Neophytus

ON ST. NEOPHYTUS, BISHOP AND MARTYR, AT URBNISI IN GEORGIA,

ABOUT THE YEAR DCLX.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY

Neophytus, bishop and martyr, at Urbnisi in Iberia. (S.)

BY H. M.

§ I. The civil and ecclesiastical condition of Georgia; orthodoxy in the seventh century.

Since the history of the Asiatic Iberians or Georgians, up to this century almost entirely unknown in western Europe, Georgia, long unknown to Europeans, revealed almost in this century has been gradually revealed for about thirty years chiefly by the labour of Brosset, and since moreover the sacred calendars of the same nation, drawn from Slavic sources, have at last come to our knowledge three years ago by the efforts of John Martinov in the Annus Graeco-Slavicus, it is now permitted to the pupils of the Bollandian museum to take on themselves a new province, to be diligently explored hereafter, and it is granted to add to the history of the eastern church new pages, filled especially with the praises of martyrs amid the persecutions of the Persians and Saracens. In the present volume indeed we shall not yet be able to bring forward unedited documents, but certainly according to our custom and institution we shall take pains to bring edited monuments to the knowledge of more, and, as far as can be done, to surround them with new light. But since today for the first time since the publication of volume XI of October we find in the Annus Graeco-Slavicus the name of a saint venerated among the Georgians, before we discuss the life of St. Neophytus, bishop of Urbnisi and martyr, we shall set forth first a few things about the condition, both civil and ecclesiastical, of Georgia, in the times in which that holy martyr became famous by his excellent contest for the faith of Christ.

[2] [briefly, up to the seventh century the civil history is set out: wars with the Persians, who ruled over it for the greater part of the sixth century;] By the name of Iberia the ancients, by that of Georgia the moderns embrace those regions which extend from the Caucasus toward the south, between the Caspian Sea and the Euxine, as far as the ridges of the Ararat mountains, and are generally confined in deeply sunk valleys, the principal of which the river Kura washes [Cf. Güldenstädt's Beschreibung der Kauk. Länder, Berlin 1834, p. 1 and following; Allg. Encyklopädie von Ersch und Gruber, vol. 60; Malte-Brun, Géogr. universelle, Paris 1851, vol. II, p. 169 and following etc.]. Lands most fertile in crops and all fruits; the inhabitants, despising too much the arts of peace, and long giving the first place to military affairs, are yet on this account to be praised, that they have always been most tenacious of the Christian faith, although they labour under the greatest ignorance of divine things, and strive to worship God by exterior religion rather than by the interior disposition of the mind [Procop., De Bello Persico, p. 33, Paris edition. Galanus, Conciliatio Eccl. Arm., vol. I, p. 130 and following; Tournefort, Relation, vol. III, p. 175, etc.]. The Georgians were converted to Christ at the beginning of the fourth century, under King Mirian, of the stock of the Khosroids or Sassanids, which, two Bagratid reigns excepted, held Georgia from the year 265 to 786 [Histoire de la Géorgie, trans. by Brosset, St. Petersburg 1849 – 58, vol. II, 1st part, genealogical table, p. 620 and following]. The history of this conversion, with a native look of truth, was narrated about fifty years later to Rufinus by a certain Georgian prince, Bacurius by name Rufinus, Book X (or I after Eusebius), ch. 10, but in the course of time it was adorned among the Georgians in every way with portents [Brosset, work cited, vol. I, p. 90 and following; Etudes Religieuses, by Fathers of the Society of Jesus, New series, vol. X, p. 222] and so little changed for the better that, if by any chance the testimony of Rufinus, above all exception, had perished, we should scarcely give any credit to the annals of the Georgians. But of these things it will have to be treated elsewhere. After by adhering to Christian doctrine the Georgians had separated themselves from the Persians, they waged continual wars with them, for which the difference of religions just as the desire of dominion, by nature itself blazing between neighbouring peoples, supplied causes at all times. As often as the Persians came off superior from battles, and gained power over affairs in Georgia, they not only exacted tributes from the conquered Cf. Brosset, vol. I, pp. 141 and 143, but

also tried everywhere to spread the tenets of the magi Ibid., pp. 144, 148, 202; yet for the most part they refrained from force, since the Christian faith had driven roots too deep in the minds of the Georgians for them to hope, without loss of their own authority, to compel the unwilling to the worship of fire Ibid., pp. 143, 202; cf. on the contrary, p. 144. But that the reader may judge in general of the state of Georgia, let it suffice to add here that for the greater part of the sixth century this region was tributary to the Persians Cf. ibid., p. 226, note 6, and again in the following century after the killing of Maurice, until the times of Heraclius, it was also altogether subject to the Persians Ibid., vol. I, p. 224 and following.

[3] [alliance with the Greeks, especially toward the end of the sixth century and the beginning of the seventh.] It is not pertinent here to touch on the wars waged against the Armenians or against the northern peoples, because we touch briefly only on what contributes to a certain general knowledge of Georgian history, the rest being dismissed for our purpose. But the alliance which existed with the Greeks is of greater moment. The Greeks, then, in the sixth century reached the region of the Georgians, inaccessible to them from the south on account of Armenia and the provinces of Persia lying between, on the west, since the Lazi, joined by blood to the Georgians and inhabiting that tract of land which divides Georgia from the Pontus, had entered a treaty with the Greeks, and opened to them the approach to Georgia and from there to the Persians [Stritter, Memoriæ populorum, vol. IV, from p. 27, and the Byzantines, Procopius on the Wars, Agathias, in him. Brosset, Additions à l'histoire de la Géorgie, p. 83 and following]. The Greeks therefore had a great part in the affairs of the Georgians toward the end of the sixth century and the beginning of the seventh. After the death of King Bacurius III, an interregnum took place of perhaps twenty years Brosset, vol. I, pp. 215 and 216 and note 1, and at this time wider power was cunningly granted by the king of the Persians to the magnates, and a hereditary right freed from the will of their prince, so that Georgia was thereafter bound to a feudal government. The emperor Maurice, about the year 593, the Persians in rebellion against Chosroes having been vanquished, obtained that Georgia should be free from the yoke of Persia, and gave to that region as king a certain Guram, a Bagratid, enlarged with the name of curopalates. But since the power of the Eristhavs (so the magnates are called in Georgian) had not been diminished, Stephen I, son of Guram, did not dare to assume the name of king, and called himself only leader of the magnates or Eristhavs. He, having adhered to the Persians, and having spurned the friendship of the Greeks, inasmuch as they were far distant, and were held by civil discords and external wars under Phocas and Heraclius, was vanquished by Heraclius and thrown down from the throne, according to the Annals of the Georgians, with which in general what the books of the Byzantines narrate about the expeditions of Heraclius from the year 622 to 629 agree well enough [On all this cf. Lebeau, Histoire du Bas-Empire, ed. Saint-Martin, vols. X and XI, in many places; Brosset, vol. I, p. 221 and following]. The chronology added to these Annals by Wakhoucht, however, although I do not admit it, I would yet not wish to dispute, since for setting out the condition of Georgia in the century in which St. Neophytus suffered a question of this kind is altogether useless. In place of that Stephen, Heraclius substituted Adernerse, son of Bacurius, who after his father's death had ruled in the mountains of the province of Kakheti to the east. Stephen II, son of Bacurius, held the highest princedom in Georgia when the Saracens invaded these regions, at which time St. Neophytus flourished. Moreover the difficulties both chronological and historical which more closely concern the Georgian martyr will be discussed below.

