History of Vardan and the Armenian War

In the Armenian calendar year six hundred and twelve, plus one, and according to the new cycle, one jubilee and three tens and forty-two. And according to the birth of the Life-giver and our freedom from death into immortality, the years are 1284 This equates to 1174 AD.. Now, in this year this book of Eghishe, the historian and choice doctor, was written, who was knowledgeable and skilled in all the wars of the Vardanants and the sufferings that passed through the Armenian lands. He who also spoke other canonical books, cautious for the holy church, and excelling in the life of righteousness, became pleasing to God and men. And after this, he undertook the life of monasticism and the severity of asceticism, shining with fasts and prayers. And as one who has hastened from a stormy sea to a harbor, he went into the wilderness, having abandoned earthly things, following the Heavenly one, and fulfilling every virtue in himself, loving the desolation, and passing his apostolic life in rugged living. This holy Eghishe lived in the body as if disembodied, having warded off the battles of the demons, and having passed away in a certain cave in the wilderness with a good confession in Christ Jesus, our Lord, Amen.

Now I, David, became the one who desired these writings and drafted this for the sake of the memory of my soul, tainted by sins, and of my parents, and of my own brother, born of the same, named Mkhitar, who also served me in the writing. And I wrote this in the monastery of Kosh, under the shelter of the holy Stepannos, among beloved brotherhoods. Now I ask to be remembered in Christ, and may Christ have mercy on those who remember, Amen.

In this manuscript, as in the majority of manuscripts in general, the fifth chapter is missing its title. Below we place the

ORDER OF CHAPTERS