The Key of Truth by Conybeare

[하토브]

THE KEY OF TRUTH

CONYBEARE



HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD


LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK



THE KEY OF TRUTH

A MANUAL OF THE  PA U LI CI AN CHURCH OF ARMENIA



£(Se dRnnentan 'Ztjct



EDITED AND TRANSLATED WITH ILLUSTRATIVE
DOCUMENTS AND INTRODUCTION
BY FRED. C. CONYBEARE, M.A.

FORMERLY FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
OXFORD



AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1898 ©;efor&

PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

BY HORACE HART, M.A.

PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
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PREFACE



In the autumn of the year 1891, 1 went to Armenia for a second
time, in the hope of finding an ancient version of the Book of
Enoch, and of recovering documents illustrative of the ancient
heretics of that land, particularly of the Paulicians. For Gibbon's
picture of their puritanism, fresh and vigorous in an age when
Greek Christianity had degenerated into the court superstition of
Constantinople, had fascinated my imagination; and I could not
believe that some fuller records of their inner teaching did not
survive in the Armenian tongue. In this quest, though my other
failed, I was rewarded. I learned during my stay at Edjmiatzin,
that in the library of the Holy Synod there was preserved a manu-
script of The Key of Truth, the book of the Thonraketzi or Paulicians
of Thbnrak, with whom I was familiar from reading the letters of
Gregory Magistros, Duke of Mesopotamia in the eleventh century.

I was permitted to see the book, of which a perfunctory exami-
nation convinced me that it was a genuine monument, though, as I
then thought it, a late one of the Paulicians. For I found in it the
same rejection of image-worship, of mariolatry, and of the cult of
saints and holy crosses, which was characteristic of the Paulicians.
I could not copy it then without leaving unfinished a mass of
other work which I had begun in the conventual library ; and I
was anxious to get to Dathev, or at least back to Tifiis, before the
snow fell on the passes of the anti-Caucasus. However, I arranged
that a copy of the book should be made and sent to me ; and this
I received late in the year 1893 from the deacon Galoust Ter
Mkherttschian.

My first impression on looking into it afresh was one of
disappointment. I had expected to find in it a Marcionite, or at



VI PREFACE

least a Manichean book; but, beyond the extremely sparse use
made in it of the Old Testament, I found nothing that savoured
of these ancient heresies. Accordingly I laid it aside, in the press of
other work which I had undertaken. It was not until the summer
of 1896 that, at the urgent request of Mr. Darwin Swift, who had
come to me for information about the history of Manicheism in
Armenia, I returned to it, and translated it into English in the hope
that it might advance his researches.

And now I at last understood who the Paulicians really were.
All who had written about them had been misled by the calumnies
of Photius, Petrus Siculus, and the other Greek writers, who
describe them as Manicheans. I now realized that I had stumbled
on the monument of a phase of the Christian Church so old and
so outworn, that the very memory of it was well-nigh lost. For
The Key of Truth contains the baptismal service and ordinal of
the Adoptionist Church, almost in the form in which Theodotus
of Rome may have celebrated those rites. These form the oldest
part of the book, which, however, also contains much controversial
matter of a later date, directed against what the compiler regarded
as the abuses of the Latin and Greek Churches. The date at
which the book was written in its present form cannot be put later
than the ninth century, nor earlier than the seventh. But we can
no more argue thence that the prayers and teaching and rites
preserved in it are not older, than we could contend, because our
present English Prayer Book was only compiled in the sixteenth
century, that its contents do not go back beyond that date. The
problem therefore of determining the age of the doctrine and rites
detailed in The Key of Truth is like any other problem of Christian
palaeontology. It resembles the questions which arise in con-
nexion with the Didache or The Shepherd of Hernias ; and can
only be resolved by a careful consideration of the stage which it
represents in the development of the opinions and rites of the
church. In my prolegomena I have attempted to solve this problem.
I may here briefly indicate the results arrived at.

The characteristic note of the Adoptionist phase of Christian
opinion was the absence of the recognized doctrine of the Incarna-
tion. Jesus was mere man until he reached his thirtieth year,
when he came to John on the bank of the Jordan to receive
baptism. Then his sinless nature received the guerdon. The
heavens opened and the Spirit of God came down and abode with






PREFACE vii

him. The voice from above proclaimed him the chosen Son of
God ; a glory rested on him, and thenceforth he was the New-
Adam, the Messiah ; was the power and wisdom of God, Lord of
all creation, the first-born in the kingdom of grace. Of divine
Incarnation other than this possession of the man Jesus by the
divine Spirit, other than this acquiescence of it in him, who had as
no other man kept the commands of God, the Adoptionists knew
nothing. And as he was chosen out to be the elect Son of God
in baptism, so it is the end and vocation of all men, by gradual
self-conquest, to prepare themselves for the fruition of God's grace.
They must believe and repent, and then at a mature age ask for
the baptism, which alone admits them into the Church or invisible
union of the faithful ; the spirit electing and adopting them to be
sons of the living God, filled like Jesus, though not in the same
degree, with the Holy Spirit. 'Et ille Christus, et nos Christi 1 .'