[4] [The Georgian Church was subject to that of Antioch from as early as the fourth century;] But that the knowledge of Georgia may be fuller, and thus the deeds of St. Neophytus may be more easily understood, it is necessary that we discuss briefly the condition and government of the church in Georgia. And first of all it is certain that the Georgian church, born about the times of the council of Nicaea, belonged to the patriarchate of Antioch, according to the discipline which was confirmed by the sixth canon of this council. But moreover, that at the beginning of the fourth century the first bishop came to Georgia from Antioch, the Georgians are persuaded up to this time, although on this matter the Annals brought together into one body by Wakhtang VI and translated by Brosset are silent [Brosset, vol. I, pp. 118 and 119, with note 3, p. 118. Cf. Introduction, p. 1 and following]. Testimonies which confirm this opinion indeed are available to us from no times earlier than the ninth century, but after that quite enough are found, even among Greek authors, that he would be said to act rashly who should deny it. For in that part of the Annals which narrates the life of the glorious King Wakhtang I, and which is said to have been written in the ninth century Ibid., p. 256, with the note. Cf. Introduction, pp. XVI, XVII, at any rate older than the fourteenth century, we read that at the end of the fifth century these words were given by the patriarch of Constantinople to him of Antioch: From the beginning of the conversion of Georgia, through a certain Roman woman, Nino by name, the first bishop of Georgia was sent from here to you, on account of the wars between Persians and Greeks, which were a hindrance to the matter being carried out according to the ecclesiastical laws. For we know that Georgia, the East and the North are under the power of this see, as in the Gospel the apostles declared the rights of each… Consecrate therefore as soon as possible those two whom the king of Georgia requires and eleven others, chosen at your judgment. Let them come from there to us, that we may grant them some grace also and all things necessary.

[5] nor did it ever by right belong to the see of Constantinople, as some say, That the letter is spurious, which puts forward that at the beginning of the fourth century, according to ecclesiastical, indeed apostolic laws, Georgia belonged by right to the see of Constantinople, no one will doubt, yet from it there is excellently demonstrated the opinion anciently implanted in the minds of the Georgians. For it was written at a time when the Georgians would have been the more inclined to deny the ancient authority of the church of Antioch, the more firmly it was admitted among all that the patriarch of Constantinople was then to be obeyed, unless memory had prevailed more strongly than every prepossession or error. The epitome of the Annals written in Armenian in the fourteenth century has similar things Ibid., Additions to part 1, p. 43. This opinion was preserved in the eighteenth century by Wakhtang VI, the parent of the Georgian Annals, and his son Wakhoucht, who put the last hand to his father's work, Prince David, son of the latest king of Georgia, Antony, catholicos of Georgia, and a certain patriarch of Jerusalem, the words of all of whom may be found in Brosset Vol. I, p. 118, note 3. In these certainly nothing is at variance with the truth, although we lack older witnesses. But difficulties are made for us by what the Annals of the Georgians hand down about the authority of the see of Constantinople, and moreover by the teaching of the Armenian authors about the catholicos of Georgia. For what do these words mean, placed in the mouth of the patriarch of Constantinople? This authority claimed by him, and at last the envoys of the Georgians sent back to the patriarch of Antioch? If credit is given to the Annals, King Wakhtang I, in order at length to establish the Christian religion more firmly in his kingdom, asked for a catholicos, or metropolitan, and twelve bishops from the patriarch of Constantinople. And he, with I know not what humanity, kindly sent back the Georgian envoys to the patriarch of Antioch, with the letter adduced above Ibid., pp. 168, 176, 191 and following. Since the whole life of Wakhtang is certainly full of fables, we should stick in doubt, were it not for the help of a certain signal passage of Theodore Balsamon, which is excellently confirmed by other testimonies which we shall soon illustrate.

[6] whose opinion is refuted by many testimonies, even of the Greeks, For after he had written, on canon II of the first council of Constantinople, that Iberia is autocephalous, he gives the occasion of the privilege: It is said that in the time of the most holy patriarch of the divine great city of Antioch, the lord Peter, it was decreed by synodal ordinance, οἰκονομία συνοδική, that the church of Iberia, which was then subject to the patriarch of Antioch, should be free and autocephalous Beveridge, Synodicon or Pandects of the canons, vol. I, p. 88. In the eleventh century the archimandrite Nilus Doxopatrius wrote to Roger, king of Sicily, that of old a catholicos had been sent into Iberia by the patriarch of Antioch Le Moyne, Varia sacra, vol. I, p. 219, but that in his time this region was subject to the throne of Constantinople Ibid., p. 252. At that time the people of Antioch, I know not whether from the memory of their fathers, contended, on the testimony of a certain contemporary Georgian author, that Georgia belonged to their patriarchate Brosset, vol. I, p. 118, note 3. With these agrees the table of Elias, metropolitan of Damascus, which numbers the Bishop of the Georgians among the subjects of the Nestorian catholicos Assemani, Bibl. Or., vol. II, p. 460, and the title of patriarch of Iberia which the patriarch of Antioch still claims for himself, on the testimony of Plato Jocelianus [History of the Russian church, in Brosset, vol. I, p. 194, at the end of the note]. In the same way, about the year 1470, Michael, patriarch of Antioch, in a diploma in which he grants to Imereti or western Georgia its own catholicos, asserts that it has been clear to him, after a diligent examination of the old customs undertaken by the Georgians, that the catholicoi of Georgia have always been consecrated by the patriarchs of Antioch Acad. de St. Pétersbourg, Bulletin Hist. Philol., vol. I, cols. 312, 313.

[7] and it opposes the very Annals of the Georgians Relying on these authorities, I think that those places of the Georgian Annals are adverse to the truth in which it is asserted that before the eighth century, perhaps before the eleventh, Georgia was subject to the see of Constantinople. Moreover they are generally refuted with light labour from the context of the history alone. For what is said about the authority of Constantinople manifestly conflicts with the other circumstances, as will appear to anyone reading that absurd fable Above, nos. 4 and 5 of the envoys sent from Constantinople to Antioch. On the contrary the work of the church of Antioch in strengthening or ruling the Georgians is more often found. About the middle of the sixth century, in the reign of Pharsman VI, thirteen monks very celebrated in Georgian history, setting out from Mesopotamia, made Georgia illustrious by their holy life, greatly strengthened it in the faith, and so bound the Georgian church to that of Antioch by a new benefit Brosset, vol. I, p. 202 and following. Finally it is credited to the patriarch of Antioch Theophylact that the catholicoi of Georgia, the road being beset by the arms of the Saracens, could thereafter be ordained by the bishops of their province, against the ecclesiastical law which reckons the ordination of metropolitans among the rights of the patriarch Ibid., pp. 229 and 230. But although in this place, which Brosset with full right judges interpolated, no more than in the other parts of the Annals, the Chronology of Wakhoucht can altogether be defended, for it mentions the patriarch Theophylact a century and a half before his time, there is nothing to prevent us from recognising as true the substance of the matter itself, which coheres excellently with other documents of history. In another place of the same Annals, against all credit, it is asserted that by the sixth council patriarchal rights were granted to the metropolitan of Georgia

Ibid., pp. 235 and 236. Here again Brosset wisely notes that the whole pericope has been intruded into the text.

