Note 120 — Chapter XVI · EDGMIATSIN AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH

There can, I think, be no doubt that the story of the foundation of the Armenian Church by a direct mandate of Christ Himself was invented not earlier than the period at which we have now arrived. The mandate is said to have taken the form of an injunction to St. Gregory to build the church of Vagharshapat. Neither the author of the Life of the Illuminator, as we can trace that source through the Agathangelus treatise, nor the historian who continues his narrative, displays any cognisance with such a momentous event. The former tells us that it was at Astishat in the south of Armenia, the country of the Murad, that Gregory built the first Christian church. The cult of martyrs which he first introduced was not the cult of the Ripsimians but that of St. John the Baptist and Athenogenes. We learn from the latter that after the death of the saint, and at least down to the murder of Nerses, the mother-church of Armenia was situated at Astishat and not at Edgmiatsin. Faustus, indeed, expresses himself not once alone or in a doubtful manner upon this important point. Astishat contains the “first and great mother of Armenian churches,” “the first and greatest of all the churches of Armenia, the principal and most honoured seat of the Christian religion.” It was at Astishat that was situated the palace of the katholikos. The great synod which was convoked by Nerses of all Armenian bishops was held at Astishat. When that prelate wished to chide the chief of the king’s eunuchs for casting covetous glances upon the wide domains which surrounded the church, he quoted the scriptural injunction against such ignoble conduct, and added that such was the will of Jesus Christ, “Whose choice had first fallen upon the church at Astishat for the glorification of His Name.”120 On the other hand, I cannot help detecting in these passages indications that their author was aware of the growing rivalry of the church at Edgmiatsin. Faustus wrote after the severance from Cæsarea and after the partition of Armenia (A.D. 387). He displays acquaintance with the Ripsimian legend. But there is no trace in his pages of a knowledge of the vision of St. Gregory upon which Edgmiatsin has founded her claim.