For those who held this faith, the Baptism of Jesus was neces-
sarily the chief of all Christian feasts ; and the Fish the favourite
symbol of Jesus Christ, because he, like it, was born in the waters.
Hence it is that when we first, about the end of the third century,
obtain a clear knowledge of the feasts of the church, we find that
the Baptism stands at the head of them. It is not until the close
of the fourth century that the modern Christmas, the Birth of Jesus
from the Virgin, emerges among the orthodox festivals, and displaces
in the minds of the faithful his spiritual birth in the Jordan. First
in Rome, and soon in Antioch and the nearer East, this new festival
was kept on Dec. 25. In the farther East, however, in Egypt,

1 The phrase is that of the Spanish Adoptionists. But the thought was fully
expressed five centuries earlier by Methodius, Conviv. viii. 8 : y\ eiacXTjaia
rnrapya Kal cbSivet, pi\pmip o Xpiarbs iv fjp.iv pop<pw9rj yewrjdeis, ottojs (/cclotos
tuiv ayiaiv tw p.eTex eiV Xpiarov Xpiarus yevvr)9rj. 'The Church is big with
child, and is in travail, until the Christ in us is fully formed into birth, in order
that each of the saints by sharing in Christ may be born a Christ,' that is,
through baptism. And just below he continues thus: ' This is why in a certain
scripture we read, " Touch not my Christs. . ." ; which means that those who have
been baptized by participation of the Spirit into Christ, have become Christs.'
Harnack well sums up the teaching of Methodius as follows {Dogmengesch.
bd. i. 746 (701): 'For Methodius the history of the Logos-Christ, as Faith
holds it, is but the general background for an inner history, which must repeat
itself in every believer : the Logos must in his behalf once more come down
from heaven, must suffer and die and rise again in the faithful.' So Augustine,
in Ioh. tr. 21, n. 8 : - Gratias agamus non solum nos Christianos factos esse, sed
Christum.' Such then was also the Paulician conviction.



viii PREFACE

in Armenia, and in Mesopotamia, the new date for the chief festival
was not accepted, and the commemoration of the earthly or human
birth of Jesus was merely added alongside of the older feast of his
Baptism, both being kept on the old day, Jan. 6.

We are only acquainted with the early Christianity of the Jewish
Church through the reports of those who were hostile to it, and
who gave to it the name of Ebionite, signifying probably such
an outward poverty in its adherents, and such a rigid simplicity
in its liturgy and rites, as characterized the Paulician Church, and
provoked the ridicule of the orthodox Armenian writers.

It is certain, however, that the christology of this church was
Adoptionist. Through Antioch and Palmyra this faith must have
spread into Mesopotamia and Persia ; and in those regions became
the basis of that Nestorian Christianity which spread over Turkestan,
invaded China, and still has a foothold in Urmiah and in Southern
India. From centres like Edessa, Nisibis, and Amida it was
diffused along the entire range of the Taurus, from Cilicia as far
as Ararat, and beyond the Araxes into Albania, on the southern
slopes of the Eastern Caucasus. Its proximate centre of diffusion
in the latter region seems to have been the upper valley of the
great Zab, where was the traditional site of the martyrdom of
St. Bartholomew, to whom the Armenians traced back the succes-
sion of the bishops of the canton of Siuniq, north of the Araxes.
In Albania, Atropatene, and Vaspurakan to the east of Lake Van.
and in Moxoene, Arzanene, and Taraunitis to its south and west,
as most of the early Armenian historians admit, Christianity was
not planted by the efforts of Gregory the Illuminator, but was long
anterior to him and had an apostolic origin. That it was a faith of
strictly Adoptionist or Ebionite type we know from the Disputation
of Archelaus with Mani. For Archelaus, though he wrote and
spoke in Syriac, was the bishop of an Armenian see which lay
not far from Lake Van '.

1 The identification (see pp. cii, ciii) of the See of Archelaus is somewhat
confirmed by the fact (communicated to me by Father Basil Sarkisean) that
Karkhar is the name of a hilly region (not of a town) in the vilayet of Bitlis,
about one hour south of Van. But De Morgan's map {Mission Scientifique en
Perse, 1896; of the country east of Lake Urmiah inclines one to identify the
Karkhar of Archelaus with that of Wardan, which certainly lay in the canton
of Golthn, on the Araxes. For this map marks a town called Arablou
^i.e. Arabion castellum) on the north bank of the river Karanghou (which



PREFACE ix

The Taurus range thus formed a huge recess or circular dam
into which flowed the early current of the Adoptionist faith, to be
therein caught and detained for centuries, as it were a backwater
from the main stream of Christian development. Here in the
eighth and ninth centuries, even after the destruction of the Mon-
tanist Church, it still lingered in glen and on mountain crest, in
secular opposition to the Nicene faith, which, backed by the armies
of Byzantium, pressed eastward and southward from Caesarea of
Cappadocia. The historical Church of Armenia was a compromise
between these opposed forces ; and on the whole, especially in the
monasteries, the Nicene or grecizing party won the upper hand ;
dictating the creed and rites, and creating the surviving literature of
that Church. But the older Adoptionist Christianity of south-east
Armenia was not extinct. In the eighth century there was that
great revival of it, known in history as the Paulician movement.
A Paulician emperor sat on the throne of Byzantium ; and away
in Taron, about 800 a.d., the old believers seem to have organized
themselves outwardly as a separate church; and a great leader
stereotyped their chief rites by committing them to writing in
an authoritative book. That book survives, and is The Key of
Truth.

