Letter of Giwt to Vačʿē

Letter of Giwt the Bishop to the Holy Vačʿē By the heavenly graces of God, greetings. The words of your holy love for virtue struck the thoughts of my soul with heavenly power into the will of my own person. I undertook to become a narrator in word, and a great and immense fear fell upon me, higher than the heavens of heaven and deeper than the lower hemisphere; and from all sides it besieged me, above and below, behind and before, to the right and to the left. I cannot flee, and I dread to delve deep. Unless perhaps I might sink like the Apostle Peter into the abyssal sea, but if the Lord Jesus should extend a hand in assistance. With this small encouragement I [...] to the work of thought, if I might find some substance in the immaterial, soul-bearing from the virtue of valiant men, who brought angels to wonder, and with unwritten laws themselves became laws for persons, and knew the Lord above the lawless, and knew the transgressors among the lawful, and without any mediator or prophet or heavenly angel became God-seers.

Now, behold: from that which I had feared, by the hand of love I draw near and approach with light, and with fearless faith I am confirmed. And I begin where it is fitting to begin. Just as the primordial love of Christ dwelt in your ancestor Uṙnayr, it brought heavenly envy against Trdat, king of the Armenians. When he heard of the great and marvellous works of God, which through the hand of the holy Gregory were wrought as signs and arts in the land of the Armenians, he immediately turned them from the many wandering paths of the errant way to the true God. By the knowledge and friendship of God, they cast off the heavy and cumbersome yoke of the pagans; they shook themselves, grew light, trampled underfoot, flew, and soared in the heavens. When the brave Uṙnayr heard this, he was not idle, nor did he pause, nor through the hand of a servant messenger, but the great king himself, with great nobles and many troops of soldiers, came to the land of the Armenians, and stood face to face with the commander-king Trdat.

And he, in a brotherly manner, received with love and friendship, and brought all of himself before him, laying bare both inner and outer counsels and placing them before him, together with Saint Gregory and the entire multitude of the Armenian forces. Your king humbled himself, fell down, and kissed his feet and hands, recounting all the delusion of the pagans, and himself confessed concerning the ignorant deeds of the sins that had passed. Saint Gregory encouraged him regarding the coming of the incarnation of the Son of God, who came for remission and for putting to death, and for the life from the dust of those who had gone before, he promised. When your king heard all this, he himself and all the forces that were with him, for forty days of fasting they devoted themselves, withdrawing from the former reprehensible deeds. And on the fiftieth day, when they had renounced Satan and all his works and confessed to worship the Holy Trinity, the king descended into the most holy water, and all the forces with him.

And the high priest brought them to a second birth, to a heavenly adoption. They all went forth filled with the Holy Spirit. At that same time, a blessed man, ordained to the episcopacy from the city of Rome, was granted to them, who had come with King Trdat. With these heavenly blessings, King Uṙnayr came, entered the land of Ałuankʿ, taught and fulfilled them according to the apostolic canon. They all received the seal of life and were inscribed for the inheritance of the heavens. The demons of this land were persecuted, the sacrifices and altars were abolished, the error was put to shame, the truth was exalted, the invisible light reigned, the willful darkness was rejected, the firstfruits of the church were established, the fruits of fields and threshing floors, of gardens and storehouses, of flocks and all domestic animals were tithed. He also allotted the soil of the land in the same manner, and he maintained the order of righteousness with the ancient elders, with the great nobles and princes, and with the blessed lady, down to the times of your wondrous lordship.

The Serpent, which was old from the days of the first man, saw the wondrous birth of your nature, first in the ancestral faith, second from the proud state. Great doubt fell into the mind of the evil-loving enemy, lest perhaps with the prey there had been an entry of life into the world of Ałuankʿ, and with that, a birth and entry of truth into the world of the East. He hastened, he was agitated, he was perplexed more than in the days of the righteous Job. He gathered, he assembled his dark forces, he revealed to them the evil affliction that tormented him. All were terrified and trembled, and coming together they sought the exits of the matter: “Not so,” they said, “do not distress yourself, O brave one; our error is more established than their truth; you conquered the weak beast of the first man, can you not hold against the great king of the children? [...] to cut. Twice and thrice they were defeated and were not ashamed.