[8] [But gradually, as into the other churches of the east, so also into the Georgian it extended the bounds of its power.] It is pleasing, then, to embrace in a few words what has been said so far: the old opinion of the Georgians that the first bishop came from Antioch, whence it came about that Georgia, which, according to canon XXVIII of the Council of Chalcedon, would have belonged to the patriarchate of Constantinople, was not separated from its mother Church and remained faithful to her, until at length, the roads being closed, and the authority of the Church of Antioch being as it were dissolved, on account of Nestorianism and the continually growing power of the patriarch of Constantinople, it altogether adhered to the Byzantine Greeks. This change indeed was brought about among peoples of little learning by the alleged authority of an ecumenical council, and by the political condition of affairs, which necessarily made the Greeks and Georgians allies against the aggressions of the Saracens and Turks. When therefore the patriarchs of Constantinople claimed their rights, the Georgians without doubt in no way delayed to comply with them [Cf. Historia Patriarchica, in Crusius, Turcogræcia, p. 143 (Bonn edition, p. 135); Acta SS., vol. I of Aug., p. 222*]. And in all the time in which the Georgians were subject to those of Antioch, the face of the earlier church was changed three times. For first they had only a bishop, whose ordination had perhaps been committed to the Armenian metropolitan, as will be seen later. Then, while Peter the Fuller ruled the church of Antioch, that is, between the year 471 and the year 488, a metropolitan of its own was given to Georgia, so that it became a province. Finally in the eighth century, under the patriarch Theophylact, it was established that the catholicos of Georgia should in future be exempted from the law by which he was ordered to be initiated at Antioch. This done, the church of Georgia became independent, subject in name only to that of Antioch. But what Brosset thinks was said by Balsamon, namely that by the labour of Justinian certain churches, and by name the Iberian, were presented with autocephaly, arose from a depraved understanding of the Greek author or perhaps from the not correct translation of Gentian Hervet (whose edition I do not have in hand) Brosset, vol. I, p. 202, note 6. Nothing of the kind is read in the Greek. To the same emperor some Georgians say it is owed Ibid. Cf. Introd., p. XLV that catholicoi were no longer to be sent from Greece or, as the Armenian version reads Brosset, Additions, p. 46, from Antioch, but that men from the chief families of Georgia should be raised to this dignity. But these things, asserted on no authority, will find credit with no one.

[9] The Georgian Church was perhaps for some time subject to the Armenian. I have just said that the bishops of Georgia were perhaps ordained by the Armenian catholicos or metropolitan, up to the times of Peter the Fuller, excepting certainly the very first of all, whom I readily admit was consecrated at Antioch. But there must be set out what seems to strengthen this opinion, and at the same time what may rightly be objected to it. Which we seem to ourselves to perform best by bringing forward first the words of Luke Indgidgian, in his work on the Antiquities of Armenia, published in Armenian at Venice in the year 1835. Within the limits of the Armenian patriarchate was contained not only Armenia, but also Georgia and Albania or Aghovania. For it is read in the letter of the Treaty (between Tiridates and Constantine, apocryphal) that it was established by Pope Sylvester that the patriarch of the Armenians should ordain the catholicos of Georgia … and also that the land of Albania should remain under the obedience of the Armenian patriarch, and that at the election of the king of the Albanians the Armenian patriarch should consecrate their catholicos Cf. Galanus, vol. I, p. 31 and following. But, omitting this letter, we find the same in Giragos, who writes of St. Gregory: He consecrated his son St. Arisdaghes archbishop of Armenia and Georgia and Albania. — And John the catholicos adds also the Egrisians (Mingrelia, western Georgia): Moses ordained Curion, priest of the patriarchal monastery, archbishop of Georgia and of the Gougars (to the south of Georgia proper) and of the Egrisians, according to ancient usage [In Saint-Martin, Histoire d'Arménie par Jean VI, p. 55. John the catholicos, Moscow edition, 1853, p. 38]. — But in fact it appears that Mingrelia or Egrisia was subject to the Armenians not immediately, but through the Georgians. Moreover this state of affairs remained until the times of Curion, whom the patriarch Moses ordained about the middle of the sixth century: Until that time, says Giragos, this usage lasted, that the Georgians received consecration from the Armenians … but it ceased thereafter, because the Georgians began to adhere to the Greeks. Other historians speak in the same way L. Indgidgian, vol. III, p. 262. John the catholicos lived in the ninth century [Placido Soukias Somal, Quadro della storia letteraria di Armenia, Venice 1829, p. 56], and Giragos or Cyriacus in the thirteenth century Ibid., p. 112, nor is any other older one praised for championing the authority of the Armenians. The matter will therefore remain doubtful for the times which precede the decree of Peter the Fuller, of which we treated at no. 6, since we find nothing here which contradicts history or the ecclesiastical laws. Georgia could have been subject to the metropolitan of Armenia. But since authorities are brought forward by which a metropolitan is assigned to Georgia after the fifth century, we shall refuse assent to the sayings of the Armenians in what concerns the sixth century. But if anyone should altogether reject whatever the Armenians blurt out about their former authority over Georgia, on the ground that the Monophysite Armenians were altogether hostile to the orthodox Georgians, he will not on that account be thought to act imprudently. For the first prelates of the Armenians could have called themselves bishops of the Georgians, since there was a certain tract of country lying between Armenia and Georgia, claimed by arms on both sides, and which at one time may have been subject to the prelate of the Armenians Brosset, vol. I, p. 194. Additions, note 3, p. 107. Since this is proposed not without a look of truth, we shall admit that the question remains uncertain.

[10] [Georgia was not free in the sixth century from the stain of the Eutychian heresy,] There is no one who, hearing the name of Peter the Fuller, and observing his benevolence toward the Georgians, would not at once recall the very bad fame of that patriarch, and his vast efforts to overturn the authority of the council of Chalcedon, and would not thus suspect that the Georgians also were sharers in the heresy. Which matter indeed is too closely related to our undertaking for us to pass it over. For it would be wrong to grant a place in our work to St. Neophytus, a Georgian bishop, if in his time the people of Antioch, among whom heresy raged from the fifth century, had communicated their errors with the Georgian church. It must be demonstrated here, then, that in the seventh century, in which the holy martyr Neophytus lived, the Georgians held altogether Catholic beliefs, and are to be accused neither of heresy nor of schism. In truth it seems that it can scarcely be denied that the Georgians with the Armenians opposed the council of Chalcedon for some time, until at length by the labour of Cyrin or Curion the catholicos, toward the end of the sixth century, they returned to the tenets of the orthodox faith. Of all this the Georgians are deeply silent, but no one will deny credit to the Armenians, who narrate it at length, since it is reported by several authors, and there exist among them letters sent back and forth on this business. Moreover suspicion is also aroused by the fact that about matters of faith and the authority of the council of Chalcedon, which toward the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth so greatly agitated all the Asiatic churches, the Georgians say nothing at all. For often he who is too silent seems to be hiding something shameful.

