The Primary History of Armenia: An Examination of the Validity of an Immemorially Transmitted Historical Tradition

Abstract

Few peoples of the Middle East have produced as many historical works as the Armenians: their historiography dates back at least to the fifth century A.D. While most medieval Armenian historians have concerned themselves with contemporary history and the immediate past, there have been some who have attempted to trace Armenian history from the earliest times. It is to two of these, Pseudo-Sebeos and Pseudo-Moses of Khoren, that we owe the survival of the body of historical memories now generally referred to as the Primary History of Armenia.This Primary History has come to us in two redactions, a long and a short. The shorter version is attributed to the earliest known Armenian historian, Agathangelos (fourth century A.D.?) and is presented in the opening section of a seventh-century work ascribed-probably wrongly-to a certain bishop named Sebeos. The longer version, much expanded and edited, is contained in Book One of the compilation of Armenian antiquities known as the History of Armenia by Pseudo-Moses of Khoren. While the date of this work has been much disputed, it appears now to be a product of the late eighth or early ninth century.According to Pseudo-Sebeos the short redaction of the Primary History was a work originally written by Agathangelos, secretary to Tiridates HI (298–330), the first Christian king of Armenia, and was based on information contained in a book written by a certain Marab the Philosopher from Mtsurn, a town in western Armenia. Pseudo-Moses, on the other hand, claims that the parallel material in his history (I. 9–32 and II. 1–9) is an extract by Marabas Katiba from a Greek translation of a Chaldean history of Armenia made by order of Alexander the Great.