AND IN AN ARMENIAN VERNACULAR PATERNOSTER, AND A ZOK PATERNOSTER

A short poem in Middle Armenian, of the genre called hayren that is most frequently associated with the famous sixteenth-century minstrel Nahapet K¨uc¨ak1, seems to be a folk version of the Lord's Prayer, or a composition based upon the latter. In several manuscripts, the poem is situated in a cycle of similar short hayrens entitled Ya¥ags hogwoy ew siroy otanawor e bans, “This rhymed logos is about the soul and ”, or Hayren e astic{ kargaw, hogwoy ew siroy “There follows an ordered cycle of hayrens of the soul and love.” The poems in these cycles often stand alone as individual compositions, and there is no strong thread of character, plot or theme linking together that might suggest their author or authors intended them originally as a unified work. Still, that possi- bility ought not to be dismissed entirely. Transmission of Biblical learn- ing about Creation, or the life of Christ, in vernacular language and poetic genre, is a salient feature of medieval and early modern Armen- ian literature2; and most recently Theo Van Lint has demonstrated in a

1 The Turco-Persian epithet k{uc{ak, “little”, was still used in the modern dialect of Akn to mean a shamelessly amorous boy, and it seems most likely to have had this mean- ing as the minstrel Nahapet's takhallus. But the “young” swain who sang of passion out- lived the title. In his own compositions he claims to have lived to the age of 100; and per- haps the version of the Paternoster we consider here, if indeed it was his, is a product of his twilight years. Nahapet was a native of Xarakonis, east of Van, and according to one legend the wife of the Sultan had an ailment in her breast that only crying could cure. Only Nahapet's singing wrung tears from the lady; and the heir was saved. The poet asked that his reward be permission to sing in Istanbul for twenty days. Ms. 347 of the Armenian Church of the Holy Cross on A¥t{amar informs us that he could compose in both Armenian and Turkish: his singing so impressed the Sublime Porte that seven mosques, seven churches, and seven bridges were built between and Xarakonis. His songs remained famous: the ashugh Yakob, from Mat¥avank{ village near Arces, learned early in the twentieth century a hayren of Nahapet sung to him by his own master in the craft. See ™UKASYAN 1957, pp. 3-8. 2 Garegin YOVSEPEAN's collection of folk texts, P{srank{ner zo¥ovrdakan banahiw- sut{iwnic{, Tiflis, 1892, contains, for example, material from the apocryphal Infancy Gospels in prose tales recited in the dialect of Moks. My article Grace from Van, in press in the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies, considers a prayer before meals that takes the form of a magical historiola — similar in structure to the incantations against the child-bearing demon Al in Armenian talismanic scrolls — that was recited to me in June 1995 by an elderly woman from Avanc{, the port of Van. The same article considers also an Armenian night-time prayer invoking supernatural protection upon the home, which was published recently in a memorial book of the of Sebastia (Tk. Sivas): there are palpable similarities in this case to Grigor Narekac{i's prayer (Matean 92 J.R. RUSSELL

Leiden thesis that Kostandin Erznkac‘i probably meant a number of his own lyric compositions to be connected together as a unified cycle with religious instruction and edification as its ennobling intent. Mnac‘aka- nyan published two versions, with insignificant variations: a composite text (with the variant in brackets) reads3: Hayr mer, or yerkins es du,/ Barjrut{iwn k{ez ku vayele:/ Ew surb e¥ic{i anun,/ Arak{eal ew bann i Hore:/ Zinc{ zAharoni gluxn,/ Or ca¥kanc{ iw¥ovn oceal e:/ Kam c{o¥ Ahermon lerin,/ [I] Sukaw learn buseal e:/ Oc{ garunn jur k{uze,/ Oc{ asunn t{o[a]rmelu e,/ Hanc{kun ca¥ik ov teser?/ Zararacs sen ku pahe:/ Nora ca¥ikn ov ase?/ Erb nora anunn Yisus e. “Our Father who art in Heaven,/ Lofty height becomes Thee;/ And holy be the name/ Sent [or, Apostle], and the Logos from the Father./ Like the head of Aaron/ That is anointed with the oil of flowers,/ Or the dew of mount Hermon,/ It has sprouted on mount Sukaw./ It needs no water in springtime,/ Nor will it wither in autumn./ Who has seen such a flower?/ It maintains the crea- tures in prosperity./ Who will say its flower,/ When its name is Jesus?” The hayrens that follow have no particular relevance to these lines, though one, in Mnac‘akanyan B/32, appears at least to pursue the biog- raphy of Jesus, drawing a didactic conclusion, however, that is either bit- terly sardonic or wildly misguided: Lav kal zays bans i mtit,/ Mitk{ ara ˆw a¥vor andice:/ Tern e i yiwrmen xoc{er:/ Patrast ler i xist sirele:/ Zxosk{t al am haync{ xose,/ Or k{o janc{ mah c{gorce:/ Galu jayn or lsen sunk{-/ Ert{an hetn, or gnay ku gze. “Keep these words well in mind,/ Think and ponder good./ The Lord got himself wounded, of his own accord,/ Be prepared (for such results) from ardent loving./ Also speak your piece in such a way/ That your voice does not cause your death./ When dogs hear the sound of someone approaching,/ They follow, and rend the man who goes.” There is a second, appreciably different version of the Paternoster text, which omits the first three lines that paraphrase the Lord's Prayer, o¥bergut{ean, “Book of Lamentation” chapter 12) against nocturnal terrors. But the tenth- century scholar and mystic seems himself to have employed the patterns and images of folk poetry in some of his meditations, so the interchange between formal and vernacular strata of language — and of class and religion, too, to a great extent — was mutual and of long standing. 3 MNAC{AKANYAN 1995, text A/82, lines 373-386; A/83, 413-426; and B/32, 13-26. The first text was published by A. TEWKANC{, Tiflis, 1882, in a cycle on pp. 27-45, with attribution to Nahapet K{uc{ak. The second is in Ms. 30 of the Armenian Church of the Holy Archangel of Palat{; the third, from Ms. 805, National Library, Berlin. For provision of Mnac{akanyan's book at Paris, and for generous hospitality during the time there in which the work on this article was begun, I am happy to record my gratitude to the Armenian Prelacy, New York and His Eminence Archbishop Mesrob Ashjian; and to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, for the generous provision of a grant for travel. ARMENIAN VERNACULAR AND ZOK PATERNOSTER 93 but adds an important and fascinating detail to the rest of the poem4: Zinc{ zAharoni zgluxn or ca¥kanc{ iw¥ovn oceal e,/ Kam c{o¥ Hermoni lerin or Sinay k{a¥c{r c{o¥eal e,/ Kam zhamasp{iwr ca¥ik: Sukawet learn buseal e,/ Oc{ garunn jur k{uze, oc{ asunn t{ormelu e:/ Hanc{gun ca¥ik ov teser? zararacs sen ku pahe:/ Nora ca¥ik ov ase? erb nora anunn Yisus e. “Like the head of Aaron that is anointed with the oil of flowers/ Or the dew of mount Hermon that sweet Sinai has bedewed,/ Or the flower hamasp{iwr on mount Sukawet it has sprouted./ It needs no water in springtime, nor will it wither in autumn./ Who has seen such a flower? It maintains the creatures in prosperity./ Who will say its flower, when its name is Jesus?” The hamasp{iwr, literally “all spreading/scat- tering”, perhaps recalling the mythical primeval plant of the Zoroastrian scripture, the Tree of All Seeds, is a magical flower of Armenian lore. Researchers identify it variously as false clove, or campion, or lychnis orientalis; but, like the mandrake, it is endowed by popular religion with supernatural attributes wholly beyond the ken of botany. Mxit{ar Herac{i describes it as having one root with twelve shoots, each bearing a flower of a different color. It glows by night for those who seek it. The poet Yovhannes T{lkuranc{i wrote, “The hamasp¨iwr among the flowers/ Was the one said to be the mother of wisdom,/ Which cures scabby lep- rosy/ And appears on Ascension Day.” In Armenian popular belief, the barrier that separates heaven from earth is drawn aside on the night pre- ceding this feast for Christ, at whose death the pargod (“curtain”, a loan from Parthian, as is Arm. varagoyr, “idem”) of the Temple was rent. Christ had in diverse ways removed all the other veils that separated 's children from 's footstool: by the fact of the Incarnation, the triumph over death, the bodily ascent. So Armenians would place blossoms of the horot-morot flower in a pot of water, guard it overnight in silence, and then tell fortunes — the wisdom of heaven presumably having come down into the mixture. The flower is named, of course, after the Zoroastrian yazatas who preside over plants and waters, Haurvatat and Am¢r¢tat: so the hamasp¨iwr here is drawn into that Zoroastrian-Christian magical context5. The poet wrote of the flower, “This is the hamasp¨iwr flower, that saves men from death;” and a medieval text on the subject declares, “If you put it to your ear, you will hear heavenly voices and speech, and you will understand all the languages of men and will know the tongues of animals, beasts, and birds. If you put it to your eye, you will behold