[11] as is proved from the books of the Armenians, conspiring in the same heresy, The principal documents are brought forward by Oukhtanes, Armenian bishop of Edessa, a writer of the tenth century, whose still unedited book is drawn together in a brief compendium by Brosset Additions, p. 107 and following. From his narrative John the catholicos does not dissent [Joh. Cath., Historia armena, Moscow edition, pp. 36 and 37. French version, pp. 52 and 53], nor the other Armenian authors [Tchamtchian, Hist. Armeniæ, vol. II, p. 225 and following, p. 430 and following. Avdall, History of Armenia (Epitome of the preceding, Calcutta 1827), vol. I, p. 324 and following]. The sum of the matter is this. In the year 491 (it is of no use to dispute the time as determined by Michael Tchamtchian), Papken, catholicos of the Armenians, gathered the bishops of the Armenians, Georgians and Albanians in the city of Vagharschapat, and with them struck the council of Chalcedon with anathema. But the Georgians did not long follow the error of the Armenians: in the year 576, when their catholicos had died, dissensions so blazed up in Georgia that all fled to the Armenian Catholicos, that he should choose a prelate of all Georgia. On this occasion the Armenian authors assert the ancient right of their patriarch over the Georgian bishops, as we saw above. And the Armenian patriarch designated a certain Georgian named Giurion, or Curion, who had lived fifteen years among the Greeks, and afterwards, attached to the catholicos of the Armenians, had up to then performed ecclesiastical offices outside his native land. This election turned out happily for the Georgians: for, since the whole error of the Armenians came from badly understood words of the Council of Chalcedon, and from nature and person being confused, in accordance with the peculiarity of the Armenian language, in name rather than in reality, he was altogether the man, learned in Greek, Armenian and Georgian, to dispel the darkness, and to surround the minds of all with the light of truth. And so we understand from the work of Bishop Oukhtanes that Curion from the beginning defended the decrees of the council of Chalcedon, and never spared labour that the rights of the universal Church might remain safe and sound. These things took place about the year 580. After a long disputation full of weariness, Curion bade farewell to the Armenians, and in return in the year 596, as Michael Tchamtchian holds, he was condemned by Abraham, catholicos of Armenia, and the other Monophysite bishops, and forbidden the communion of the Armenians. Thereafter the Georgians remained in the orthodox faith, until, undergoing the common lot of the provinces adhering to the Greeks, they were separated as if unknowing by schism from the Catholic Church.

[12] [which is not hindered by the name of a Georgian bishop, unknown indeed to his own people,] But in all these things which we have excerpted from the excellent work of Brosset there seem to be grave difficulties, for solving which the very modest author, thinking too humbly of himself, confesses himself unequal Brosset, Additions, p. 125. For he himself in the annotations which he adds here and there to the Annals of Wakhtang and to the fifth addition indicates sufficiently all the reasons by which the Annals of the Georgians can conveniently be reconciled with the longer and more accurate books of the Armenians. The following however can generally be objected. First of all about the year 491 the Armenians place in Georgia a certain catholicos Gabriel, and about the year 580 another by the name of Curion, unknown to their fellow countrymen. Someone would perhaps think that they presided over part of Georgia only, since they are called by the Armenians not always catholicoi, but sometimes bishops, metropolitans, archbishops, unless from all the circumstances of affairs, as Brosset notes, it were evident that the Catholicoi of all Georgia are here in question Ibid. and p. 107, note 3. But why the water should stick at this place I do not see. Is it not clear that the Annals of the Georgians from the reign of Wakhtang up to the invasions of the Saracens are very meagre?

Whole reigns are contained in a few lines. And concerning the catholicoi Brosset notes several times that from other documents, even Georgian, several become known who have not their place in the published Annals Ibid., vol. I, p. 354, note 2. Cf. below, no. 26. Thanks are due, then, to the Armenians, who, driven by their hatred against the Georgians, fill up the vacant spaces in Georgian history.

[13] but known to the Latins, from a letter of St. Gregory the Great given to him; The catholicos Curion, whom the Armenians so greatly assail, is known to the Latins also. For among the letters of Pope St. Gregory, whose care embraced the whole world, we read a letter given to Quiricus the bishop and the other Catholic bishops in Iberia, which it is altogether certain was sent not to western Iberia or Spain, but to eastern or Georgia. For the bishop of Iberia was asking whether Nestorians brought back to the true faith should be rebaptized, and he had sent his letter by way of the city of Jerusalem. Now from the documents preserved by Oukhtanes it appears how much the catholicos Curion always deferred to the church of Jerusalem Ibid., pp. 113, 115 and 116, and moreover no one will wonder that the condition of the Nestorians was necessarily as it were his principal care, regarding his history and that of the whole East. It will be helpful to add here the beginning of this letter: Since nothing is far to charity, let a letter join those whom places divide. The bearer of the present, coming to the Church of Blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, asserted that he had received letters from your fraternity to us, and had lost them in the city of Jerusalem along with other things too etc. Letters, Book XI, ep. 67. This letter was written on the tenth of the kalends of July, in the 4th indiction, which is the 22nd of June 601, if two codices are to be believed. Hence I judge that there were sent together the synodal letter of Isaac, the new patriarch of Jerusalem, to which St. Gregory replied in letter 46 of Book XI, and the letter of Quiricus, or Curion, catholicos of Georgia. For in the year 601 Isaac was elected.

[14] nor the names of Georgian princes with the king omitted. Finally there remains a difficulty which is drawn from the names of the magnates of Georgia who appear in the book of Oukhtanes, Guram the curopalates being nowhere praised, of whom mention ought to have been made above all. But let Brosset recall what he most skilfully noted in the history of that curopalates Brosset, vol. I, p. 216, note 1, namely that it can probably be asserted that only after Vahram was conquered by the army of the emperor Maurice, that is, after the year 593, Guram the curopalates, before that lord only of some western province, was set over all Georgia. Now nearly all the things which are narrated in the work of Oukhtanes, whose codex lacks its last part, happened before the council of Devin of the Armenians, attached by Michael Tchamtchian to the year 596. He ought not, then, to have been named in the letters which were written in the preceding years, at least up to the year 593 or 594. Of the letters, however, which offend Brosset, the former, in which Moses, bishop of Tsurtavi, begs Verthanes, vicar of the Armenian catholicos, to try to gain the help of the princes of Georgia, was given before Georgia was divided between Maurice and Chosroes Parviz: for on account of the iniquity of the times, Varthanes refused to stir up the Georgian magnates against the council of Chalcedon as he was asked. The Greeks without doubt being then strong in favour with Chosroes, the Armenian did not dare openly to oppose the council of Chalcedon, and he judged that he would spend useless labour among the Georgians. The other letter which is troublesome to Brosset was written after the election of the Armenian catholicos Abraham, or after the month of July of the year 594 Brosset, Additions, p. 114, when in all likelihood Guram was already strong, above the other princes, in the highest authority in the feudal government of Georgia. Difficulties meet us here, wherever we turn our eyes: the synchronism which the Armenian author proposes must altogether be corrected: for he joins the 17th year of Chosroes and the reign of the emperor Maurice, which cannot be, since Maurice was killed by Phocas in the 12th year of Chosroes. Let us suppose that the election of Abraham is rightly assigned to the year 594, and to the year 594 or 595 the letter in which Sempad, governor of Hyrcania for the Persians, exhorts Aternerse (perhaps the son of Bacurius III, prince of Kakheti, afterwards King Brosset, vol. I, p. 220) and other princes of Georgia to foster concord; it is to be believed that he then wrote only to those who were held to be more inclined to the heresy or at any rate to mending the peace in any manner. Moreover Guram the curopalates, in whose history most things are very doubtful, had not taken from the magnates of Georgia their power, almost free from all submission. Sempad could, then, at his pleasure, or rather according to the need of the cause, prudently address by letters those whom he foresaw would be useful to him. Now since the prince of Kakheti, if our conjecture has any value, was that Aternerse whom Oukhtanes mentions, he could not but greatly desire with his prayers friendship between the Georgians and Armenians. For he himself seems to have been a pious man Brosset, vol. I, p. 222, and on the contrary the province which he held, Kakheti, long went on opposing the synod of Chalcedon Ibid., p. 279. Additions, p. 117, note 3. Too obscure, then, is the reckoning of times in Georgia at this period, too uncertain, for us to attribute much to the sayings of authors. Credit is certainly to be given to the books of the Armenians and Georgians, but rather as regards the principal heads of history than in individual facts, whenever their narratives cannot be corroborated from elsewhere. We have thought that all this should be set out at greater length, since the history of Georgia is known to few, and we have therefore judged that there should be supplied by us this preliminary knowledge of matters, which is altogether necessary for profitably reading through our commentaries.

