chapter seventeen
MANICHAEISMINLATEANTIQUEGEORGIA?
Tamila Mgaloblishvilia) & Stephen H. Rapp Jr.b) a)Kekelidze Institute of Manuscripts, Tbilisi; b)University of Oklahoma
Since the s a growing body of scholarship has exposed the intimate connectionsofCaucasiaandIraninpre-moderntimes.1 The various Georgian and Armenian peoples shared many institutions and concepts with the neighboring Iranians and were physically connected to Iran through commerce, migration, war, and marriage. The historiographical literature produced by the Armenians and the K‘art‘velians—the indige- nous inhabitants of K‘art‘li (Iberia) in eastern Georgia—is a brilliant wit- ness to their association with the Iranian Commonwealth.2 All of the his- tories written in early medieval Caucasia contain Iranian substrata and a few of these texts, including the Armenian Epic Histories3 ofthelatefifth
1 HerodotusreportedthattheCaucasusMountainswere‘asfarasPersianrulereaches . . .’ (III.). For southern Caucasia, see (e.g.): David Marshall Lang, ‘Iran, Armenia, and Georgia,’ in The Cambridge History of Iran / (Cambridge, ) –; Nina G. Garsoïan, ‘Iran and Caucasia,’in Transcaucasia, Nationalism, and Social Change: Essays in the History of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia,RonaldSunyed.,rev.ed.(AnnArbor, Mich., ) –; Cyril Toumanoff, Studies in Christian Caucasian History (Washington, D.C., ); and Florian Knauss, ‘Ancient Persia and the Caucasus,’ Iranica Antiqua () –. For Georgia (e.g.): Stephen H. Rapp Jr., ‘The Iranian Heritage of Georgia: Breathing New Life into the Pre-Bagratid Historiographical Tradition,’ Iranica Antiqua () –; and Iulon Gagoshidze, ‘The Achaemenid Influence in Iberia,’ Boreas () –. For Armenia (e.g.): Garsoïan, ‘The Locus of the Death of Kings: Iranian Armenia—The Inverted Image,’in The Armenian Image in History and Literature,Richard G. Hovannisian ed. (Malibu, Calif., ) –, and eadem, ‘Prolegomena to a Study of the Iranian Aspects in Arsacid Armenia,’ Handes¯ amsoreay¯ () –, both repr. in her Armenia between Byzantium and the Sasanians (London, ); Boghos Levon Zekiyan, ‘The Iranian Oikumene and Armenia,’ Iran & the Caucasus / () –; and the works of James Russell cited below. 2 The earliest specimens of Georgian and Armenian literature were composed in the fifth century, within several decades of the invention of distinctive scripts for thetwo languages. 3 The Epic Histories Attributed to P‘awstos Buzand (Buzandaran Patmut‘iwnk‘), Nina G. Garsoïan trans., Harvard Armenian Texts and Studies (Cambridge, Mass., ). tamila mgaloblishvili & stephen h. rapp jr. century and the Georgian Life of the K‘art‘velian Kings and Life of Vaxtang Gorgasali ofthelateeighth/earlyninthcentury,aresaturatedwithIranian and Iranian-like imagery. Iranic social patterns and models of kingship survived Christianization and the turbulent transition from late antiquity to the medieval era: in eastern Georgia these persisted into the ninth cen- tury, some years after the Arab conquest of the Sasanian Empire and some years after the Christian conversions of the dynasts of southern Caucasia.4 The longstanding nexus of Caucasia and Iran extended into the reli- gious sphere. The prevalence of Mazdean and Zoroastrian ideas among the Armenians has been well documented,5 and while literary and archaeological materials are more limited for K‘art‘li, they likewise attest a substantial Zoroastrian presence.6 Especially in the pre-Christian era, Caucasian Zoroastrianism tended to be syncretic and adaptable with plentiful local elements. After the kings of Armenia and eastern Georgia embraced Christianity in the early fourth century, a comparable situation prevailed: prior to the Christological controversies of the fifth and sixth centuries, Caucasian Christianity was remarkably inclusive, pluralistic, and flexible.7 Rigid hierarchies and orthodoxies were established later, particularly as ‘national’ churches crystallized from the sixth century.
4 Rapp, ‘Iranian Heritage of Georgia’. 5 James R. Russell, Zoroastrianism in Armenia (Cambridge, Mass., ) and idem, Armenian and Iranian Studies, Harvard Armenian Texts and Studies (Cambridge, Mass., ). 6 The literature on this subject is large and growing. Ivane Javaxishvili [Dzhavakhish- vili, Dzhavakhov] and N.Ia. Marr theorized that the pantheon of pre-Christian deities attested in the early Georgian historiographical and hagiographical traditions essen- tially masked a local form of Zoroastrianism: Javaxishvili, K‘art‘veli eris istoria , repr. in his T‘xzulebani (T‘bilisi, ) – and –; and Marr, ‘Bogi iazycheskoi Gruzii po drevne-gruzinskim istochnikam,’ Zapiski vostochnago Otdeleniia imperatorsk- ago russkago arkheologicheskago Obshchestva / () –. See also: V.A. Lukonin, Kul’tura sasanidskogo Irana (Moskva, ) ; Sak‘art‘velos istoriis narkvevebi , Giorgi Melik‘ishvili ed. (T‘bilisi, ) ; I. Gagoshidze, ‘Iz istorii gruzino-iranskikh vza- imootnoshenii,’ in Kavkaz i Sredniaia Aziia v drevnosti i srednevekov’e (istoriia i kul’tura) (Moskva, ) –; idem, ‘K‘art‘lshi k‘ristianobis damkvidrebis istoriisat‘vis,’ Liter- atura da xelovneba () –; I. Surguladze, Mit‘osi, kulti, rituali sak‘art‘veloshi (T‘bilisi, ) –; and T‘. Gamsaxurdia, ‘Pitiaxshis institutis sakit‘xisat‘vis,’ in Midzghvnili t‘amar gamsaxurdias clisadmi (T‘bilisi, ) –. The scholarly lit- erature and sources are surveyed in Rapp, ‘Iranian Heritage of Georgia.’ 7 Consider the synthesis of the ‘pagan’ Moon deity and St. George (Giorgi): Javax- ishvili, K‘art‘veli eris istoria , –, summarized in his ‘St. George and the Moon- God,’M. Tseretheli trans., The Quest / (Apr. ) –; Michael Tarchnishvili, ‘Le Dieu Lune Armazi,’ Bedi Kartlisa – () –; Georges Charachidzé, Le système religieux de la Géorgie païenne (Paris, ) –; idem, ‘L’invention du “dieu lune”