4 C{OPANEAN 1940, p. 353 no. IX, with attribution on p. 346 to TEWKANC{, Hayerg, op. cit. 5 See RUSSELL 1987(a), chapter 12. 94 J.R. RUSSELL all Creation before your eyes. If you hold it to your palate, you will experience the sweet taste of Heaven. If you put it to your tongue, you will converse and speak in every language, and will tell of the knowl- edge of wise men and priests. If you touch it with your fingers, you will gain every art… And much has been said of the great and powerful mir- acles worked by this flower.” A song recorded in the nine- teenth century in (i.e., still in the Van area, probably not far from where Nahapet K{uc{ak lived and worked) compares the bride- groom, typically called “king”, to the flower: “King, what shall I bring like you:/ Your green Sun [i.e., your youthful life or good fortune], like you:/ The flowering hamasp¨iwr blossoms like your Sun.”6 We can now trace the construction of this strange folk version of the Paternoster. The standard text of the prayer, Matthew 6.9b-13, on which Armenian and other liturgical usages are based, follows in the most recent scholarly from the original, which was in Greek: (9b) Our Father who is in the heavens, Sanctified be your name, (10) Let your kingdom come, Let your will be done, as in the heavens so also on earth. (11) Our bread that we need, give us today. (12) And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive (or, have forgiven) our debtors. (13) And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from (the) evil (one). The Paternoster, undoubtedly composed by Christ Himself, is liturgical and oral in nature: Christ's command, houtos proseukhesthe, “thus you will pray”, indicates affirmation of continued use of the prayer in the com- munity in which it was already well known. The prayer is rooted, in all particulars, in , the older prayers closest to it being the Qaddis and {Amida. These prayers occupy a place of central importance in Jew- ish liturgy to this day; and the centrality of the Paternoster to Christian worship is exemplified by its placement at the very center of the Sermon on the Mount. There was never one written original, only several oral versions: Matt. 6.9b-13 and Did. 8.2 are close, but Luke 11.2b-4 omits entirely the lines “let your will be done, as in heaven so also on earth” in the middle and “but deliver us from (the) evil (one)” at the end. It has been suggested that the version in Matthew was a Jewish-Christian cat- echism; Luke was for Gentile-Christian instruction in prayer7. The hayren, as we have seen, omits everything after 9b: God's abode in heaven inspires instead a meditation on things that are high, from

6 See RUSSELL 1987, pp. 87-88, citing S. AVDALBEKYAN, Patmut{iwn hamasp{iwr ca¥kin, in Patma-banasirakan handes, Erevan, 1976.3, pp. 258-9; N. TA™AWAREAN, Hayoc{ hin kronner¢, Constantinople, 1909, p. 16; Bp. TIRAYR, Frik diwan, New York, 1952, p. 654; H. HAKOBYAN, Haykakan manrankarc{ut{yun: Vaspurakan, Erevan, 1978, p. 12; and ™. ALISAN, Hin hawatk{ kam het{anosakan kronk{ Hayoc{, , 1910, pp. 84-85. 7 See BETZ 1995, pp. 331-372. ARMENIAN VERNACULAR AND ZOK PATERNOSTER 95 which divine blessings flow down to earth — mount Hermon, Sinai, and Sukaw or Sukawet. The divine blessings take the form of dew and oil; and the obvious source is Psalm 133 (Arm. 132): Zi bari kam zi vayeluc{, zi bnakin e¥bark{ i miasin. Orpes ew¥ zi ijane i glux ew i mawrusn Aharovni, i mawruac{n ijane i grapans zgestu nora. Orpes c{aw¥ zi c{aw¥e i Hermone, i veray lerinn Siovni. And patrasteac{ Ter zawrhnut{iwn, ew zkeans yawitenic{. The English, from the translation of the Torah of the Jewish Publication Society, reads: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head, coming down upon the beard; even Aaron's beard, that cometh down upon the collar of his garments; like the dew of Hermon, that cometh down upon the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for ever.” The oil that is sprinkled over the head of the archetypal High Priest, Aaron, is likened to the dew that comes down from the snow-capped summit of mount Hermon to fertilize the mountains of Zion, that is, and its environs, the hills of Judaea, in . One cannot overemphasize the symbolic power of the oil of anointment in Israel, before : in 2 (Slavonic) 9.17-19, it is priestly anointment with a supernatural oil — linked to the dew of Ps. 133 — that transforms Enoch into an angel, and facilitates his Himmelsreise der Seele. “And the Lord said to Michael, Take Enoch and take off his earthly garments, and anoint him with good oil, and clothe him in glorious garments. And Michael took off from me my garments and anointed me with good oil. And the appearance of the oil was more resplendent than a great light, and its richness like sweet dew, and its fragrance like myrrh, shining like a ray of the sun. And I looked at myself, and I was like one of the glorious ones, and there was no apparent difference8.” Christ is the inheritor, both of the kingship of Israel through David, and of the priesthood of Melchisedek and Aaron — the office of the lat- ter being conferred through anointment with oil. Christian baptism employs oil: the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch John I, in the seventh cen- tury, wrote that men by the imprint of the myron (Gk. “holy oil”, chrism, as a loan-word in Arm., meron or miwron) are anointed into priesthood, becoming sons of the heavenly Father. Syriac religious poetry, with its roots in Semitic Christianity never obscured by Hel-

8 Pennington's tr., cited by HIMMELFARB 1993, p. 3, who compares to this the anoint- ing and vesting as priest after ascent to the heavenly Temple of the visionary traveller in the Testament of Levi, p. 36-7. This text, or the tradition evolved from it, ought to be seen also as the source of the image of God's light as a lamp fueled by luminous oil in the Qurˆan, Sura 24 (al-Nur, “the Light”), verse 35. 96 J.R. RUSSELL lenism, plays overtly upon the terms mesÌa, “baptismal oil”, and mesiÌa, “Messiah”; and St. Ephrem's Hymn on Virginity VII speaks of the oil whose price “made an end to the bonds of debt”9. Oil is, to para- phrase the remark of Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust, eine ganz besondere Saft. In the Armenian rite of Baptism, one enters the church and approaches the font with the holy myron at the ready. The Deacon proclaims, “And also for the coming down into this oil of the grace of the all-holy Spirit, let us pray to the Lord.” “Lord, have mercy” is said thrice. The Priest prays, “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, who hast chosen thee a people, unto priesthood and kingship, for a holy race and for a chosen people. As of old thou didst anoint priests and kings and with such all-holy oil, so now also, we pray thee, beneficent Lord, send the grace of Thy Holy Spirit into this oil; to the end that it shall be for him that is anointed therewith unto holiness of spiritual wis- dom, that he may manfully fight and triumph over the adversary, unto strength of virtuous actions, and unto his perfect instruction and exercise in the worship of God…” The oil is sprinkled into the font in the sign of the Cross; thereafter, the same is done with water. After immersion, the catechumen is anointed with holy myron on the forehead, eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, palms of his hands, heart, backbone, and feet10. Yovhannes Erznkac{i explains, with reference to the above ritual, Ew zmeronn xac{anman kat{ec{ne, zi meronn K{ristos e, ew xac{ajewn K{ris- tosi xac{n e, “And he sprinkles the myron in the shape of the Cross, for the myron is Christ; and the shape of the Cross is the Cross of Christ.”11 A long prose treatise on the myron was incorporated into St. Grigor Narekac{i Matean o¥bergut{ean as chapter 9312. In the fifth section of the