In the West the Adoptionist faith was anathematized at Rome in
the person of Theodotus as early as 190 a.d., but not before it had
left a lasting monument of itself, namely, The Shepherd of Hermas.
It still survived in Moorish Spain, and was there vigorous as late as
the ninth century; and it lived on in other parts of Europe, in
Burgundy, in Bavaria, and in the Balkan Peninsula, where it was
probably the basis of Bogomilism. It is even not improbable that

may be the modern form of Stranga), halfway from its source in the Sahend
hills (due south of Tabreez) towards Send, near Resht, where it flows into the
Caspian. This Arablou is about 100 miles, or three days' ride, south of
Urdubad on the Araxes, the traditional site of the evangelizing activity of
St. Bartholomew. Cedrenus (xi. 575) indicates that the Stranga was the
boundary between Persia and Roman Vaspurakan in the eleventh century just
as it had been in the third. This view would still locate the See of Archelaus
in Pers-Armenia, on the borders of Albania and Siu»iq, and in the very region
where King Arshak (see p. cxiii), the enemy of St. Basil, found heretically
minded bishops ready to consecrate as catholicos his own nominee. In the
absence of surveys and better maps it is difficult to decide between these
alternative views ; but one or other of them must be correct, and they both
prove that Archelaus was an Armenian bishop.



x PREFACE

it was the heresy of the early British Church. But it has left few
landmarks, for the rival christology which figured Jesus Christ not
as a man, who by the descent of the Spirit on him was filled with
the Godhead, but as God incarnate from his virgin mother's womb,
advanced steadily, and, like a rising tide, soon swept over the whole
face of Christendom ; everywhere effacing literary and other traces
of the Adoptionist faith, which seems thenceforward to have only
lived on in Languedoc and along the Rhine as the submerged
Christianity of the Cathars, and perhaps also among the Waldenses.
In the Reformation this Catharism comes once more to the surface,
particularly among the so-called Anabaptist and Unitarian Chris-
tians, between whom and the most primitive church The Key of
Truth and the Cathar Ritual of Lyon supply us with two great
connecting links.

How, it may be asked, could such a revolution of religious
opinion as the above sketch implies take place and leave so little
trace behind ? But it has left some traces. The Liber Sententiarum
is the record of the Inquisition of Toulouse from 1307-1323, and
for that short period its 400 closely printed folio pages 1 barely
suffice to chronicle the cruelties perpetrated in the name of the
God of mercy by the clergy of the orthodox or persecuting Church
of Rome. A hundred such volumes would be needed to record
the whole tale of the suppression of the European Cathars. And
if we ask what has become of the literature of these old believers of
Europe, an examination of the lately found eleventh-century IMS.
of the Peregrinalio of St. Sylvia suggests an answer. This precious
codex contained a description of the Feast of the Baptism, the old
Christmas day, as it was celebrated on Jan. 6 in Jerusalem towards
the close of the fourth century. It was the one tell-tale feast, the
one relic of the Adoptionist phase of Christianity which the book
contained ; and the details of its celebration would have had an
exceptional interest for the Christian archaeologist of to-day. But
the particular folio which contained this information, at some
remote period, and probably in the monastery of Monte Casino
where it was written, has been carefully cut out. If such precau-
tions were necessary as late as the twelfth century, what must not
have been destroyed in the fourth and fifth centuries, when the
struggle between the rival christologies raged all over the East

1 I refer to Limborch's edition.



PREFACE XI

and West ? Then it was that the bulk of the Christian literature
of the second and early third centuries perished, and was irrevo-
cably lost.

Because I have sometimes referred to the Adoptionists as heretics,
I trust I may not be supposed to have prejudged the case against
them. In doing so I have merely availed myself of a conventional
phrase, because it was convenient and clear. For it has been no
part of my task to appraise the truth or falsehood of various forms
of Christian opinion, but merely to exhibit them in their mutual
relations; and, treating my subject as a scientific botanist treats
his, flora, to show how an original genus is evolved, in the process of
adaptation to different circumstances, into various species. It rests
with the authoritative teacher of any sect to determine, like a good
gardener, which species he will sow in his particular plot. The
aim of the scientific historian of opinion is only to be accurate and
impartial; and this I have tried to be, moving among warring
opinions, ' sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habeo.' If I
have occasionally waxed warm, it has been before the spectacle of
the cruel persecution of innocent people. And of a truth a pathetic
interest attaches to such a book as this Key of Truth, in which, in
tardy fulfilment of Gibbon's hope, the Paulicians are at last able to
plead for themselves. It was no empty vow of their elect ones,
' to be baptized with the baptism of Christ, to take on themselves
scourgings, imprisonments, tortures, reproaches, crosses, blows,
tribulation, and all temptations of the world.' Theirs the tears,
theirs the blood shed during more than ten centuries of fierce
persecution in the East ; and if we reckon of their number, as well
we may, the early puritans of Europe, then the tale of wicked deeds
wrought by the persecuting churches reaches dimensions which
appal the mind. And as it was all done, nominally out of reve-
rence for, but really in mockery of, the Prince of Peace, it is hard
to say of the Inquisitors that they knew not what they did.

