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Moses of Chorene
Movses Khorenatsi's statue in front of the Matenadaran in Yerevan.
Born	circa 410 AD Taron, Armenia
Died	490s AD Armenia
Occupation	Historian
Known for	History of Armenia
Notes
Some scholars have dated him to the seventh to eighth centuries. It has also been suggested that Movses was born in Syunik. See Malkhasyants. "Introduction" in History of Armenia, pp. 13-14.

Movses Khorenatsi (Template:Lang-hy, Armenian pronunciation: [movsɛs χoɹɛnɑtsʰi], Moses of Khoren; also seen written Movsēs Xorenac‘i, Movses Khorenats'i, Moses of Chorene; scholars have argued for either 5th century (circa 410 – 490s AD), or a 7th to 9th century date) was an Armenian historian, and author of the History of Armenia.

He is credited with the earliest known historiographical work on the history of Armenia, but was also a poet, or hymn writer, and a grammarian. Although other Armenians, such as Agatangeghos, had written histories of Armenia, Movses' work holds particular significance because it contains unique material on the old oral traditions in Armenia during its pagan era and, more importantly, traces Armenian history from Movses' day to its origins. For this, he is considered to be the "father of Armenian history" (patmahayr), and is sometimes referred to as the "Armenian Herodotus."

Movses identified himself as a young disciple of Saint Mesrop, although many scholars have noted internal discrepancies in his work which lead them to assign later dates (see below). He composed his work at the behest of Prince Sahak Bagratuni. The book has had an enormous impact on Armenian historiography and was used and quoted extensively by later medieval Armenian authors.

Biography

Early life and education

Movses' biographical details are given at the very end of the History of Armenia but additional information provided by later medieval Armenian historians have allowed modern scholars to piece together additional information on him. Movses was believed to have been born in the village of Khorni (also spelled as Khoron and Khoronk) in the Armenian province of Taron sometime in 410. However, some scholars contend that if he was born here, he would have then been known as Movses of Khorneh or Khoron. They instead move the location of his birth from Taron to the Armenian province of Syunik, in the village of Khorena in the region of Harband.

He received his education in Syunik and was later sent to be taught under the auspices of Mesrop Mashtots, the creator of the Armenian alphabet, and Catholicos Sahak Partev. In having considerable difficulty translating the Bible from Greek to Armenian, Mesrop and Sahak felt the need to send Movses and several of their other students to Alexandria, Egypt, at that time the center of education and learning, so that they themselves learn the Greek and Syriac languages, as well as to learn grammar, oratory, theology and philosophy.

Return to Armenia

The students left Armenia sometime between 432 to 435. After studying in Alexandria for five to six years, Movses and his fellow classmates returned to Armenia, only to find that Mesrop and Sahak had died. Movses expressed his grief in a lamentation at the end of History of Armenia:

While they awaited our return to celebrate their student’s accomplishments , we hastened from Byzantium, expecting that we would be dancing and singing at a wedding...and instead, I found myself grieving at the foot of our teachers' graves...I did not even arrive in time to see their eyes close nor hear them speak their final words.

To further complicate their problems, the atmosphere in Persian Armenia that Movses and the other students had returned to was one that was extremely hostile and they were viewed at with contempt by the native population. While later Armenian historians blamed this on an ignorant populace, Persian ideology and policy also lay at fault, since its rulers "could not tolerate highly educated young scholars fresh from Greek centers of learning." Given this atmosphere and persecution by the Persians, Movses went into hiding in a village near Vagharshapat and lived in relative seclusion for several decades.

The Catholicos of Armenia Gyut (461-471) one day met Movses while traveling through the area and, unaware of his true identity, invited him to supper with several of his students. Movses was initially silent, but after Gyut's students encouraged him to speak, Movses made a marvelous speech at the dinner table. One of the Catholicos' students was able to identify Movses as a person Gyut had been searching for; it was soon understood that Gyut was one of Movses' former classmates and friends. Gyut embraced Movses and, being either a Chalcedonian Christian or at least tolerant of them (since Movses was also Chalcedonian), brought his friend back from seclusion and appointed him to be a bishop in Bagrevan.

History of Armenia

Serving as a bishop, Movses was approached by Prince Sahak Bagratuni (d. 482), who, having heard of Movses' reputation, asked him to write a history of the Armenians, especially the biographies of Armenian kings and the origins of the Armenian nakharar families. Movses agreed to do so and he finished his book sometime in 482. However, Artashes Matevosyan, a scholar at the Armenian Academy of Sciences, basing his conclusions on new details revealed in his research on the Chronicle by the sixth century Armenian historian Atanas Taronetsi, placed Movses' completion of History to the year 474.