§ II. The sources of the history of St. Neophytus. His age and the time of his martyrdom.

[Of the history of all Georgia and of St. Neophytus, whose life is here related in compendium,] In the year 643, as we shall see below, the Saracens first invaded Georgia, under the leadership of Habib, son of Maslama, and spread through the whole region, they laid it waste with fire and sword. A certain Omar, one of the commanders of inferior rank, sent to explore the regions about the river Kura, came to the monastery of St. Schio, and there, astounded by a certain wondrous prodigy, converted to Christ, he received in baptism the name Neophytus. And after he had lived holily in the same monastery for several years, Neophytus, raised to the episcopate of Urbnisi, assailed the worshippers of fire with such zeal that at length, seized by them by guile, he was overwhelmed with stones. Behold in a few words is concluded the whole history of St. Neophytus, into which we are now inquiring. Of his native country, family, and the other things which preceded his conversion, this only may be conjectured, unless I am mistaken, that he was not an Arab by race. For I should with difficulty admit the conversion of an Arab at that time. For they burned with such ardour for their religion that I should think they would have resisted even most evident miracles. Yet since the grace of God is able … from stones … to raise up sons of Abraham, we hint at this opinion rather than hold it. Nearly all the things which are read in his Life, as being easier to grasp or to be explained briefly, will be illustrated by annotations. But concerning the year in which he came to Georgia, and the time of his martyrdom, since they cannot be so easily determined, it will not be superfluous to discuss more at length here. But first it is necessary to indicate the sources from which both the history of St. Neophytus and what we write to illustrate this life have been chiefly taken.

[16] the sources are indicated, which are The principal source of the history of Georgia is found in the Georgian Annals, which at the beginning of the eighteenth century King Wakhtang VI collected or had collected, the Annals of the Georgians, a work patched together, as he himself admits, from various books, which was completed by his son Wakhoucht, and finally published in this century at St. Petersburg with a French translation Brosset, Introduction, p. XIV and following; vol. I, p. 15. He would certainly have done better work if he had first published the Chronicles of the ancients, and documents of every kind, with what could be found out about the author and age added everywhere. For history is not rightly written unless the long labour of searching out and collecting ancient documents has first been fully completed. The first part of these Annals, up to the twelfth century, has been preserved in Armenian, translated undoubtedly from a Georgian archetype in the twelfth century Ibid., p. XVII. But that that ancient chronicle is only an abridgement of the Annals which Wakhtang afterwards copied in enlarged form, although Brosset holds it for ascertained, I am not yet persuaded. When all the monuments which Wakhtang used shall be made public, it will perhaps appear that nearly all that is lacking in the Armenian was drawn from elsewhere by the Georgian king and sewn on to the ancient work. Up to now it cannot, if I see anything, be determined with certainty in what way the Georgian exemplar and the Armenian translation stand with each other. An epitome of this work, still unedited, was written by Wakhoucht, from whom Brosset took the chronological notes and added them to his edition, not having had leisure to correct the innumerable faults of that labour. The other writings which are found in the second part of the second volume of Brosset I shall not review here, inasmuch as they are too recent to be able to serve us in this commentary.

[17] and several Lives of the saints, But this work we employ to illustrate, not to learn, the life of St. Neophytus: for it is silent about the holy martyr. There exist, however, among the Georgians, as among the other Christian peoples, books which contain various lives of the saints collected from all sides, and whose authors are often altogether unknown [Ibid., p. XI, no. 10; Actes des séances publiques de l'Acad. de St. Pétersbourg, session of 29 Dec. 1837, in many places]. Moreover individual lives, emended or corrupted by several hands, do not bear the character of one age only. From such documents we know that the history of St. Neophytus has been excerpted; but in what way, by what authors, we are almost ignorant. For the history of letters among the Georgians is obscure, nor do those who have treated of the holy bishop of Urbnisi speak clearly enough. For, to begin from the older, no one older is named than Basil, son of Watche the Patrician, catholicos of the Georgians, about whom Brosset doubts whether he lived in the thirteenth or the fifteenth century Brosset, Additions, p. 138; cf. vol. I, p. 658, vol. II, part I, p. 22. But does not the title of Patrician rather smack of the thirteenth century? Let the more learned see to it. He collected, on the testimony of Antony the catholicos, the miracles of St. Schio written by others, among which the conversion of St. Neophytus stands out. Second is praised the catholicos Bessarion, who departed from this life in the year 1735 Brosset, vol. II, part I, pp. 123 and 133, part II, p. 50. Mention of him I find in the Lives of the saints written in Russian by Andrew Muraviev. For this author notes that what he relates about St. Neophytus has been copied from the Martyrology of the Catholicos of Georgia Bessarion

[Lives of the saints of the Russian church, and of the Iberians and Slavs. Month of October. St. Petersburg 1859, p. 421]. The work of Bessarion on the saints of Georgia is certainly praised by the Catholicos Antony I, though not yet seen by Brosset Brosset, vol. I, p. 255, note 5; Introd., p. XVI, nor known to us from elsewhere.