Even while we reprobate the tone of certain chapters of The
Key, in which the orthodox churches are represented as merely
Satanic agencies, we must not forget the extenuating fact that for
over five centuries the Adoptionists had in Rome and elsewhere
been under the heel of the dominant faction. If we hunt down
innocent men like wild animals, they are more than mortal, if they
do not requite many evil deeds with some few bitter words. And
one point in their favour must be noticed, and it is this. Their



xii PREFACE

system was, like that of the European Cathars, in its basal idea and
conception alien to persecution ; for membership in it depended
upon baptism, voluntarily sought for, even with tears and supplica-
tions, by the faithful and penitent adult. Into such a church there
could be no dragooning of the unwilling. On the contrary, the
whole purpose of the scrutiny, to which the candidate for baptism
was subjected, was to ensure that his heart and intelligence were
won, and to guard against that merely outward conformity, which
is all that a persecutor can hope to impose. It was one of the
worst results of infant baptism, that by making membership in the
Christian Church mechanical and outward, it made it cheap ; and
so paved the way for the persecutor. Under this aspect, as under
some others, the Adoptionist believers, and the Montanists, and
certain other sects, passed with the triumph and secularization of
Christianity under Theodosius into the same relative position
which the early Christians had themselves occupied under the
persecuting Roman government; whose place in turn the dominant
or orthodox church now took in all respects save one, — namely,
that it was better able to hunt down dissenters, because the In-
quisitors knew just enough of the Christian religion to detect
with ease the comings in and goings forth of their victims.

Built into the walls and foundations of a modern church we
can often trace the fragments of an earlier and ruined edifice, but
are seldom privileged to come upon a complete specimen of the
older structure. Now into the fabric of many of our beliefs to-day
are built not a few stones taken from the Adoptionists ; often
retrimmed to suit their new environment. In The Key of Truth
we for the first time recover a long-past phase of Christian life, and
that, not in the garbled account of an Epiphanius, or in the jejune
pages of an Irenaeus or Hippolytus ; but in the very words of those
who lived it. A lost church rises before our eyes ; not a dead
anatomy, but a living organism. We can, as it were, enter the
humble congregation, be present at the simple rites, and find our-
selves at home among the worshippers. And it is remarkable how
this long-lost church recalls to us the Teaching of the Apostles.
There is the same Pauline conception of the Eucharist indicated
by the stress laid on the use of a single loaf, the same baptism in
living water, the same absence of a hierarchy, the same description
of the President as an Apostle, the same implied Christhood of the
elect who teach the word, the same claim to possess the Apostolical



PREFACE xiu

tradition. It is no far-fetched hypothesis that the Didache is itself
the handbook of an Adoptionist Church.

My Introduction contains many hints towards a history of the
feast of Christmas ; but I have mostly confined myself to Armenian
sources inaccessible to many scholars. The Greek evidence is well
gathered together in Prof. Hermann Usener's suggestive study on
the subject; and I have hardly noticed it, lest my book should
assume unwieldy dimensions. Another work to the author of
which I am under obligations is the Dogmengeschichte of Prof.
Harnack. In my discussion of the origins of the Armenian
Church I have been largely guided by the luminous tract of
Prof. Gelzer on the subject. Of other works consulted by me
I have added a list at the end of my book.

I feel that many of the views advanced in my Introduction will
be sharply criticized, but I do not think that my main conclusions
in regard to the character of the Paulician Church can be touched.
The intimate connexion between adult baptism and the school of
Christian thought represented by Paul of Samosata is evidenced
in a passage of Cyril of Alexandria's commentary on Luke, first
published by Mai 1 . In it Cyril assails Paul of Samosata's inter-
pretation of the word apxopevos in Luke iii. 23, namely, that the
man Jesus then began to be the Son of God, though he was, in
the eye of the law («$• eVo/ii'£o-o), only son of Joseph. There
follows a lacuna 2 in which Cyril coupled with this interpretation
a form of teaching which he equally censured, namely, that all
persons should be baptized on the model of Jesus at thirty years
of age. This teaching was plainly that of the Pauliani, and we
find it again among the Paulicians.

1 Noua Biblioth. Patrum, torn, ix ; reprinted in Migne, Pair. Gr. vol. 72,
col. 524. The Syriac version (edited by R. Payne Smith) has not this passage,
which however seems to me to be Cyril's.

2 Cyril continues : ' Thus much harm and unexpected results from such
a delaying of the grace through baptism to a late and over-ripe age. For
firstly, one's hope is not secure (i. e. a man may die prematurely), that one will
attain one's own particular wishes ; and even if in the end one does so gain
them, one is indeed made holy ; but gains no more than remission of sins,
having hidden away the talent, so that it is infructuous for the Lord, because
one has added no works thereunto.' Mai's note on the above is just : ' Uidetur
in praecedentibus (nunc deperditis) Cyrillus uerba eorum retulisse, qui ut
baptismum differrent, Christi exemplum obiiciebant anno aetatis trigesimo
baptizati.'



xiv PREFACE

Where my conclusions are at best inferential, I have qualified
them as such. To this class belongs the view that Gregory the
Illuminator was himself an Adoptionist. I agree with Gelzer that
his Teaching as preserved in the Armenian Agathangelus or in
the independent volume of his Stromata cannot be regarded as
altogether authentic. It would be interesting to know in what
relation the fragments of his Teaching preserved in Ethiopic stand
to the Armenian documents. An Anaphora ascribed to him is also
found in the Ethiopic tongue, but is so common in collections
of Ethiopic liturgies that it is probably worthless. It is, however,
remarkable that no trace of it remains in Armenian.

