The king immediately dispatched an ambassador called Vahrich (by his parents) giving him a hrovartak, and sending him to a certain presbyter named Habel who earlier had spoken to the king and who was related to the pious bishop Daniel who had the Armenian letters. The Gospel of John, in Armenian, leaves from an extremely early Biblical codex on vellum 9th-12th c.Īnother 5th century historian Ghazar Parpetsi, who wrote History of the Armenians, reiterates Koryun on the recovery mission but only mentions that Mashtots with the help of Sahak simply rearranged (not invented) the Armenian letters. To know wisdom and instruction to perceive the words of understanding. AD) The Life of Mashtots, translated from Old Armenian (Grabar) by Bedros Norehad (1981).Īccording to tradition, the first sentence to be written down in the new Armenian alphabet by Mashtots was: And God the All-Bountiful finally granted him that good fortune for with his holy hand he became the father of new and wonderful offsprings – letters of the Armenian language, and then and there quickly designed, named, determined, their order and devised the syllabication. Thus he experienced many tribulations in order to serve his nation. He struggled a long time without success, until one day miraculously he received a vision from God who instructed him and aided in this process. Koryun tells us that Mashtots set out to rearrange and re-purpose the recovered letters. The solution only came by divine intervention. Mesrop Mashtots creating the Armenian alphabet, by Francesco Maggiotto (1750-1805). AD) The Life of Mashtots, translated from Old Armenian (Grabar) by Bedros Norehad (1981). Yet when they became aware of the fact that those letters were insufficient to form all the syllables of the Armenian language, especially since the letters essentially proved to have been buried and then resurrected from other languages, they found themselves once more in the same anxieties and for some time were engaged in search of a solution. Unfortunately, the letters, due to their age and condition, appeared to be insufficient to be applied to the entire Armenian language. Thus the blessed one attained the noble rank of teacher, and taught for two years with the use of the same letters. And when many of them had been taught, the King commanded that everywhere the instruction be effected through the same. Then the blessed stewards taking the unexpectedly discovered object of their search, requested of the King young children through whom they might experiment with the alphabet. Upon receiving the letters from Habel, the King rejoiced with Sahak and Mashtots. The reached his hands on the fifth year of his reign. He then dispatched a man named Vahrij along with messages to a priest called Habel, who was an intimate of Bishop Daniel.Īs for Habel, upon hearing it, he hastened to Daniel, and first became familiar, through Daniel, with the letters, then taking them from him sent to the King in the land of Armenia. And when the King told them concerning Daniel’s discovery, they prevailed upon him to do what was needful. The King told them of a man named Daniel, a Syrian bishop of noble lineage, who unexpectedly had come into the possession of letters of Armenian alphabet. One of Mashtots’s pupils by the name of Koryun wrote the autobiography of Mashtots known as “Varq Mashtotsi” (Life of Mashtots). It was lost, but not forgotten in the middle ages, because the medieval authors describe that Mashtots’s initial mission was to recover and reapply the Armenian alphabet rather than to invent one from scratch. The Armenians after all had an ancient alphabet that was long lost by the early middle ages (for a discussion read: Tracing the oldest Armenian script). I say “(re)invented” because the medieval sources are somewhat unclear on how much the Armenian alphabet was actually a completely new invention or an updated modification of a much older (recovered) Armenian alphabet.
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