9 See BROCK 1988, pp. 8, 14. 10 The description of the rite and translation of the liturgical passages therein belong to CONYBEARE 1905, pp. 93-98. 11 Text in BA™DASARYAN 1977, p. 150, with my translation: CONYBEARE 1905, p. 107, somewhat confusingly renders Arm. meron as “myrrh”. 12 The title of the chapter states that it is t{argmanabar, “in translation”: Fr. Awe- tik{ean in his Narekluc, “Narek Deciphered”, Venice 1859, p. 509, suggests this be taken literally: the original was, thus, a treatise by Cyril of Jerusalem. This seems quite possi- ble, since the text cites an allegorical interpretation of the Greek word myron based on , an author Narekac‘i is not likely to have read. In an article soon to be published, though, my student Sergio La Porta argues that the word t{argmanabar here be read rather as ‘interpretative, exegetical', and disputes the idea of a Greek source for Narek's treatise. In the nineteenth section, he writes, “For this myron is extolled in blessing. The sought it, pleading, almost before the light of the eyes; according to the poetic use of the word Homer selected, it may be understood in translation as ‘mother to me' (Arm. inj mayr). That is, it is something that powerfully draws our nature to itself. And by most delicate transformation it establishes as solid the liquidity (lucakanut{iwn) of the waters, for the illumination of the baptismal font. And like the medicinal binder (macuc{ic{) of a drop it shapes to itself my dissipated wildness and the eternal flow of the floods of ARMENIAN VERNACULAR AND ZOK PATERNOSTER 97 chapter, Narekac{i refers to Psalm 133 [132]: Aharonean k{ahanay- ut{eann paycarut{iwn, hramanaw mecid Astucoy, awcmambn coxanayr: orov i glxoy anti i mawrusn ze¥eal gerap{ar iw¥oyn zarmanazan ken- danut{iwn, ¢st sa¥moso¥in, zp{arac{ naxnoyn araker zandradarjut{iwn ew zsnorhid kenac{ srbut{ean ¢nd mez xarnut{iwn. “The brilliance of Aaron's priesthood was made splendid by your command, O great God, through anointment, by which the multifariously wondrous vivification of the super-glorious oil cascading down from the head to the beard — accord- ing to the Psalmist — signified in parable the return of the glory of the primal (man) and the commingling with us of the holiness of your grace of life.” These liturgies and commentaries, taken together, explain that Christ is Himself the myron that flowed down in the Psalm. It is His Incarnation that is the downward movement, from the dew of heaven onto Hermon, thence to the flowers from which the precious oil of anointment is expressed, and onto the head of Aaron. Every Christian, by virtue of his chrismation at baptism, is Aaron receiving Christ; and the centrality of the Incarnation, of Baptism and Chrismation, and of the action of Grace all nest within the prayer that is most central to all Chris- tians — the Paternoster — in Nahapet K{uc{ak's hayren. These various themes all involve also the redemption of Adam, the primal man. There is a vast early and mediaeval Christian literature that adds abundant details to the cryptically laconic account in Genesis of the tragedy of Adam and Eve; and such texts are well attested in . springs.” But there is also inner-Armenian material, or material conceivably adapted to Armenian folk-etymological purposes from a Greek original; so Narekac{i's translation is itself interpretative, and contains his own interpolations. This was, of course, a usual pro- cedure; cf. the Armenian version of Dionysius Thrax. In the passage cited above, for example, we find the play of alliteratively linked opposites, luc-/mac-, “liquid/solid” that figures importantly in Narekac{i's mystical meditation for the synaxis in chapter 33, where he speaks of the loycn macuac, the “liquid solid” of the “last veil” (varagoyr, cf. the discussion above of Heb. pargod) that separates heaven and earth: the marble-like frozen waters over the sky that the travellers to heaven of the Talmudic tractate Hagigah are warned not to call water. As noted earlier, the symbolic system of the myron, too, has everything to do with the transcending of opposites and with passage through barriers between the high and the low. This imagery of passage and transcendence, of the trans- figuration and harmonizing of states seemingly opposite by their very definition, is rele- vant also to the mystery of transsubstantiation, of course; and the subtitle of the medita- tion by Narekac{i instructs the celebrant to recite the prayer until the influence of the Holy Spirit becomes a visible light to him: Heaven and earth are no longer separated by the veil. As to Narekac{i's assertion that the myron is like our mother, one might cite Paul's allegorical interpretation of Sarah in Galatians 4.24 as mother of the free-born, i.e., of the children of the New Covenant, as opposed to the slave-woman Hagar, who represents enslavement to the old Law. The Armenian understanding of baptism as elevation to kingship and priesthood and sonship of God, expressed in the liturgical passages cited above, would validate in every respect this understanding of myron as (free-born) mother. 98 J.R. RUSSELL

Such popularity would not in itself be surprising; but the fact that the Tigris and Euphrates, two of the four rivers that flow out of Paradise, rise in the — Yovhannes T{lkuranc{i located Eden in the canton of Hark{ — must be a factor. The Biblical Adam in Eden, like the mountains of Ararat on which the Ark of rested, is to the Armenians a local theme. A disproportionate number of hayrens of theo- logical content attributed to Nahapet K{uc{ak have Adamic themes; so the Paternoster would not be out of place in the body of his work and may indeed be his. The vector of redemption it describes brings Christ's grace to Armenia; one hayren declares that St. drank the same of immortality that the prophets Enoch and Elijah had imbibed13. Adam's redemption, given an Armen-

13 On Adam, cf. ™UKASEAN 1957, p. 310 no. 117: Ert{am patmem Adama, t{e zK{ris- tos marmnov es tesa/ Aha i xac{ barjrana, azate zcnund Adama:/ Zdzoxn awirel kami, azatel zhogis, or and ka:/ I ver i yerkins hane, hrestakac{n arne geraka “I shall go and tell Adam that I saw Christ in the flesh./ Now He ascends the Cross, and frees the prog- eny of Adam./ He would harrow hell and free the souls that languish there./ He takes them up to Heaven and ranks them above the angels.” No. 118: K{an zAdam ayl inc{ harust, or uner zdraxtn aranjin:/ Satana i oj mtaw, ojn; yEva — zAdam xabec{in:/ I pt¥oyn utel tuin, i p{arac{n merkac{uc{in,/ Terew t{zenwoyn tuin, i draxten hanin varec{in “What could be richer than Adam, who had Paradise all his own?/ Satan entered the ser- pent; the serpent, Eve; they deceived Adam:/ They had him eat the apple, stripped him of glory,/ Gave him a fig leaf, removed him from Paradise and drove him away.” No. 119: I yerknaworac{n dasuc{ Sadayel eresn i srjel:/ I yerknic{ yandund ijer ˆw i lusoyn mahrum mnac{el:/ ZAdam i draxten haner ˆw anasnoc{ erkirn e jgel:/ Amenk{s Adama ordik{s enk{: yotar erkirs bnakel “Sadael turned his face from the ranks of the heavenly ones,/ Descended from Heaven into the abyss and remained banned from the light./ He removed Adam from Paradise and cast him to the earth of animals./ We are all the sons of Adam, and have come to dwell in this alien land.” No. 120: Tesaw Satanan zAdam i draxtin durn er na kangnac:/ Zerku jerk{n yirar i zark u bark-bark ink{ cica¥ac{:/ Adam zayn u¥apn etur: Inc{ tesar, k{o p{ark{n anicac?/ T{epet draxten hanec{ir, c{e t{o¥u mer Tern i jerac{ “Satan saw Adam standing at the gates of Paradise./ He slapped his hands together and cackled with glee./ Adam replied, ‘What did you of cursed glory see?/ Though you removed me from Paradise, our Lord lets us not from His hands.'” No. 122: Ekin awetis berin Adama, t{e: Nist u xnda:/ Edem draxten elar, patar ov e¥aw, mek asa:/ T{e zojn u zEva kasen, na patar e¥aw Satana:/ Es k{ez Satana e¥a, inji ov e¥aw? mek asa “They came and brought good tidings to Adam: ‘Sit and rejoice./ You left the Paradise of Eden. Who was the cause, tell me that!/ If they say the serpent and Eve were, Satan was the cause of them./ I have been your Satan — but who was mine? Tell me that!'” The sense of the latter poem is that the hidden divine economy of salvation has ultimately outwitted Satan — as the latter ruefully admits. For Christ will yet be born, and redeem Adam. The apocryphal Cheirograph of Adam (known to T‘lkuranc‘i, for instance; Prof. Michael Stone is now studying the text in various East Christian traditions) has the first man, terrified by the darkness of night after his expulsion from Paradise, sign a contract with Satan when the latter promises to bring the dawn. The Armenian dialect of Sebas- tia/Sivas preserves the memory of that night, calling the dark before the dawn adamamut{ “Adam-murk". Adam will serve the devil till the unborn is born and the undying dies — but for Christ, of whom he has no foreknowledge, this means forever. The clause by which Satan unwittingly defeats himself has the typical structure of a folk riddle. In a ARMENIAN VERNACULAR AND ZOK PATERNOSTER 99 ian locus, merges with the general idea of the election of the Gentiles, which is expressed in and art in the elaboration at A¥t{amar, for example, of the story of Jonah, where an Irano-Armenian dragon, the visap of defeated by V¢r¢thragna/Vahagn, now the Divine instrument of salvation for the Gentile Ninevites, takes the disobedient Hebrew prophet to the destination intended by God14. Nahapet K{uc{ak's Paternoster draws Armenia into the process of salva- tion in a manner that similarly preserves echoes of the epic, Zoroastrian past, by replacing mount Zion of Ps. 133 [132] with an Irano-Armenian mountain, Sukawet, the latter inhabited by Alan relatives of the epic queen Sat{enik, who become themselves prophets, foretelling the mis- sion of the Parthian Illuminator, St. Gregory. The image of Christ as a flower, especially the rose, is commonplace in Christian symbolism; and in Armenia, it is compounded with the Iranian poetic theme of gol o bolbol, “rose and nightingale”, with the latter, Arm. soxak (from MIr., “speaker”), St. John the Forerunner cry- ing in the wilderness15. In the hayren, though, Christ — the myron — includes a particularly Armenian, magical, uncommon and extra-Christ- ian flower, the hamasp{iwr. Nor does the latter blossom on mount Zion, as one might have expected it to do, in a paraphrase of the Psalm; the process of dew, oil, and grace moves to a local venue, Sukaw or Sukawet, a mountain in Armenia. Of this mountain, we know both a great deal and rather little. Armenian Christian legend16 relates that five

