The Conversion of Armenia to the Christian Faith

sed the Armenian nation doubtless had each their own favourite deities, many of which had a purely local importance, it may be observed as a general truth that the ancient religion of Armenia, though at one time greatly influenced by Assyrian mythology, was very similar to that of the ancient Persians as preserved for us in the Zend Avesta. Comparison between the Rig-Veda, of India, the Zend Avesta of Persia, the Homeric Poems and Hesiod's Theogony of Greece, and the mythology of the Romans, the Teutons, the ancient Scandinavians and the Norse tribes, shows that, under different names, very much the same deities were worshipped in ancient times by all the nations of the Aryan race. But the chief deities of Armenia, in their names as well as in their attributes, certainly show a very strong Iranic influence ; which, however, had more power to change the names of the deities than to make any very real alteration in the attributes ascribed to them. The chief god of the Armenian mythology %vas styled Aramazd, the same name as that of the Ahura Mazda of the Zend Avesta and of the inscriptions of Darius and Xerxes. But while Ahura Mazda seems to have had no consort and no children, Aramazd was considered as the father of at least all the more important of the Armenian deities. He was the ' Creator of Heaven and Earth,' and was omniscient, the giver of all earthly good things, the bestower of health and wealth, of fullness and abundance. His most common title was '...