Yeghishe Vardapet

Yeghishe Vardapet ( Armenian Եղիշե / Jeghische [ jɛʀiˈʃɛ ], Eliseus , alternatively written Yeghisheh, Yeghishé, Eghishe, Egishe, Elishe , or Ełišē ; * 410; † 475) was an Armenian historian . He was the author of a work that describes the successful rebellion of the Christian Armenians in the 5th century against the rule of the Sassanid Persians . At the center of its story is the Battle of Avarayr in AD 451.

Life

According to the ancient and medieval sources available to today's historians, Yeghishe was one of the younger students of Sahak Partev and Mesrop , the inventor of the Armenian alphabet . In the year 434 AD he was sent to Alexandria along with some other students to learn Greek, Syriac and the fine arts. He returned to Armenia in 441 and struck a military career as a soldier or secretary of the Sparapet Vardan Mamikonian . He took part in the struggle for religious independence (449-451) against the Persian King Yazdegerd II.

After the defeat of the Persians in the Battle of Avarayr he retired from military service back, was a hermit and lived in the mountains south of Lake Van (Rshtunik '). In the years 464-465 he was asked by a priest named David Mamikonian to write about his experiences before and during the Battle of Avarayr. After his death, his bones were transferred to the Surb Astvatsatsin monastery, located on the shores of Lake Van. All the ancient historians speak of Yeghishe as a wardapet .

Beginning with Babgen Kulaserian in 1909 and father Nerses Akinian, a member of the Congregation of Mechitarists , the dating of Yeghish's work was revised in the 1930s and settled a century or two later. One of the mechitarists' arguments was based on the assumption that the Armenian translation of the works of Philo of Alexandria used by Yeghishe was not published before about AD 600. However, the translation was made during the early "Hellenization" phase of the Golden Age of Armenian literature. Neither the dating of the Hellenization phase nor the presence of Hellenizing vocabulary is necessarily related to the dating of Yeghishe. In addition, there are no literal parallels between the two authors, as Yeghishe Philos translated works directly from the original Greek.

Another argument in support of a later dating was, due to the many parallels, the assumption that Yeghish's story of the Vardan was simply an adaptation of the work History of Armenia by Ghazar Parpetsi , an Armenian historian of the 5th century. But while Ghazar dispassionately and analytically recounts the history of Armenia from the late 4th century to his time, the Battle of Avarayr is only one episode among many. Yeghish's aim, on the other hand, was to immortalize the "heavenly courage" of the Armenians with his work and "to give consolation to friends, hope to hope and courage to the brave." In sharp contrast to Ghazar, Yeghishe can give the respective names of the fortresses and demonstrates military knowledge of the tactics the Armenians and Persians used during the battle, which suggests closer proximity to the action. His knowledge of the traditions of Zoroastrianism and the Vanitic teachings is much more detailed than that of Ghazar. Yeghish's failure to mention the Council of Chalcedon , whose theological explanations led to the serious break between the Greek Orthodox and the Armenian Apostolic Church after the Council of Dvin in 506, also contributed to the later dating of Yeghish's work being rejected by many scholars .

Works

«Մահ ոչ իմացեալ ՝ մահ է, մահ իմացեալ ՝ անմահութիւն է:» "Death, unforeseen, is death; Death, foreseen, is immortality."

—Yeghishe, History of the Vardan and the Armenian War .

Yeghishes best known work is the "History of Vardan and the Armenian War [written] at the request of David Mamikonian", which he called a Hishatakaran (Յիշատակարան, a "collection"). In it he shows the struggle of the Armenians in association with the Iberians and the Albanians against the Persians (449–451) for their common faith. Both sides saw religion as a feature of national identity; the Armenians fought to keep Christianity, while the Persians advocated the reintroduction of Zoroastrianism. Yeghishe wrote the work "For the forgiveness of his sins, to which everyone listens and knows that he should speak curses on him and not harmonize according to his deeds." The work is considered a masterpiece of classical Armenian literature and is almost completely free of Greek words and expressions.

There are a number of other works by Eliseus. There is an "admonition to the monks"; “On the Transfiguration” and a “Sermon on the Passion of the Lord”. The work “Questions and Answers on Genesis” is probably not authentic.

Editions

The original texts of the works of Yeghishe exist, as do all other works of this period; not all currently existing Armenian manuscripts date to the 10th century or later. The oldest surviving copy of its history of the Vardan dates back to 1174.

An excellent edition of his works was published in Venice in 1826 by the mechitarists of San Lazzaro . One of the manuscripts on which the publication is based is believed to be a faithful copy of a text from AD 616. The text of this edition was gradually improved in later editions (1828, 1838, 1859 and 1864). Other good editions are those of Feodosia in Crimea ( Ukraine ) from 1861, and that of Jerusalem from 1865. Yeghishe is also the author of a commentary on Joshua and the Book of Judges, a declaration from the Our Father, a letter to the Armenian monks, etc. All can be found in the Venetian edition of The History of Vartan . A seminal study and critical re-edition of the text was published by the philologist Yervand Ter-Minassian in 1957.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Gevorg Khrlopyan: «Եղիշե» (Yeghishe). Soviet-Armenian Encyclopedia . vol. iii. Yerevan, Armenian SSR: Armenian Academy of Sciences , 1977, pp. 506–507.
2. ^ Agop Jack Hacikyan, Gabriel Basmajian, Edward S. Franchuk: The Heritage of Armenian Literature: From the Oral Tradition to the Golden Age . Wayne State University, Detroit 2002, ISBN 0-8143-2815-6 , pp. 239-240 .
3. ↑ Some historians equate him with Yeghishe, Bishop of Amatuni , who participated in the Synod of Artaxata in 449 .
4. ↑ Vache Nalbandyan: "Introduction" in Yeghishes Վարդանի և Հայոց Պատերազմի Մասին ( Vardan and the Armenian War ). Yerevan: Hayastan Publishing, 1994, p. 3.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Vrej Nersessian : "Review of History of Vardan and the Armenian War (translation and commentary by RW Thomson; Cambridge, 1982)." Haigazian Armenological Review . Vol. 10, 1984, pp. 309-315.
6. ↑ For a detailed overview of these works see Ter-Minassian, Yervand. Պատմա-Բանասիրական Հետազոտություններ ( Historical-Philological Researches ). Yerevan, Armenian SSR: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1971, pp. 110-208.
7. ↑ Sen Arevshatyan : "Պլատոնի Երկերի Թարգմանույան Ժամանակը (The dating of the translation of Plato's work)." Banber Matenadarni . X, 1971, pp. 7-20.
8. ^ Robert Charles Zaehner Zurvan, a Zoroastrian Dilemma . New York: Biblio and Tannen, 1972, p. 43.
9. ↑ See Zahner, RC The Rise and Fall of Zoroastrianism . London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1961, pp. 188ff.
10. ↑ The Council of Chalcedon was held a few months after the Battle of Avarayr without a single representative of the Armenian Church.
11. ^ Sever J. Voicu: Patristic texts in Armenian (5th to 8th centuries) . In: Angelo di Berardino (ed.): Patrology: The Eastern Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon (451) on John of Damascus (+ 750) . Cambridge: James Clarke and Others (2006). Pp. 600-601.
12. ↑ Nalbandyan. Introduction , p. 6.
13. ↑ Yeghishe. Վասն Վարդանայ և Հայոց Պատերազմին ( About Vardan and the Armenian War ). A study by Yervand Ter-Minassian. Yerevan: Armenian SSR: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1957.

Web links

Wikiquote: Yeghishe (Armenian Wikiquote)  - Quotes