[18] or martyrologies, with some things added about the hagiography of the Georgians. Finally Antony himself, who died in the year 1788, in a book named Martyrica composed elogia of some saints, in the sixth of which the praises of St. Neophytus are proclaimed. And since Brosset added an epitome of this speech to the first part of his translation Additions, p. 137, two writings about St. Neophytus are at our hand: the elogium composed by Bessarion, which, as being older and, as it seems, faithfully presented in Russian by Muraviev, we shall edit below after the manner of Acts and shall annotate; and then the abridgement of the book Martyrica, which we shall accurately compare with the former elogium, drawn from the same sources. For brevity's sake we shall hereafter bring forward these two writings by the names of Antony and Bessarion, although we know Antony from the epitome of Brosset, Bessarion from the translation of Muraviev. Someone will object that these documents are few, which at last seem to rest on a certain history of miracles, commended neither by an author's name nor by a designation of time. I admit that they are few, but I think them sufficient for the deeds of St. Neophytus to be illustrated by us. For the elogium which the catholicos Bessarion has left us is old, if you take away perhaps the first sentences, it records the cult openly paid to his relics in a very celebrated church See below, annot. o, and commends itself by its proper simplicity. I think it should be added here, that the sources of Georgian hagiography may be known, that in the Catalogue of Georgian books publicly read by Brosset in the Academy of St. Petersburg there is reported a Martyrology of Arsenius, patriarch of all Iberia Actes des séances publiques etc., p. 147, on which author see the additions to the Annals P. 126; cf. Annals, vol. I, p. 205. I know not whether this is other than the book of the life of the Iberian saints composed by the Exarch of Georgia in Muraviev Lives of the SS., October, p. 340, in which however I stick in doubt on account of the title of Exarch, which I think was in use only after the catholicate had been extinguished by the Russians Brosset, vol. II, part II, pp. 298 and 307 The Menology of the Greeks also, or Basilian, was turned into the Georgian tongue, as Brosset teaches us in two places, and at the same time he adds that the translation differs from the exemplar in only one elogium, of Sts. David and Constantine at the 30th day of October [Brosset, Chronique géorgienne, Paris 1830, pp. III, IV and V, and 107 and following; the same, Grammaire géorgienne, Paris 1837, pp. VII and 268].

[19] St. Neophytus is said to have lived in the seventh century, These things being dispatched, the first question that meets us is: at what time St. Neophytus became a Christian. Antony teaches us nothing on this matter: only in the preface of Bessarion we read certain words which must be compared with the deeds narrated in the course of the Life or known from elsewhere, for us to arrive at determining his age. In the middle of the seventh century Georgia presented a sad spectacle: for on the one side the Persians were trying to overthrow the Christian cause in it, and the worshippers of fire were everywhere lighting their fires, destroying the altars of the Lord; and on the other, the new sect of Muhammad, sprung from the solitude of Arabia, the fanatical fury of the Arabs was pressing on the wretched Christians Life of St. Neophytus, below no. 1. These are in all likelihood to be thought the words of Bessarion himself, not of an older author whom he followed. It appears however that the first expedition of the Moslems is signified in the Life: for they explore a region not yet known to them and ask about the buildings they meet Ibid.. Then that Neophytus, having left the sect of Muhammad and joined the Christians, could live long in the region, and preach Christ, without being said ever to have been intercepted by the Saracens, and finally that he was overpowered by force by the worshippers of fire, whom the Moslems suffered to stand nowhere, demonstrates that the Moslems had already vanished from Georgia and moreover that the reign of the Sassanids either still stood or had not long since collapsed. Now all these things agree only with that space of time which is enclosed in about the last sixty years of the seventh century.

[20] which indeed, the Annals being silent, from the circumstances of the Life, In vain, however, should we go to the Georgians to teach us the history of their region from the first invasions of the Saracens to about the first twenty years of the eighth century. In their Annals, besides certain things said confusedly and in general about the wars of Heraclius against the Moslems, and about the new sect propagated everywhere through Armenia as far as the Pontus and Cappadocia, one reads particularly of Georgia that King Stephen II fled with a great force of gold into Egrisia, which is western Georgia, where the empire of the Greeks flourished Brosset, vol. I, p. 237. Then at once there is a passage to the following reign, and, by an error of the times, there are narrated the warlike expeditions of Merwan, son of Muhammad, whom the Georgians surname Qrou or the deaf Ibid., pp. 238 and 245. But in the Life to be edited below, some words which treat of the march of the Arab army give opportunity for conjecture. For we see that Achmet, leader of the army, pitched camp at the place where the rivers Kura and Liakhvi flow together, and that from there squadrons were sent to lay waste the region round about. Moreover Omar and Burul, to whom this duty was committed, followed the Kura downstream, and came at length to the caves of St. Schio situated on the bank of the Kura, which is a proof that the army of Achmet did not ascend toward Tiflis from the Armenian province of Erivan, but from the province of Erzerum to the sources of the Kura, and from there, advancing upstream as far as the Liakhvi, halted there as if in a certain centre. Now what that expedition is which attacked Georgia from this side let us learn from the Armenian and Arabic writers.

[21] and from the order of the expeditions of the Moslems, who in the year 643, If, then, we consult the histories of the Arabs, we shall see that before the year 639, at which the work of the distinguished Caussin de Perceval ends, neither the whole of Armenia nor Georgia had been occupied by the Arabs. For it was necessary first to gain Mesopotamia and western Iraq, and to conquer the Persians altogether, before the approach to Armenia or to Georgia lay open. Now in the year 639 or 640 the occupation of Mesopotamia and Syria was completed Caussin de Perceval, vol. III, p. 321 and following, and Iraq was acquired by Saad, son of Wacca, the Persians having been routed in the battle of Cadecya in the year 637, and King Yezdegerd III turned to flight Ibid., p. 470 and following and 490. But only in the year 642, after the disaster received by the Persians at Nehavend, must it be said that the empire of the Sassanids altogether vanished in the provinces bordering on Armenia and Georgia [Dubeux, La Perse (in the Univers pittoresque), p. 336. Patkanian, Hist. des Sassanides (Journal asiatique, 1866), Paris 1866, p. 128]. With these things, which are confirmed by the contemporary Armenian writer Sepeos Dulaurier, Chronologie arménienne, vol. I, p. 210 and following, what is handed down about the following years altogether agrees. According to Abulfeda, in the year of the hegira 22, which extends from November 642 to the end of December 643, Georgia was subdued, besides other provinces belonging to Armenia or bordering on it Annales Moslemici, ed. J. Reiske. Leipzig 1754, p. 74. Which indeed is to be understood so, that the expedition, already begun before this year, was then brought to an end, or rather that this war was chiefly waged in this year. And Armenia and Georgia were vanquished by Habib, son of Maslama [Dulaurier, place cited, p. 231; d'Ohsson, les Peuples du Caucase, Paris 1828, p. 50], who, sent by Omar (whatever d'Ohsson thinks) See below annot. d, in all likelihood in the year 642 stormed the chief city of Armenia, Tovin Dulaurier, place cited, p. 230, and from there, in the following year, as it seems, invaded Georgia and Albania by a threefold route. He himself, following first the Araxes downstream, and then the Kura upstream, came to Tiflis, from where by arms and envoys he brought most provinces into the power of the Moslems D'Ohsson, place cited, p. 51 and following, cf. Brosset, vol. I, p. 245. A certain other, advancing on the left, perhaps that Abderrahman of whom, as will be clear in the annotations, both Armenians and Moslems speak Below, annot. d, from the city of Tovin toward the north, following the course of the river Kura, halted at the confluence of the Kura and Liakhvi, and sent forces toward the west and north, to complete the subjection of that region. A third finally, Selman, son of Rebiat, marching on the right, subjected the eastern provinces of Georgia and Albania.