One of his primary reasons for taking up Sahak Bagratuni's request is given in the first part of Patmutyun Hayots, or History of Armenia: "For even though we are small and very limited in numbers and have been conquered many times by foreign kingdoms, yet too, many acts of bravery have been performed in our land, worthy of being written and remembered, but of which no one has bothered to write down." Movses' history also gives a rich description of the oral traditions that were popular among the Armenians of the time, such as the romance story of Artashes and Satenik and the birth of the god Vahagn. Movses lived for several more years, and he died sometime in the late 490s.

Literary influence

The first reference to Movses by an Armenian historian was in Ghazar Parpetsi’s History of Armenia, where the author details the persecution of several notable Armenian individuals, including the “blessed Movses the philosopher,” identified by some scholars as Movses Khorenatsi. The information by Movses and traces of his writing style was later identified in the works by Movses Kaghankatvatsi, Tovma Artsruni, John V the Historian (some scholars assert that Movses' History was only first mentioned in John's History of Armenia, written in the tenth century) and later medieval Armenian authors.

Authorship study

Hypercritical phase

The original manuscript of Movses' History of Armenia does not exist and so the oldest extant manuscript of his work comes from the 14th century, which was based on a revised version dating to the seventh or eighth centuries. Beginning in the 19th century, as a part of a general trend in those years to critically reexamine the validity of classical sources, Movses' History was cast into doubt after the discovery of historical inconsistencies and anachronisms. Scholars asserted that Movses used sources that were not available at that time, and referred to persons and places (such as the division of Armenia by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I in 536 and the Persian advance into Bithynia in the early 600s) attested only in the sixth or seventh centuries. The conclusions reached by Alfred von Gutschmid ushered in the hypercritical phase of the study of Movses' work and many European and Armenian scholars at the turn of the 20th century reduced its importance as a historical source and placed his writing of the work to sometime in the seventh to ninth centuries. Stepan Malkhasyants, an Armenian philologist and expert of classical Armenian literature, likened this early critical period from the late 19th to early 20th centuries to a "competition", whereby one scholar attempted to outperform the other in their criticism of Movses.

Modern studies

In the early decades of the 20th century, scholars such as F. C. Conybeare, Manuk Abeghyan, and Malkhasyants rejected the conclusions of the scholars of the hypercritical school. Ethnographic and archaeological research during the 20th century supported some of their conclusions, as they confirmed information which was only found in Movses's work. Despite these studies, these critical points were revived in the second half of the 20th century and many Western scholars continue to maintain the arguments raised by earlier scholars. Robert W. Thomson, the former holder of the chair in Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the translator of several classical Armenian works, is one of the foremost of modern scholars to expound their conclusions. Thomson believes that Movses "alters many of his Armenian sources in a tendentious manner in order to extol his patrons, the Bagratuni family, who gained preeminence in the eighth century."

Thomson's dating of Movses and his approach in evaluating the author's work was criticized when the English translation of History of Armenia appeared in 1978. Vrej Nersessian, the Curator of the Christian Middle East Section at the British Library, took issue with many of Thomson’s points, including his later dating of the writing and his contention that Movses was merely writing an apologist work for the Bagratunis:

If so, how does one explain then Moses’s complete preoccupation with the events preceding A.D. 440 and his silence regarding the events leading up the Arab incursions and occupation of Armenia between 640-642? Moreover, if the definite purpose of the History was for “boosting the reputation of the Bagratuni family” then these events should have been central theme of his history; the skilful handling of which brought the Bagratid pre-eminence….The ecclesiastical interests do not point to the eighth century. There is no echo of the Chalcedonian controversy which engaged the Armenians from 451 to 641 when the ecclesiastical unity formulated by the council of Theodosiopolis was renounced.

Gagik Sargsyan, a historian of the Classics and a leading scholar and biographer of Movses, also admonished Thomson for anachronistic hypercriticism and for stubbornly rehashing and "even exaggerating the statements once put forward" by the late 19th and early 20th century scholars, and in particular, those of Grigor Khalatyants (1858-1912). Sargsyan noted that Thomson, in condemning Movses' failure to mention his sources, ignored the fact that "an antique or medieval author may have had his own rules of mentioning the sources distinct from the rules of modern scientific ethics." Thomson's allegation of Movses' plagiarism and supposed distortion of sources was also countered by scholars, who contended that Thomson was "treating a medieval author with the standards” of 20th century historiography and that numerous classical historians, Greek and Roman alike, engaged in this practice. Aram Topchyan, a Research Fellow at the Hebrew University of Armenian Studies, concurred with this observation, and noted that it was odd that Thomson would fault Moves for failing to mention his sources because this was an accepted practice among all classical historians.

