St. Grigor Narekats‘i’s Use of Extra-Canonical Writings: Two Examples

Abstract

St. Grigor Narekats‘i’s Use of Extra-Canonical Writings: Two Examples1 Senior Archimandrite Shahe Ananyan (bio) Translated from Eastern Armenian by Roberta R. Ervine -I- The Repentance of Solomon and St. Grigor Narekats‘i One might well say that the study of Narek’s Book of Prayers is one of Armenology’s most rewarding fields. Theologians, philologists, philosophers, linguists and, more recently, medical psychologists, have taken note of St. Grigor Narekats‘i’s work, and continue to do so. However, despite the existence of so many studies, there remains much to be done with regard to ferreting out the sources used in the Book of Prayers. The present article is devoted to an examination of one such source, which by virtue of both its form and its content may be considered both theoretically and theologically fundamental to the central theme of Narek’s work: repentance. [End Page 89] The work referred to is the apocryphal writing, From the Commentary on the Paralipomena, Concerning the Repentance of Solomon. Its influence, as well as traces of direct citation, are noticeable in Narek’s Ban 48. Michael E. Stone, who published the critical text of this apocryphal work, already noted that the expression From the Commentary refers to a commentary pseudepigraphically attributed to Ephrem the Syrian. It is an expansion on an episode in the Book of Chronicles; in the published text, the pseudonymous commentary follows after two narratives of Solomon’s repentance.2 According to one apocryphal writing concerning the penitence of Solomon, the story of the king’s repentance was related in two different versions. The Armenian texts to the following variants and excerpts are found in Stone, Appendix I. 3 Variant 1 Variant 2 But Solomon made himself many wives, seven hundred . . . and he openly fornicated opposite the Temple and in front of his enemies. But it happened that he had free time in his room; he pondered in his mind, remembering the injunction of his father David, “Walk you,” said he, “in the ways of the Lord and in the law of Moses his servant.” When he remembered this injunction of his father and the hour of David’s death, he wept from the depths of his heart, till he watered his room and his bed in the winter palace of his kingdom. And as a limit of repentance, he set for himself that the door of his room would open of itself, without anyone opening it. According to another [source], thus: But Solomon, becoming saddened over these many transgressions, hopelessly called his chamberlain and ordered him to burn the multitude of his writings, which he had spoken through the grace of the Spirit, and he carried out the order. Then Solomon asked, “What did you see?” And he said, “An uncontainable light rose up to heaven together with the fire.” And for that he wept from the depths of his heart. [End Page 90] Commentary on these episodes is drawn from three excerpts of the Commentary on the Paralipomena: Excerpt 1 Excerpt 2 The blessed Ephrem says thus: that Solomon the Wise, after his sins and his distancing himself from God because of the deceptions of his wives, was sitting one day in his winter palace, in the house of his father David, and he recalled his injunction at the time of his death, and he went into his room and wept before the Lord with great weeping. And he set for himself a limit, to weep until the door of the room should open without a hand. Others say [until] it should close, but to open is more fitting, as a sign of the opening of the door of God’s mercy, as also took place. For the door of the room opened of itself. And when he was rejected from the help of God, he ordered his chamberlain to burn his writings, which were through the knowledge of the Spirit: three thousand proverbs, from the cedars of Lebanon to the hyssop that goes up the wall, and the birds and beasts and reptiles. However, taking part of them, he hid them, which later the friends of Hezekiah wrote [down]. And when Solomon asked concerning...