[22] according to the testimonies of the Armenians and Arabs And in this manner, it seems to me, the marches of the Moslem leaders are to be arranged. I admit however that by no author whom I have seen are the events in Armenia and Georgia so ordered. Add that neither in our Museum, nor in the royal Library of Brussels, is there yet available that abundance of books which would be fully sufficient for explaining Eastern affairs, although on both sides many books have already been acquired. Nor is that to be turned into a fault for us or others: for those skilled in these studies know how much labour and time is required for a library to be furnished with such equipment. This had to be pointed out, lest anyone should accuse us of carelessness or of less diligent labour. I shall now explain in a few words by what reasoning I have been led to so arrange the expeditions of the Moslems. In the first place indeed the march of Habib into Georgia is proved enough and more from the passages of authors which d'Ohsson collected Place cited, p. 50. It is strengthened by the book of Bishop Sepeos, than whom I think no more certain guide can be found in the history of Armenia of that time In Dulaurier, work cited, pp. 228 and 229. For he wrote what happened in his time, either seen with his own eyes or received from eyewitnesses. Now, only the name being passed over in silence, he reports the deeds of Habib in Armenia in the years 642 and 643, except that after narrating the division of the forces into three parts he is thereafter silent about him, at least in Edward Dulaurier. And so, by comparing and mutually illustrating the passages cited by d'Ohsson and Dulaurier, we make one history. The march of Selman into Albania is also hinted at by Sepeos Place cited, p. 231, and plainly described by the book of Charles d'Ohsson Place cited, pp. 54 and 55.

[23] they are shown first to have entered Georgia, There remains finally the march of the army which we suppose to have proceeded through the northern provinces of Armenia to western Georgia. For a difficulty is made for us by Bishop Sepeos, who has not even a word about Georgia and sets out the division of the army otherwise: In the following year the Ismaelites into the province of Aderbaidjan

came, and were divided into three armies, of which the first made for Ararad, the second the district of the noble legion (around Tovin), the third Albania. Which indeed I interpret so, that there were left in Armenia those who should storm the citadels not yet subject to the power of the Moslems; while others who made for Ararad advanced to the northern parts, wherefore their deeds, just as those of the forces sent into Albania, are passed over by the Armenian author. But why, you will say, is this march through the northern provinces toward Georgia to be admitted? Namely that I may so satisfy those passages of authors which assert that by the armies of the Moslems not only inner Armenia but also Georgia was first occupied from the west. For one reads in the History of the finding of the relics of St. Nerses the Great, which John B. Aucher composed according to authors of the fourteenth century [Lives of the saints of the Armenian calendar, vol. III, p. 396. Cf. note 5, p. 410]: Eight years after the death of Chosroes (Chosroes II), a certain Abderrahman, son of the sister of Mohammed, first emperor of the Arabs, with 18,000 soldiers, exacted tributes from the inhabitants and destroyed the Christian armies which were in the province of Taron. Thus also he invaded High Armenia, Pacena, Georgia and Vanant, and then, after many devastations, returned to Arabia. In a somewhat different way the same things are reported by the distinguished Edward Dulaurier, from the Armenian Library, which copies the book Djarrentir Work cited, p. 225, cf. p. 243; Lives of the SS., place cited, p. 411. With these I would have you compare what we noted above at no. 20 about the march of the army in which Omar, or Neophytus, was engaged, and what I shall soon bring forward from the History of Stephen Asolik.

[24] though several Armenians, not agreeing among themselves, contradict it. I know indeed that the expedition of Abderrahman is attached by Edward Dulaurier to the year 637, by Michael Tchamtchian to the years 636, 637 and 638: yet if the circumstances of the matter are attentively compared, these and many other things, which on account of the uncertain chronology of the Armenians have up to now been assigned to other times, will seem to be referred to the expedition of the year 642. For I should altogether draw here both the words of Stephen Asolik, of whom I have in hand only the Russian translation of John B. Emin Book II, ch. II, p. 70, in which, by a most evident error, there is assigned to the year 95 of the Armenian era, or 946 – 7 A. D., the storming of the city of Tovin and the occupation of Armenia, Georgia and Albania, and also another place in which under the year 943 the same deeds are narrated Book II, ch. IV, p. 89. At about the same time after the battle of Nehavend the eastern provinces of Armenia were laid waste by the Arabs, as I learn from the testimonies of several authors gathered by Luke Indgidgian Antiquitates Armenicæ, vol. I, p. 423. That writer reviews in order the expeditions of the Arabs, yet he is to be corrected in this, that he divides the first into four. In the first place he brings in as speaking Leontius or, to speak in Armenian, Ghevontius, a writer of the tenth century, narrating, in my judgment at least, in part the expedition of Habib, but, just as the others who have treated of the affairs of the Armenians, he does not rightly note the years, and thinks that in the words of Leontius which he adduces other times are to be recognised than in that passage of Samuel of Ani which he recites in a note, while on the contrary the fortunes of one and the same expedition appear here to one who considers diligently. To draw together in a few words, then, all that I have argued up to now about the wars of the Arabs, I think that by Edward Dulaurier, by Michael Tchamtchian Hist. Arm., vol. II, p. 342, by Luke Indgidgian the first invasion of the Arabs is rightly designated, but, by an error of times, the year is not so well indicated. Above all passages of authors I place the testimony of Bishop Sepeos, by the norm of which I desire everything else to be corrected. Let it be certain to us, then, that Habib entered middle Georgia, and probable that a certain other leader, perhaps Abderrahman, entered western Georgia in the year 643 Cf. below annot. d.

[25] of St. Neophytus, who seems to have suffered before the year 661, Omar, one of the leaders of inferior rank in this second army, after, sent to carry gifts, he returned to the monastery of St. Schio, beheld in the heavens a certain wondrous portent, companies of Angels surrounding the holy founder, and defending the entrance of the monastery Ibid.. Seeing this, the Saracen soldier, converted to the faith of Christ, embraced the monastic life in the same monastery. At length, famous for his virtues through the whole region, after several years he was made bishop by the catholicos Samuel. Which indeed could not have been done if the power of the Saracens had flourished in Georgia: for they would never have spared a man defecting from the Mohammedan sect. In order, then, that the history may be consistent, it is necessary that the Mohammedan empire did not long remain in this province after the conversion of Omar. Which indeed you would not with difficulty admit to have happened after the army of Selman, the companion of Habib, was routed by the Khazars at the river Terek near the Caspian Sea. Nor is anything else to be deduced either from the history of the Armenians, who at this time seem to have been nearly independent, though tributaries of the Arabs, and according to the nature of the times to have adhered now to the Greeks, now to the Moslems [Cf. Saint-Martin, Mémoires sur l'Arménie, vol. I, pp. 336 and 337; Avdall, History of Armenia, vol. I, p. 361 and following], or finally from the books of the Arabs, who sufficiently hint that Georgia was laid waste rather than vanquished and subjected after the expeditions of Habib Abulf., at the year 717, Brosset, vol. I, p. 245, d'Ohsson, work cited, p. 55. Moreover from the year 655 to 661 the Moslems were too much kept from external wars by civil discords, the followers of Ali and Othman and then of Moawiya fighting over the sceptre, for them to have care of a province so remote. At most the Georgians were then tributaries. I think, therefore, that before the year 661 St. Neophytus was both enlarged with the episcopate and adorned with the palm of martyrdom. After this it would never have been permitted to the worshippers of fire to erect their altars openly, as they boasted in mocking the holy martyr Cf. below, no. 4. It is not possible to pursue the years and times more finely.

