History of the Armenians

by Agathangelos, Robert W. Thomson (Translator)

Armenian, English

628 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1974

About the author

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agathan...

Agathangelos (in Classical Armenian: Ագաթանգեղոս Agatʿangełos, in Greek Ἀγαθάγγελος "bearer of good news" or angel, c. 4th or 5th centuries AD), appropriately so named, was a supposed secretary of Tiridates III, King of Armenia, under whose name there has come down a life of the first apostle of Armenia, Gregory the Illuminator, who died about 332.

Reviews

[Ջոն (John Goolvart) · Rating 2 out of 5]

The rating is for Robert W. Thomson's defective and, by this point, justly criticised treatment of this fifth-century Armenian text. An edition that betrays plenty of prejudice towards its subject matter right from the introduction, something it owes to its unreasonable expectation of an early medieval, intrinsically part-theological and -moralistic work to pass as a strictly historical volume. (Indeed, for Thomson it is not 'of great value as a historical document … overlaid with elaborate inventions based on biblical and hagiographical motifs'. This is, however, by no means a trait exclusive to Agathangelos, who follows the principles of Christian authorship of his time and later in establishing potent links to Biblical narratives – especially, for crying out loud, in chronicling the history of a nation's conversion.) It therefore follows that the work ought to conform to all the standards of modern historiography, which it naturally doesn't, and its value (and the trustworthiness or authority of Agathangelos, and other early Armenian historians alike) is hence diminished altogether, even as a cultural account of his time. If not stated outright, this is the implicit thread which guides Thomson's treatment of the work. Curiously, this is so despite the claim that it aims to 'explore the tendentious purpose of the work' – acknowledged several times with various epithets, but never really elucidated with regard to the purposes and results.

The translation of the source, by itself, is adequate, with links to relevant Scripture passages, but the misguided commentary (including in footnotes) makes it hard to judge this edition by that merit alone. Do also note that the 'Teaching of Saint Gregory' chapter is omitted from this volume due to its prior 1970 publication, which was still by necessity revised and republished in 2001 (as since that date 'much ha[d] been learned about the History' and in order to take into account 'recent advances in Armenian studies' – apt for questioning Garsoïan's claim that 'there is probably nothing further to be done in this area' in her review of this edition…).