Puranic tale of the conquest of evil, the demon Hiranyakashipu cannot be defeated by man or woman, by day or night, indoors or outdoors — so Shiva as Ardhanarishvara (half man, half woman) slays him on a threshold at dusk. In an Ubykh tale (DUMÉZIL 1955, pp. 31-33), the intent of the riddle is reversed in the favor of the evil power: a giant can retrieve his sword, with which he can destroy mankind, only by digging for it with a stick made from the tree that is last to flower but first to bear fruit. A hayren on Armenian Christianity, finally, ™UKASEAN 1957, p. 252, no. 3: Piter kat{ mi yayn ginun, or xmec{ Enovk{ ˆw E¥ia./ Xmec{ Ter Grigorn Hayoc{ ew asac{ t{e: Hanga./ Hayer, am! duk{ er ku lak{? Gitek{, or jer Tern ti ga?/ Satonc{ mt{an loys arer, ku vaxek{ t{e jern usana? “A drop of that wine was needed, that Enoch and Elijah drank./ Lord Gregory of the Arme- nians drank it and said, ‘Be calm,/ O Armenians! Why do you cry? Don't you know your Lord will come?/ Long he has turned dark to light — do you fear your own will be late?'” The wine is the nectar of immortality; cf. the mention of Enoch and Elijah in the Armenian requiem hymn I verinn Erusa¥em. 14 See RUSSELL, 1988, 1990-1, and 1992, with refs. 15 See RUSSELL 1987, pp. 20 n. 31, 87-88. 16 See Vkayabanut{iwn Srboc{ Suk{iaseanc{ and Ban ew asut{iwn Csmarit Srboc{n Oskeanc{ k{ahanayic{, Sop{erk{ Haykakank{ 19, Venice, 1854, pp. 33-56 and 59-66; the various accounts are summarized by GUSAKEAN 1957, pp. 152-3, and in ORMANEAN I.1, 1959, col. 51-2, para. 27. The latter identifies Sukawet with the modern mount Köse, sug- gesting the latter name comes from the description of the Suk{iaseank{ as having tresses like goats' (zk{awsic{). This seems more than doubtful: one recalls Modest Musorgsky's tone-poem “Night on Bald Mountain”. Slopes forested in antiquity below the tree-line 100 J.R. RUSSELL men, led by one Chryse, Arm. Oski, i.e., “Gold", comprised a Roman delegation to the Armenian king Sanatruk. They met the Apostle Thad- deus on the road, and were converted by him to Christianity. After his martyrdom, these new Christians, called collectively the Oskeank{, “Chryse's men”, settled on mount Ca¥keoy (“Flowering”) in the region of Ca¥kotn. Forty years later — forty being a convenient number — they emerged from hermetic seclusion to evangelize the new royal couple, king Artases (Gk. Artaxias) and queen Sat{enik. Artaxias had lived, in fact, at the beginning of the second century B.C.; Movses Xorenac{i transcribes an oral epic poem about his abduction of the princess Sat{enik on the banks of the Kura. She belonged to the Scythian nation of the , whose remote descendants, the Ossetes, still live in the North Caucasus17. As for Sat{enik, if one removes the Armenian diminu- tive she is none other than the matriarchal heroine Satana, divine mother of the hundred Narts, or “manly ones”, the heroes of Ossetic epic. The Alans, and the kindred Scythians before them who gave their name to the northeastern district Sakasen (<*Saka-sayana- “Scythian home") and to a legendary of the Armenians, Paroyr Skayordi (lit. “son of the Scythian”), were a continuous presence in Armenia18. The name Sat{enik, rooted in heroic legend, would be appropriate to a real, historical princess; or the lay of Artases may be adorned with fictional,

(like the receding hair line of a balding gentleman, perhaps) are often now denuded — Ararat is a prime example. Perso-Turkish köse denotes a beardless man, to be feared as somewhat unnatural and thus the object of humorous derision in an annual festival designed to defuse such feelings that is still celebrated in northwestern . 17 Because of the spectacular discoveries of Scythian art from the of the south Russian steppes, even the National Geographic now takes an interest in the Ossetes, whose extravagant funerary feasts Mike EDWARDS, Searching for the Scythians (Vol. 190, No. 3, Sept. 1996, pp. 70-71: an untouched is being opened by Ukrain- ian archaeologists, with wonderful treasures, at the time of this writing, August 1996) connects to the ancient Scythian rites of mourning. One recalls from Xorenac{i the simi- larly ruinous funeral of Artases. 18 On the Alan princess and Artases, see RUSSELL 1986-7; on Iranian religious and heroic themes linked to the Alans that persisted into Christian Armenia, see RUSSELL 1996. In 1979, Armenian archaeologists working on the site of Artases' capital, Artasat, known to Greco-Roman writers as Artaxata, discovered two bullae, apparently Achaemenid and dated to the 5th-4th cent. B.C., which depict six captives marching left to right, each bound by the neck to the hands — secured behind the back — of the man in front of him; behind the group is a guard holding a spear upright. The bullae were orig- inally secured to papyrus rolls (SANTROT 1996, no. 210 a & b on pp. 222-3). The excava- tors identify these figures as Scythians. Though the model for this scene of bound cap- tives, all of whom are clothed in typically Iranian tunics and , is most likely to have been the relief of Darius I at Behistun, they do not wear the pointed tiara of Skunkha, the tigraxauda “pointy-tiaraed” Scythian. A gold, turquoise-encrusted orna- ment of dragons in the famed “animal style" of the Scythians, found in Armenia and dated to the second century B.C., may well be material evidence of the Alan presence at the Artaxiad royal court: see KEVORKIAN 1996, p. 30, pl. 30. ARMENIAN VERNACULAR AND ZOK PATERNOSTER 101

