L ? >Alot ^C^T^V^ , ^ THE KEY OF TRUTH CONYBEARE HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK THE KEY OF TRUTH A MANUAL OF THE PAULICIAN CHURCH OF ARMENIA £(Se dRnnentan 'Ztjct EDITED AND TRANSLATED WITH ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS AND INTRODUCTION BY FRED. C. CONYBEARE, M.A. FORMERLY FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1898 ©;efor& PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART, M.A. PRINTER TOTHE UNIVERSITY ortLF VRL PREFACE In the autumn of the year 1891, 1 went to Armenia for a second time, in the hope of finding an ancient version of the Book of Enoch, and of recovering documents illustrative of the ancient heretics of that land, particularly of the Paulicians. For Gibbon's picture of their puritanism, fresh and vigorous in an age when Greek Christianity had degenerated into the court superstition of Constantinople, had fascinated my imagination; and I could not believe that some fuller records of their inner teaching did not survive in the Armenian tongue. In this quest, though my other failed, I was rewarded. I learned during my stay at Edjmiatzin, that in the libraryof the Holy Synod there was preserved a manu- scriptofTheKeyofTruth,thebookofthe Thonraketzior Paulicians ofThbnrak, with whom I was familiar from reading the letters of Gregory Magistros, Duke ofMesopotamia in the eleventh century. I was permitted to see the book, ofwhich a perfunctory exami- nation convinced me that it was a genuine monument, though, as I then thought it, a late one ofthe Paulicians. For I found in it the same rejection ofimage-worship, of mariolatry, and of the cult of saints and holy crosses, which was characteristic of the Paulicians. I could not copy it then without leaving unfinished a mass of other work which I had begun in the conventual library; and I was anxious to get to Dathev, or at least back to Tifiis, before the snowfell on the passes ofthe anti-Caucasus. However, I arranged that a copy ofthe book should be made and sent to me; and this I received late in the year 1893 from the deacon Galoust Ter Mkherttschian. My first impression on looking into it afresh was one of disappointment. I had expected to find in it a Marcionite, or at VI PREFACE least a Manichean book; but, beyond the extremely sparse use made in it of the Old Testament, I found nothing that savoured ofthese ancientheresies. AccordinglyI laidit aside, in the press of other work which I had undertaken. It was not until the summer of 1896 that, at the urgent request of Mr. Darwin Swift, who had come to me for information about the history of Manicheism in Armenia, I returned to it, and translated it into English in the hope that it might advance his researches. And now I at last understood who the Paulicians really were. All who had written about them had been misled by the calumnies of Photius, Petrus Siculus, and the other Greek writers, who describe them as Manicheans. I now realized that I had stumbled on the monument of a phase of the Christian Church so old and so outworn, that the very memory of it was well-nigh lost. For The Key ofTruth contains the baptismal service and ordinal of the Adoptionist Church, almost in the form in which Theodotus of Rome may have celebrated those rites. These form the oldest part ofthe book, which, however, also contains much controversial matter ofa later date, directed against what the compiler regarded as the abuses of the Latin and Greek Churches. The date at which the book was written in its present form cannot be put later than the ninth century, nor earlier than the seventh. But we can no more argue thence that the prayers and teaching and rites preserved in it are not older, than we could contend, because our present English Prayer Book was only compiled in the sixteenth century, that its contents do not go back beyond that date. The problem therefore of determining the age of the doctrine and rites detailed in TheKey of Truth is like any other problem of Christian palaeontology. It resembles the questions which arise in con- nexion with the Didache or The Shepherd of Hernias and can ; only be resolved by a careful consideration of the stage which it represents in the development of the opinions and rites of the church. In my prolegomenaI have attempted tosolve thisproblem. I may here briefly indicate the results arrived at. The characteristic note of the Adoptionist phase of Christian opinion was the absence of the recognized doctrine ofthe Incarna- tion. Jesus was mere man until he reached his thirtieth year, when he came to John on the bank of the Jordan to receive baptism. Then his sinless nature received the guerdon. The heavens opened and the Spirit of God came down and abode with
Description: