Manea Erna Shirinian: Schema isagogicum apud Patres Ecclesiae

The aim of this paper is to show that the so called schema isagogicum was widely used not only in late antiquity and among late Platonist commentators, but was actively applied for the study of the Bible and biblical exegesis, especially by the Fathers of the Church. Experts use to speak only about Origen and Proclus exercising these isagogical structures while there exist sources, which can prove that the prolegomena - introductory studies or questions, which use to have a propaedeutic character, are present in the commentaries on the books of the Bible by such an authorities as Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the Theologian, Basil of Caesarea, Evagrius Ponticus, Ephrem the Syrian et al.The main witness to this statement is found in Armenian translations of such prolegomena called mainly "causes" (patčaŕk‘). Moreover, in Armenian manuscript tradition there exist even a collections of these "causes". One of them is the writing under the provisional title the Book of Causes, fuller title reads: "The Causes of wide and subtle writings taken from [the works] of the holy fathers and vardapets (doctors of theology) gathered together and provided by the great rabunapet Grigor, the son of Abas".This unpublished yet isagogical manual, i.e a handbook on Biblical Introduction, composed in the early13th century in Armenia,by the abbot of Sanahin Monastery Grigor the son of Abas. This book is an amazing witness of the Armenian reception of the Greek philosophical and patristic theological heritage.

Julia Hintlian: Metz Mayr Miriam: The Embellished Armenian Lineage of Marutha of Maipherkat

Little scholarship has focused on the Armenian Life of Marutha of Maipherkats ince Ralph Marcus published his 1932 English translation. Marutha, a fifth-century bishop, participated prominently in the East Syriac Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in 410. His Lifes urvives in Greek, Arabic, Armenian, and in Syriac fragments, all of which derive from a lost Syriac original. The Armenian version was copied by the tenth-century Armenian monk Gagik at a monastery in Arzanene, and commences with a lengthy discourse on Marutha’s grandmother, Miriam, which is absent from other versions. While Greek sources fail to acknowledge Miriam, and Arabic sources mention her only in passing, Gagik’s Lifeemphasizes Miriam’s noble Armenian blood, and credits her with converting Marutha’s entire family to Christianity and for his episcopal success. Given the discrepancies among the Greek, Arabic, and Armenian sources, this paper proposes that Gagik embellished the Syriac description of Miriam to emphasize a historical connection between the East Syriac and Armenian Churches. Whereas the tenth-century Armenian Church in Arzanene faced Byzantine and Arab invasions, the East Syriac Church, centered just south in Mesopotamia, experienced relative stability under the Abbasid Caliphate. Thus, this project suggests Gagik stressed an Armenian grandmother in the life of an East Syriac bishop to foster amity with the Church of the East at a time when the Armenians in Arzanene sought regional Christian allies. Ultimately, this project examines tenth-century Armenian appropriation of a fifth-century East Syriac bishop to probe the understudied relationship between the ancient Armenian and East Syriac Churches.

Andy Hilkens: Armenian hagio-historiographical traditions about Jacob of Serugh

In the early fifteenth century Gregory of Khlat (d. 1425) published his version of the Armenian synaxarion, which would quickly surpass earlier versions in popularity. Not only did Gregory include translations of Jacob of Serugh's homilies on Stephen the protomartyr, New Sunday and the apostle Thomas, and on the Nativity, for the first time Jacob of Serugh himself was included in an Armenian synaxarion. Surprisingly, Gregory's source for this vita was neither an Armenian nor a Syriac Vita. Instead, Gregory found this information in one of the Armenian adaptations of the Chronicle of Michael the Elder (d. 1199), which were produced by the Armenian polymath Vardan Arewelc'i (d. 1271) and the Syriac Orthodox priest Yeshu' in 1246 and in 1248.This paper investigates the representation of Jacob of Serugh to an Armenian audience by analyzing how Vardan and Yeshu' adapted Michael's narrative, integrating episodes from Syriac hagiographical traditions about Jacob and adding others, and how in turn this material was used by Gregory in order to create an Armenian Vita of Jacob for his synaxarion.

Onnik Kiremitlian: Newly-discovered gems from Syriac literature: Armenian translations of Syriac works by Marutha of Tagrit.

During the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia (1080-1375), a long period (11th-13th cc., and notably from ca. 1103 to 1271) saw a renaissance of intellectual and cultural activities among Armenians, including a special interest and translation of the works of Syriac authors into Armenian, for which we can delineate four phases. Through the collaborative efforts of Syriac and Armenian intellectuals and ecclesiastics numerous works from Syriac literature were translated into Armenian. Among the works of authors translated in this period was Marutha of Tagrit (7th century), to whom a series of homilies are ascribed in the Armenian manuscript tradition. Among these homilies the one on the New Sunday has a complete Syriac original, while the others, except for few fragments in Garshuni Arabic, are not attested in Syriac manuscripts, and the conjecture is that they are preserved only in Armenian, such as the homily on the Resurrection of Christ.The comparison of the Armenian homily on New Sunday with that of the Syriac original reveals idiosyncrasies of the Armenian translated text, where we witness special translation techniques adopted by the Armenian and Syriac translators.Armenian manuscript evidence would point to the high probability that these translations were achieved in the fourth and last great phase of the translation activities thanks to the collaborative efforts of the Armenian erudite scholar, ecclesiastic and court envoy Vardan Areweltsi and an unknown Syriac scholar who was active in the period’s intellectual life in Cilician Armenia.

