Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
Do you need
volunteer, community service, work, military or court hours?
|
|
Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
|
|
Click here and add this page to your favorites!
|
Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MOL-MOS |
|
|
MOSES OF CHORENE , Armenian historian, was a native of Khor'ni in Taron, a district of the Armenian province of Turuberan. According to the History of Armenia which bears his name he was a pupil of the two fathers of Armenian literature, the patriarch or catholicos Sahak the Great and the vartabed Mesrob. Shortly after 431 he was sent by these men to Alexandria to study the Greek language and literature, and thus prepare himself for the task of translating Greek writings into Armenian. Moses took his journey by Edessa and the sacred places of Palestine. After finishing his studies in the Egyptian capital he set sail for Greece; but the ship was driven by contrary winds to Italy, and he seized the opportunity of paying a flying visit to Rome. He then visited Athens, and towards the end of winter (440) arrived in Constantinople, whence he set out on his homeward journey. On his arrival in Armenia he found that his patrons were both dead. The History of Armenia speaks of its author as an old, infirm man, constantly engaged in the work of translating. In the later Armenian tradition we find other notices of this celebrated man'such as, that he was the nephew of Mesrob, that he was publicly complimented by the emperor Marcian, that he had been ordained bishop of Bagrewand by the patriarch Giut, and that he was buried in the church of the Apostolic Cloister at Mush in the district of Taron; but these accounts must be received with great caution. This remark applies especially to the statement of Thomas Ardsruni,2 that Moses, like his Hebrew prototype, lived to the age of 120 years, and recorded his own death in a fourth book of his great work. The same caution must be extended to another tradition, based on an arbitrary construction of a passage in Samuel of Ani, which places his death in the year 489.The History of Armenia,' or, as the more exact title runs, the 'Collected by Langlois, Collection des historiens de l'armenie, ii. 47 seq. 2 In Brosset, Collection d'historiens armeniens, i. 68. S The oldest MS. is that of S. Lazaro of the 12th century. Colla- Garinian, Tiflis (1858), 4to.' The book has been edited and translated by Whiston
The commencement of this king's reign has been fixed by Noldeke (Geschichte der Sassaniden aus Tabari, p. 423) as 4t August 438; and this date has subsequently been established by documentary evidence from the fact of the martyrdom of Pethion (see Hoffmann
p. 67). 6 Translated in Langlois, i. 195 seq. 8 For the following statements, the evidence may be found in the article " Ueber die Glaubwurdigkeit der Armenischen Geschichte des Moses von Khoren," by Alfred von Gutschmid
(i876), p. I seq. 7 The Epic Songs of Ancient Armenia (Arm.) (Moscow, 1850). 8 " Etudes sur les chants historiques at les traditions populaires de 1'ancienne Arm6nie," in the Journ. asiat., iv., see. 19 (1852), p. 5 Seq. 9 " Ueber die Glaubwiirdigkeit," &c., p. 8 seq. II and similar anachronisms,) which run through the whole book and are often closely incorporated with the narrative itself, and on the other hand by the identity of the author of the History with that of Geography, a point on which all doubt is excluded by a number of individual affinities,2 not to speak of the similarity in geographical terminology. The critical decision as to the authorship of the Geography must settle the question for the History also. The Geography is a meagre sketch, based mainly on the Chorography of Pappus of Alexandria (in the end of the 4th century), and indirectly on the work of Ptolemy
opinion that we have in it a writing of the 7th century. If the limits within which the Geography was composed are to be more nearly defined, we may say that, from isolated traces of Arab rule8 (which in Armenia dates from 651), it must have been written certainly after that year, and perhaps about the year 657.9Another extant work of Moses is a Manual
drawn
Smaller works bearing the same honoured name arethe Letter to Sahak Arderuni; the History of the Holy Mother of God 1 Instances of these may be found in i. 14, where the arrangement of Armenian provinces, I., II., III.. IV., introduced in the year 536, is carried back to Aram, an older contemporary of Ninus; and in the passage iii. 18, according to which Shapur II. penetrated to Bithynia, although the Persians did not reach that till 608. 2 See the confusion, common to both books, between Cappadocia I. and Armenia I., in consequence of which Mazaca and Mt Argaeus are transferred to the latter locality (Hist. i. 14; Geogr. Saint Martin's ed., ii. 354) ; also the passages which treat of China and Dchenbakur (Hist. ii. 81; Geogr. ii. 376), &c. 6 Edition with translation by Whiston
' In the Memoires historiques et geographiques sur l'Armenie (Paris, 1819, 8vo), ii. 310 seq. 5 Antiquities of Armenia (Arm.), iii. 303 seq. 6 See Noldeke's Tabari, p. 155; seq. 7 Armjanskaja geographija vii. waka por. Ch. (pripisiw awschajasja Moiseju Chorenskomu) (St Petersburg
6 The passage about the trade of Basra, which was founded in 635, is decisive on this point (Saint Martin's edition, ii. 368). 9 The peculiar interest
Of works passing under the name of Moses of Khor'ni, the following are regarded by the historians of Armenian literature as spurious: a History (distinct from the Panegyric) of the wanderings of Saint Rhipsime and her Companions; a Homily on the Transfiguration of Christ; a Discourse on Wisdom (i.e., the science of grammar) ; the Commentaries on grammar (an exposition of Dionysius Thrax). In the case of the grammatical writings, it has been suggested that there may have been some confusion between Moses of Khor'ni and a Moses of Siunich, who lived in the 7th century. Literature.The date of the History of Moses has been discussed in many monographs. See especially the brochure of A. Carriere, Nouvelles sources de Moase de Khoren (Vienna, 1893), who sets it in the 8th century. A Russian critic, J. Khalateants, arrives at a similar conclusion in his Armianskie Epos (Moscow, 1896). F. C. Conybeare, in an article on "The date of Moses of Khoren," in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, vol. x., and in a second in vol. ii, entitled "The Relation of the Paschal Chronicle to Malalas," challenges Professor Carriere's arguments, and contends that the History of Moses is a late 5th-century work, much interpolated in the immediately succeeding centuries. (A. v. G.; F. C. C.) End of Article: MOSES OF CHORENE If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/MOL_MOS/MOSES_OF_CHORENE.html"> MOSES OF CHORENE </a> |
|
|
(Previous) MOSES (Gr. Mwvo c, Mcoo-i3s) |
(Next) MOSES, ASSUMPTION OF |
|
Sponsored Advertisements