My suggestion that the European Cathars were of Adoptionist
origin also rests on mere inference. But they had so much in
common with the Paulicians, that it is highly probable. My
kindred surmise that the early British Church was Adoptionist
seems to be confirmed by two inscriptions recently communicated
to me by Prof. J. Rhys. These were found in North Wales and
belong to the sixth to eighth centuries. They both begin with the
words: 'In nomine Dei patris et filii Spiritus SanctiY This
formula takes us straight back to The Shepherd of Hermas 2 , in
which the Son of God is equated with the Holy Spirit ; and it

1 These inscriptions occur on archaic crosses and are figured in Prof. West-
wood's work. He agrees with Prof. Rhys about their date. Filii in one of
them is represented only by an F, detected by Prof. Rhys alone. In the other
the word Sancti is barely legible. The same formula, ' Sanctus Spiritus, Dei
filiiH,' occurs in the Adoptionist tract, De Montibus Sina et Sion, c. 13, quoted
in my Introduction, p. ci. The formula ' In nomine Dei summi' also occurs
four times in these early Christian inscriptions of Wales, and seems to be both
anti-Trinitarian and connected with the series of inscriptions in honour of OeiJs
viptaros, found in Asia Minor and referred by Schurer (Sitzungsber. der Akad.
d. Wiss. zu Berlin, March 4, 1897, t. xiii. p. 200) and Franz Cumont
(Supplim. a la Revue de V instruct ion fublique, Bruxelles, 1897) to Jewish
influence. The occurrence of the same formula on early crosses in Wales shows
that it may have been used in Asia Minor by Christians ; and Gregory of Nyssa
(e. Eunom. xi, sub fin.) accuses the ' Arians,' i. e. the Adoptionists of Asia
Minor, of baptizing not in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; but
of the Creator and Maker only, whom they, like the author of the Key (p. 115),
' regarded as not only the Father, but as the God of the only-born Son.' The
survival of sucli formulae on these old Welsh crosses explains why Bede
rejected the baptism of the British Christians, and why Aldhelm (a. d. 705)
denied that they had the ' Catholicae fidei regula ' at all.

a See Ilcrmac Pastor (edit. Oscar de Gebhardt and Ad. Harnack, Lipsiae,
1877), Sim. v. 5, with the editors' notes.



PREFACE xv

also exactly embodies the heresy of which Basil deplored the
preval‎ence in the eastern regions of Asia Minor 1 . These inscrip-
tions therefore rudely disturb the ordinary assumption that the
early Celtic Church was 'catholic in doctrine and practice 2 ,' as if
Bede had meant nothing when he studiously ignored St. Patrick
and denied that the British bishops even preached the Word.

In the Appendices which follow the text of the Key, I have
translated from old Armenian authors such connected notices
of the Paulicians as they preserve. I have also added the letter of
Macarius to the Armenians, because of the light which it sheds
on their early Church. The Provencal Cathar ritual of Lyon, which
I also include, has never been translated into English : though
it is an unique monument of the forerunners of the European
reformation.

It remains for me to thank those who have helped me with their
advice and encouragement. Mr. Rendel Harris read the transla-
tion of the text and made many valuable suggestions. Most of all
my thanks are due to the Clarendon Press for their liberality in
publishing my book, and to the deacon Galoust Ter Mkherttschian,
who both copied for me the Edjmiatzin MS. of The Key of Truth
and collated my text with it after it was in print. I earnestly
hope that there may be found a second MS. of the book, which, by
filling up the large lacunae of this, may clear up the many points
which because of them remain obscure.

1 See below, p. cxiv.

2 I quote Warren's Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church, p. 45.



CONTENTS



PAGE

Preface v

Summary of the Introduction xvii

Introduction xxiii-cxcvi

Armenian Text 1-66

Translation of the Armenian Text .... 67-124

Appendix I. The Letter of Gregory of Narek . 125

II. Excerpts from Aristaces of Lastivert 131

III. Excerpts from Gregory Magistros . 141

IV. Excerpts from John of Otzun . . 152

V. Excerpts from Nerses Shnorhali . 155

VI. The Provencal Ritual of the

Albigeois 160

VII. Excerpts from Isaac Catholicos . 171

VIII. Excerpts from Paul of Taron . . 174

IX. Macarius' Epistle to the Armenians . 178

Excursus on the Armenian Style of The Key of

Truth 187

Note on the Transliteration of Armenian Names . 190

Index x 9!