Scythian trappings. In either case, the seven sleepers of Ephesus, who awoke only in the far future, had nothing, it seems, on the Oskeank{ — but it is not likely the hagiographer meant to project them three centuries into the past. The confusion is his own. Artases expressed guarded interest in the faith preached by Oski, but excused himself to go fight a war in the East. The queen and her two Alan sons, Vnoyn and Vrdoyn (or Jroyn), did not accept Christianity; but some other Alan kinsmen did. Their chief was one Barak{at{ray; at baptism he took the name Hesychius, Arm. Suk{ias. Vnoyn and Vrdoyn slew the Oskeank{ “at a certain gushing spring” (merj yakn a¥ber uremn yordaguni) so the Suk{iaseank{ continued their way of life, and dwelt, first on mount Ca¥keoy, then on another mountain nearby, Jrabasx (Arm., “Water-bestowing”), that came to be called Sukaw or Sukawet — after Suk{ias, we are told. This mountain was in the province of Bagrewand opposite the town of Baguan (i.e., Bagawan, “town of the god”19) and mount Npat. In the meantime, the Sasanian king of Persia (we jump forward another century) invades Armenia, in revenge for the slaying of their king. At the suggestion of Kodratos, a hermit, the Suk{iaseank{ pray for peace, and the go away — rather like the Assyrians who did not take Jerusalem. But that night, the hermit Paw¥ok{tes (i.e., Polyeuktes) has a vision the holy band is to be attacked. Suk{ias then has a vision of the death of Sapuh (i.e., Sabuhr I); and one Datianos releases a blood-bedaubed raven to scatter the her- mits like the chicks of a dove. The hermit ™ukianos recommends that the holy men raid the bagin, the Zoroastrian shrine, at Baguan (pre- sumably to do the heathen some harm before their own inevitable mar- tyrdom). The bodies of the hermits are described at this point in the nar- rative as being like rocks covered with moss; and their tresses dragged like the fur of mountain goats (varsk{ noc{a orpes zk{osic{ k¨arsein). Their hardiness and outlandish appearance will duly astonish their per- secutors, who are on the way. The Persian king dies; Gigianos (the name resembles a historical one transmitted in Greek, as Ginge, but it might as well be Gog or Magog, who were North Caucasians in apocalyptic; whilst Gog derives from the historical, Anatolian Gyges) rules the Alans. He inquires about the men in Armenia who refuse to worship the royal (zastuacs) and one

19 A town in the province of Bagrewand; explains it as Parthian for Dic{-awan, “town of the god(s)”, and Movses Xorenac{i understands the name as bagnac{ awan, “town of altars”, equating bagin, that which belongs to the god — his altar — with bag itself. It is modern Üç Kilise (Tk., “Three Churches”), northwest of Diadin (HÜBSCH- MANN 1904, p. 411). 102 J.R. RUSSELL

Skuher20 tells him there are indeed such people, on mount Sukawet. The Persian king attacks, and has a general named Ba¥laha21 speak to the Suk{iaseank{. Suk{ias explains that he had once worn the crown of the second throne of the realm (yerkrordakan gahen t{agakic{ er), but then he discovered Christianity and acquired his new name, which means “quiet life” (xa¥a¥akan keans, as indeed Hesychius does). Knowing death is imminent, the saint then prays for God to hear him as he heard Elijah, who fled Jezebel and hid in a mountain. He prays the place of the death of his band may become a place of divine healing; and a voice from Heaven thereupon decrees that the spot will be a¥bewr jroy bzskut{ean ew ho¥ erkrin bazum c{awoc{ i bzskut{iwn, “a spring of the water of healing; and the soil of the land will be for the healing of many diseases.” The Suk{iaseank{ are slain on 17 Nawasard22. St. Gregory the Illuminator later erects a martyrium (vkayaran) at the site, and puts one Abas in charge. Armenian historians provide additional details that frequently differ from the above narrative. Yovhannes Catholicos specifies that the Oskeank{ baptised relatives of Sat{enik 43 years after the martyrdom of St. Thaddeus; then “Sat{enik's son was incensed against them” (xan- dac{eal ¢nd nosa ordwoyn Sat{enkan) and slew them. It seems signifi- cant — for reasons to be discussed presently — that the queen in this version of the legend has only one son. The Suk{iaseank{ then retired into their mountainous occultation. When Anak slew the Armenian king Xosrov, and Armenia lacked a ruler, the Alan Ba¥lah came down out of the Alan Gate (yAlanac¨ drane, i.e., the Daryal Pass in the ). Bearing a document (gir), he hunted down the hermits and slew them — mount Jrabasx, where they were killed, bore thereafter the name Sukaw after their leader, Suk{ias23. The martyrs are killed by their own kinsmen

20 It would be tempting to derive this from OP. Skudra, the name, as it seems, of a Scythian group (see SZEMERÉNYI 1980, p. 26) and hence appropriate to an Alan informer at the Persian court in this tale. Arm. Skuher could conceivably be derived from the orig- inal form via MPers. *Skuhr. 21 Perhaps Syr. Bar Allaha, “Son of God”; a Sasanian general with the Semitic theo- phoric name Barbasmen is commemorated by the Armenian Church, though he was a Christian proselyte who suffered martyrdom himself (see RUSSELL 1987[a], p. 174). 22 The Oskeank{ are commemorated in the Synaxarion of Ter Israyel on 10 Hori/ 19 Sept.; St. Hesychius, on 17 Nawasard/27 Aug. and 18 Sahmi/27 Oct. (Patrologia Ori- entalis VI, pp. 255-6, 259-61; V, pp. 443-8; XV. p. 383); the voice from Heaven here specifies that the spot where the Suk{iaseank{ died will be a remedy for “365 diseases, according to the days of the year” (FEYDIT 1986, p. 170 and 171 n. 65-6): cf. the homol- ogy of the days of the year also to the parts of the body — each subject, one supposes, to a different malady. Step{anos of Siwnik{, cited below, suggests there were 365 martyrs, making the round, cosmic symbolism of the legend complete. 23 Yovhannes DRASXANAKERTEC{I 1912, pp. 36-7. ARMENIAN VERNACULAR AND ZOK PATERNOSTER 103 during a raid from the north in a moment of Armenian political instabil- ity. The Alan chief's document suggests he may be acting at the behest of the Persians, but this is not stated. T{ovma Arcruni, perhaps following a local, oral tradition he had received that Artases had established a cap- ital at Van, and had erected on a tower near the temple treasury a statue of the Ast¥ik, conveys part of the action thither. The holy men of Sukawet, whom he describes as confidants of Sat{inik (he employs this variant spelling of the queen's name), send to her — their compa- triot — to reproach her for idolatry, as St. K{riwsi (i.e. Chryse) had sent to Artases. But Sat{inik did not renounce the worship of the statue of Ast¥ik, insisting that reforms in religion must be a prerogative of the king. In this respect she is to be seen as the opposite of the later queen of Armenia, Xosroviduxt, who accepted Christianity before Tiridates the Great, and induced him to do so24. The question of the number of sons Sat{enik has in the legend, and what their names were, raises intriguing possibilities. The names Vnoyn and Vrdoyn have the appearance of the Arm. gen./dat. sg. -oy with the definite art. -n; and with the on-glide v- of mediaeval and modern Armenian, Vrdoyn could perhaps be a distortion of an original ordwoyn “of the son” (pronounced /vordwoyn/), rational- ized to a form of Vard, an attested Arm. male proper name (cf. Vard Patrik) from vard “rose”. Vnoyn might then be a gen. of Ven; and an Arm. text on the Siren-like monster yuskaparik, the mother of heresy, mentions that “the accursed kings of the Persians, Ven and Vnuk” for- nicated with the creature, who thereupon bore Popoz — the eponymous ancestor of the Popuzian heretics — who begat Mani, etc25. Perhaps the wicked brothers with rhyming names, this Tweedledum and Tweedledee pair of the hagiography of the Suk{iaseank{, are the original of Ven and Vnuk; and were themselves misbegotten by a genitive singular of Arm. ordi. But why did they geminate? As we have seen, the Sat{enik of Armenian Artaxiad epic legendry derives from Satana, the mother of all the Narts. The first of these heroes, Batradz, was born in a very particu- lar way: a shepherd standing on the bank of the river Terek, opposite where bare Satana bathed (in Abkhaz versions she is in the Bzyp), was so aroused by her beauty that he ejaculated over the water. His semen hit and impregnated the rock behind which she had sought to hide; and Batradz was born of it nine months later. This feat is of Anatolian ori- gin: the oldest locus is the Song of Ullikummi; and Ps.-Plutarch, De Fluviis, makes a misogynous Mithras masturbating on the banks of the