[26] [the history is not hindered by the name of the catholicos Samuel, inasmuch as it occurs elsewhere also.] But if we could find anything certain in the books of the Georgians about the age and succession of the catholicoi, they would be a help to us in this place, since we know the name of the catholicos from whom St. Neophytus received episcopal power. On the contrary the catholicos Samuel, almost unknown to his own people, becomes known more certainly from the life of St. Neophytus. For he is named only once in one codex of the Annals after the catholicos Thabor, whom the other codices and the Armenian Epitome of the Annals bring forward as the last before that well-known cleft in the series of Catholicoi Brosset, vol. I, p. 236, notes 2 and 3; Additions, p. 47. Not prudently enough Brosset rejects the name met in two unrelated codices, because in the first place the Annals assert in another place that Thabor was catholicos at the time of the invasion of Merwan Brosset, vol. I, p. 239, and then because Mekhitar of Airivank and Wakhoucht did not receive the name of Samuel into their catalogues. But these reasons are very light. For either in the passage of the Annals adduced another Thabor is treated, which we by no means think, or the same. If another, there is nothing against our opinion: if the same, the rest which is absurdly said about the arrival of Merwan being omitted, it does not hinder us that Thabor presided over the Georgian church at the time when the Arabs first invaded the region. The so few things that survive about the history of Georgia in the latter part of the seventh century are not to be rashly thrown away, and to the Life of St. Neophytus remains its place among native documents. But that other writers are ignorant of this name, no one will wonder in so great a lack of books. It is clear, then, how greatly Brosset erred, in conjecturing that St. Neophytus perhaps belonged to the eighth century, on account of the name of Samuel, which also occurs in the history of the martyrdom of St. Abo, who suffered about the year 790 Brosset, Additions, pp. 135 and 137.

LIFE OF ST. NEOPHYTUS

From the lives of the saints of Muraviev.

Neophytus, bishop and martyr, at Urbnisi in Iberia. (S.)

FROM A MANUSCRIPT

[Omar and Burul, set over Moslem squadrons, come to the monastery of the Mgwime ascetics,] In the middle of the seventh century Georgia ^b presented a sad spectacle: for on the one side the Persians were trying to overthrow the Christian cause in it, and the worshippers of fire were everywhere lighting their fires, destroying the altars of the Lord; and on the other, the new sect of Mohammed, sprung from the solitude of Arabia, the fanatical fury of the Arabs was pressing on the wretched Christians ^c. When Achmet ^d, kinsman of the governor of Persia, sent with a great army to lay waste Georgia, had halted at that place where the river Liakhvi flows into the Kura ^e, he assigned part of his soldiers to plunder the neighbouring fields and set Omar and Burul over them. They on the opposite bank of the Kura saw many caves and above them certain things like towers ^f, and determined to destroy what they supposed to be fortifications, yet they thought that scouts should first be sent there. From certain captives they learned that in those caves men were living who were bewailing their sins before God, that they had dwelt there formerly already under the holy anchorite Schio and had thereafter greatly increased in number, though without wedlock, that they shrank from every worldly thing and never went out of their caves.

[2] Omar, seeing this protected by a stupendous miracle, is converted to Christ. Altogether astonished at so austere a life, the leaders of the Saracens did not dare to violate the holy men with the sword, and they reported to Achmet whatever they had heard about the Schiomgwime monks. He therefore, sparing the anchorites, ordered Omar with soldiers, carrying gold, aloes, incense as gifts in place of arms, to return to the servants of God, that they might pray to their Lord for him. When Omar had come nearer to the monastery, he informed the monks by a messenger that he was not coming for their ruin. But when he came to the gates, he suddenly saw in the air a shining host of heavenly soldiers and among them a certain very aged monk: and at the very doors of the monastery those penitent fasters, in tattered garments indeed, but with faces yet shining after the manner of angels. Then filled with a certain holy fear, Omar, having handed over the gifts of Achmet, burst into these words: Saints of God, you are terrible to us sinners, since your guards fly round you in the air, and among them stands a venerable old man, with long hair and beard; is that your holy master surrounded by an angelic multitude? With great joy the blessed monks heard that their laura was defended by so great a miracle, and they gave thanks to God. But more than they, moved by a pious instinct, and suddenly believing, Omar cried out: May the Lord diminish my days, unless I return to you to become a Christian and to pass the rest of my life with you ^g.

[3] [He is baptized and afterwards, from monk made bishop, he labours diligently, especially against the worshippers of fire,] Having therefore finished the task entrusted to him, Omar with two faithful servants secretly deserted the camp of the Saracens, leaving all honours and riches and the very faith of his ancestors ^h, to withdraw to the rocks of St. Schio. There when he had been instructed in Christian doctrines, he was at once baptized and received the name Neophytus, which is newly baptized; and his two servants were called Christodulus and Christophorus, or servant of Christ and bearer of Christ. After many years ⁱ passed in the solitude of Mgwime, Neophytus by his austere manner of life turned on himself the eyes of Samuel, catholicos of Iberia ^k, and, enlarged by him with the episcopal dignity, was set over the city of Urbnisi ^l. And thereafter he strove to propagate the Christian faith among his former fellow citizens the Saracens ^m, and, their temples being overthrown, he dared to preach Christ to them with his own mouth.

[4] [and at length, having been captured by guile and tortured to death, he is honoured with public cult.] Angered at this, the worshippers of fire took counsel among themselves by what means above all they should put the man of God to death. Behold he, so they cried, extinguishes our fires, destroys our God, proclaims Christ. Soon no worshipper of fire will remain. The pagans therefore, when they had succeeded in seizing the strenuous bishop, having first consigned him to prison, addressed him in these words: Behold now our fires are being lit, and our offerings renewed: but you go where you have long desired to go, to your Christ for whom you wish to suffer. The confessor bravely replied to them: It is sweet to me to die for Christ, for I desire solely to dwell eternally with him. I indeed wished to enlighten you with the light of the holy Gospel, and to teach the faith without which there is no salvation: but now I desire to seal with blood the doctrine of Christ Jesus, to the glory of his holy Church. At this, breathing wrath, the worshippers of fire thrust him down to the earth and, dragging him for a long time here and there, inflicted blows on him, until at length he was overwhelmed with stones, no differently from the protomartyr Stephen of old, after whose example he poured out prayers for his enemies ⁿ. His venerable relics, made a cause of salvation to Christians, were then carried to the solitude of Schiomgwime, in which the memory of this holy martyr is kept on the 28th day of October, and there they have been preserved up to now in the church of the Assumption ^o. Moreover in the same place there became illustrious with the praise of monastic life the two companions in baptism and in religious conduct, Christodulus and Christophorus, of whom indeed the latter, elected superior of the monastery, lived to extreme old age, namely the age of one hundred and forty-five years [p]. Extracted from the Martyrology of Bessarion, catholicos of Iberia.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. This age exceeds belief. — Here Bessarion as translated by Muraviev into the Russian language and Antony as contracted by Brosset differ. According to Antony, Hilarion, head of the Mgwime monastery, laid on Christophorus the office of ruling the monastery of Mcodowan. According to Bessarion, however, the companion of St. Neophytus was elected superior of the house of Mgwime itself. But where Mcodowan is I am altogether ignorant: with Brosset in the Index I think that it was attached to the monastery of Mgwime.