List of Works consulted 202



SUMMARY OF THE INTRODUCTION

(P. xxiii) Armenian Paulicians, called Thonraki, emigrate from
Khnus in Turkey, and settle in Akhaltzik in Russian Armenia,
a.d. 1828. — (xxiv) The Synod of Edjmiatzin appeals to the Russian
Government to suppress them. An Inquisition opened, 1837. —
(xxv-xxvi) Four confessions made of Paulician tenets. — (xxvii) The
Key of Truth admitted to be their authoritative book. — (xxviii) The
Russian Court at Tifiis fines the Paulicians, 1843. — (xxix) The Key of
Truth is seized during this Inquisition. Description of it. Its age
attested both by the colophon, and — (xxx) by the style. — (xxxi) The
liturgical parts of the book are older than the rest, and belong
perhaps to fourth century. The exordium the work of a great
Paulician leader, — (xxxii) probably of Smbat, A.D. 800-850. Evidence
on this point of Gregory Magistros. — (xxxiii-xl) The teaching of the
Key is summarized under thirty-seven heads and shown to conform
with the notices of Paulicians given in Armenian writers of the eighth
to the twelfth centuries ; — (xli) and equally with the Greek sources in
respect of the following points, viz.: their claim to be the Catholic
Church, their rejection of similar claims on the part of the orthodox,
their Adoptionist Christology, and belief that Jesus Christ was a crea-
ture only, — (xlii) their rejection of Mariolatry and of intercession of
saints and of cult of the cross, — (xliii) their canon of Scripture, their view
of the Eucharist, their hatred of monks, and — (xliv) their appeal to
Scripture. The Escurial MS. of Georgius Monachus is the oldest Greek
source and best agrees with the Key. The Paulicians not Mani-
cheans. — (xlv) Loose use of Manichean ' by orthodox writers in dealing
with opponents. — (xlvi) Did Paulicians hold that Jesus took flesh of the
virgin? — (xlvii) Their Eucharist not merely figurative. They only
rejected orthodox rites because the orthodox had lost true baptism. —
(xlviii) The Paulicians were 'old believers.' The report of the Inqui-
sition of Arkhweli in 1837 fills up lacunae in the Key, — (xlix) as to
Paulician baptism and Eucharist. Baptism at thirty years of age. —
(1) Nocturnal Eucharistic celebrations. Baptism in rivers. — (li) Nature
of Paulician elect ones. Evidence on this point of letters of Sergius,
and — (Hi) of exordium of Key. — (lii) Were the elect ones adored as

b



xviii THE KEY OF TRUTH

Christs, because Christ was immanent in them ? — (liii) The Eucharistic
elements in becoming the body of the elect became the body of Christ,
and vice versa. — (liv) But the Paulicians admitted a metabolism of
the blessed elements. St. Paul on immanence of Christ. — (lv) Re-
semblance with the Paulician of the view of the Eucharist taken by
Eckbert's Rhenish Cathars in 1160. — (lvi) Proof from the Liber
Sententiarwn (1307) that the Cathars adored their elect ones. —
(lvii) Relation of Greek to Armenian sources about Paulicians.
Analysis of John of Otzun's account, A. D. 719. — (lviii) He seems to
refer the heresy back to fourth century, and notices the solidarity of
Albanian with Armenian Paulicians. — (lix) He evidences that they
already sought the protection of the Arabs. Paulicians called Thonraki
from Thonrak. — (lx) Description of Thonrak, their centre. — (Ixi) Reasons
for identifying Smbat of Thonrak with Smbat Bagratuni, adduced
from Mekhitar, 1300, from Gregory of Narek, c. 975. — (lxii) But
Gregory Magistros does not favour this identification — (lxiii) Evidence
of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, c. 958 ; of Thomas Artsruni, c. 940,
and — (Ixiv) of other Armenian chroniclers is favourable. History of
Smbat Bagratuni. He was martyred by the Arabs, c. 854, and —
(Ixv) avenged by the men of Sasoun. The charge of apostasy made
against him points to his having been a Paulician.— (lxvi) Smbat must
have belonged to the Bagratuni clan. — (lxvii) Evidence that he was an
earlier Smbat, and minister of Chosrow, c. 648. List of heresiarchs
who succeeded Smbat. — (Ixviii) The Sergius of the Greek sources
unknown to the Armenians. — (lxix) Aristaces' narrative, where laid.
Topography of Harq and Mananali. Photius' error as to Mananali.
— (lxx) Topography of Tdjaurm. Paulicianism rife in entire upper
valleys of Euphrates and Tigris. — (lxxi) Policy of Byzantine emperors
to drive the Paulicians out of the empire. Magistros' campaign did
not get rid of them. Their recrudescence in Taron in eighteenth
century, — (lxxii) under the abbot John, the copyist of the Key. —
(Ixxiii) Geographical diffusion in Asia Minor of the Paulicians. —
(lxxiv) The Greek writers familiar with those of the Western Taurus,
the Armenians with those of the Eastern only. Solidarity of Paulicians
in West with those in East of the range. — (lxxv) Their destruction by
the Greek emperors paved the way for the Mohammedan conquest.
(lxxvi) A Greek summary of Paulician tenets preserved in Isaac
(atholicos, twelfth century. — (lxxvii-lxxx) Translation with comments
of Isaac's summary.— (lxxxi) The evidence of John of Otzun (<:. 700)
agrees point for point with the above summary, especially in respect
of the Paulician rejection, — (lxxxii) of stone altars and fonts, — (lxxxiii) of
adult baptism. The union of Agape and Eucharist. Agreements of
Isaac's summary with the Didactic. — (lxxxiv) Evidence of the Canons
of Sahak [c. 425) as to union of Agape and Eucharist. — (lxxxv) Early
Armenian fasts. Isaac's summary borne out by Nerses of Lambron's
picture of Armenian Christianity in Cilicia in twelfth century. —
( lxxxv ij The place of Paulicianism in the general history of Christian