24 See THOMSON 1985, p. 118, with discussion. 25 See RUSSELL 1993, 276-7 & n. 8. 104 J.R. RUSSELL

Araxes the progenitor of the titan Diorphos: Roman Mithraism, with its roots in Armenia, celebrates Mithras himself as saxigenus/petrogenes26. But in the Armenian epic Sasna crer, “The Wild Men of Sasun”, the heroine Covinar, “Lady of the Lake”, the mother of the four of the heroes of Sasun and a figure in most respects parallel to Satana, is herself impregnated by a rock. She wades into Lake Van, drinks one and a half handfuls of a milky liquid spouting from a rock erect in the water, and subsequently gives birth to twins, who are of unequal size but who have rhyming names: Sanasar and Ba¥dasar. These names have been shaped by folk tradition from those of the brothers Sarasar and Adra- melek who in the flee from Sennacherib their father into the mountains of — the Arcrunids claimed descent from them, and used the regnal name Senek{erim. So in the Armenian hagiography of the Suk{iaseank{, it is appropriate that the epic Sat{enik have twins, with rhyming names, though we are not told whether a rock figured in their conception. On the level of comparative epic, the aspect of the twins indicates that Armenians associated the epic heroine of the Narts with the progenetrix of their own epic heroes, though it must be said that Vnoyn and Vrdoyn are, unlike Sanasar and Ba¥dasar, a miserable lot. (Perhaps to save the motif of two, and to redeem affairs somewhat, the hagiography informs us that two young hermits escaped the general slaughter of the Suk{iaseank{: according to one tradition, they spent the remainder of their lives in hiding, and were eventually buried by local shepherds; but a legend of Alaskert makes them into St. Sergius, a heroically martial figure!27). More significantly, there is a broad, structural parallel between the two successive waves of evangelization in Armenian Christian legend: first, Scytho-Alan martyrs, owing their Christianity to a Hebrew apostle, attempt to evangelize the Alan queen and ; later, a Parthian nobleman baptized into Christianity — St. Gregory, ordained at Caesarea and arriving in Armenia on the heels of the ill-fated Hrip{simean virgins, evangelizes an Arsacid king. There are two strata of Iranian nobles intertwined with the Armenian royal house, and two strata of foreign Christian evangelists whose work is an impulse to the conversion, successful the second time, of the Armenian people. The

26 See RUSSELL 1993(a). 27 A legend on the pilgrimage site of St. Sargis, southwest of Alaskert fortress, ™ANALANYAN 1969, p. 271 no. 727: The general Sargis once surrendered himself to a besieging enemy to save people trapped in the fortress; but when they saw the enemy tor- turing him, they fought and drove the enemy off. He is reputed to have been one of the companions of St. Suk{ias who escaped the general slaughter and killed an enemy who tracked him all the way to Alaskert. ARMENIAN VERNACULAR AND ZOK PATERNOSTER 105

Armenian epic tradition is steeped in the persons and lore of Alans and Parthians: these legends spread the mantle of Christian mission over all. The Scytho-Alan and Parthian strands of this legendary Armenian Heilsgeschichte are brought together in yet another tradition, regarded by Lynch as historically credible28, that Tiridates the Great was himself baptized on the banks of the Upper Murat Su, at St. Karapet of Üç Kilise near Diadin — that is, at Bagawan, below the mountain where the Suk{iaseank{ dwelt and were martyred. With respect to such a link between the Alan and Parthian episodes, a passage from a letter of Step{anos, bishop of Siwnik{, preserved in the Book of Letters, is worth translating at length; for it explicitly describes the Suk{iaseank{ as foretelling the mission of St. Gregory and the tri- umph of Christianity in Armenia, and affirms the tradition: “It is by supernatural and excelling wisdom belonging to Divine that through the Divine mercy of the Creator He wills that every soul might live and come to the knowledge of truth. You have learnt from the Lord to love the Lord and your neighbor as yourself; so that you have been particularly solicitous of the Japhetic inhabitants of this realm of Arme- nia — for our sake indeed was the spilling of the blood of the Apostles Bartholomew and Thaddeus. For the sake of the illumination of this realm, that it might come into the true faith, they made prayers, as did the Sukaweank{, who were 365 witnesses to Christ, years ago. They said, according to the impulse of the Holy Spirit, ‘God will see His tiller, stronger than we are' — and indeed it was so, for when Anak arrived in Armenia, they spent the night in the martyrium of the holy Apostle Thaddeus, and when he slept with his wife there occurred the gift of the conception of our Illuminator.”29 The conception of the Illuminator obviously borrows elements from the legend of the Holy Nativity here. The collective designation of the followers of Suk{ias/Hesychius is changed from Suk{iaseank{ to Sukaweank{, closer to the name of the mountain supposedly named after the martyr.

28 LYNCH 1990, Vol. I, p. 297. 29 Letter 89, PO™AREAN 1994, p. 494: Gerabunwoy, arawel imastut{eamb Astuacayin gitut{eann, or iwrov astuacayin ararc{akan o¥ormut{eambn zamenayn anjn kami zi kec{c{en, ew i gitut{iwn csmartut{ean ekesc{en. Useal e jer i Tearne sirel zTer ew z¢nkern ibrew zanjn, zor manawand hog tareal eik{ vasn Abet{ean bnakc{ac{ Hayastan asxarhis, or i veray mer e¥ew he¥umn arean arak{eloc{n Bart{o¥omeosi ew T{adeosi, or vasn aysm asxarhi lusaworut{ean a¥awt{s ararin gal i hawats csmarits, or ew znoyn Sukaweank{n, or en vkayk{ K{ristosi erek{ hariwr ew vat{sun ew hing, amawk{ yaraj, ¢st Hogwoyn srboy azdmann asein: Astuac tesc{e iwr msak zawragoyn k{an zmez, orpes e¥ew isk. Orpes i galn Anakay i {, awt{ewan e¥ew i vkayarani srboy arak{eloyn T{adeosi, ew i nnjeln ¢nd knoj iwrum e¥ew ¢ncayumn y¥ut{ean meroy lusaworc{in. 106 J.R. RUSSELL

It seems most unlikely, though, on phonological and etymological grounds, that the name Sukawet, with the suffix -wet, “possessing”, from Old Iranian *-vaita-30, synonymous with the more frequently encountered suffix -vant- “possessing”, should derive from Suk{ias, with an aspirate k¨ that is not preserved in any rendering of the moun- tain's name. The compounds with -(a)wet in deal almost exclusively with natural abundance (ayg-, ca¥k-, xot-, hac{-, gin- ewet, mrg-: “garden, flower, grass, grain, wine, fruit”), the exception being xa¥a¥awet, “peaceful”, a calque on Hesychius/Suk{ias, perhaps. The name of the Arm. mountain must mean “possessing *soyk” (by reg- ular vowel alternation, in compounds, suk-): MIr. -o- from OIr. *-au- (OPers. -au-, Av. -ao-) > Arm. -oy-, cf. boyr “fragrance” (Av. baodha-, MIr. bod), xoyr “tiara” (OPers. tigra-xauda- cited above, of a tribe, MIr. xod: Sat{enik at her wedding desires an artaxoyr, understood by Perikhanian with comparison to Sgd. ret-xodh, lit. “face-hat” as a sort of veil). The word is to be derived from an Iranian word meaning “profit” or “advantage”, from the base sav- “nützen” (BARTHOLOMAE, AirWb. 1561), the name of a Zoroastrian yazata otherwise unattested in Armenian, in fact: Phl. Sok (Greater Bundahisn Ms. TD2 167.1-9; Sok i weh, “Good Advantage”, created by the Am¢sa Sp¢nta Sahrevar, 36.3), Av. Saoka- (f.). The yazata is associated with Airyana Vaejah, the mythical Iranian , and with the river Daitya. She “bears pos- sessions” and “brings boons” (Av. barat.av¢r¢ta-, barat.ayapta-), and the Bundahisn declares that “a spirit that is the co-worker of Mihr, they call Sok: all weal which the world on high created for earth comes first to Sok” (ch. 26.13, 22)31 — which is as close as one can come in the Zoroastrian Scripture to the Psalmist's characterizations of Hermon and Zion! Moreover, Arm. Jrabasx, “bestowing waters”, seems a good “native” rendering (the compound basx- is Iranian of course; cf. Av. baxsa-), like Dic{awan for Bagawan, of a name for a mountain whose springs and fertile soil might well cure all the 365 diseases to which the 365 parts of a man are vulnerable, and on whose slopes the hamasp{iwr's twelve blossoms might glow by night in every color of the rainbow.