Ester Petrosyan: The Revelation of Gregory the Illuminator (Gregory of Edessa) in the Armenian, Syriac and Arabic traditions

  The proposed research topic intends to scrutinize one of the little explored examples of apocalyptic literature in the Christian tradition, The Revelation of Saint Gregory the Illuminator/of Edessa in Armenian, Syriac and Arabic.  The story was quite popular in the Middle Ages. According to Georg Graf, it was originally written in Syriac, and later was translated into Arabic and Amharic. The original Syriac version, unfortunately, is lost. The recent survey of the Indian Syriac manuscript collections has revealed the existence of a modern Syriac version made in India in 1689, based on an otherwise unknown Arabic original. Simultaneously, a great number of Arabic and Arabic Garshuni texts of the revelation are preserved.  In the Armenian manuscripts (the oldest dates back to 1208 AD) the Revelation is explicitly attributed to Saint Gregory the Illuminator or Grigor Lusavorits’, the patron saint and first official head of the Armenian Apostolic Church.  My aim is to discuss and reveal similarities and differences of the Revelation in all three languages, attempting to discover the source of the Revelation, approximate time of its creation and endeavoring to understand who originally the Saint Gregory of the Revelation was and why in later stages the vision was attributed to various saints, such as Gregory the Illuminator and Gregory of Nazianzus (in the Arabic versions). The questions of when and where the translations were made and what changes have taken place in the text in different traditions will be raised.

Anna Ohanjanyan: The Armenian Translations of the Commentaries on Gregory Nazianzen’s Orations Attributed to Eliya the Syrian

Among the Armenian commentaries on Gregory Nazianzen’s Orations on Theophany (Or. 38), Baptism (Or. 40) and Pascal Orations (Or 1 and 45)there is the ones attributed to the twelfth-century hitherto unknown Western Syriac writer Eliya the Syrian (Ełia Asori). It seems that the translation of Eliya’s commentaries became seminal and had deep impact on the composition of the authentic commentaries penned by Eliya’s contemporary Armenian authors, such as Vardan Hałbatec’i (d. 1193/95), Davit’ K’obayrec’i (d. 1210/20), Vardan Arevelc’i (d. 1271), etc. It survived in two manuscript copies in Matenadaran and Mekhitarist collection in Venice. The close examination of the manuscripts and the reconstruction of historical context reveals Vardan Hałbatec’i and Nersēs Šnorhali (d. 1173) being the initiator and commissioner of the translations and Vardan Arevelc’i — the later possible polisher of the translated texts.The current paper seeks to introduce the Armenian translations of Eliya the Syrian’s Commentaries to the broader scholarly audience with the aim to test the authorship of the Syriac original (if survived). Further, it aims to identify the historical climate, doctrinal necessity and shift in ecclesiastical policy between 1169 and 1171 that propelled the profound Armenian theologians to embark on translating and appropriating handpicked Syriac commentaries on Nazianzen’s Orations ushering in the new tradition of commentary-writing on Gregory’s pieces in the Armenian Church.

Donna Rizk: The Different Armenian Versions of Aristides’ Apology

The Apology of Aristides of Athens was written by an Athenian philosopher, Aristides,
although the dating of it is problematic (either in the times of Hadrian or rather of Antoninus Pius). The Apology was originally written in Greek (of which just a few fragments are extant), and has been translated into Syriac, Armenian and Latin. I will discuss the different manuscripts found of the Armenian version of The Apology along with the variant versions of this text found and embedded in a medieval folklore entitled The Life of Baralam and Joasaphat. I will attempt to demonstrate the importance of the different Armenian versions that are extant and discuss how these manuscripts have impacted early (and later) Christian Armenia. I will also briefly discuss how the Armenian version of the Apology can be dated as early as the fifth century. As it is the only known apologetical text throughout early Christian Armenian literature, the Apology interestingly has parallel themes and style to a fifth century Armenian Christian philosopher and translater, Eznik, the author of De Deo, the only other Armenian literature that is considered to be apologetic by some scholars.

Michael Papazian: A Fragmentary Armenian Commentary on the Book of Job

A late medieval Armenian catena on the book of Job contains fragments from an otherwise lost commentary on Job attributed to the eighth century Armenian theologian Step‘anos of Siwnik‘. My paper discusses the theology and exegetical method used in the fragments, and argues for the plausibility of the attribution to Stepanos and also that the principal source used by the Armenian commentator was the Greek commentary of Olympiodorus of Alexandria. If the author is indeed Stepanos, my conclusion about his sources adds support to the thesis that Stepanos’ exegetical orientation was primarily Alexandrian.