SUMMARY OF THE INTRODUCTION xix

opinion. Its antiquity evidenced by John of Otzun, and by- (lxxxvii)
Lazar of Pharp (c. 480). The organic unity of beliefs with rites seen
in the Key is a proof of age and primitiveness. — (lxxxviii) Coherence of
Paulician Christology with baptismal usages and with rite of election.
— (lxxxix) The Key a monument of the Adoptionist Church, of which
The Shepherd of Hermas is also a monument.— (xc) The Christology
of latter book examined and shown to agree with that of Theodotus.
— (xci) Traces of Adoptionism in Justin Martyr.— (xcii) Its identity with
Ebionite Christology. Hippolytus' account of Theodotus.— (xciii) Proba-
bility that Theodotus, like the Paulicians, accepted John's Gospel ;
though the Alogi, his predecessors, rejected it. — (xciv) Adoptionism
in Melito. Condemnation of Paul of Samosata.— (cxv) The latter"s
teaching.— (xcvi) Traces of Adoptionism in Lactantius. Evolution of
Christian dogmas in the great centres of culture.— (xcvii) The Disputa-
tion of Archelaus with Mani is an Adoptionist monument, for it teaches
that Jesus was merely man before his baptism— (xcviii) and that he
was not God incarnate. It excludes the ordinary interpretation of the
miraculous birth.— (xcix) Jesus was filius per projection. Parallel
descent of Holy Spirit on the faithful.— (c) Jesus became Christ and
Son of God at his baptism, -(ci) Karkhar the see of Archelaus was
near Arabion Castellum on the Stranga, or— (cii) upper Zab ;— (ciii) and
was therefore an Armenian see. Antiquity of Christianity in south-
east Armenia.— (civ) The early Christianity of the Taurus range was
Adoptionist, and— (cv) the name Paulician originally meant a follower
of Paul of Samosata.— (cvi) The Paulicians, therefore, the same as the
Pauliani of the Nicene fathers and of Ephrem. The Paulianist heresy
reappeared in the empire in eighth century as a characteristically
Armenian heresy.— (cvii) Early conflict in Armenia of the Adoptionist
Christology with the Nicene, which came in from Cappadocia.—
(cviii) The Adoptionists under name of Messalians condemned in
Armenian council of Shahapivan (A. D. 447). Lazar of Pharp's descrip-
tion (a. d. 480) of Armenian heresy.— (cix) The heresy condemned at
Shahapivan was the primitive Syriac Christianity of south-east
Armenia, which— (ex) the grecizing Armenian fathers ignored, though
it provided them with their earliest version of New Testament.—
(cxi) Gregory the Illuminator was probably an Adoptionist believer,
but his 'Teaching' has been falsified.— (cxii) Evidence of St. Basil's
letters as to the conflict in Armenia in fourth century of the rival
schools of Christology. St. Nerses (died c. 374), Basil's lieutenant, de-
posed by King Pap, who— (cxiii) effected the final rupture withCaesarea.
— (cxiv) Basil's description of the popular heresy of Armenia proves
that it was Adoptionist.— (cxv) It affirmed, like Eunomius' creed, that
Jesus Christ was a created being.— (cxvi) The orthodox Armenians
shifted their ecclesiastical centre to Valarshapat from Taron, because
of the preval‎ence of Adoptionists in latter region. Constantine V
a Paulician.— (cxvii) The role of Smbat. He did not create the heresy
of the Thonraki, but only organized the old believers of Taron,—