Works

The following works are also attributed to Movses:

• Letter on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
• Homily on Christ's Transfiguration
• History of Hripsime and Her Companions
• Hymns used in Armenian Church Worship
• Commentaries on the Armenian Grammarians
• Explanations of Armenian Church Offices

Notes

1. Chahin, Mack. The Kingdom of Armenia: A History. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2001, p. 181 ISBN 0-7007-1452-9.
2. Robert Benedetto, James O. Duke. The New Westminster Dictionary of Church History. Westminster John Knox Press, 2008. ISBN 0664224164, 9780664224165, p. 448
3. For this reason, some have also referred to him as Movses of Taron.
4. Template:Hy icon Malkhasyants, Stepan. "Introduction" in Movses Khorenatsi's History of Armenia, 5th Century (Հայոց Պատմություն, Ե Դար). Gagik Kh. Sargsyan (ed.) Yerevan: Hayastan Publishing, 1997, p. 7. ISBN 5-5400-1192-9.
5. Malkhasyants. "Introduction" in History of Armenia, p. 7.
6. ^ Template:Hy icon Sargsyan, Gagik Kh. «Մովսես Խորենացի» (Movses Khorenatsi). Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia. vol. viii. Yerevan, Armenian SSR: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1982, pp. 40-41.
7. Template:Hy icon Movses Khorenatsi. History of Armenia, 5th Century (Հայոց Պատմություն, Ե Դար). Annotated translation and commentary by Stepan Malkhasyants. Gagik Kh. Sargsyan (ed.) Yerevan: Hayastan Publishing, 1997, 3.68, p. 276. ISBN 5-5400-1192-9.
8. Hacikyan, Agop Jack, Gabriel Basmajian, Edward S. Franchuk, and Nourhan Ouzounian. The Heritage of Armenian Literature: From the Oral Tradition to the Golden Age, Vol. I. Detroit: Wayne State University, 2000, pp. 307. ISBN 0-8143-2815-6.
9. Malkhasyants. "Introduction" in History of Armenia, p. 15.
10. Malkhasyants. "Introduction" in History of Armenia, p. 16.
11. Template:Hy icon Matevosyan, Artashes S. "Մովսես Խորենացին և Աթանաս Տարոնացու Ժամանակագրությունը" ("Movses Khorenatsi and Atanas Taronetsi's Chronicle). Patma-Banasirakan Handes. № 1 (124), 1989, p. 226.
12. Movses Khorenatsi. History of Armenia, 1.4., pp. 70-71.
13. Template:Hy icon Pogharian, Norayr. Յայ Գրողներ, Ե-Ժ դար (Armenian Writers, 5th-10th centuries) Jerusalem: St. James Printing Press, 1971.
14. Template:Hy icon Hasratyan, Morus. “Որ՞ն է Մովսես Խորենացու ծննդավայրը.” (“Where was Movses Khorenatsi’s Birthplace?”) Lraber Hasarakakan Gituyunneri. № 12, 1969, pp. 81-90.
15. ^ Template:Hy icon Hovhannisyan, Petros. "Review of History of the Armenians." Banber Yerevan Hamalsarani. № 3 (45), 1982, pp. 237-239.
16. Hacikyan et al. Heritage of Armenian Literature, pp. 309-310.
17. Topchyan, Aram. The Problem of the Greek Sources of Movsēs Xorenacʻi's History of Armenia. Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2006, pp. 5-14, notes 21-22, 31-33.
18. Malkhasyants. "Introduction" in History of Armenia, pp. 2-5.
19. Hacikyan et al. Heritage of Armenian Literature, pp. 305-306.
20. Toumanoff, Cyril. "On the Date of Pseudo-Moses of Chorene." Handes Amsorya. № 10 (75), 1961, pp. 467-471.
21. Malkhasyants. "Introduction" in History of Armenia, pp. 3-5, 47-50.
22. See Robert W. Thomson's introduction in his translation of Movses' work, History of the Armenians, Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press, 1978.
23. Thomson, Robert W. "Armenian Literary Culture through the 11th Century." in Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.) The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century. St. Martin's Press, 1997 ISBN 0-3121-0168-6.
24. Template:Hy icon Ter-Petrosyan, Levon. "Review of History of the Armenians. Patma-Banasirakan Handes. № 1 (88), 1980, pp. 268-270.
25. ^ Nersessian, Vrej. "Review of History of the Armenians." Journal of Ecclesiastical History. Vol. 30: № 4, October 1979, pp. 479-480.
26. Sarkissian, Gaguik . The "History of Armenia" by Movses Khorenatzi. Trans. by Gourgen A. Gevorkian. Yerevan: Yerevan University Press, 1991, pp. 58-59.
27. Sarkissian. "History of Armenia" by Movses Khorenatzi, p. 76.
28. Sarkissian. "History of Armenia" by Movses Khorenatzi, p. 80.
29. Topchyan. Problem of the Greek Sources, pp. 33-35.

