Two Armenian Historians: Kirakos of Gandzak and Ukhtanes of Edessa

VI
INTRODUCTION.

dates are marked in his work, as in Mik. Asori Michael the Syrian, only by the succession and the years of the reigns, a very imperfect method which requires incessant verification. Except for certain corrections, he generally shows himself to be accurate and well-informed.

Among the eighteen Armenian authors who have spoken of the institution of their calendar, Kiracos is the one who exposes the subject with the most clarity, and this on two occasions, p. 22 and 105. He indicates, p. 32, the correction prepared by the catholicos Anastase; he fixes its opening, like all the others, to the year 553 of the Incarnation: an indisputable error, in relation to the current way of calculating the common era, as I will prove further down in this Introduction, though it is more apparent than real, more of form than of substance, since the ancients conceived and stated the thing differently than we do. Indeed, certain manuscripts of Eusebius and Dionysius the Little anticipate the birth of J.-C. by two years, Tertullian by one year, following systems of which there still remain traces in the Julian calendar, adding one unit to the golden number. In a word, even while having become common, the initial of the Christian era was not, in the time of Kiracos, and is not yet mathematically demonstrated.

One of the things which, as much as questions of dogmas, especially distanced the Armenians from the Greeks, was the matter of their ecclesiastical rites, to which they were attached, first by respect for the ancient tradition of their homeland, then because it was, along with their idiom, the only remnant of their independence. Now, liberty in small things, of ordinary usage, is that which one renounces with the most difficulty, and this is what makes St. Nersès say, in his Encyclical:

"The division between the Greek and Armenian churches is a matter of words and rites."

The Armenians held excessively to not reforming their liturgy, to celebrating, for example, the Nativity and the Baptism of J.-C. on the same day, January 6, as, moreover, this was practiced without contest in the primitive church (Kir. p. 67); to keeping in their hymns certain formulas which have nothing contrary to the faith; to using unleavened bread in the offering of the Holy sacrifice and to several other observances (p. 30, 67, 78, 84, 169). The Byzantines, on the contrary, were opinionated about not authorizing these divergences. It is therefore not surprising that our historian returned so frequently to this subject.

In general, the chronology of Kiracos is exact; the errors one can reproach him with are few, such as p. 30, 39, 43, an anticipation of 100 years regarding the Seljuks, if his text has not undergone interpolation; there is an evident contradiction between the two passages, p. 37 and 41, where he gives two different dates for the foundation of Bagdad; confusion and uncertainty in that which he assigns, p. 96, to the capture of this city by Houlagou, and again there to its foundation. He also recounts, p. 25, an incredible story about the advent of the Emperor Maurice; another, § L, on a succubus, and § LV on a vartabied learned monk/doctor of the church Hohannès of Garhni; in these last two passages, it is true, on the faith of others. One must not be too demanding with regard to a vartabied writing in the XIIIth century,