And He who sits in the heaven of heavens and sees the whole world, watching and weighing both the good laws and those that are against them, saw you alone as lawful, and permitted the fierce fire of the furnace to surround you. They were kindled, inflamed, and burned like thorns in the midst of fire. You became intimate with the three youths in the fire of the furnace: you quenched the power of the fire, you changed the harshness of the sparks into the softness of a rose, you turned the acridness of the smoke into the whiteness of a lily, you taught the raging nature of fire the creative power of order, and you brought down the third God from heaven to earth for your assistance. Their wise men became foolish, their brave men became weak, their threats ceased, their martyrs were ensnared, their multitudes diminished. Blessed are you, and blessed are those who are near to you. You were few in number and became countless in multitudes; you were few in the visible and became countless in the invisible. Your spear is the spear of Joshua, and your armaments are the armaments of the commander-in-chief of God.

The sound of your trumpet, like the voice of the archangel of God, descends with it on the day of resurrection. His voice, which shook the earth, moved the rocks, destroyed the tombs, raised the dead, renewed the aged, and rendered judgments to some on the left side and to some on the right side (this belongs only to God and is fitting for Him), but for you, as a faithful servant and beloved and heir of the kingdom, there are also heavenly graces, that you might bring the likeness of the day of resurrection. He who boasted in evil was distressed; he who dared in error was made foolish. Everything in your army was twofold: if there were breastplates as guardians of the body, along with them there were also breastplates of faith; if there was a helmet for the caution of the sword, along with it there was also a helmet of salvation; if you had a shield against the blows of your valiant chest, along with it you had the shield of patience of faith; if an arrow from your strong bow flew straight, along with it the holy prayers of your petitions were immediately found above, beyond the heavens before God; if the gleam of the sword in your valiant arms, the light of your faith among the angels sent forth flashes.

Your banners are heavenly banners, and the tips of your spear are radiant like the rays of the silver sun. This is what has struck terror from the beginning of my narrative: how I might be able to recount in words that which is found to be beyond words. This world of four elements can speak. And this state is not for everyone, but only for those who valiantly labored in the study of the calendar, in geometry, in astronomy, in medicine, and then reached the peaks of the prophetic, the apostolic, the evangelical, which is the beginning and the unfolding. And although I had all these arts that narrate the material, you were once material, yet you have the likeness of the immaterial. I will weigh you against the morning star; you are more brilliant than the morning star, you emit rays. The morning star is a morning star for six months and a night-wanderer for six months.

You are a morning star of days, and above the morning star. The morning star is hidden at dawn, and if it appears, it is only for a time; but you, in the twenty-four hours, both at noon and at night. And if I were to compare you to the moon, it would be very laughable to the wise: twelve times in the year it wanes, rust-covered, sickle-shaped, half-sphered, moist, half-lit, sickly, night-wandering, darkness-loving, light-fleeing, bat-like, deficient in course, tormented by darkness, often entering into hiding. But you are full and broad, a high light-bearer, a bringer of good news, angelic in form, joy-giving, encouraging, bright and beautiful beyond all your companions of equal age. I am not sufficient to say enough of you, that you are found above the sun. I will not be hostile to it and praise you, but I will recount to you its nature: oblique in course, wandering, lateral, shadowy, dwelling in the south, tormented in winter, scorched in summer, lush in spring, parched in autumn, consuming the night, born at dawn, flower-wilting, green-withering, life-persecuted by shadows in the midst of the day, half-share in the day's greeting; rightly the Greeks called it Apollo.

And if I were to proceed in the rays of the dawn with your mind, there, together with that, you would also know this: it is hidden by night, concealed by clouds, obscured by dust, agitated by mists. You have been likened to the sun, you were strengthened by the sun, encouraged by the son, illuminated by the Holy Spirit; you are seen at night, and at noon the rays of your faith pass through. I shall also speak to you a word in parable. You have been seen from all sides; you are sharper-sighted than the eagle and swifter of hearing than one of the placid animals. You have seen not only the earth, but also the great of the heavens, and you have left the small; you have set aside the transient and taken the eternal; you have cast away the gold-encrusted crown of the king, and behold, it stands, and the crown not made by hands, which you are to receive from the most holy hands of Christ, awaits you. He who for the sake of the Gospel abandons father and mother and sisters and brothers and all his possessions, will receive from here the hundredfold and the eternal life of the world that does not pass away.