30 See BAILEY 1979, p. 387 s.v. -viya- (suffix) “possessing”. He cites a form aur- gaviya-, “worthy to be honored”, to which one might compare the synonymous con- struction within Iranian attested as a MIr. loan in Armenian, argawand, “fertile”. 31 See GRAY 1925, pp. 158-9; the yazata is mentioned in Yasts 5.26; 14.3,7,9; and 16.3. The passage from the Bundahisn cited is transliterated and translated in ANKLESARIA 1956, ch. XXVI, verse 34, pp. 216-7; one reads the text thus: Menog-eiabag Mihr hamkar, Sok xwanend: hamag newagih ke az abargaran o getig brehenid, nazdist o Sok ayed. ARMENIAN VERNACULAR AND ZOK PATERNOSTER 107

The name Sukawet, shorn of its pious Volksetymologie and under- stood rightly, loses none of the characteristics tradition assigns to it. More likely they preceded the mountain's Christianization. The name of the province in which Sukawet rises, Bagrewand, itself means “God who is Rich”, employing a typical epithet of ; and Erevan, though an Urartean name, might have been understood by Zoroastrians of the Arsacid period to mean “rich” similarly; the river Hrazdan that flows through the town is named after Av. Frazdanu-, on whose banks Vistaspa accepted the faith of the Prophet Zarathustra32. It was noted that *-vaita- and -vant- are synonymous; and it is probable that Sukawet is an inner-Iranian translation, or an Armenian rendering with two Iran- ian-derived elements, of the synonymous Sukavand, in the marches of Khorasan, a place which the Hudud al-¨Alam informs us “possesses a strong fortress and much cultivation”. The place, about a week's ride from Kabul, had a temple where there stood an idol of the goddess of wealth of , LakÒmi, also called Sukhavati: the latter name would have corresponded pleasantly to the Iranian designation (of dif- ferent derivation, but few then would have known it) of the fortress. LakÒmi regularly renders the name of the Zoroastrian yazata Asi in San- skrit down to the present day; so the statue might have received the reverence of both Zoroastrians and Hindus. The Arab ¨Amr b. Layth plundered the temple ca. A.D. 897 and sent the precious idol to Baghdad33. Another version of the Lord's Prayer is finally to be considered. On 20 May 1995, in the company of my colleague Dr. Bert Vaux of the Lin- guistics Department of Harvard I visited Mr. Ervand Melik-Moussian, a nonagenarian native speaker of the Armenian dialect of Agulis (called Zokeren), at his home in Lakewood, New Jersey. Agulis (Clas. Arm. Argulik{ — the acc. pl. only has survived; cf. Masik{ > Mod. Arm. Masis) is a town in Naxijewan, and was a part of ancient Armenian Go¥t{n, where Mastoc{ preached to the stubbornly pagan natives (Mes- rop-awan, named after him and his mission, became in dialect Ms¢wanis, as it was known in modern times); where Tigran II settled Median captives; where Vahan Go¥t{nec{i was martyred; where later Xorenac{i heard the song of the birth of Vahagn sung. In the Perso- Ottoman wars of the end of the 16th century, thousands of Armenians of the region scattered to or Istanbul, or were sold into slavery. Many were deported to by Sah ¨Abbas34. But the communities of

32 See RUSSELL 1985. 33 See MINORSKY 1970, pp. 111, 347; and MARQUART 1901, p. 296 & n. 1. 34 See HAXNAZAREAN 1987. 108 J.R. RUSSELL

Go¥t{n retained their distinct character, thanks to language and custom. The sound changes that occurred to produce the dialect of Agulis have rendered it appreciably different from most other spoken , so much so as to be frequently incomprehensible: ¢zähäc¢t{ in the second text transcribed below, for example, derives from a form that would be in standard Mod. Arm. *uzac{ac(¢)d, “desired of yours”, ren- dering Clas. Arm. kamk¨ k¨o, “thy will”. The Agulec{is, or Zoks, as they are called, live in various places now, having been massacred and expelled by Anatolian, then Azeri Turks in the years following the First World War. Their language sets them somewhat apart from other Arme- nians; and in Erevan they are (quite inaccurately) considered to be of Jewish origin, reputed to be extremely punctual and reliable, stingy with others but generous with their own — a not entirely flattering description of ambitious over-achievers35. Mr. Melik-Moussian died some months ago, not long after my first, and, as it turned out, only meeting with him. He was a remarkable man: I have reproductions of two lovely paintings he executed, of a crane (Arm. aragil) and of a monastery in Naxijewan. Though in failing health, he had a sharp mind, precise memory, ready wit, and affable, strong character. Zoks around the world held him in profound venera- tion, as a kind of patriarch of their widely-dispersed community. We conversed in and Russian; he spoke Persian, also, with perfect fluency. Mr. Melik-Moussian sent me a copy of the - script in his copper-plate calligraphy and elegant Eastern Armenian, of a memoir of his completed at Tehran, 1985. It may be briefly sum- marized here, as it is a remarkable record of a cohesive family of Armenian nobles — meliks — over three centuries. In the 1659, a Melik Musu was among the Armenian merchants of , Isfahan, who gave the so-called Diamond Throne that is now in the Kremlin Treasury to Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich. Melik Musu's family were from Go¥t{n; and in the early 18th century they returned there, to settle in Agulis: their house was in the S¥natak district, at the foot of Mt. Gindär. Though the family were branded as pro-Turkish in the time of Dawit{ Bek's uprising in 1722 — the meliks, who enjoyed certain privileges as vassals of the Sultan or Khan, tended not to share the interests of the common Armenian folk — there is some evidence their actions saved Armenian lives: Melik-Moussian claims to have seen at Agulis in 1917 a manu- script (now lost) by K. Mak{sapetean, written in 1815 at C{¥na-C{ananab

