History of Armenia

After determining this relationship between the two manuscripts, let us turn to the example of the first Venetian printing, on the basis of which, as we saw, the subsequent two printings were performed.

We give the floor again to G. Ter-Mkrtchyan, who was the first and only one to deal with this issue and reach a sound conclusion. "All the minor differences of E precisely repeat in the first Venetian publication, with the correction of several obvious errors or missing words, which absolutely proves that the Venetian copy (or copies) descends directly from E 2." Here we consider it redundant to bring long examples of those minor differences; it remains for the reader to trust our assurance until a new critical publication of P'arpetsi is published, comparing B, E, and W (=the paper Vienna manuscript). E, and together with it the Venetian publications, have only one large section that is not in B, but that section is also an interpolation in E, from which it passed to the Venice Z... E literally and accurately transcribes (from the Amsterdam printing of Khorenatsi)

1) "In all likelihood, this anonymous scribe is the clerk Ghukikianos of Oshakan, whose calligraphy is found in other manuscripts in the Matenadaran of the Mother See."
2) The article is printed as 'from B', which is undoubtedly a typographical error.

"Epikmanos [Epiphanius], Epiphanius, Romanus, [of] Romanus, of the Sidoreans," while on his part, he unconsciously introduces a few very natural spelling variations: "beforehand," "the name," "writing" (instead of: by writing, written with a 'p' in both cases), just as in the sections transcribed from B he carelessly writes: "would reach" (=would cause to reach), "of the regulation" (=of the regulation), etc. The first Venetian publication transcribes from E with literal accuracy, restoring 'phi' to 'er' and correcting, according to P'arpetsi: "of the Sidoreans = of the Sidoreans."

This conclusion is fully justified by this current publication, in the notes of which the correspondence between Z. (=B) and At. (=Venetian first printing) stands out. At. does not give any extra word or sentence or correct reading (except for the correction of typographical errors and orthographic forms, which could naturally have been done by the hand of the copier from the second manuscript (=E) or by the publishers). But compared to Z., it has missing sections, and it has corruptions that are not in Z., but are in B, through which they passed to the example of the first printing. If we had brought the readings of B.Dz. in this current publication, the correspondence between B.Dz. and At. would have been noticed incomparably more often.

Thus, the Venetian first printing, and therefore the second and third printings, originate from the second Etchmiadzin Manuscript (=E), which is a "careless" transcription of the first Manuscript (=B).

There is currently one known manuscript copy of Ghazar P'arpetsi's Letter—this is the Z. (=B) we used. In the second manuscript (E) transcribed from this, a blank space was left to copy the Letter, but it was not copied. There is another copy of this Letter in the library of the Mechitarists of Vienna (No. 257, I, according to G. Ter-Mkrtchyan: W=V.), which, as Fr. Tashyan reports (Catalogue of Manuscripts), is a modern transcription from the 19th century, although the scribe is unknown.

The first printing of the Letter, as we said...