea that the leader of these explanations is one of those Cilicians from the fourteenth century, as besides the mentioned signs, we also observe in those explanations that in some theological phrases he uses labels of explanation that were received from translated Latin books at that time. And perhaps that explainer, by being a namesake of Sargis or a fellow citizen of Lambronatsi, received the reputation and it spread that it was by them. Just as for the same reasons, we see in many others a confusion of persons and their writings. Especially since there is another reason for some to think it is the work of Nerses Lambronatsi: because the explainer in phrase B. 10, in explaining the statement "The disease flourished by the guiltless," or "Are they the sounds of the ancestors?" uses the actual words of the holy Lambronatsi, which are in the commentary on Hosea 7:9, 11. Or, because he explains the two prayers of the Holy Spirit, which are in phrase 37, as Lambronatsi did in his liturgical books, the reputation spread that he had completely clarified Narek.

In finishing these words, it is also important to give notice that there is another copy of the explanations, summarized by selection from the complete copy that we mentioned. And from this summarizing, another copy of the explanations was made, which is the very one that was placed at the end of the printed Narek, like a lamp to a dimly burning wick, introducing a dawn into those darkened places. And thus, of the three existing copies of the explanations, their source is that about which we have already given information, which we also mention in our explanations, marked with the sign lat or lts.

Circumstances of the New Explanations

But now, if, according to what was said before, the explanatory writings of others on the Narekian book were sufficient to provide an unerring understanding of the phrases, we would have had no labor to be comprehensive, but only to fill in what was lacking. For we are not of a mind to be contemptuous or prone to reproach the labors of others...