Further reading

• Template:Ru icon Abeghyan, Manuk. Истории древнеармянской литературы. Yerevan, Armenian SSR: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1975.
• Adonts, Nicholas. Armenia in the Period of Justinian: the Political Conditions Based on the Naxarar System. Translated with partial revisions, a bibliographical note, and appendices by Nina G. Garsoïan. Lisbon, 1970.
• Conybeare, F. C. "The Date of Moses of Khoren." Byzantinische Zeitschrift. № 10 (1901).
• Template:Hy icon Malkhasyants, Stepan. Խորենացու առեղծված շուրջը (About the Enigma of Khorenatsi). Yerevan, Armenian SSR: Armfan Publishing, 1940.
• Template:Hy icon Sargsyan, Gagik Kh. Հելլենիստական դարաշրջանի Հայաստանը և Մովսես Խորենացին (Armenia in the Hellenistic Age and Movses Khorenatsi). Yerevan, Armenian SSR: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1966.
• Template:Hy icon ______________. Մովսես Խորենացու «Հայոց Պատմության» ժամանակագրական համակարգը. (The Chronological Structure of Movses Khorenatsi's History of Armenia).Yerevan, Armenian SSR: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1965.
• Sarkissian, Gaguik . The "History of Armenia" by Movses Khorenatzi. Trans. by Gourgen A. Gevorkian. Yerevan: Yerevan University Press, 1991
• Topchyan, Aram. The Problem of the Greek Sources of Movsēs Xorenacʻi's History of Armenia. Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2006.
• Toumanoff, Cyril. "On the Date of Pseudo-Moses of Chorene." Handes Amsorya. № 10 (75), 1961, pp. 467-475.

External links

• Template:Hy icon Movses of Chorene, "The History of Armenia"
• Template:Ru icon Movses of Chorene, "The History of Armenia"
• History of the Armenians, Moses Khorenats'i. Commentary on the Literary Sources by R. Thomson
• Template:Ru icon Movses Khorenatsi. The History of Armenia.

v t e Medieval Armenian historians and chroniclers
5th century	Koryun Agathangelos Yeghishe Faustus of Byzantium Movses Khorenatsi Ghazar Parpetsi
6th century	Atanas Taronatsi Abraham Mamikoneits
7th century	Sebeos John Mamikonean Anania Shirakatsi Anastas Vardapet Narratio de rebus Armeniae
8th century	Łewond Abraham Vanakan
9th century	Shapuh Bagratuni
10th century	Tovma Artsruni Hovhannes Draskhanakerttsi Ukhtanes of Sebastia Movses Kaghankatvatsi Zenob Glak Aharon Vanandetsi Mesrop Vayotsdzoretsi
11th century	Stepanos Asoghik Hakob Sanahnetsi Aristakes Lastivertsi
12th century	Matthew of Edessa Grigor Yerets Samuel Anetsi Mkhitar Gosh Mkhitar Anetsi
13th century	Vardan Areveltsi Hovhanes Avagerets Kirakos of Gandzak Sempad the Constable Mekhitar of Ayrivank Hayton of Corycus Gregory of Akner Vahram Rabuni Stepanos Episkopos Stephen Orbelian
14th century	Nerses Palianents
15th century	Thomas of Metsoph Kirakos Banaser Sebastatsi Abraham Ankyuratsi David Merdintsi Martiros Yerznkatsi
16th century	Barsegh Arjishetsi Hovhanes Arjishetsi Simeon Aparantsi Andreas Evdokatsi Hovanisik Tsaretsi
17th century	Grigor Daranaghetsi Simeon Lehatsi Arakel of Tabriz Khachgruz Kafaetsi Hovhanes Kamenatsi David Baghishetsi Hakob Karnetsi Zakaria Sarkavag Zakaria Aguletsi Minas Amdetsi Yeremia Chelebi Keomurjian Hakob Hisusi Grigor dpir Varagetsi Gabriel Tokhatetsi Vardan Baghishetsi Stepanos Dashtetsi
18th century	Esai Hasan-Jalalian Petros di Sargis Gilanents Stepanos Roshka Abraham Kretatsi Simeon Yerevantsi Tovmas Khojamalian Khachatur Jughaetsi Isahak Vardapet Avetik Baghdasarian Abraham Yerevantsi Stepanos Yerets

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