b 2



XX THE KEY OF TRUTH

(cxviii) under a primate of their own. Till then the old belief had
lurked among isolated clans. — (cxix) As their first primate he wrote
down their rites in an authoritative book. — (cxx) The Thonraki claim
to be the catholic church of St. Gregory, and to have the apostolical
tradition. They repudiated the sacraments and orders of the grecizing
Armenians as false. — (cxxi) The archaic nature of their baptismal
views proved by their agreement with Tertullian, who — (cxxii) like
them denounced infant-baptism. — (cxxiii) Macarius of Jerusalem
{c. 330) on ' Arian ' heresy in Armenia. Paulicians hostile to a real
hierarchy and to monks. — (cxxiv) The Paulician 'elect' one the
synecdemos of the Greek sources. Were the 'rulers 'in the Paulician
Church Elect ones ? — (cxxv) Use of the phrase 'original sin' in the
Key. — (cxxvi) The Paulicians borrowed it from the West, where it was
already used in fifth century, — (cxxvii) and where the Latin Adoptionists
may have originated it. — (cxxviii) Paulician system was opposed to
hereditary priesthood and to blood-offerings in expiation of the sins of
the dead. — (cxxix) Why the Western Paulicians renamed their con-
gregations. No trace of this Schwarmerei among the Thonraki. —
(cxxx) Their hostility to papal usurpation mistaken by their enemies
for hostility to St. Peter. — fcxxxi) Differences between the Elect of
the Manicheans and the Elect of the Paulicians. — (cxxxii) Both
Churches held that Christ is immanent in the Elect. The real
Manicheans of Armenia.— (cxxxiii) The immanence of Christ in the
Elect exampled from the New Testament, and — (cxxxiv) from early
Christian writers ; especially Tertullian,— (cxxxv) whose views of the
Virgin Mary and of the Eucharist were also shared by the Paulicians.
— (cxxxvi) Tertullian, like them, held that the elements are typically and
yet in some sense really the body and blood of Christ. — (cxxxvii) De-
portation to Thrace of Paulicians of the Taurus, — (cxxxviii) where they
created the Bogomile Church and survived into the last century. —
(cxxxix) Crusaders met with Paulicians in Syria. First mention of
them in Europe.— (cxl) Eckbert's description of Rhenish Cathars
indicates a sect akin to the Paulicians.— (cxli) The Cathar ritual of
Lyon is an Albigeois book and has affinities with the Paulician ordinal,
— (cxlii) though in some respects it is more primitive. Did the Albigeois
baptize with water ?— (cxliii) The common ritual use of the name Peter
in the Albigeois Consolamentum and Paulician election service proves
their common origin. — (cxliv) Both sects had the same conception of
the Church as the communion of saints. — (cxlv) The Albigeois were
not Manicheans, nor did they advocate the suicide of persons consoled.
— (cxlvi) Differences in respect of baptism between the Lyon ritual
and the Key. — (cxlvii) A knowledge of the Paulicians was brought to
Europe by the Crusaders,— (cxlviii) and there is no affiliation of the
Cathars to the Bogomiles before Reinerius Saccho in 1254.— (cxlix) The
Consolamentum was a general form of laying on of hands in order to the
reception of all gifts alike of the Spirit.— (cl) Possibility that Armenian
refugees and colonists in Europe contributed to the Anabaptist move-

http://www.archive.org/stream/keyoftruthmanual00paul/keyoftruthmanual00paul_djvu.txt

[사랑]

헉 영어다~~~통역 해주실거죠??ㅎ

[하토브]

이 글은 영문으로와 알메니안 언어로 되어서 약 20메가 바이트에 달하며 성경 전체 분량입니다. 제가 몇년 전에 책을 사놓고 읽지 못하다가 요즘 읽고 있습니다. 몇년전에 미국 침례교 사이트에서 치열하게 논쟁이 되어 관심을 가졌는데, 1898년 발간된 책으로 19세기 말의 최대의 발견이라 할 수 있는 두 가지 중의 하나입니다. 다른 하나는 바자르 헤라클레이도스로 네스토리우스의 가르침과 그파에 관한 교훈들입니다. 나중에 시간이 허락되는대로 발췌와 요지만 번역할까 합니다. 제가 요즘 읽에 된데에는 최근에 어떤 여자를 만났는데 바로 알메니안 사람으로서 이런 역사에 관심이 있었기에 제가 자극받았기 때문입니다.

[사랑]

하토브님 열정이 부럽습니다 요앞에 올리신게시물 마태복음에서 이름이 빠진 아하시야, 요하스 ,아마시야, 여호야김,
을 발견하고 요즘 마태복음 1장부터 주석을 보고있습니다

[하토브]

Key of Truth 는 터키, 시리아, 이라크, 이란, 알메니아, 투르크스탄, 코카서스 그루지야 등의 지역에 편만하였던 바울파( Paulician)의 신앙교본이었습니다. 그들은 1) 마리아 숭배 2) 성상 숭배 3) 십자가에 기도, 4) 성인들에 기도 5) 침례시에 기름부음 6) 죽은자에게 기름발라 기도와 도유 7) 사제들에게 고해성사 등등 수많은 정교회 관행을 거부했습니다만 이상하게도 예수님을 하나님으로는 인정하지 않았고 다만 하나님의 아들로만 불렀습니다. 이들은 소위 Adoptionist ( 입양론자)들이었습니다. 예수님 침례시에 성령이 임하심으로 하나님의 아들이 되셨다는 것입니다. 가장 중요한 것은 성령을 어떻게 보느냐 인데

[하토브]

아직 그부분까지 읽지 못했습니다. 이들은 그리스 정교회와 알메니안 정교회로부터도 핍박을 받았습니다. 이들에게 뒤집혀 씌워진 것은 그들이 마니교도와 같았다는 것인데 이들의 기록은 마니교도와 맹렬히 싸운 기록들이 나옵니다. 어떻게 마니교도와 같겠습니까? 이들은 보고밀과 교리가 흡사한 점이 나오고 있으며 프랑스의 알비조아와 연결된다고 이 책은 설명합니다. 19세기말의 최대의 발견중의 하나였습니다.

[하토브]

이들이 그리스도에 대해 잘 못알게된 데에는 신약성경의 완전한 보급에서 마지막에 소외되었기 때문으로 보입니다만 아직은 잘 모르겠습니다. 이들은 유아침례의 효력을 부정했습니다. 예수님을 본받아서 30세가 넘어야침례를 베풀은 그룹도 있었습니다.