35 Oral communication of the lexicographer Prof. Nelli Baratyan of Erevan, Cam- bridge, MA, 1 June 1994. ARMENIAN VERNACULAR AND ZOK PATERNOSTER 109 in Go¥t{n, which exculpates them. Later in the 18th century the family married into the gently-bred Melik Adam and Ter Janean houses, and built St. Step{anos church. In the 19th century they became representa- tives of French and Belgian firms; Minas Melik-Moussian moved to , and family business took others of the to Rast and Enzeli, in northern Iran. Minas sent photographic equipment to his brother Mkrtic{: the latter went to , became an apprentice at a Russ- ian atelier, and also studied pharmacology and medicine. Both brothers returned to Agulis to ply their trades (one notes Armenians were promi- nent everywhere in the as photographers). In the next gen- eration, Minas' son Ruben matriculated in mathematics at St. Petersburg University: he taught the subject subsequently in several Armenian gymnasia, and at Erevan he was active in the Mrgastan district commit- tee of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Hay ye¥ap{oxakan das- nakc{ut{iwn, founded towards the end of the 19th century). Others in the family were also active members of this party, whose aims were politi- cal liberation and socialist development. In , Asot Melik- Moussian served in the Russian Army and was several times awarded the Cross of St. George. During the short-lived period of Armenian inde- pendence after the war, he was appointed governor of Go¥t{n. Other members of the family were established in Iran. Eruand, born in 1899, was graduated from the school of Agulis and the famed Nersisean school of Tiflis (1917). In the turbulent period following the war and Revolu- tion, he found a steady source of income photographing Moslems embarking on the pilgrimage to Mecca, at Bandar Gaz, Iran. Later he moved to Babolsar, Babol, then Tehran, where from 1959 to 1976 he worked for the Armenian school system. The family are now scattered through Iran, Armenia, , the of America — and, according the chronicle, a few still lived in 1985 in and Agulis, though the Turks had rendered most of Naxijewan Armenierrein. Mr. Melik-Moussian recited to me and to Dr. Vaux, who recorded it on tape, a Zok Paternoster, which I transcribed at the time as follows: Hanun har yev ordo yev hoguyn srbo a´mmen./ Mi´r api, or yerknkumn ¢s,/ Surb nan k{u anun¢./ Mist t{agavorut{yun¢d/ Mir värin mno, urti/ Yerknkumn a, andi äl/ Yerkri värin. Yev mist miz/ c{arut{yunic{ häri pahis, k{ or/ ¢sxa´rkam¢s t{agavorut{yun¢/ Yev uz¢ nän pa´tiv¢ k{unna mist, a´men. “In the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, Amen./ Our Father, who art in Heaven,/ Blessed be thy name./ Always your kingdom/ Over us remain, as/ It is in Heaven, so also/ On earth. And always/ Keep us far from evil, since/ In this world the kingdom/ And the power and the honor/ Are thine always, Amen.” Mr. Melik-Moussian 110 J.R. RUSSELL knew the full version of the Lord's Prayer as it is recited in church, in Classical Armenian, and was capable of translating it directly into Zok- eren (as transcribed by Dr. Vaux): ánun hor yev ort{o yev ok{uyn s¢rp{o ámmen. Mir ap{i or yerk¢nk{umn¢s, surp{ nän k{u ánun. K{u t{ak{avo- rut{yun¢ mir värin nän m¢no mist hamman ¢zähäc¢t{ katarvi úrti yerk¢nk{umn ánti äl yerkri värin. Mir orva hoc{¢ h¢sáni miz yev t{ugh mist miz partakan or mik{ äl portk{ c{¢m¢nonk¨ miruc{. Yev mist miz häri pähis c{arut{yúnic{, k{ani or ¢sxárk{am¢s t{ak{avorut{yunu, uzu, nän pátiv¢ k{unn a mist. Ammen. But the first, shorter version, he insisted, was the one people customarily recited. The Paternoster hayren of Nahapet is extraordinary for what it adds to this most central of all Christian prayers; the Zok prayer is of interest for what it omits. Like the version of Luke as compared to Matthew, above, it lacks the middle parts of the prayer that have to do with theology — more, in fact, than Luke does: there is nothing in the Zok text of the reflection of the divine will on earth, nothing on the provision of one's daily bread, nothing on debts. What is left is a petition for divine protection against evil, more talismanic than catechetical, and perhaps a relic of a much earlier time. The two versions of the Paternoster discussed here illustrate in their diverse ways how the central prayer of the Christian faith has been used and modified, steeped in theological conceptions and pre-Christian mythologies of the easternmost of the native Christian nations, over nearly seventeen centuries. We have seen it as a simple, talismanic peti- tion for divine protection, in the dialect of a man who was certainly one of the very oldest living speakers of Zokeren. In a folk poem, it reveals a whole Scytho-Alan stratum of legend about the sources of Armenia's conversion to Christianity, carefully harmonized to the Arsacid legend and faithful in its essentials to Armenia's dual claims to Iranian glory in epic — the Alans in the north and the Parthians in the south. And Christ becomes the oil of the Psalmist and of Enoch, of Byzantine theology and myron, expressed from an Armenian magical flower on a mountain that bears the name — as we discover — of a Zoroastrian sacred being.

Harvard University James R. RUSSELL Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations 6 Divinity Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 U.S.A. ARMENIAN VERNACULAR AND ZOK PATERNOSTER 111

BIBLIOGRAPHY

B.T. ANKLESARIA, Zand-Akasih: Iranian or Greater Bundahisn, Bombay, 1956. H.W. BAILEY, Dictionary of Khotan Saka, Cambridge, 1979. E.M. BA™DASARYAN, Hovhannes Erznkac{in ev nra xratakan arjak¢, Erevan, 1977. H.D. BETZ, The Sermon on the Mount (Hermeneia Series), Minneapolis, 1995. S.P. BROCK, Studies in Syriac Spirituality (The Syrian Churches Series, 13), Poona, 1988. F.C. CONYBEARE, Rituale Armenorum, Oxford, 1905. A. C¨OPANEAN, Hayrenneru burastan¢, Paris, 1940. G. DUMÉZIL, Récits Oubykh V: Un Prométhée Oubykh, in Journal Asiatique, 243 (1955), pp. 31-33. F. FEYDIT, Amulettes de l'Arménie Chrétienne, Venice, 1986. L.H. GRAY, Foundations of the Iranian Religions (K.R. Cama Oriental Institute Publication, 5), Bombay, 1925. Patr. T¨. GUSAKEAN, Surbk{ ew tonk{ Hayastaneayc{ eke¥ec{woy, Jerusalem, 1957. Y. HAXNAZAREAN, Go¥t{an gawar: patmagrut{iwn ew yusagrut{iwn, Antelias, 1987. M. HIMMELFARB, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, Oxford, 1993. H. HÜBSCHMANN, Die altarmenischen Ortsnamen (Indogermanische Forschun- gen, XVI), 1904, repr. Amsterdam, 1969. R.H. KEVORKIAN, ed., Arménie entre Orient et Occident, Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de , 1996. A. ™ANALANYAN, Avandapatum, Erevan, 1969. A. ™UKASYAN, Nahapet K{uc{ak: Hayreni kargav, Erevan, 1957. H.F.B. LYNCH, Armenia: Travels and Studies, 2 vols., repr. New York, 1990. J. MARQUART, Eransahr nach der Geographie des (Ps.) Moses Xorenac{i, in Abh. d. König. Gesellschaft d. Wiss. zu Göttingen, Phil.-Hist. Kl., N.F., Bd. III, Nr. 2, Berlin, 1901. V. MINORSKY, Hudud al-¨Alam, 2nd ed., London, 1970. A.S. MNAC{AKANYAN, ed., Hayrenner, Erevan, 1995. M. ORMANEAN, Azgapatum, Vol. I.1, Beirut, 1959. Abp. N. PO™AREAN, ed., Girk{ t{¥t{oc{, Jerusalem, 1994. J.R. RUSSELL, Armeno-Iranica, in D. BIVAR and J. HINNELLS, eds., Papers in Honour of Professor Mary Boyce (Acta Iranica, 25), Leiden, 1985, pp. 447- 458. 1986-7: Iranian Themes in the Armenian Artaxiad Epic, in Revue des Études Arméniennes, N.S. 20 (1987), pp. 253-70. 1987: Yovhannes T{lkuranc{i and the Mediaeval Armenian Lyric Tradition (Univ. of Pennsylvania Armenian Texts and Studies), Atlanta, GA, 1987. 1987(a): in Armenia (Harvard Iranian Series, 5), Cambridge, MA, 1987. 1988: St. : His Sources and his Contemporaries, in Armen- ian Review, Summer 1988, 41.2.162, pp. 59-65. 1990-1: Two Notes on Biblical Tradition and Native Epic in the Narek, in Revue des Études Arméniennes, N.S. 22 (1990), pp. 135-145. 1992: Carmina Vahagni, in Acta Antiqua, 32 (1989), pp. 317-330. 112 J.R. RUSSELL

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APPENDIX

Fig. 1 is the text of the Paternoster in Zok, transcribed by Ervand Melik- Moussian as it is actually recited, in his copper-plate calligraphic hand: Hayr mer/ Mir ap{i!/ Mir ap{i! or erknk{umn¢s/ Surb nän k{u anun¢, mist/ t{aga- worut{iwnd mir värin mno,/ Urti erknk{umn a, andi äl,/ ¢sxarhis värin:/ mist miz c{arut{iwnic{ häri/ pahis, k{ani or ¢sxarhis/ t{agaworut{iwn¢, uz¢ nän/ patiw¢ k{unna mist:/ Ammen.

I asked Mr. Melik-Moussian then to render into Zok the entire grabar text, including the lines the folk version omits, which he did in a letter of 14 June 1995 (Fig. 2): Mir ap{i or erknk{umns,/ Surba k{u anun¢:/ K{u t{agaworut{iwn¢ mir varin mno mist,/ Hamman ¢zähäcd katarwi,/ Urti erknk{um, andi äl erkri värin./ Mir orway hoc{¢ hsani miz,/ Ew t{u¥ mist miz partakan,/ or mik{ äl portk{ c{¢mnonk¨ miruc{,/ Ew mist miz häri pahis c{aric{,/ Mänäk p{rkis c{arut{iwnic{:/ K{ani or ¢sxarhis t{agaworut{iwn¢/ Uz¢ nän patiw¢, k{unna yawiteans yaw- itenic{. Amen. ARMENIAN VERNACULAR AND ZOK PATERNOSTER 113 114 J.R. RUSSELL