To that poor man it is somewhat easy to do, but to a king, like you, it is impossible. Now if someone were to do (as you have done) what is unbelievable to men, astonishing to angels, and comparable to God—as though He abandoned the countless myriad hosts of angels and came down into the base forms of men, He found a man. Your work is like God’s: He became life and salvation for the whole world, and you opened the door of life and salvation for the whole world. In your own native land the ancestral faith was preserved, churches did not remain, martyria in peace, priests in priesthood, liturgies on altars, prophets in readings, apostles in consolations, psalm-singers in blessings, virgins in virginity, the baptized in sanctity, and each one in his own order. The report of your virtue reached from the East

as far as Gadirōn, from the south as far as the north. The name of your martyrdom was inscribed on the golden tablets among the apostles and the protomartyrs, among the patriarchs and the archbishops, universally, and in the book of life in the heavens. Be vigilant, O wondrous one, that you have been deemed worthy of such great ones and have ascended to such heights, that you have reached the firm foundation of the true anchor, and be unshaken in love and patient in the faith of truth, lest the dead dragon stir its tail against your life. For if even as a child you conquered him, having reached maturity, I know that you will trample underfoot all the wiles of that evil one. But however much my mind now loves you and desires to set that forth in a narrative account, the cost of much parchment would be required. Many times I have come forward to come to you for love of you, and now, by my intercession and by the whole holy covenant of the Church, having commended you to the Holy Spirit: the Lord be with you. Amen.

Witness of Christ, martyr of the cross, adorned with the glory-bestowing garment of the angels, my unconquerable son. Vačʿē, king of Ałuankʿ, from Giwt the bishop, rejoicing in the Lord. Because of my indolent sluggishness, I cannot dare to speak words of consolation to you, the victor in the invisible war, who received encouragement not from men, but, having summoned assistance for yourself from the exceedingly terrible power of Christ, you were found to be higher and more surpassing than the whole world, supremely exalted. But now, having brought you to agreement by your own self-restraint, I beseech that my pleasant and sweet greeting may seem acceptable to you. Yet, rejoicing in your conduct, O mighty bulwark of Christ, the poverty of my ignorance has no composition of preparation, for no material of my artful wisdom can suffice to weave a garment of praise for your nobility—especially if all the rhetorical philosophers of the Greek world were gathered in one place, they could not, even with the slightest investigation, fall upon it. To speak what is worthy is impossible, to praise your spiritual victory.

Because you knew, loving God both with your whole self and with all your strength. You exchanged all things and all greatness for the one Lord of all, so that by having him at peace with you, you will not only enjoy the greatness of the earth, but also that of the heavens. You withdrew from the sacrifices of the idolatrous, demon-maddened pagans, and behold, you became a sweet fragrance in Christ Jesus, which, reaching even to the West, was proclaimed, spread abroad, and, rejoicing, gladdened the souls of all. You left behind earthly greatness, which is an occasion for sins; you inherited the adornment of the garment with heavenly greatness. You departed utterly from the distractions of this world; you drew near to Christ, who is the haven of peace. And gathering my words into one place, I would say: you were a man and became an angel; you had kinsmen on earth, and you found brothers in heaven; you were mortal and became immortal.

Not only are you immortal, but now, because you have boldness before Christ, you can give life to many mortals. You are desired by angels, longed for by men, and even more yearned for by me, who am far away, from not being your comrade in that invisible war against the most evil Satan. But now I beg, let me say in turn: do not hold harm in mind, do not remember my negligence. Illuminate my sorrows with your life-bringing letter. You have become a fellow-sufferer of Christ; you resemble him in everything. For if he, on the cross, begged not to remember sins, how much more is it fitting for you to forgive my negligence. For the one who made you whole in soul and sound in body and worthy of his adoption, may he also grant us to see you in all virtues and to enjoy your grace-filled hair.

Living in Christ, may you be with us for many times, occupied and filled with the love of Christ. Amen.